A new approach to the Vedas : an essay in translation and exegesis

A NEW APPROACH TO THE VEDAS

soul imbibing God turns into God,” Eckhart, I, 242. In the words of Ruysbroeck,® “traversing all worlds of being . . . the rivers pour ceaselessly into this ocean . . . whence there is no return . . . an abyss of darkness, fathomless, limitless, and without qualities, above the names of created things, above the names of God... . nameless, yet the central point where all names are one. It is the mountain crest of human effort and the abyss of

transcendent essence’: that is ‘“‘... nostre pace, a qual mare, al qual tutto si move. . .”, Dante, Paradiso, III, 85-86.

“ His, verily, is that (true) aspect of his which is beyond desires, free from ill, without fear. As a man locked in the embrace of a darling bride, knows naught of a within nor a without, so the Person, embraced by Wisdom, by the

Self, knows naught of a within nor a without . . . his desire is satisfied, him-Self is his Will (kama), without Will (akama), without care. ... There the father

becomes not a father; a mother not a mother; the angels not the angels; the Vedas not Veda; a thief not a thief... he is not followed after by merit, nor followed by demerit, for he has crossed beyond all anguish of the heart . . . he sees though he does not see... tastes though he does not taste, speaks though he does not speak, touches though he touches not,” Byhadaranyaka Up., IV, 3, 21-2987: “ there,” as Eckhart, I, 360, quotes from the ‘“ Book of Love,” “there heard I without sound, there saw I without light, there breathed I without motion, there did I taste what savoured not, there did I touch what touched not back. Then my heart was bottomless, my soul loveless, my mind formless, and my nature natureless.”’ There where Void shines into Void, Deep answers unto Deep, unattainable by thought but all-contained in the lotus of the heart, there is the Supreme Identity, the source and end of life, One Angel, even Death, the Father of Life. 46 |