Self are superimposed particular conditions such as caste, stage of life, age, outward circumstances, and so on.  That by superimposition we have to understand the notion of something in some other thing we have already explained. (The superimposition of the Non-Self will be understood more definitely from the following examples.) Extra-personal attributes are superimposed on the Self, if a man considers himself sound and entire, or the contrary, as long as his wife, children, and so on are sound and entire or not.  Attributes of the body are superimposed on the Self, if a man thinks of himself (his Self) as stout, lean, fair, as standing, walking, or jumping.  Attributes of the sense-organs, if he thinks ‘I am mute, or deaf, or one-eyed, or blind.’  Attributes of the internal organ when he considers himself subject to desire, intention, doubt, determination, and so on.  Thus the producer of the notion of the Ego (i.e. the internal organ) is superimposed on the interior Self, which, in reality, is the witness of all the modifications of the internal organ, and vice versa the interior Self, which is the witness of everything, is superimposed on the internal organ, the senses, and so on.  In this way there goes on this natural beginning—­and endless superimposition, which appears in the form of wrong conception, is the cause of individual souls appearing as agents and enjoyers (of the results of their actions), and is observed by every one.

With a view to freeing one’s self from that wrong notion which is the cause of all evil and attaining thereby the knowledge of the absolute unity of the Self the study of the Vedanta-texts is begun.  That all the Vedanta-texts have the mentioned purport we shall show in this so-called Sariraka-mima/m/sa.[50]

Of this Vedanta-mima/m/sa about to be explained by us the first Sutra is as follows.

1.  Then therefore the enquiry into Brahman.

The word ‘then’ is here to be taken as denoting immediate consecution; not as indicating the introduction of a new subject to be entered upon; for the enquiry into Brahman (more literally, the desire of knowing Brahman) is not of that nature[51].  Nor has the word ‘then’ the sense of auspiciousness (or blessing); for a word of that meaning could not be properly construed as a part of the sentence.  The word ‘then’ rather acts as an auspicious term by being pronounced and heard merely, while it denotes at the same time something else, viz. immediate consecution as said above.  That the latter is its meaning follows moreover from the circumstance that the relation in which the result stands to the previous topic (viewed as the cause of the result) is non-separate from the relation of immediate consecution.[52]