Ch 18, Sh 50 continued-1, Bhagawad Gita, Shankar Bhashya

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  • Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
  • Objection- How, then, can there be the knowledge of the Self? For, all knowledge that there can be with regard to objects assumes their respective forms. And it has been said that the Self has no form. Moreover, if both knowledge and the Self be formless, then how can there be the consummation [Firmness in Self-realization.] of the (repeated) contemplation on that (knowledge of the Self)?
    Vedantin: No. Since it can be established that the Self is supremely taintless, pure and subtle, and it can also be established that the intellect can have taintlessness etc. like the Self, therefore it stands to reason that the intellect can take a form resembling the consciousness of the Self. The mind becomes impressed with the semblance of the intellect; the organs become impressed with the semblance of the mind; and the body becomes impressed with the semblance of the organs. Hence it is that the idea of the body itself being the Self is held by ordinary people. The Lokayatikas (materialists), who hold that the body is identical with consciousness, say that a person is a body endowed with consciousness; so also there are others who say that the organs are identical with consciousness; there are others who say that the mind is identical with consciousness, and still others who say that the intellect is identical with consciousness. Some accept as the Self the Unmanifest [The inmost Ruler (antaryamin), possessing a semblance of Consciousness.], called the Undifferentiated, which is more internal than that (intellect) and is within the domain of (primordial) ignorance. Indeed, in every case, beginning from the intellect to the body, the cause of mis-conceived Selfhood is the semblance of the Consciousness that is the Self. Hence, knowledge about the Self is not a subject for injunction.
    What then?
    Only the eradication of the superimposition of name, form, etc., which are not the Self, is what has to be undertaken, but not the knowledge of the Self that is Consciousness. For it is the Self which is experienced as possessed of the forms of all the various objects that are superimposed (on It) through ignorance. It is evidently because of this that the Buddhists who uphold the view of (momentary) consciousness have concluded that there is no substance at all apart from (momentary) consciousness, and that it is not in need of any other valid proof since they hold that it is self-cognized. Therefore, what is to be undertaken is only the elimination of the superimposition on Brahman through ignorance, but no effort is needed for knowing Brahman (Consciousness), for It is self-evident! It is because the intellect is distracted by particular appearances of name and form imagined through ignorance that Brahman, even though self-evident, easily realizable, nearer than all else and identical with oneself, appears to be concealed, difficult to realize, very far and different.

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