Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/285

 The "iinal Philosophy of the Veda 269

and worry. above old age, decay, and death, the per. sistent personal application is, that this world of creatures is full of hunger, thirst, grief, worry, old age, decay, and death.

There is yet one consequence te be drawn. The question is asked, as it must be: “ What is the cure for desire, the thirst for life and its contents? Itiow cut the fetter, or the knot of adhesion to the illusory world? How get rid of the will to live?” The answer is, through knowledge. Knowledge, or per- haps it would be better to say intuition, of the unity of the individual self with the great True One; and the recognition, ever present, of the divided, dis..- traeted, illusory nature of everything ﬁnite: When a mortal has recognised Brahma, feeling, “He is myself,” how can he longer desire and cling to bodily life? This is the culminating thought of the Upanishads and the Veda, expressed in the solemn three words fez.“ team e315, “Thou art T hat.” That is to say, the essence of man is itself Bnal'lrnaw The wise man when once he has seen That (ted epegymf), becomes That (ted oedema“), because in truth he always was and is That (tea? may Thus the ﬁnal attainment of man is this knowledge; it is the “works ” of the Jew, and the “ faith ” of the Christianmsalvation by the complete ascendancy

‘ See Vijasaneyi Samhita (Tadeva Upanishad), 32. 12.