tatements about bodily shape contained in the
clauses, 'With a beard bright as gold,' &c., cannot refer to the highest
Lord, we reply that the highest Lord also may, when he pleases, assume a
bodily shape formed of Maya, in order to gratify thereby his devout
worshippers. Thus Sm/ri/ti also says, 'That thou seest me, O Narada, is
the Maya emitted by me; do not then look on me as endowed with the
qualities of all beings.' We have further to note that expressions such
as, 'That which is without sound, without touch, without form, without
decay,' are made use of where instruction is given about the nature of
the highest Lord in so far as he is devoid of all qualities; while
passages such as the following one, 'He to whom belong all works, all
desires, all sweet odours and tastes' (Ch. Up. III, 14, 2), which
represent the highest Lord as the object of devotion, speak of him, who
is the cause of everything, as possessing some of the qualities of his
effects. Analogously he may be spoken of, in the passage under
discussion, as having a beard bright as gold and so on. With reference
to the objection that the highest Lord cannot be meant because an abode
is spoken of, we remark that, for the purposes of devout meditation, a
special abode may be assigned to Brahman, although it abides in its own
glory only; for as Brahman is, like ether, all-pervading, it may be
viewed as being within the Self of all beings. The statement, finally,
about the limitation of Brahman's might, which depends on the
distinction of what belongs to the gods and what to the body, has
likewise reference to devout meditation only. From all this it follows
that the being which Scripture states to be within the eye and the sun
is the highest Lord.

21. And there is another one (i.e. the Lord who is different from the
individual souls animating the sun, &c.), on account of the declaration
of distinction.

There is, moreover, one distinct from the individual souls which animate
the sun and other bodies, viz. the Lord who rules within; whose
distinction (from all individual souls) is proclaimed in the following
scriptural passage, 'He who dwells in the sun and within the sun, whom
the sun does not know, whose body the sun is, and who rules the sun
within; he is thy Self, the ruler within, the immortal' (B/ri/. Up. III,
7, 9). Here the expression, 'He within the sun whom the sun does not
know,' clearly indicates that the Ruler within is distinct from that
cogni