y those passages which negative all change on the part of
the Self; compare, for instance, 'This great unborn Self, undecaying,
undying, immortal, fearless is indeed Brahman' (B/ri/. Up. IV,
24).--Moreover, if the doctrine of general identity were not true, those
who are desirous of release could not be in the possession of
irrefutable knowledge, and there would be no possibility of any matter
being well settled; while yet the knowledge of which the Self is the
object is declared to be irrefutable and to satisfy all desire, and
Scripture speaks of those, 'Who have well ascertained the object of the
knowledge of the Vedanta' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 6). Compare also the passage,
'What trouble, what sorrow can there be to him who has once beheld that
unity?' (I/s/. Up. 7.)--And Sm/ri/ti also represents the mind of him who
contemplates the Self as steady (Bha. Gi. II, 54).

As therefore the individual soul and the highest Self differ in name
only, it being a settled matter that perfect knowledge has for its
object the absolute oneness of the two; it is senseless to insist (as
some do) on a plurality of Selfs, and to maintain that the individual
soul is different from the highest Self, and the highest Self from the
individual soul. For the Self is indeed called by many different names,
but it is one only. Nor does the passage, 'He who knows Brahman which is
real, knowledge, infinite, as hidden in the cave' (Taitt. Up. II, 1),
refer to some one cave (different from the abode of the individual
soul)[249]. And that nobody else but Brahman is hidden in the cave we
know from a subsequent passage, viz. 'Having sent forth he entered into
it' (Taitt. Up. II, 6), according to which the creator only entered into
the created beings.--Those who insist on the distinction of the
individual and the highest Self oppose themselves to the true sense of
the Vedanta-texts, stand thereby in the way of perfect knowledge, which
is the door to perfect beatitude, and groundlessly assume release to be
something effected, and therefore non-eternal[250]. (And if they attempt
to show that moksha, although effected, is eternal) they involve
themselves in a conflict with sound logic.

23. (Brahman is) the material cause also, on account of (this view) not
being in conflict with the promissory statements and the illustrative
instances.

It has been said that, as practical religious duty has to be enquired
into because it is the cause of an increase of happiness