"These qualities are common to the emancipated spirits and the Lord,
"Universal efficiency alone among them is peculiar to the Deity.
"Emancipated spirits are ulterior to the infinite absolute, which is unsusceptible of aught ulterior;
"They enjoy all beatitudes together with that Spirit."
It is therefore stated that those who suffer the three kinds of pain must, for the attainment of immortality, investigate the absolute spirit known under such appellations as the Highest Being. According to the maxim: The base and the suffix convey the meaning conjointly, and of these the meaning of the suffix takes the lead, the notion of desire is predominant (in the word jijñásitavya), and desired knowledge is the predicate (in the aphorism, Then hence the absolute must be desired to be known). Knowledge is cognition designated by such terms as meditation, devotion; not the merely superficial knowledge derived from verbal communication, such being competent to any one who hears a number of words and understands the force of each, even without any predication; in conformity with such Vedic texts as: Self indeed it is that is to be seen, to be heard, to be thought, to be pondered; He should meditate that it is self alone; Having known, let him acquire excellent wisdom; He should know that which is beyond knowledge. In these texts "to be heard" is explanatory, hearing being understood (but not enounced) in the text about sacred study (viz., shaḍaṅgena vedo'dhyeyo jñeyaścha, the Veda, with its six appendages, is to be studied and known); so that a man who has studied the Veda must of his own accord, in acquiring the Veda and its appendages, engage in "hearing," in order to ascertain the sense by examining it and the occasion of its enouncement. The term "to be thought" (or "to be inferred") is also explanatory, cogitation (or inference) being understood as the complementary meaning of hearing, according to the aphorism: Before its signification is attained the system is significant. Meditation is a reminiscence consisting of an unbroken succession of reminiscences like a stream of oil, it being revealed in the text, in continuity of reminiscence there is a solution of all knots,—that it is unintermittent reminiscence that is the means of emancipation. And this reminiscence is tantamount to intuition.
"Cut is his heart's knot, solved are all his doubts,
"And exhausted are all his works, when he has seen the Highest and Lowest,"
because he becomes one with that Supreme. So also in the words, Self indeed is to be seen, it is predicated of this reminiscence that it is an intuition. Reminiscence becomes intuitional through the vivacity of the representations. The author of the Vákya has treated of all this in detail in the passage beginning Cognition is meditation. The characters of this meditation are laid out in the text: This soul is not attainable by exposition, nor by wisdom, nor by much learning; Whom God chooses by him God may be attained. To him this self unfolds its own nature. For it is that which is dearest which is choice-worthy, and as the soul finds itself most dear, so the Lord is of Himself most dear, as was declared by the Lord Himself—
"To them always devoted, who worship me with love,
"I give the devotion of understanding whereby they come to me."