Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 468

VEDANTA
appearance of duality, since it is the whole. In this terminal state the Self forever abides.193
The condition of him who has reached this goal, the goal of Turiya, the “Fourth,"101 is expressed, or suggested, in numerous direct statements of accomplished adepts, in the younger Upanişads, in certain so-called Vedānta Gitās (Vedānta Songs, Hymns, or Rhapsodics), and in many of the stanzas of Sankara.
"From me everything is born; on me everything is supported; into me everything is again dissolved (layam yāti: it melts into me, as snow into water). I am this Brahman, One-without-asecond.
"I am smaller than the minutest atom, likewise greater than the greatest. I am the whole, the diversificd-multicolored-lovelysuange (vicitra) universe. I am the Ancient One. I am Man (puruşa: the first and only, primordial cosmic being), the Lord. I am the Being-of-Gold (hiranmaya: the golden germ out of which the universe unfolds). I am the very state of divine beatitude.
"Without hands or feet am I; of inconceivable power am l; without eyes I see; without ears I hear; I know all with allpervading wisdom. By nature detached from all am I, and there is none who knows me. Pure spiritual essence am I, forever." 106
This has the ring of some sort of holy megalomania, a schizoid inflation of some kind, in which the rational individual consciousness has been swallowed completely by a divine Super-Ego. Actually, however, these formulae are intended for the sober purpose of meditation. They represent the perfect state, which is to be attained, and they teach the candidate how to anticipate its attitude. Through reciting, memorizing, and meditating on such exalted utterances, contemplating what is expressed in them and becoming identified with their purport, the candidate for immortality is to become released from his phenomenal ego.
198 16. 104 Cf. supra, pp. 372-878. 198 Kaivalya Upanişad 19-20.
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