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| III.4 | The implications of the progress of the Advaitin in meditation; the discourse of the renunciant | | Adhyaya IV: The result of meditation (phala) | | IV. 1 | The liberation of the self
47 | | IV.2 | The process of dying | | IV.3 | Analysis of the postdeath ascent | | IV.4 | Analysis of the resultsendpoints of the ascent |
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What are the uses to which we may best put this overview of the Text?48 I conclude with two observations which bear upon how one can profitably appreciate the wholeness of the Text. First, the ordering of the UMS is imitative of the ritual paradigm, and remains oriented to practice and imbued with its logic. Second, the outline presents inversely to the reader the pattern by which it was constructed; what is located first is not necessarily what is to be learned first, but may be the subsequently articulated presupposition of a learning which needs to occur first. Let us consider these in turn. |
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First, the Advaitins' insistence on the primacy of knowledge does not prevent them from maintaining the analogy, evident in the UMS, between meditative knowledge and ritual knowledge, as two kinds of practical knowledges. It is striking that UMS IV offers no final conclusion as to the nature of Brahman, nor any final refutation of opponents. It is an unapologetically practical consideration of the nature of death, what happens after death, and how the course of the practice of meditation appropriately mirrors the course of the self's postmortem destiny. Nor is there any evidence that it is a mere appendix, or mere application of principles enunciated in UMS I and II; the Text ends where it must, with an inquiry into the practical effects of right knowledge. |
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UMS III and IV show us that the inquiry into Brahman, the implementation of the desire to know Brahman (UMS I.1.1)49 is to be accomplished through the practice of meditationas the ultimately masterful appropriation of the knowledge of Brahman made available in the upanisads as these are properly un- |
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