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The writers of these passages have not quite reached Śankara's point of view, that the Âtman is all and the whole universe mere illusion or Mâyâ. Their thought still tends to regard the universe as something drawn forth from the Âtman and then pervaded by it. But still the main features of the later Advaita, or philosophy of no duality, are there.
In the atman, with which it is the duty of man to seek to identify himself, the individuality of man does not survive: it simply ceases to be. Now this obliteration of his existence may seem to a man in a certain mood desirable; and that mood may be cultivated, as indeed Buddhism seeks to cultivate it, systematically.
This of course does not exclude the possibility that there may be something which does not come under any of the above categories and which may be such an entity as described. Indeed Brahmanic works which teach the existence of the âtman often use language curiously like that of Buddhism.
To reach this place, the self, myself, the Atman, there was another way, which was worthwhile looking for? Alas, and nobody showed this way, nobody knew it, not the father, and not the teachers and wise men, not the holy sacrificial songs!
It is believed by many that these two opening verses were a later interpolation. Know also the intellect to be the driver and mind the reins. The senses are called the horses; the sense objects are the roads; when the Atman is united with body, senses and mind, then the wise call Him the enjoyer.
Anyone who reads these treatises and notices the number of apparently eternal beings and the talk about the universal mind is likely to think the old doctrine that nothing has an âtman or soul, has been forgotten. But this impression is not correct; the doctrine of Nairâtmyam is asserted so uncompromisingly that from one point of view it may be said that even Buddhas do not exist.
As air, though one, having entered the world, becomes various according to what it enters, so does the Atman within all living beings, though one, become various according to what it enters. It also exists outside.
Knowledge of the Atman or Self cannot be attained when it is taught by those who themselves lack in real understanding of It; and who therefore, having no definite conviction of their own, differ among themselves as to its nature and existence.
13 According to popular legend, in each eye of the child of a god or a dragon two Buddhas are visible. The statement in some of the Japanese ballads, that the hero sung of had four Buddhas in his eyes, is equivalent to the declaration that each of his eyes had a double-pupil. 14 The idea of the Atman will perhaps occur to many readers.
The Self is subtler than the subtle, greater than the great; It dwells in the heart of each living being. He who is free from desire and free from grief, with mind and senses tranquil, beholds the glory of the Atman. Although this Atman dwells in the heart of every living being, yet It is not perceived by ordinary mortals because of Its subtlety.