When the real Self with its stainless light recedes, a man thinking "this body is I," calls it the Self; then by lust and hate and all the potencies of bondage, the great power of Force that they call extension greatly afflicts him.
Torn by the gnawing of the toothed beast of great delusion; wandered from the Self, accepting every changing mood of mind as himself, through this potency, in the shoreless ocean of birth and death, full of the poison of sensuous things, sinking and rising, he wanders, mean-minded, despicable-minded.
As a line of clouds, born of the sun's strong shining, expands before the sun and hides it from sight, so self-assertion, that has come into being through the Self, expands before the Self and hides it from sight. As when on an evil day the lord of day is swallowed up in thick, dark clouds, an ice-cold hurricane of wind, very terrible, afflicts the clouds in turns; so when the Self is enveloped in impenetrable Darkness, the keen power of extension drives with many afflictions the man whose soul is deluded.
From those two powers a man's bondage comes; deluded by them he errs, thinking the body is the Self.
Of the plant of birth and death, the seed is Darkness, the sprout is the thought that body is Self, the shoot is rage, the sap is deeds, the body is the stem, the life-breaths are the branches, the tops are the bodily powers, sensuous things are the flowers, sorrow is the fruit, born of varied deeds and manifold; and the Life is the bird that eats the fruit.
This bondage to what is not Self, rooted in unwisdom, innate, made manifest without beginning or end, gives life to the falling torrent of sorrow, of birth and death, of sickness and old age.
Not by weapons nor arms, not by storm nor fire nor by a myriad deeds can this be cut off, without the sword of discernment and knowledge, very sharp and bright, through the grace of the guiding power.
He who is single-minded, fixed on the word divine, his steadfast fulfilment of duty will make the knowing soul within him pure; to him whose knowing soul is pure, a knowing of the Self supreme shall come; and through this knowledge of the Self supreme he shall destroy this circle of birth and death and its root together.
THE FREEING OF THE SELF
(Verses 148--154)
The Self, wrapped up in the five vestures beginning with the vesture formed of food, which are brought into being by its own power, does not shine forth, as the water in the pond, covered by a veil of green scum.
When the green scum is taken away, immediately the water shines forth pure, taking away thirst and heat, straightway becoming a source of great joy to man.
When the five vestures have been stripped off, the Self shines forth pure, the one essence of eternal bliss, beheld within, supreme, self-luminous.
Discernment is to be made between the Self and what is not Self by the wise man seeking freedom from bondage; through this he enters into joy, knowing the Self which is being, consciousness, bliss.
As the reed from the tiger grass, so separating from the congeries of things visible the hidden Self within, which is detached, not involved in actions, and dissolving all in the Self, he who stands thus, has attained liberation.
THE VESTURE FORMED OF FOOD
(Verses 154--164)
The food-formed vesture is this body, which comes into being through food, which lives by food, which perishes without food.
It is formed of cuticle, skin, flesh, blood, bone, water; this is not worthy to be the Self, eternally pure.
The Self was before birth or death, and now is; how can it be born for the moment, fleeting, unstable of nature, not unified, inert, beheld like a jar? For the Self is the witness of all changes of form.
The body has hands and feet, not the Self; though bodiless, yet because it is the Life, because its power is indestructible, it is controller, not controlled.
Since the Self is witness of the body, its character, its acts, its states, therefore the Self must be of other nature than the body.
A mass of wretchedness, clad in flesh, full of impurity and evil, how can this body be the knower? The Self is of other nature.
Of this compound of skin, flesh, fat, bone and water, the man of deluded mind thinks, "This is I"; but he who is possessed of judgment knows that his true Self is of other character, is nature transcendental.
The mind of the dullard thinks of the body, "This is I"; he who is more learned thinks, "This is I," of the body and the separate self; but he who has attained discernment and is wise knows the true Self saying, "I am the Eternal."
Therefore, O thou of mind deluded, put away the thought that this body is the Self, this compound of skin, flesh, fat, bone and water; discern the universal Self, the Eternal, changeless, and enjoy supreme peace.
So long as the man of learning abandons not the thought, founded on delusion, that "This is I," regarding the unenduring body and its powers, so long there is no hope for his liberation, though he possess the knowledge of the Vedânta and its sciences.
As thou hast no thought that "This is the Self," regarding the body's shadow, or the reflected form, or the body seen in dream, or the shape imagined in the mind, so let not this thought exist regarding the living body.
The thought that the body is the Self, in the minds of men who discern not the real, is the seed from which spring birth and death and sorrow; therefore slay thou this thought with strong effort, for when thou hast abandoned this thought the longing for rebirth will cease.
THE VESTURE FORMED OF VITAL BREATH
(Verses 165--166)
The breath-formed vesture is formed by the life-breath determined by the five powers of action; through its power the food-formed vesture, guided by the Self and sustained by food, moves in all bodily acts.
Nor is this breath-formed vesture the Self, since it is formed of the vital airs, coming and going like the wind, moving within and without; since it can in no wise discern between right and wrong, between oneself and another, but is ever dependent.
THE VESTURE FORMED OF MIND
(Verses 167--183)
The mind-formed vesture is formed of the powers of perception and the mind; it is the cause of the distinction between the notions of "mine" and "I"; it is active in making a distinction of names and numbers; as more potent, it pervades and dominates the former vesture.
The fire of the mind-formed vesture, fed by the five powers of perception, as though by five sacrificial priests, with objects of sense like streams of melted butter, blazing with the fuel of manifold sense-impressions, sets the personality aflame.
For there is no unwisdom, except in the mind, for the mind is unwisdom, the cause of the bondage to life; when this is destroyed, all is destroyed; when this dominates, the world dominates.
In dream, devoid of substance, it emanates a world of experiencer and things experienced, which is all mind; so in waking consciousness, there is no difference, it is all the domination of the mind.
During the time of dreamlessness, when mind has become latent, nothing at all of manifestation remains; therefore man's circle of birth and death is built by mind, and has no permanent reality.
By the wind a cloud is collected, by the wind it is driven away again; by mind bondage is built up, by mind is built also liberation.
Building up desire for the body and all objects, it binds the man thereby as an ox by a cord; afterwards leading him to turn from them like poison, that same mind, verily, sets him free from bondage.
Therefore mind is the cause of man's bondage, and in turn of his liberation; when darkened by the powers of passion it is the cause of bondage, and when pure of passion and darkness it is the cause of liberation.
Where discernment and dispassion are dominant, gaining purity, the mind makes for liberation; therefore let the wise man who seeks liberation strengthen these two in himself as the first step.
Mind is the name of the mighty tiger that hunts in the forest glades of sensuous things; let not the wise go thither, who seek liberation.
Mind moulds all sensuous things through the earthly body and the subtle
body of him who experiences; mind ceaselessly shapes the differences of body, of color, of condition, of race, as fruits caused by the acts of the potencies.
Mind, beclouding the detached, pure consciousness, binding it with the cords of the body, the powers, the life-breaths, as "I" and "my," ceaselessly strays among the fruits of experience caused by its own activities.
Man's circle of birth and death comes through the fault of attributing reality to the unreal, but this false attribution is built up by mind; this is the effective cause of birth and death and sorrow for him who has the faults of passion and darkness and is without discernment.
Therefore the wise who know the truth have declared that mind is unwisdom, through which the whole world, verily, is swept about, as cloud belts by the wind.
Therefore purification of the mind should be undertaken with strong effort by him who seeks liberation; when the mind has been purified, liberation comes like fruit into his hand.
Through the sole power of liberation uprooting desire for sensuous things, and ridding himself of all bondage to works, he who through faith in the Real stands firm in the teaching, shakes off the very essence of passion from the understanding.
The mind-formed vesture cannot be the higher Self, since it has beginning and end, waxing and waning; by causing sensuous things, it is the very essence of pain; that which is itself seen cannot be the Seer.
THE VESTURE FORMED OF INTELLIGENCE
(Verses 184--197)
The intelligence, together with the powers of intelligence, makes the intelligence-formed vesture, whose distinguishing character is actorship; it is the cause of man's circle of birth and death.
The power which is a reflected beam of pure Consciousness, called the understanding, is a mode of abstract Nature; it possesses wisdom and creative power; it thereby focuses the idea of "I" in the body and its powers.
This "I," beginningless in time, is the separate self, it is the initiator of all undertakings; this, impelled by previous imprints, works all works both holy and unholy, and forms their fruits.
Passing through varying births it gains experience, now descending, now ascending; of this intelligence-formed vesture, waking, dream and dreamlessness are the fields where it experiences pleasure and pain.
By constantly attributing to itself the body, state, condition, duties and works, thinking, "These are mine," this intelligence-formed vesture, brightly shining because it stands closest to the higher Self, becomes the vesture of the Self, and, thinking itself to be the Self, wanders in the circle of birth and death.
This, formed of intelligence, is the light that shines in the vital breaths, in the heart; the Self who stands forever wears this vesture as actor and experiencer.
The Self, assuming the limitation of the intelligence, self-deluded by the error of the intelligence, though it is the universal Self, yet views itself as separate from the Self; as the potter views the jars as separate from the clay.
Through the force of its union with the vesture, the higher Self takes on the character of the vesture and assumes its nature, as fire, which is without form, takes on the varying forms of the iron, even though the Self is for ever by nature uniform and supreme.
THE DISCIPLE SPEAKS
Whether by delusion or otherwise, the higher Self appears as the separate self; but, since the vesture is beginningless, there is no conceivable end of the beginningless.
Therefore existence as the separate self must be eternal, nor can the circle of birth and death have an end; how then can there be liberation? Master, tell me this.
THE MASTER ANSWERS
Well hast thou asked, O wise one! Therefore rightly bear! A false imagination created by error is not conclusive proof.
Only through delusion can there be an association with objects, of that which is without attachment, without action, without form; it is like the association of blueness with the sky.
The appearance as the separate self, of the Self, the Seer, who is without qualities, without form; essential wisdom and bliss, arises through the delusion of the understanding; it is not real; when the delusion passes, it exists no longer, having no substantial reality.
Its existence, which is brought into being through false perception, because of delusion, lasts only so long as the error lasts; as the serpent in the rope endures only as long as the delusion; when the delusion ceases, there is no serpent.
03. The Witness
THE MANIFEST AND THE HIDDEN SELF
(Verses 198--209)
BEGINNINGLESS is unwisdom, and all its works are too; but when wisdom is arisen, what belongs to unwisdom, although beginningless--
Like a dream on waking, perishes, root and all; though beginningless, it is not endless; it is as something that was not before, and now is, this is manifest.
It is thus seen that, though without a beginning, unwisdom comes to an end, just as something, which before was not, comes into being. Built up in the Self by its being bound by disguise of intellect--
Is this existence as the separate life, for there is no other than the Self, distinguished by its own nature, but the binding of the Self by the intellect is false, coming from unknowledge.
This binding is untied by perfect knowledge, not otherwise; the discerning of the oneness of the Eternal and the Self is held by the scripture to be perfect knowledge.
And this is accomplished by perfectly discerning between Self and not-self; thereafter discernment is to be gained between individual and universal Self.
Water may be endlessly muddy, but when the mud is gone, the water is clear. As it shines, so shines the Self also, when faults are gone away, it shines forth clear.
And when unreality ceases to exist in the individual self, it is clear that it returns towards the universal; hence there is to be a rejection of the self-assertion and other characteristics of the individual self.
Hence this higher Self is not what is called the intellectual veil, because that is changeful, helpless of itself, circumscribed, objective, liable to err; the non-eternal cannot be regarded as eternal.
The bliss-formed veil is a form containing the reflection of bliss--although it is tainted with darkness; it has the quality of pleasure, the attainment of well wished-for aims; it shines forth in the enjoyment of good works by a righteous man, of its own nature bliss-formed; gaining an excellent form, he enjoys bliss without effort.
The principal sphere of the bliss-formed veil is in dreamless sleep; in dreaming and waking it is in part manifest when blissful objects are beheld.
Nor is this bliss-formed veil the higher Self, for it wears a disguise, it is a form of objective nature; it is an effect caused by good acts, accumulated in this changeful form.
When the five veils are taken away, according to inference and scripture, what remains after they are taken away is the Witness, in a form born of awakening.
This is the Self, self-shining, distinguished from the five veils; this is the Witness in the three modes of perceiving, without change, without stain. The wise should know it as Being and Bliss, as his own Self.
THE PUPIL SAID:
(Verses 210--240)
When the five veils are thus set aside through their unreality, beyond the non-being of all I see nothing, Master; what then is to be known as anything by him who knows Self and not-self?
THE MASTER SAID:
Truth has been spoken by thee, wise one; thou art skilled in judgment. Self-assertion and all these changes,--in the Self they have no being. That whereby all is enjoyed, but which is itself not enjoyed, know that to be the Self, the Knower, through thy very subtle intellect.
Whatever is enjoyed by anyone, of that he is the witness; but of that which is not enjoyed by anyone, it cannot be said that anyone is the witness.
That is to be self-witness, where anything is enjoyed by itself; therefore the universal Self is witness of itself; no other lesser thing is witness of it.
In waking, dreaming, dreamlessness, that Self is clearly manifested, ap
pearing through its universal form always as "I," as the "I" within, uniformly. This is "I" beholding intellect and the rest that partake of varied forms and changes. It is manifest through eternal blissful self-consciousness; know that as the Self here in the heart.
Looking at the reflection of the sun reflected in the water of a jar, he who is deluded thinks it is the sun, thus the reflected consciousness appearing under a disguise is thought by him who is hopelessly deluded to be "I."
Rejecting jar and water and the sun reflected there all together, the real sun is beheld. So the unchanging One which is reflected in the three modes, self-shining, is perceived by the wise.
Putting away in thought body and intellect as alike reflections of consciousness, discerning the seer, hid in the secret place, the Self, the partless awakening, the universal shining, distinguished alike from what exists and what does not exist; the eternal lord, all-present, very subtle, devoid of within and without, nothing but self; discerning this perfectly, in its own form, a man is sinless, passionless, deathless.
The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom Page 3