degrees of pleasure and the means of pleasure is understood from the
passage 'Having dwelt there till their works are consumed.' Analogously
it is understood that the different degrees of pleasure which are
enjoyed by the embodied creatures, from man downward to the inmates of
hell and to immovable things, are the mere effects of religious merit as
defined in Vedic injunctions. On the other hand, from the different
degrees of pain endured by higher and lower embodied creatures, there is
inferred difference of degree in its cause, viz. religious demerit as
defined in the prohibitory injunctions, and in its agents. This
difference in the degree of pain and pleasure, which has for its
antecedent embodied existence, and for its cause the difference of
degree of merit and demerit of animated beings, liable to faults such as
ignorance and the like, is well known--from /S/ruti, Sm/ri/ti, and
reasoning--to be non-eternal, of a fleeting, changing nature
(sa/m/sâra). The following text, for instance, 'As long as he is in the
body he cannot get free from pleasure and pain' (Ch. Up. VIII, 12, 1),
refers to the sa/m/sâra-state as described above. From the following
passage, on the other hand, 'When he is free from the body then neither
pleasure nor pain touches him,' which denies the touch of pain or
pleasure, we learn that the unembodied state called 'final release'
(moksha) is declared not to be the effect of religious merit as defined
by Vedic injunctions. For if it were the effect of merit it would not be
denied that it is subject to pain and pleasure. Should it be said that
the very circumstance of its being an unembodied state is the effect of
merit, we reply that that cannot be, since Scripture declares that state
to be naturally and originally an unembodied one. 'The wise who knows
the Self as bodiless within the bodies, as unchanging among changing
things, as great and omnipresent does never grieve' (Ka. Up. II, 22);
'He is without breath, without mind, pure' (Mu. Up. II, 1, 2); 'That
person is not attached to anything' (B/ri/. Up. IV, 3, 15)[71]. All