instance, the case of a man who at the time of twilight does not discern
that the object before him is a post, and applies to it the conception
and designation of a man; such is likewise the case of the conception
and designation of silver being applied to a shell of mother-of-pearl
somehow mistaken for silver. How then can it be maintained that the
application of the word and the conception of the Ego to the body, &c.,
which application is due to the non-discrimination of the Self and the
Not-Self, is figurative (rather than simply false)? considering that
even learned men who know the difference of the Self and the Not-Self
confound the words and ideas just as common shepherds and goatherds do.

As therefore the application of the conception of the Ego to the body on
the part of those who affirm the existence of a Self different from the
body is simply false, not figurative, it follows that the embodiedness
of the Self is (not real but) caused by wrong conception, and hence that
the person who has reached true knowledge is free from his body even
while still alive. The same is declared in the /S/ruti passages
concerning him who knows Brahman: 'And as the slough of a snake lies on
an ant-hill, dead and cast away, thus lies this body; but that
disembodied immortal spirit is Brahman only, is only light' (B/ri/. Up.
IV, 4, 7); and 'With eyes he is without eyes as it were, with ears
without ears as it were, with speech without speech as it were, with a
mind without mind as it were, with vital airs without vital airs as it
were.' Sm/ri/ti also, in the passage where the characteristic marks are
enumerated of one whose mind is steady (Bha. Gîtâ II, 54), declares that
he who knows is no longer connected with action of any kind. Therefore
the man who has once comprehended Brahman to be the Self, does not
belong to this transmigratory world as he did before. He, on the other
hand, who still belongs to this transmigratory world as before, has not
comprehended Brahman to be the Self. Thus there remain no unsolved