| 4· Those who
ever contemplate the Imperishable, the Indefinable, the Unmanifest, the
Omnipresent and the Unthinkable, the Unchangeable, the Immutable, the Eternal,
having restrained all the senses, always equanimous, intent on the welfare
of all beings,they reach Myself. Because the Imperishable (Akshara) is unmanifest,
He is not accessible to words and cannot therefore be defined. He is unmanifest,
not manifest to any of the .organs of knowledge. They contemplate the Imperishable
everywhere all round.Contemplation (Upasana) consists in approaching he
object of worship by way of meditating it according to the Teaching (sastra)
and dwelling for a long time steadily in the current of same thought (continuous)
like a thread of descending oil.The Imperishable who is the object of contemplation
is thus qualified: He is omnipresent, pervading all like the akasa. He is
unthinkable, because He is unmanifest. Whatever is visible to the senses
can be thought of by the mind also ; but the Akshara is invisible to the
senses and is therefore unthinkable. He is unchangeable ( Kutastha) Kuta
means a thing which is good to all appearance but evil within. Accordingly
it refers here to that seed of samsaraincluding avidya (nescience) and other
things; which is full of evil within, designated by various terms such as
Maya, Avyakrita (undifferentiated), as in Svetasvataropanishad (iv. 10)
and in the Gita (vii. 14.) Kutastha means He who is seated in Maya as Its
Witness, as Its Lord.Or. Kutastha may mean remaining like s heap. Hence
He is immutable and eternal. They who contemplate the Imperishable, curbing
all their senses, and always equanimous whether they come by the desirable
or the undesirable; they come to Myself.It needs indeed no saying that they
come to Me ; for, it has been said that the wise man is deemed My very Self
(vii.18). Neither is it necessary to say that they are the best Yogins,seeing
that they are one with the Lord Himself. |
