15.
16. I shall teach you a hymn of praise which takes man to the highest goal of liberation. You have to repeat this holy and auspicious hymn in clear accents. Now listen to it.
Liberation is entering the realm of Freedom – Moksa or salvation. The ways to enter the said realm are self-control, spirit of enquiry, contentment and good company.
The seeker who rests his mind in the eternal is fully self-controlled and is, therefore, in peace. He sees that pain and pleasure chase and cancel each other. In that wisdom there is self-control and peace. One cannot rest one’s mind in the eternal by rites and rituals, by pilgrimage or by acquisition of life. Such state is attained only by transcending the mind and by the cultivation of wisdom. The transcending of the mind with the resulting self-control is the fruit of wisdom. When the mind is at peace, pure, tranquil, free from delusion or hallucination and free from cravings of sense pleasure, it does not long for anything, nor does it reject anything. This is self-control or transcending the mind. Self-control is the main way to liberation.
Maitreya said:
17. Saying so with a very loving heart, Siva, who was wholly devoted to Narayana, spoke thus to those Prachetas standing before him with hands joined in salutation.
Sri Rudra said:
18-19. Oh Lord! Victory unto Thee! Thy supremacy is for the exaltation of the great knowers of the Atman! May good befall me! Thou art the ever Self-fulfilled. Salutations to Thee who bears the cosmic Lotus in Thy navel, to Thee who art the controller of all the evolutes of Prakrti latent in that Lotus. Salutations to Thee manifest as Vasudeva, the peaceful, the unperturbed, the self-effulgent, and the Lord of chitta (mental stuff).
The self-conscious atman in a human being is the spirit within, ontologically. It seeks realization of itself, meaning to be real with it. It is self-realization. It is an experience for the spirit or the self. It is beingness what it seeks.
The ‘I’ consciousness is the pure being, eternal existence, free from ignorance and thought illusion. If the seeker stays as the ‘I’, his being alone, without thought, the ‘I’ thought for him will disappear. The illusion will vanish for him forever.
The real Self is the infinite ‘I’. The infinite ‘I’ is eternal. It is perfection. It is without a beginning or an end.
When the ‘I’ (ego) merges into the ‘I’ (existence-consciousness – sat-cit), what arises is the infinite ‘I’. This is the true ‘I’ consciousness – the Atman.
20. Salutations to Thee as Sankarshana – the master of the category of ahamkara or the ego-sense, whose nature is subtle and infinite and who consumes the worlds. Salutations to Thee as Pradyumna – the controller of the intellect, the bestower of consciousness on all beings, and the inner ruler.
21. Salutations to Thee manifest as Aniruddha, the controller of manas (mind), which regulates the senses. Salutations also to Thee manifest as the sun, whose glorious light spreads everywhere and who is ever the same.
22. Salutations to Thee, the gateway to heaven and to salvation, the eternal resident of the pure heart. Salutations to Thee in the form of fire – the accomplisher of the rite of Chaturhotra and the support of all yajnas.
23. Salutations to Thee who assume the form of the food of the pitris and the Devas, who protects the Devas, and who are the soma juice which forms the essence of yajnas. Thou art the essence of water which satisfies the thirst of creatures and keeps them happy and contented.
24. Salutations to Thee who are of the nature of Earth, who are the bodies of all beings, and who abide as the Cosmic Body. Salutations again to Thee who are the ether that holds sway over the whole universe and who are the vitality that supports the minds, the senses and the bodies of all.
The cosmic Being is the omnipresent omniscience. It shines eternally. When a vibration arises in the cosmic Being, creation ensues comprising countless varieties of animate and inanimate, sentient and insentient beings in the universe. The cosmic Being shines in all the beings so created.
The Cosmic Being has two bodies, the superior body that is Pure Consciousness and the other that is the cosmos. All activity that takes place in the cosmos originates in the Pure Consciousness. As a result, the cosmos is seen to be real. The Cosmic Being exists in its Pure Consciousness as a sage exists in his atman in his meditation.
25. Salutations to Thee who are the support of the conceptions of within and without, and who, as the ether, manifest sound by which objects have come to be denoted. Salutations, again, to Thee who are unlimited brilliance and the heavenly region that is attained through great merit.
Space (dik) and ether (akasa) are interrelated. On the basis of the Upanisads, both dik and akasa are associated with the ear and sound. Often it is space that is associated with the ear (srotra). But dik generally means direction. We know by experience that our ears recognize the directions from which sounds come.
Etymologically, akasa (ether) means that which shines in all directions or everywhere. Shining is primary and “from or on all sides” is secondary. The second meaning is that of scope, place, room, etc in the sense that there is no room enough for ten persons here. In the present context, akasa (ether) is what makes the appearance possible on all sides of the object facing one. This is not ether. Nor is it the scientific concept of space that does not have the connotation of appearing or shining. Then, ‘all round and everywhere’ turns out to be not oneself as the subject, but an object for one. As in the case of time and space, we are to bear in mind that dik and akasa are not mere physical substances existing independently and in separation of one’s personality. We have to identify and equate the two. They constitute the basis of one’s personality – one’s I-am.
