1845.] Veddnta-Sara, or Essence of the Veddnta. 138 



Propensity to pleasure is, to enjoy by the act of the mind, no 

 being directed to the being without duality, the pleasure, produced by 

 the meditation, which has its difference in itself, or the enjoyment 

 of pleasure, produced by that meditation at its commencement. 

 When the understanding, free from those four obstacles and immov- 

 able like a lamp, protected from the wind, thus becomes the infinite 

 Chaitanya alone, then the meditation is called that without dif- 

 ference. It is said, he will awaken the understanding, sunk in list- 

 lessness; he will concentrate it, when lost in absence of mind ; he will 

 enlighten it, when blinded by passion; he will not move it, when 

 steadied by austerities; he will not let it taste pleasure; by the 

 consideration (of universal things) it will be without fondness. As 

 a lamp, protected from the wind, &c. &c. 



Definition of the living free. The living free i3 the Bramhanishta 

 (devoted to Bramha) who, after the infinite, self-like Bramha is known, 

 when the ignorance with regard to him is removed by the knowledge 

 of the self-like, infinite, pure Bramha, is free from all worldly fet- 

 ters, by the destruction of the ignorance and its creation, of the 

 unrewarded works (those works which have not borne their fruit 

 previously to the true knowledge) of doubt, (viz. whether there is a 

 soul different from the body or not) and of other misapprehensions. 

 " When he, the universal soul, has been perceived, then all the con- 

 scious acts of the understanding are extinguished, then all doubts 

 are removed, and also his works are annihilated," says the Sruti. 



Though he in the time of awaking (the Bramhanishta) by his body, 

 which is like a vessel of flesh, blood, &c, by his senses, which are like 

 vessels of blindness, bluntless and unfitness, and by his mind, which 

 is the vessel for the sensations of hunger, thirst, grief and error, per- 

 forms the works which are worked by the impulses of his former de- 

 sires, and enjoys the fruits of his undertakings, which (the fruits) are 

 no obstacles to the true knowledge ; still he does not actually perform 

 or enjoy them, since he has destroyed the whole creation of ignorance, 

 as a person, who knows a thing, which he perceives to be an illusion 

 of his senses, does not actually believe in its reality, though he may per- 

 ceive it. " As one seeing does not see, or hearing does not hear," says 

 the Sruti. It is also said, who in a waking state is like a person fast 

 asleep, who does not perceive, though perceiving, duality, because he is 



