English
In this manner, Bramha is real, entity ; and the universe, which appears illusive, is indeed Bramha ; in the idea that it is something different from Bramha, lies the mistake. From the five primary elements arise all bodies, also that which nourishes all, and the fourteen worlds. From the five subtile elements, arise the five gross elements and their quali ties, and the collected mass of subtile bodies. From the living principle united to illusion, arise the five subtile elements and the three gunas. From the perfect Bramha, arise illusion and the animating principle united to illusion. The author next enters into an explanation of the tenet, that spirit in its separate state, also as united to the mass of illusion, or gross matter, and is incarcerated in separate bodies, is identically the same, and, to the Yogi, purified from illusion is really the same. Such an one thus meditates on spirit : " I am everlasting, perfect, perfect in knowledge, free from change, I am entity, the joyful, the undivided, and the one Bramha." Day and night thus meditating, the Yogi at length loses sight of tho body, and destroys all illusion. The next stage of the Yogi is that in which he renounces all assistance from the understanding, and remains without the exercise of thought ; in which state every thing attached to mortal [rather intellectual] existence becomes extinct. He is now identified with Bramha, and remains as the pure glass when the shadow has left it ; and thus illustrates that verse of the Veda, that the mind is both capable and incapable of embracing Bramha. The understanding, through the organs, in conceiving of visible objects assumes the forms of these objects, and thus destroys ignorance ; after which they become manifest by the rays of spirit. Thus when a light enters a dark room, it first disperses darkness, and then discovers the objects contained in the room. Therefore the Yogi, until he sees Bramha, ought to attend to the following duties : 1. Hearing ; 2. Meditation ; 3. Fixing the mind, and 4. Absorption of mind. By the first is to be understood, hearing the doctrines of the Veda explained, all which centre in the one Bramha. . In this exercise, the student must attend to the following things ; 1. Upakrama, or the| f>e£ijining of the Vedanta; 2. Upasang- hara, or the close of 'the Vedanta ; 3. Abhyasa, or committing to memory certain portions of the Vedanta ; 4. Apurvata, or, gaining from the Vedanta perfect satisfaction respecting Bramha ; 5. Phala, or the knowledge of that which is to be gained from the Vedanta ; 6. Art'ha-veda, or, the extolling of the fruits to be obtained from the knowledge of the Vedanta; Upapati, or the certifying absolutely what is Brahmagnyan.— :The second-thing which the student is to practise, is meditation on the one Bramha, agreeable to the rules laid down in the Vedanta and other writings. — His third duty is, uninterrupted reflection on the invisible and only Bramha, according to the ideas contained in the Vedanta. — The fourth effort of the student is to obtain a perfect idea of Bramha, who is wisdom in the abstract : at first, his ideas will be imperfect, and he will contemplate himself and Bramha as distinct ; just as a person seeing in a horse of clay both the toy and the earth of which it is composed, cannot help retaining an idea of the thing represented by the toy. But at length his mind will become exclusively fixed on the one Bramha, the operations of the understanding being all concentrated in God, as salt when thrown into water loses its own form, and is perceptible only as water. Those who possess this knowledge of Bramha, are in posses sion of or practise the eight following things, viz. 1. Yarna, 1. e. inoffensiveness, truth, honesty, the forsaking of all the evil in the world and the refusal of gifts except for sacrifice ; 2. Niyama i. e. purity relative to the use of water after defile ment ; pleasure in every thing, whether prosperity or adversity ; renouncing food when hungry, or keeping under the body : reading the Veda, and what is called the worship of the mind ; 3. Asana, or the posture of sitting during Yoga : 4. Prana- yama, or holding, drawing in, and letting out the breath during, the repetition of incantations ; 5. Pratyahara, or the power of restraining the members of the body and mind ; 6. Dharana or preserving in the mind the knowledge of Bramha; 7. Dhyana, meditation ; 7. Samadhi, to which there are four enemies, viz. a sleepy heart: attachment to any thing except the one Bramha ; human passions, and a confused mind. "When the Yogi is delivered from these four enemies, he resembles the unruffled flame of the lamp, and his mind continues invariably fixed in meditation on Bramha. He who is distinguished by liberation in a bodily state is thus described : he possesses the knowledge which identifies him with the undivided Bramha, by which knowledge he des troys the illusion which concealed Bramha. When this illusion is destroyed, the true knowledge of Bramha is mani fested ; and by this manifestation, illusion and its works are destroyed, so that the free man, absorbed in meditation on Bramha, is liberated even in a bodily state. Though he is connected with the affairs of life ; that is, with affairs belong- ( 102 ) Ing to a body containing blood, bones, ordure and urine; to organs which are blind, palsied, and full of incapacity ; to a mind, filled with thirst, hunger, sorrow, infatuation ; to confirmed habits and to the fruits of birth, still, being freed from illusion, he does not view these things as realities. A person may be a spectator of the artifices of a juggler, without being deceived by them. The Yogi, after being liberated in a bodily state, still eats and drinks, but without desire ; so likewise is he free from envy, and other evil desires ; and in the same manner he is indifferent to every state of the body, and free from every passion. All his virtues, and the act of kindness which he per forms are worn as so many ornaments, so we learn from the Grita. This Yogi, liberated in the body, for its preservation, receives aliment, but without desire, let the aliment come in whatever state, or from whatever quarter it may. Bramha alone is seen in his mind. After this, every thing connected with a bodily state having been renounced, and the body itself having fallen, the Yogi is absorbed in the excellent Bramha ; and thus illusion, and its effects, as well as the universe itself, being [to the Yogi] dissolved, he becomes identified with freedom, with constant joy, with unchangeableness, and with Bramha himself. This is recorded in the veda. Thus ends the Vcdanta Sara. CREST-JEWEL OE WISDOM! OF SHRI-SANKARACHARYA Translated by MOHINI M. CHATTERJI F. T. S. I prostrate myself before the true teacher — before him who is revealed by the conclusions of all systems of Yedantic philosophy, but is himself unknown, Govinda the supreme bliss. 2. Among sentient creatures birth as a man is difficult of attainment, among human beings manhood, among men to be a Brahmin, among Brahmins desire to follow the path of Vedic dharmma, and among those learning. But the spiritual knowledge which discriminates between spirit and non-spirit, the practical realisation of the merging of oneself in Brahma- atma and final emancipation from the bonds of matter are unattainable except by the good karma of hundreds of crores of incarnations. 3. These three, so difficult of attainment, are acquired only by the favor of the Gods*: — humanity, desire for emancipation, and the favor of (spiritually) great men. 4. One ttho, having with difficulty acquired a human incarnation and in that manhood a knowledge of the scriptures, through delusions does not labour for emancipation, is a suicide destroying himself in trying to attain illusive objects. 5. Who is there on this earth with soul more dead than he who, having obtained a human incarnation and a male body, madly strives for the attainment of selfish objects ? * Favour of the Gods is the previous karma of an individual. ( 104 ) 6. He may study the scriptures, propitiate tha gods ("by sacrifices), perform religious ceremonies or offer devotion to the gods, yet he will not attain salvation even during the succes sion of a hundred Brahma-yugas except by the knowledge of union 'with the spirit, 7.