Shankara Part 4

[Guest guest]

It is owing to people's worldly desires, their desires for

scriptures, and their desires concerning their bodies that they do

not achieve realisation. 271

 

Those who know about these things call these three desires the iron

fetter that binds the feet of those who are seeking escape from the

prison-house of samsara. He who is free from them reaches liberation.

272

 

The beautiful smell of aloe wood which is masked by a bad smell

through contamination by water and such things becomes evident again

when it is rubbed clean. 273

 

Desire for one's true self which is veiled by endless internal other

desires becomes pure and evident again like the smell of sandalwood

through application with wisdom. 274

 

When the mass of desires for things other than oneself obscuring the

contrary desire for one's real self are eliminated by constant self-

remembrance, then it discloses itself of its own accord. 275

 

As the mind becomes more and more inward-turned, it becomes gradually

freed from external desires, and when all such desires are fully

eliminated self-realisation is completely freed from obstruction. 276

 

When he is always poised in self-awareness the yogi's thinking mind

stops, and the cessation of desires takes place as a result, so see

to the removal of all ideas of additions to your true self. 277

 

Dullness (tamas) is removed by passion (rajas) and purity (sattva),

desire is removed by purity, and purity when itself purified, so

establishing yourself in purity, see to the removal of all ideas of

additions to your true self. 278

 

Recognising that the effects of past conditioning will sustain the

body, remain undisturbed and work away hard at seeing to the removal

of all ideas of additions to your true self. 279

 

"I am not the individual life. I am God." Getting rid of all previous

misidentifications like this, see to the removal of all ideas of

additions to your true self created by the power of desires. 280

 

Recognising yourself as the self of everything by the authority of

scripture, by reasoning and by personal experience, see to the

removal of all ideas of additions to your true self whenever they

manifest themselves. 281

 

The wise man has no business concerning himself with the acquisition

or disposal of things, so by adherence to the one reality, see to the

removal of all ideas of additions to your true self. 282

 

Realising the identity of yourself and God by the help of sayings

like "You are That", see to the removal of all ideas of additions to

your true self so as to strengthen the adherence of yourself in God.

283

 

Eliminate completely your self-identification with this body, and

with determination see that your mind is devoted to the removal of

all ideas of additions to your true self. 284

 

So long as even a dream-like awareness of yourself as an individual

in the world remains, as a wise person persistently see to the

removal of all ideas of additions to your true self. 285

 

Without giving way to the least descent into forgetfulness through

sleep, worldly affairs or the various senses, meditate on yourself

within. 286

 

Shunning the body which is derived from the impurities of your mother

and father and itself made up of impurities and flesh as you would an

outcaste from a good distance, become Godlike and achieve the goal of

life. 287

 

Restoring the self in you to the supreme Self like the space in a jar

back to Space itself by meditation on their indivisibility, always

remain silent, wise one. 288

 

Taking up through your true self the condition of your real glory,

reject thoughts of a divine universe as much as of yourself as a

reality, as you would a dish of filth. 289

 

Transferring your present self-identification with the body to

yourself as consciousness, being and bliss, abandon the body and be

complete forever. 290

 

When you know "I am that very God" in which the reflection of the

world appears, like a city in a mirror, then you will be one who has

achieved the goal of life. 291

 

Attaining that Reality which is self-existent and primal, non-dual

consciousness, and bliss, formless and actionless, one should abandon

the unreal body taken on by oneself, like an actor doffing his

costume. 292

 

All this experienced by oneself is false, and so is the sense of I-

hood in view of its ephemeral nature. How can "I know everything" be

true of something which is itself ephemeral. 293

 

That which warrants the term "I" on the other hand is that which is

the observer of the thought "I" etc. in view of its permanent

existence even in the state of deep sleep. Scripture itself declares

that it is "unborn and eternal" (Katha Upanishad 1.2.18). That true

inner self is distinct from both being and not-being. 294

 

The knower of all the changes in changing things must itself be

permanent and unchanging. The unreality in the extremes of being and

not-being is repeatedly seen in the experience of thought, dreaming

and deep sleep. 295

 

So give up identification with this mass of flesh as well as with

what thinks it a mass. Both are intellectual imaginations. Recognise

your true self as undifferentiated awareness, unaffected by time,

past, present or future, and enter Peace. 296

 

Give up identification with family, tribe, name, shape and status

which depend on the putrid body. Give up physical properties too such

as the sense of being the doer and be the very nature of

undifferentiated joy. 297

 

There are other obstacles seen to be the cause of samsara for men. Of

these the root and first manifestation is the sense of doership. 298

 

So long as one has any association with this awful sense of being the

doer there cannot be the least achievement of liberation which is

something very different. 299

 

Free from the grasp of feeling oneself the doer, one achieves ones

true nature which is, like the moon, pure, consummate, self-

illuminating being and bliss. 300

 

Even he who, with a mind under the influence of strong dullness, has

thought of himself as the body, will attain to full identification

with God when that delusion is completely removed. 301

 

The treasure of the bliss of God is coiled round by the very

powerful, terrible snake of doership which guards it with its three

fierce heads consisting of the three qualities (dullness, passion and

purity) but the wise man can enjoy this bliss-imparting treasure by

cutting off the snake's three heads with the great sword of

understanding of the scriptures. 302

 

How can one be free from pain so long as there is there is any trace

of poison in the body? The same applies to the pain of self-

consciousness in an aspirant's liberation. 303

 

In the total cessation of self-identification and the ending of the

multifarious mental misrepresentations it causes, the truth of "This

is what I am" is achieved through inner discernment. 304

 

Get rid forthwith of doership, your self-identification, that is,

with the agent, a distorted vision of yourself which stops you from

resting in your true nature, and by identification with which you,

who are really pure consciousness and a manifestation of joy itself,

experience samsara with all its birth, decay, death and suffering. 305

 

You are really unchanging, the eternally unvarying Lord,

consciousness, bliss and indestructible glory. If it were not for the

wrong identification with a false self you would not be subject to

samsara. 306

 

So cut down your enemy, this sense of being the doer, with the great

sword of knowledge, caught like a splinter in the throat of some-one

having a meal, and enjoy to your heart's content the joy of the

possession of your true nature. 307

 

Stop the activity of the false self-identification and so on, get rid

of desire by the attainment of the supreme Reality, and practice

silence in the experience of the joy of your true self, free from

fantasies, with your true nature fulfilled in God. 308

 

Even when thoroughly eradicated, a great sense of doership can revive

again and create a hundred different distractions, if it is once

dwelt on again for a moment in the mind, like monsoon rain-clouds

driven on by the wind. 309

 

Overcoming the enemy of the false self, one should give it no

opportunity by dwelling on the senses again, because that is the way

it comes back to life, like water for a withered citrous tree. 310

 

He who is attached to the idea of himself as the body is desirous of

physical pleasure, but how could some-one devoid of such an idea seek

physical pleasure? Hence separation from one's true good is the cause

of bondage to samsara since one is stuck in seeing things as separate

from oneself. 311

 

A seed is seen to grow with the development of the necessary

conditions, while the failure of the conditions leads to the failure

of the seed. So one must remove these conditions. 312

 

The increase of desires leads to activity, and from the increase of

activity there is more desire. Thus a man prospers in every way, and

samsara never comes to an end. 313

 

To break the bonds of samsara, the ascetic should burn away both of

these (desire and activity), since thinking about these and external

activity lead to the increase of desires. 314

 

The increase of these two is the cause of one's samsara, and the

means to the destruction of these three is to see everything as

simply God everywhere, always and in all circumstances. By the

increase of desire for becoming the Truth, these three come to an

end. 315, 316

 

Through the stopping of activity there comes the stopping of

thinking, and then the cessation of desires. The cessation of desires

is liberation, and is what is known as here-and-now liberation. 317

 

When the force of the desire for the Truth blossoms, selfish desires

wither away, just like darkness vanishes before the radiance of the

light of dawn. 318

 

Darkness and the mass of evils produced by darkness no longer exist

when the sun has risen. Similarly, when one has tasted

undifferentiated bliss, no bondage or trace of suffering remains. 319

 

Transcending everything to do with the senses, cultivating the

blissful and only Truth, and at peace within and without - this is

how one should pass one's time so long as any bonds of karma remain.

320

 

One should never permit carelessness in one's adherence to

God. "Carelessness is death" (Mahabharata 5.42.43) says the Master

(Sanatkumara) who was of Brahma's son. 321

 

There is no greater evil than carelessness about his own true nature

for a wise man. From this comes delusion, from this comes

misconceptions about oneself, from this comes bondage, from this

comes suffering. 322

 

Forgetfulness afflicts even a wise man with harmful mental states

when it finds him well-disposed to the senses, like a woman does her

infatuated lover. 323

 

Just as the algae cleared off water does not stay off even for a

moment, so illusion obscures the sight of even a wise man whose mind

is outward-directed. 324

 

When the mind loses its direction towards its goal and becomes

outward-turned it runs from one thing to another, like a play-ball

carelessly dropped on the steps of some stairs. 325

 

A mind directed towards the senses dwells with imagination on their

qualities. From imagining finally comes desire, and from desire comes

the way a man directs his activity. 326

 

As a result, there is no death like carelessness in meditation to the

wise knower of God. The meditator achieves perfect fulfilment, so

carefully practice peace of mind. 327

>From carelessness one turns aside from one's true nature, and he who

turns aside from it slips downwards. He who has thus fallen

invariably comes to disaster, but is not seen to rise again. 328

 

So one should abandon the imagination which is the cause of all ills.

He has reached fulfilment who is completely dead while still alive.

The Yajur Veda (Taittiriya Upanishad 2.7) declares there is still

something to fear for anyone who still sees distinctions in things.

329

 

Whenever a wise man sees the least distinction in the infinite God,

whatever he has carelessly perceived as a distinction then becomes a

source of fear for him. 330

 

When, in spite of hundreds of testimonies to the contrary in the

Vedas and other scriptures, one identifies oneself with anything to

do with the senses, one experiences countless sorrows, doing

something prohibited like a thief. 331

 

He who is devoted to meditating on the Truth attains the eternal

glory of his true nature, while he who delights in dwelling on the

unreal perishes. This can be seen even in the case of whether someone

is a thief or not. 332

 

An ascetic should abandon dwelling on the unreal which is the cause

of bondage, and should fix his attention on himself in his knowledge

that "This is what I am". Establishment in God through self-awareness

leads to joy and finally removes the suffering caused by ignorance.

333

 

Dwelling on externals increases the fruit of superfluous evil desires

for all sorts of things, so wisely recognising this fact, one should

abandon externals and cultivate attention to one's true nature

within. 334

 

When externals are abandoned there comes peace of mind. When the mind

is at peace there comes awareness of one's supreme self. When that is

fully experienced there comes the destruction of the bonds of

samsara, so abandonment of externals is the road to liberation. 335

 

What man, being learned, and aware of the distinction between real

and unreal, relying on the scriptures and seeking the supreme goal of

life, would knowingly, like a child, hanker after resting in the

unreal, the cause of his own downfall. 336

 

There is no liberation for him who is deliberately attached to the

body and such things, while there is no self-identification with such

things as the body for a liberated man. There is no being awake for

some-one asleep, nor sleep for some-one awake, for these two states

are by their very nature distinct. 337

 

He who knows himself within and without, and recognises himself as

the underlying support in all things moving and unmoving, remaining

indivisible, fulfilled in himself by abandoning all that is not

himself - he is liberated. 338

 

The means of liberation from bondage is through the one self in

everything, and there is nothing higher than this one self in

everything. When one does not cling to anything to do with the

senses, one achieves these things, and being the one self in

everything depends on resting in one's true self. 339

 

How is not clinging to the senses possible when one's basis is self-

identification with the body, and one's mind is attached to enjoying

external pleasures, and on doing whatever is necessary to do so? But

it can be achieved within themselves by those who have abandoned all

objects of rules and observances, who are always resting in self-

awareness, who know the Truth and energetically seek the bliss of

Reality. 340

 

Scripture prescribes meditation for realisation of the self in

everything to the ascetic who has fulfilled the requirement of

listening to scripture, saying "At peace and self-controlled" and so

on (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.4.23). 341

 

Even wise men cannot get rid of the sense of doership all of a sudden

when it has grown strong, but those who are unwavering in so-called

imageless samadhi can, whose desire for this has been developed over

countless lives. 342

 

The outward-turning power of the mind binds a man to the sense of

doership by its veiling effect, and confuses him by the attributes of

that power. 343

 

To overcome the outward-turning power of the mind is hard to

accomplish without completely eliminating the veiling effect, but the

covering over one's inner self can be removed by discriminating

between seer and objects, like between milk and water. Absence of an

barrier is finally unquestionable when there is no longer any

distraction caused by illusory objects. 344

 

Perfect discrimination, born of direct experience establishing the

truth of the distinction between seer and objects, severs the bonds

of delusion produced by Maya (the creative power, which makes things

appear to exist), and as a result the liberated person is no longer

subject to samsara. 345

 

The fire of the knowledge of the oneness of above and below burns up

completely the tangled forest of ignorance. What seed of samsara

could there still be for such a person who has achieved non-duality?

346

 

The veiling effect only disappears with full experience of Reality,

and the elimination of false knowledge leads to the end of the

suffering caused by that distraction. 347

 

These three (the removal of veiling effect, false knowlege and

suffering) are clearly apparent in the case of recognising the true

nature of the rope, so a wise man should get to know the truth about

the underlying reality if he wants to be liberated from his bonds. 348

 

Like fire in conjunction with iron, the mind manifests itself as

knower and objects by dependence on something real, but as the

duality that causes is seen to be unreal in the case of delusions,

dreams and fantasies, so the products of natural causation, from the

idea of doership down to the body itself and all its senses, are also

unreal in view of the way they are changing every moment, while one's

true nature itself never changes. 349, 350

 

The supreme self is the internal reality of Truth and Bliss,

eternally indivisible and pure consciousness, the witness of the

intellect and the other faculties, distinct from being or not-being,

the reality implied by the word "I". 351

 

Distinguishing the real from the unreal in this way by means of his

inborn capacity of understanding, and liberated from these bonds, a

wise man attains peace by recognising his own true nature as

undifferentiated awareness. 352

 

The knot of ignorance in the heart is finally removed when one comes

to see one's own true non-dual nature by means of imageless samadhi.

353

 

Assumptions of "you", "me", "it" occur in the non-dual,

undifferentiated supreme self because of a failure in the

understanding, but all a man's false assumptions disappear in samadhi

and are completely destroyed by the realisation of the truth of the

underlying reality. 354

 

An ascetic who is peaceful, disciplined, fully withdrawn, long-

suffering and meditative always cultivates the presence of the self

of everything in himself. Eradicating in this way the false

assumptions created by the distorting vision of ignorance, he lives

happily in God free from action and free from imaginations. 355

 

Only those who have achieved samadhi and who have withdrawn the

external senses, the mind and their sense of doership into their true

nature as consciousness are free from being trapped in the snare of

samsara, not those who just repeat the statements of others. 356

 

Because of the diversity of the things he identifies himself with, a

man tends to see himself as complex, but with the removal of the

identification, he is himself again and perfect as he is. For this

reason a wise man should get rid of self-identifications and always

cultivate imageless samadhi. 357

 

Adhering to the Real a man comes to share in the nature of that

Reality by his one-pointed concentration on it, in the same way that

a grub is able to become a wasp by concentration on a wasp. 358

 

A grub achieves wasphood by abandoning attachment to other activities

and concentrating on the nature of being a wasp. In the same way an

ascetic meditates on the reality of the supreme self and achieves it

through his one-pointed concentration on it. 359

 

The reality of the supreme self is extremely subtle and is not

capable of being experienced by those of coarse vision, but it can be

known by those worthy of it by reason of their very pure

understanding by means of a mind made extremely subtle by meditation.

360

 

As gold purified in a furnace loses its impurities and achieves its

own true nature, the mind gets rid of the impurities of the

attributes of delusion, passion and purity through meditation and

attains Reality. 361

 

When by the effect of constant meditation the purified mind becomes

one with God, then samadhi, now freed from images, experiences in

itself the state of non-dual bliss. 362

 

The destruction of the bonds of all desires through this samadhi is

the destruction of all karma, and there follows the manifestation of

one's true nature without effort, inside, outside, everywhere and

always. 363

 

Thought should be considered a hundred times better than hearing, and

meditation is thousands of times better than thought, while imageless

samadhi is infinite in its effect. 364

 

The experience of the reality of God becomes permanent though

imageless samadhi, but not otherwise as it is mixed with other things

by the restlessness of the mind. 365

 

So, established in meditation, with the senses controlled, the mind

calmed and continually turned inwards, destroy the darkness of

beginningless ignorance by recognising the oneness of Reality. 366

 

The primary door to union with God is cutting off talking, not

accepting possessions, freedom from expectation, dispassion and a

secluded manner of life. 367

 

Living in seclusion is the cause of control of the senses, restraint

of the mind leads to inner stillness and tranquillity leads to

mastery of self-centred desire. From that comes the ascetic's

continual experience of the unbroken bliss of God. So the wise man

should always strive for the cessation of thought. 368

 

Restrain speech within. Restrain the mind in the understanding and

restrain the understanding in the consciousness that observes the

understanding. Restrain that in the perfect and imageless self, and

enjoy supreme peace. 369

 

Body, functions, senses, mind, understanding and so on - whichever of

these adjuncts the mind's activity is connected with, that becomes

the ascetic's identity for the time. 370

 

When this process is stopped, the wise man knows the perfect joy of

the letting go of everything, and experiences the attainment of the

overwhelming bliss of Reality. 371

 

Internal renunciation and external renunciation - it is the

dispassionate man who is capable of these. The dispassionate man

abandons fetters internal and external because of his yearning for

liberation. 372

 

The dispassionate man, established in God, is indeed capable of

abandoning the external bond of the senses and the internal one of

selfishness and so on. 373

 

As a discriminating person realise that dispassion and understanding

are like a bird's wings for a man. Without them both he cannot reach

the nectar of liberation growing on top of a creeper. 374

 

The extremely dispassionate man achieves samadhi. A person in samadhi

experiences steady enlightenment. He who is enlightened to the Truth

achieves liberation from bondage, and he who is truly liberated

experiences eternal joy. 375

 

I know of no higher source of happiness for a self-controlled man

than dispassion, and when allied to thoroughly pure self-knowledge it

leads to the sovereign state of self-mastery. Since this is the gate

to the unfading maiden of liberation, always and with all eagerness

develop this supreme wisdom within yourself in happiness. 376

 

Cut off desire for the poison-like senses, for these are death-

dealing. Get rid of pride in birth, family and state of life, and

throw achievements far away. Drop such unreal things as the body into

the sacrificial bowl of your true self, and develop wisdom within.

You are the Witness. You are beyond the thinking mind. You are truly

God, non-dual and supreme. 377

 

Direct the mind resolutely towards God, restraining the senses in

their various seats, and looking on the state of the body as a matter

of indifference. Realise your oneness with God, remaining continually

intent on identifying with its nature, and joyfully drink the bliss

of God within, for what use is there in other, empty things? 378

 

Stop thinking about anything which is not your true self, for that is

degrading and productive of pain, and instead think about your true

nature, which is bliss itself and productive of liberation. 379

 

This treasure of consciousness shines unfading with its own light as

the witness of everything. Meditate continually on it, making this

your aim, distinct as it is from the unreal. 380