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KENOPANISAD
[NOTES—The
riddles that have been proposed hither-
to with regard to the Atman are now finally solved by
describing the nature of the comprehension that can be
had of it.
1. Intuits It etc.—Atman
is never experienced as an
object unlike the things of relative experience. But along
with every mental modification that gives rise to the
relative experiences of life, the Atman is, as it were,
blended, just as the experience of fire is blended in the
experience of a red-hot iron ball. For it is the Intelligence,
that is, the Atman which gives self-awareness to thoughts
or mental modifications, The ignorant man, lacking in
fineness of understanding, is not able to disentagle the
Atman, who is thus implied as their witness, in every one
of our cognitions as in the states of waking, dream and
sleep, which contain all these cognitions. For the truly
enlightened man, however, everyone of these mental
modifications means the simultaneous revelation of the
Atman as their witness and substratum —prati-bodha-
viditam.
It must, however, be noted that It is spoken of as the
witness, only as long as It is thought of in relation to the
mental modifications which It vivifies by Its awareness.
In nirvikalpa-samgclhi (the pure and unconditioned state
of Divine consciousness) these modifications disappear,
or rather sink into their witnessing and vivifying substra-
tum, namely, the Atman. Then It is no longer spoken of