another 2. Objects, then, which are considered most desirable are infinite. What the great end of all is, you shall, monarch, briefly learn from me. It is soul: one (in all bodies), pervading, uniform, perfect, preeminent over nature (Prakriti), exempt from birth, growth, and decay, omnipresent, undecaying, made up of true knowledge, independent, and unconnected with unrealities, with name, species, and the rest, in time present, past, or to come. The knowledge that this spirit, which is essentially one, is in one's own and in all other bodies, is the great end, or true wisdom, of one who knows the unity and the true principles of things. As one diffusive air, passing through the perforations of a flute, is distinguished as the notes of the scale (Sherga and the rest), so the nature of the great spirit is single, though its forms be manifold, arising from the consequences of acts. When the difference of the investing form, as that of god or the rest, is destroyed, then there is no distinction."

Footnotes

251:1 You ask what is Śreyas, not what is Paramártha: the first means literally 'best,' 'most excellent,' and is here used to denote temporary and special objects, or sources of happiness, as wealth, posterity, power, &c.; the latter is the one great object or end of life, true wisdom or truth, knowledge of the real and universal nature of soul.

253:2 But this is to be understood as applying to the doctrines which distinguish between the vital spirit (Jívátmá) and the supreme spirit (Paramátmá), the doctrine of the Yoga. It is here argued, that it is absurd to talk of effecting a union between the soul of man and supreme soul; for if they are distinct essentially, they cannot combine; if they are already one and the same, it is nonsense to talk of accomplishing their union. The great end of life or truth is not to effect the union of two things, or two parts of one thing, but to know that all is unity.

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Hinduism

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