United States or Albania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Since there is no valid reason for including in a meditation those qualities which are not expressly mentioned in the section containing that meditation, only those qualities which are thus expressly mentioned should be included! This prima facie view is negatived by the Sutra. The clause, 'on account of non-difference, has to be carried on from the preceding Sutra.
Here terminates the adhikarana of 'difference. On account of non-difference of everything, those elsewhere. Up. V, 1; Bri. Up. This, the Purvapakshin maintains, constitutes a difference between the objects of meditation, and hence between the meditations themselves. This view the Sutra sets aside 'on account of non- difference of everything, those elsewhere. There is no difference of meditation.
The meaning is: when the soul has attained the nature of Brahman, i.e. when it has freed itself from all false imagination, then it is non-different from the highest Self. This non-difference is due to the soul, as well as the highest Self, having the essential nature of uniform intelligence.
For the same reason therefore we have to enclose in the meditation gunas mentioned in other Vedanta-texts; for being also connected with the meditation they subserve it in the same way. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'what is intimated by all Vedanta-texts. If it be said that there is difference on account of the text; we say no; on account of non-difference.
And as in this Pradhana all distinctions are merged, so that it is pure Being, the Chandogya text refers to it as 'Being, one only, without a second. This establishes the non-difference of effect and cause, and in this way the promise that through the knowledge of one thing all things are to be known admits of being fulfilled.
And as you hold the view of the non-difference of the world from Brahman, you yourself set aside all those texts which declare Brahman to be different from the soul; for were there such difference, the doctrine of general non-difference could not be established.
Now, on the principle of the non-difference of cause and effect, this initial statement can only be fulfilled in that way that through the knowledge of the 'Sat', which is the cause, there is known the entire world, whether sentient or non-sentient, which constitutes the effect.
Those texts, on the other hand, which declare non-difference are based on the circumstance that attributes which are incapable of separate existence are ultimately bound to the substance which they distinguish, and hence are fundamentally valid.
Those on the other hand who establish the non-difference of cause and effect, on the basis of the theory of the effect's non-reality, are unable to prove what they wish to prove; for the True and the False cannot possibly be one. If these two were one, it would follow either that Brahman is false or that the world is real.
And should you say that the genus and individual together constitute one thing only, you abandon the view that it is difference of aspect which takes away the contradictoriness of difference and non-difference. We have moreover remarked already that difference in characteristics and its opposite are absolutely contradictory.
Word Of The Day