_ânandamaya âtman_). The texts say: "Truly he is the rapture;
for whoever gets this rapture becomes blissful. For who could
live, who could breathe if this space (_âkâs'a_) was not bliss? For
it is he who behaves as bliss. For whoever in that Invisible,
Self-surpassing, Unspeakable, Supportless finds fearless support, he
really becomes fearless. But whoever finds even a slight difference,
between himself and this Âtman there is fear for him [Footnote ref 1]."

Again in another place we find that Prajâpati said: "The self
(_âtman_) which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and
grief, from hunger and thirst, whose desires are true, whose cogitations
are true, that is to be searched for, that is to be enquired;
he gets all his desires and all worlds who knows that self [Footnote
ref 2]." The gods and the demons on hearing of this sent Indra and
Virocana respectively as their representatives to enquire of this self
from Prajâpati. He agreed to teach them, and asked them to look
into a vessel of water and tell him how much of self they could
find. They answered: "We see, this our whole self, even to the
hair, and to the nails." And he said, "Well, that is the self, that
is the deathless and the fearless, that is the Brahman." They went
away pleased, but Prajâpati thought, "There they go away,
without having discovered, without having realized the self."
Virocana came away with the conviction that the body was the
self; but Indra did not return back to the gods, he was afraid and
pestered with doubts and came back to Prajâpati and said, "just
as the self becomes decorated when the body is decorated, well-dressed
when the body is well-dressed, well-cleaned when the
body is well-cleaned, even so that image self will be blind when
the body is blind, injured in one eye when the body is injured in
one eye, and mutilated when the body is mutilated, and it perishes