The means by which Brahma can be known

Bhishma said Thus addressed by his father, Shuka, highly praising these instructions of the great Rishi, began to ask the following questions regarding the import of duties which brings on Liberation.

Shuka said By what means does a wise man well-read in the Vedas, observant of sacrifices, and shorn of malice attains to Brahma which is incapable of being apprehended by either direct evidence or inference, and incapable of being described by the Vedas.

Asked by me, tell me by what means can Brahma be known. Is it by penance, by Brahmacharya, by renunciation of everything, by intelligence, by help of the Sankhya philosophy, or by the Yoga?

What are the means and what sort of singleness of purpose may inen acquire regarding both, viz., the mind and the senses? You should explain all this to me!

Vyasa said No man achieves success by any other means save the acquisition of knowledge, the practice of penances, the control of the senses, and renunciation of everything.

The great elements (five in number) represent the first creation of the Self-create. They have been very largely put in embodied creatures living in the world of life.

The bodies of all embodied creatures are originated from earth. Their humours originate from water. Their eyes originate from light. Prana, Apana (and other vital breaths), depend on the wind. And, lastly, all unoccupied apertures within them originate from Space.

Vishnu is in the feet (of living creatures). Indra is in their arms. Within the stomach lies Agni, desirous of eating. The points of the horizon are in the ears, the organ of hearing. Speech, which is the goddess of learning, is in the tongue.

The ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose forming the fifth, are the senses of knowledge. These exist for apprehending their respective objects.

Sound, touch, from, taste, and scent for the fifth, are the objects of the (five) senses. These should always be considered as distinct from the senses.

Like the charioteer driving his well trained horses along the paths he likes, the mind, imoves the senses. The mind, in its turn, is inoved by the Understanding sitting in the heart.

The mind is the lord of all these senses employing them in their functions and guiding controlling them. Likewise, the Understanding is the lord of the mind.

The senses, the objects of the senses, the attributes of the objects of Nature, understanding, mind, the vital our and individual soul dwell in the bodies of all embodied creatures.

The body within which the Understanding lives, has no real existence. The body, therefore, is not the seat of the Understanding. Nature (Prakriti), endued with three qualities, is the refuge of the Understanding which exists only in the form of a sound. The Soul also is not the refuge of the Understanding. It is Desire which creates the Understanding. Desire, however, never creates the three qualities.

The wise man, capable of controlling his senses, sees the seventeenth, viz., the Soul as surrounded by six and ten qualities, in his own Understanding by the help of the mind.

The Soul cannot be seen with the help of the eye, or with that of all the senses. Getting over all, the Soul can be seen by only the light of the mind's lamp.

Shorn of the properties of sound and touch and form, without taste and smell, indestructible and without a body and without senses, it is nevertheless seen within the body.

Unmanifest and supreme, it lives in all mortal frames, Guided by the preceptor and the Vedas, he who sees it hereafter becomes Brahma's self.

The wise see impartially a Brahmana gifted with knowledge and disciples, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and a Chandala.

Transcending all things, the Soul lives in all creatures, mobile and immobile.

When a living creature sees his own Soul in all things, and all things in his own Soul, he is said to attain to Brahma.

One occupies the Supreme Soul proportionate to what is occupied in one's own soul by Vedic sound. He who can always realise the identity of all things with his own self, forsooth, acquires immortality.

Even the gods are stupefied in the path of that trackless man who forms the soul of all creatures, who is engaged in the well being of all creatures and who wishes to attain to the final refuge (of all things).

Indeed, the road which is followed by men of knowledge is as invisible as that of birds in the sky or of fish in water.

Time, by its own power, cooks all entities within itself. No one, however, knows That in which Time, again, is itself cooked.

That does not take place above, or in the middle or below, or in transverse or in any Other direction. That is no tangible thing and cannot be found in any placc.

All these worlds exists within That. There is nothing in these worlds which exists out of That. Even if one goes on ceaselessly with the motion of arrow shot off the bow-string, even if one goes on with the speed of the mind itself, one would not still get at the end of that which is the cause of all this. There is nothing grosser than that.

His hands and feet are everywhere. His cyes, head, and face are everywhere. His ears are everywhere in the universe. He exists Occupying all things.

That is minuter than the minutest, and is the heart of all things. Though existing, that is still imperceptible.

Indestructible and destructible,-these are the dual forms of the (Supreme) Self. The existence it shows in all mobile and immobile entities is destructible; while the existence in shows in Chaitanya is celestial, immortal, and indestructible.

Though the master of all existent beings both mobile and immobile, though inactive and shorn of attributes, it enters nevertheless the well-known house of nine doors and becomes engaged in action.

Wise men who can see the other shore hold that the Supreme Soul becomes endued with the attribute of action on account of motion, pleasure and pain, variety of form, and the nine well-known possessions.

That indestructible Soul which is said to be endued with the attribute or action is nothing else than the indestructible Soul which is said to be inactive. A learned person, by attaining to that indestructible essence, gives up for ever both life and birth.