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The Deity said :
O son of Prithâ! now hear how you can without doubt know me fully, fixing your mind on me, and resting in me, and practising devotion. I will now tell you exhaustively about knowledge together with experience; that being known, there is nothing further left in this world to know. Among thousands of men, only some 1 work for perfection 2; and even of those who have reached perfection, and who are assiduous, only some know me truly. Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, understanding, and egoism 3, thus is my nature divided eightfold. But this is a lower (form of my) nature. Know (that there is) another (form of my) nature, and higher than this, which is animate, O you of mighty arms! and by which this universe is upheld. Know that all things have these (for their) source 4. I am the producer and the destroyer of the whole universe. There is nothing else, O Dhanañgaya! higher than myself; all this is woven upon me, like numbers of pearls upon a thread 5. I am the taste in water, O son of Kuntî! I am the light of the sun and moon. I am 'Om 6' in all the Vedas, sound 7 in space, and manliness in human beings; I am the fragrant smell in the earth, refulgence in the fire; I am life in all beings, and penance 8 in those who perform penance. Know me, O son of Prithâ! to be the eternal seed of all beings; I am the discernment of the discerning ones, and I the glory of the glorious 9. I am also the strength, unaccompanied by fondness or desire 10, of the strong.
Foot Notes :
1. Some one' in the original.
2. e. knowledge of the self. Sankara says, as to the next clause, that those even who work for final emancipation must be deemed to have 'reached perfection.'
3. This accords with the Sânkhya philosophy. See chapter I. sutra 61 of the current aphorisms.
4. Cf. infra.
5. Cf. Mundakopanishad.
6. Infra, Cf. Goldstücker's Remains, I, 14, 122; Yoga-sûtras I, 27.
7. I. e. the occult essence which underlies all these and the other qualities of the various things mentioned.
8. I. e. power to bear the pairs of opposites.
9. Glory here seems to mean dignity, greatness.
10. Desire is the wish to obtain new things; fondness is the anxiety to retain what has been obtained. The strength here spoken of, therefore, is that which is applied to the performance of one's own duties only.
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