Establishment of Brahman 3.278

3.278

[Objection:] If even for the knower of Brahman the perception of distinctions such as experiencer and so forth persists, it would also persist after the fall of the body; then, even for the knower, isolation would not be inevitable. / And so there is contradiction with the revelation: ‘His delay is only so long…’. / If, on the other hand, there is no persistence due to the eradication of ignorance, it could not exist even for a moment; thus, the contradiction remains the same. This is a rope bound at both ends! / [Reply:] It is answered: / Just as, when fear departs, for someone who has regained confidence, trembling and the like continue merely from latent impression, yet it does not last for a long time merely because it continues even after the departure of fear; / nor does a latent impression produce a result identical to its root cause; / nor is it permanent, / for otherwise trembling and the like would never cease at all; / nor does one depend on another cause for its cessation than the perception of reality, which was the cause of the departure of fear, / for it ceases gradually from that very [perception], or by itself, like the latent impression of the rotation of a potter's wheel— / similarly, when ignorance has ceased, and actions, without distinction, both those whose effects have begun and those whose effects have not begun, have ceased, the knower too, merely by a semblance due to the latent impression of the commenced fruition, cognizes this Self as an embodied being and as an experiencer, as it were, but not with firm obsessive adherence like the non-knower. / And such a one as this is described as a person of steady wisdom: freed from desire, content in the nature of the Self, undistressed in mind amidst sufferings that are merely shadow-like, without obsessive adherence owing to the perception of reality, just as [one is undistressed] amidst artificial tigers and the like, and free from craving amidst pleasures, just as amidst artificial splendours. / Just as, indeed, the non-knower's perception of a woman or the like depicted in clay or wood is a mere shadow-perception devoid of obsessive adherence, so for the knower whose actions and ignorance are destroyed, the perception of sense objects is merely through latent impressions thereof, as a mere shadow. / And so, [the scripture] shows the knower's disregard for the body: ‘Just as the slough of a snake lies cast off, dead on an anthill, even so does this body lie.’ / Because a latent impression does not produce a result identical to its root cause, just like trembling and the like; / nor does it persist for a long time, because a latent impression endures for only a short time; / and just like that, no other cause is required for its cessation, because it too ceases gradually from that very perception of reality, or spontaneously. / And this state is celebrated as ‘living liberation’. / And the destruction of the latent impression of action whose effect has begun is known only from the fall of the body; / for if it persisted, the fall of the body would not occur at all. Thus, after the fall of the body, perception of its fruition even as a mere shadow is impossible. / For by whichever action a particular body was begun, the semblance of the remainder of its fruition exists only therein. / But for actions whose effects have not begun, because they cease while their activity has not even been obtained, there is no latent impression of them. / For the continuation of a trace of an effect is from the latent impression of a cause whose activity has been obtained; / certainly, when fear has not attained its activity and has not produced trembling and the like, trembling and the like do not continue from its latent impression. / Therefore, because actions whose effects have not begun have not attained activity, and because the destruction of the latent impression of actions whose effects have begun is known from the fall of the body, isolation is inevitable for the knower once this body has fallen. / And in this matter, the remnant of the effect is either from the latent impression of the cause that has attained activity, or from the latent impression of the effect itself, or trembling and the like continue from the latent impressions of both: / either fear arises from the latent impression of fear, and thence trembling and the like; / or trembling and the like continue from the latent impression of trembling and the like. / In any case, even upon the departure of the cause, the continuation of the remainder of the effect occurs due to a latent impression. / Hence, the knower's bodily persistence is due to the latent impression of action that has attained activity, or due to its fruition. / That has also been stated in another treatise: / ‘Retaining a body, he remains through the force of latent impression, like the whirling of a wheel.’