The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48
Religion
The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48
Vedanta
Therefore nothing whatever, at any place or any time, exists apart from
intelligence: intelligence, which is one only, is viewed as manifold by
those whose minds are distracted by the effects of their own works.
Intelligence pure, free from stain, free from grief, free from all
contact with desire and other affections, everlastingly one is the
highest Lord--Vâsudeva apart from whom nothing exists. I have thus
declared to you the lasting truth of things--that intelligence only is
true and everything else untrue. And that also which is the cause of
ordinary worldly existence has been declared to you' (Vi. Pu. II, 12,
39, 40, 43-45).
Avidyâ is put an end to by true Knowledge.
Other texts declare that this Nescience comes to an end through the
cognition of the essential unity of the Self with Brahman which is
nothing but non-differenced intelligence. 'He does not again go to death;'
'He sees this as one;' 'He who sees this does not see death' (Ch. Up.
VI, 27); 'When he finds freedom from fear and rest in that which is
invisible, incorporeal, undefined, unsupported, then he has obtained the
fearless' (Taitt. Up. II, 7); 'The fetter of the heart is broken, all
doubts are solved and all his works perish when he has been beheld who
is high and low' (Mu. Up. II, 2, 8); 'He knows Brahman, he becomes
Brahman only' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 9); 'Knowing him only a man passes over
death; there is no other path to go' (Svet. Up. III, 8). In these and
similar passages, the term 'death' denotes Nescience; analogously to the
use of the term in the following words of Sanatsujâta, 'Delusion I call
death; and freedom from delusion I call immortality' (Sanatsuj. II, 5).
The knowledge again of the essential unity and non-difference of Brahman--
which is ascertained from decisive texts such as 'The True, knowledge,
the Infinite is Brahman' (Taitt. Up. II, 1); 'Knowledge, bliss is
Brahman' (Bri. Up. III, 9, 28)--is confirmed by other passages, such as
'Now if a man meditates on another deity, thinking the deity is one and
he another, he does not know' (Bri. Up. I, 4, 10); 'Let men meditate
upon him as the Self (Bri. Up. I, 4, 7); 'Thou art that' (Ch. Up. VI, 8,
7); 'Am I thou, O holy deity? and art thou me, O holy deity?'; 'What I
am that is he; what he is that am I.'--This the Sûtrakâra himself will
declare 'But as the Self (scriptural texts) acknowledge and make us
apprehend (the Lord)' (Ve. Sû. IV, 1, 3). Thus the Vâkyakâra also, 'It
is the Self--thus one should apprehend (everything), for everything is
effected by that.' And to hold that by such cognition of the oneness of
Brahman essentially false bondage, together with its cause, comes to an
end, is only reasonable.
Scripture is of greater force than Perception
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