the person in the eye, in the clause, ’the name
of the one is the name of the other.’ Now,
entire freedom from sin is attributed in Scripture
to the highest Self only; so, for instance (Ch.
Up. VIII, 7, 1), ’The Self which is free
from sin,’ &c. Then, again, there is the
passage, ’He is Rik, he is Saman, Uktha,
Yajus, Brahman,’ which declares the person in
the eye to be the Self of the Rik, Saman, and
so on; which is possible only if that person is the
Lord who, as being the cause of all, is to be considered
as the Self of all. Moreover, the text, after
having stated in succession Rik and Saman to
have earth and fire for their Self with reference
to the Devas, and, again, speech and breath with reference
to the body, continues, ‘Rik and Saman
are his joints,’ with reference to the Devas,
and ‘the joints of the one are the joints of
the other,’ with reference to the body.
Now this statement also can be made only with regard
to that which is the Self of all. Further, the
passage, ’Therefore all who sing to the Vina
sing him, and from him also they obtain wealth,’
shows that the being spoken of is the sole topic of
all worldly songs; which again holds true of the highest
Lord only. That absolute command over the objects
of worldly desires (as displayed, for instance, in
the bestowal of wealth) entitles us to infer that the
Lord is meant, appears also from the following passage
of the Bhagavad-gita (X, 41), ’Whatever being
there is possessing power, glory, or strength, know
it to be produced from a portion of my energy[116].’
To the objection that the statements about bodily
shape contained in the clauses, ‘With a beard
bright as gold,’ &c., cannot refer to the highest
Lord, we reply that the highest Lord also may, when
he pleases, assume a bodily shape formed of Maya,
in order to gratify thereby his devout worshippers.
Thus Sm/ri/ti also says, ’That thou seest me,
O Narada, is the Maya emitted by me; do not then look
on me as endowed with the qualities of all beings.’
We have further to note that expressions such as,
’That which is without sound, without touch,
without form, without decay,’ are made use of
where instruction is given about the nature of the
highest Lord in so far as he is devoid of all qualities;
while passages such as the following one, ’He
to whom belong all works, all desires, all sweet odours
and tastes’ (Ch. Up. III, 14, 2), which
represent the highest Lord as the object of devotion,
speak of him, who is the cause of everything, as possessing
some of the qualities of his effects. Analogously
he may be spoken of, in the passage under discussion,
as having a beard bright as gold and so on. With
reference to the objection that the highest Lord cannot
be meant because an abode is spoken of, we remark
that, for the purposes of devout meditation, a special
abode may be assigned to Brahman, although it abides
in its own glory only; for as Brahman is, like ether,
all-pervading, it may be viewed as being within the
Self of all beings. The statement, finally, about
the limitation of Brahman’s might, which depends
on the distinction of what belongs to the gods and
what to the body, has likewise reference to devout
meditation only. From all this it follows that
the being which Scripture states to be within the eye
and the sun is the highest Lord.


