that Supreme Lord who is identical with that refuge. Thou art the giver
unto all creatures of whatever ends become theirs, fraught with happiness
or misery. Thou art he that ordains all created beings to birth and
death. Thou art the puissant Lord who grants success to Rishis crowned
with success in respect of the fruition of their wishes. Having created
all the worlds beginning with Bhu, together with all the denizens of
heaven, that upholdest and cherishest them all, distributing thyself into
thy well-known forms numbering Eight.[81] From thee flows everything.
Upon thee rests all things. All things, again, disappear in thee. Thou
art the sole object that is Eternal. Thou art that region of Truth which
is sought by the righteous and regarded by them as the highest. Thou art
that cessation of individual existence which Yogins seek. Thou art that
Oneness which is sought by persons conversant with the soul. Brahma and
the Siddhas expounding the mantras have concealed thee in a cave for
preventing the deities and Asuras and human beings from beholding
thee.[82] Although thou residest in the heart, yet thou are concealed.
Hence, stupefied by thee, deities and Asuras and human beings are all
unable to understand thee, O Bhava, truly and in all thy details. Unto
those persons that succeed in attaining to thee after having cleansed
themselves by devotion, thou showest thyself of thy own accord, O thou
that residest in all hearts.[83] By knowing thee one can avoid both death
and rebirth. Thou art the highest object of knowledge. By knowing thee no
higher object remains for one to know. Thou art the greatest object of
acquisition. The person that is truly wise, by acquiring thee, thinks
that there is no higher object to acquire. By attaining to thee that art
exceedingly subtile and that art the highest object of acquisition, the
man of wisdom becomes immortal and immutable. The followers of the
Sankhya system, well conversant with their own philosophy and possessing
a knowledge of the attributes (of Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas) and of those
called the topics of enquiry,--those learned men who transcend the