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KENOPANISAD
2. Brahman—In
Vedanta, Atman stands for the
Sprit within man' and l3rahman for the • Spirit behind
the universe,' and the whole trend of Vedanta is to esta-
blish the unity between these two. In this and the
previous passages the Atman has been spoken of as the
only principle of intelligence within man, and here it is
asserted that this Atman alone is Brahman, the Spirit
behind the universe, and not the extra-cosmic Deities and
their symbols that ignorant people worship. It must be
noted that this identification is made from beyond the
level of the ego, which is a part of our mental system.
The import of the next two passages is also identical.
3. This
etc.—Refers to the extra-cosmic Deities and
their symbols that the ignorant worship. The passage
raises the question whether Vedanta is hostile to devotion
and worship. Our emphatic answer is that it is not.
There are two types of devotion—the devotion that is an
expression of the knowledge of unity, and the devotion
that leads to knowledge. The first is of the wise or
perfect man, and the second, of the aspirant. The wise
man, having realized unity, recognizes that his own Self
and the God of religions, adored as the creator of the
universe, are the manifestations of the basic entity—
Brahman. Hence when he is in the state of relative
consciousness, he adores God in ecstatic love as his nearest
kith and kin This alone is true premabhakti or ananya-
khakti, and this and jaana (Knowledge) are identical. As
for the devotion of the aspirant, Unity is as yet for him a
matter of faith and not of experience. Hence in his
devotion to God, he can only intellectually approximate
to the high ideal of devotion set by the perfect
man.
He
worships God, but knows that He is not an extracosmic.