The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1
Religion
The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya: Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1
Vedanta
individual soul is not the abode of heaven and earth).--How so?--Here
(i.e. in the present Sutra and the Sutras immediately preceding) it is
denied that the individual soul which, owing to its imagined connexion
with the internal organ and other limiting adjuncts, has a separate
existence in separate bodies--its division being analogous to the
division of universal space into limited spaces such as the spaces
within jars and the like--is that which is called the abode of heaven
and earth. That same soul, on the other hand, which exists in all
bodies, if considered apart from the limiting adjuncts, is nothing else
but the highest Self. Just as the spaces within jars, if considered
apart from their limiting conditions, are merged in universal space, so
the individual soul also is incontestably that which is denoted as the
abode of heaven and earth, since it (the soul) cannot really be separate
from the highest Self. That it is not the abode of heaven and earth, is
therefore said of the individual soul in so far only as it imagines
itself to be connected with the internal organ and so on. Hence it
follows that the highest Self is the abode of heaven, earth, and so
on.--The same conclusion has already been arrived at under I, 2, 21; for
in the passage concerning the source of all beings (which passage is
discussed under the Sutra quoted) we meet with the clause, 'In which
heaven and earth and the sky are woven.' In the present adhikara/n/a the
subject is resumed for the sake of further elucidation.
8. The bhuman (is Brahman), as the instruction about it is additional to
that about the state of deep sleep (i.e. the vital air which remains
awake even in the state of deep sleep).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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