ithout being asked) that the quality of
being an ativadin, if merely based on the knowledge of the vital
air--which knowledge has for its object an unreal product,--is devoid of
substance, and that he only is an ativadin who is such by means of the
True. By the term 'the True' there is meant the highest Brahman; for
Brahman is the Real, and it is called the 'True' in another scriptural
passage also, viz. Taitt. Up. II, 1, 'The True, knowledge, infinite is
Brahman.' Narada, thus enlightened, starts a new line of enquiry ('Might
I, Sir, become an ativadin by the True?') and Sanatkumara then leads
him, by a series of instrumental steps, beginning with understanding, up
to the knowledge of bhuman. We therefrom conclude that the bhuman is
that very True whose explanation had been promised in addition to the
(knowledge of the) vital air. We thus see that the instruction about the
bhuman is additional to the instruction about the vital air, and bhuman
must therefore mean the highest Self, which is different from the vital
air. With this interpretation the initial statement, according to which
the enquiry into the Self forms the general subject-matter, agrees
perfectly well. The assumption, on the other hand (made by the
purvapakshin), that by the Self we have here to understand the vital air
is indefensible. For, in the first place, Self-hood does not belong to
the vital air in any non-figurative sense. In the second place,
cessation of grief cannot take place apart from the knowledge of the
highest Self; for, as another scriptural passage declares, 'There is no
other path to go' (/S/vet. Up. VI, 15). Moreover, after we have read at
the outset, 'Do, Sir, lead me over to the other side of grief' (Ch. Up.
VII, 1, 3), we meet with the following concluding words (VII, 26, 2),
'To him, after his faults had been rubbed out, the venerable Sanatkumara
showed the other side of darkness.' The term 'darkness' here denotes
Nescience, the cause of grief, and so on.--Moreover, if the instruction
terminated with the vital air, it would not be said of the latter that
it rests on something else. But the brahma/n/a (Ch. Up. VII, 26, 1) does
say, 'The vital air springs from the Self.' Nor can it be objected
against this last argument that the concluding part of the chapter may
refer to the highest Self, while, all the same, the bhuman (mentioned in
an earlier part of the chapter) may be the vital air. For, from the
passage (VII, 24, 1), ('Sir, in