her? In
consequence only of my ignorance I repair to her companionship. I shall
now be fixed (in Sankhya or Yoga). I shall not longer keep her
companionship. For having passed so long a time with her, I should think
that I was so long deceived by her, for myself being really exempt from
modification, how could I keep company with one that is subject to
modification? She cannot be held to be responsible for this. The
responsibility is mine, since turning away from the Supreme Soul I become
of my own accord attached to her. In consequence of that attachment,
myself, though formless in reality, had to abide in multifarious forms.
Indeed, though formless by nature I become endued with forms in
consequence of my sense of meum, and thereby insulted and distressed. In
consequence of my sense of meum, concerning the result of Prakriti, I am
forced to take birth in diverse orders of Being. Alas, though really
destitute of any sense of meum, yet in consequence of affecting it, what
diverse acts of an evil nature have been committed by me in those orders
which I took birth while I remained in them with a soul that had lost all
knowledge! I have no longer anything to do with him who, with essence
made up of consciousness, divides herself into many fragments and who
seeks to unite me with them. It is only now that I have been awakened and
have understood that I am by nature without any sense of meum and without
that consciousness which creates the forms of Prakriti that invests me
all around. Casting off that sense of meum which I always have with
respect to her and whose essence is made up of consciousness, and casting
off Prakriti herself, I shall take refuge in Him who is auspicious. I
shall be united with Him, and not with Prakriti which is inanimate. If I
unite with Him, it will be productive of my benefit. I have no similarity
of nature with Prakriti!"--The twenty-fifth, (viz., Jiva), when he thus
succeeds in understanding the Supreme, becomes able to cast off the
Destructible and attain to identity with that which is Indestructible and
which is the essence of all that is auspicious. Destitute of attributes
in his true nature and in reality Unmanifest, Jiva becomes invested with
what is Manifest and assumes attributes. When he succeeds in beholding
that which is without attributes and which is the origin of the
Unmanifest, he attains, O ruler of Mithila, to identify the same.
"'"'I have now told thee what the indications are o
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