22. Non-return, according to Scripture...

22. Non-return, according to Scripture; non-return, according to Scripture.

We know from Scripture that there is a Supreme Person whose nature is absolute bliss and goodness; who is fundamentally antagonistic to all evil; who is the cause of the origination, sustentation, and dissolution of the world; who differs in nature from all other beings, who is all-knowing, who by his mere thought and will accomplishes all his purposes; who is an ocean of kindness as it were for all who depend on him; who is all-merciful; who is immeasurably raised above all possibility of any one being equal or superior to him; whose name is the highest Brahman. And with equal certainty we know from Scripture that this Supreme Lord, when pleased by the faithful worship of his Devotees--which worship consists in daily repeated meditation on Him, assisted by the performance of all the practices prescribed for each caste and âsrama--frees them from the influence of Nescience which consists of karman accumulated in the infinite progress of time and hence hard to overcome; allows them to attain to that supreme bliss which consists in the direct intuition of His own true nature: and after that does not turn them back into the miseries of Samsâra. The text distinctly teaching this is 'He who behaves thus all his life through reaches the world of Brahman and does not return' (Kh. Up. VIII, 15). And the Lord himself declares 'Having obtained me great-souled men do not come into rebirth, the fleeting abode of misery; for they have

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reached the highest perfection. Up to the world of Brahma the worlds return again, O Arguna; but having attained to me, O son of Kunti, there is no rebirth' (Bha. Gi. VIII, 1, 5-16). As, moreover, the released soul has freed itself from the bondage of karman, has its powers of knowledge fully developed, and has all its being in the supremely blissful intuition of the highest Brahman, it evidently cannot desire anything else nor enter on any other form of activity, and the idea of its returning into the Samsâra therefore is altogether excluded. Nor indeed need we fear that the Supreme Lord when once having taken to himself the Devotee whom he greatly loves will turn him back into the Samsâra. For He himself has said, 'To the wise man I am very dear, and dear he is to me. Noble indeed are all these, but the wise man I regard as my very Self. For he, with soul devoted, seeks me only as his highest goal. At the end of many births the wise man goes to me, thinking all is Vâsudeva. Such great-souled men are rarely met with' (Bha. Gî. VII, 17-19).--The repetition of the words of the Sûtra indicates the conclusion of this body of doctrine. Thus everything is settled to satisfaction.--Here terminates the adhikarana of 'with the exception of the world-energies.'

Here terminates the fourth pâda of the fourth adhyâya of the commentary on the Sârîraka Mîmâmsâ, composed by the reverend teacher Râmânuga. This completes the fourth adhyâya, and the whole work; and the entire body of doctrine is thus brought to a conclusion.

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