in respect of all objects of hearing and vision (and the operations of the other senses) as also in respect of all living creatures, and transcends all pairs of opposites, he is then said to attain to Brahma.  When person casts an equal eye upon praise and dispraise, gold and iron, happiness and misery, heat and cold, good and evil, the agreeable and the disagreeable, life and death, he is then said to attain to Brahma.  One observing the duties of the mendicant orders should restrain one’s senses and the mind even like a tortoise withdrawing its out-stretched limbs.[1744] As a house enveloped in darkness is capable of being seen with the aid of a lighted lamp, after the same manner can the soul be seen with the aid of the lamp of the understanding.  O foremost of intelligent persons, I see that all this knowledge that I am communicating to thee dwells in thee.  Whatever else should be known by one desirous of learning the religion of Emancipation is already known to thee.  O regenerate Rishi, I am convinced that through the grace of thy preceptor and through the instructions thou hast received, thou hast already transcended all objects of the senses.[1745] O great ascetic, through the grace of that sire of thine, I have attained to omniscience, and hence I have succeeded in knowing thee.  Thy knowledge is much greater than what thou thinkest thou hast.  Thy perceptions also that result from intuition are much greater than what thou thinkest thou hast.  Thy puissance also is much greater than thou art conscious of.  Whether in consequence of thy tender age, or of the doubts thou hast not been able to dispel, or of the fear that is due to the unattainment of Emancipation, thou art not conscious of that knowledge due to intuition although it has arisen in thy mind.  After one’s doubts have been dispelled by persons like us, one succeeds in opening the knots of one’s heart and then, by a righteous exertion one attains to and becomes conscious of that knowledge.  As regards thyself, thou art one that hast already acquired knowledge.  Thy intelligence is steady and tranquil.  Thou art free from covetousness.  For all that, O Brahmana, one never succeeds in attaining to Brahma, which is the highest object of acquisition, without exertion.  Thou seest no distinction between happiness and misery.  Thou art not covetous.  Thou hast no longing for dancing and song.  Thou hast no attachments.  Thou hast no attachment to friends.  Thou hast no fear in things that inspire fear.  O blessed one, I see that thou castest an equal eye upon a lump of gold and a clod of earth.  Myself and other persons possessed of wisdom, behold thee established in the highest and indestructible path of tranquillity.  Thou stayest, O Brahmana, in those duties which obtain for the Brahmana that fruit which should be his and which is identical with the essence of the object represented by Emancipation.  What else hast thou to ask me?’”

SECTION CCCXXVIII