THOU ART THE WITNESS, BRAHMAN, THE ONE WITHOUT A SECOND

[Guest guest]

VIVEKACADAMUNI of Sri Sankaracharya

 

Om.

 

168. The mental sheath is the sacrificial fire which, fed with the fuel of

 

numerous desires by the five sense-organs which serve as priests, and

 

set ablaze by the sense-objects which act as the stream of oblation,

 

brings about this phenomenal universe.

 

 

 

169. There is no ignorance (Avidya) outside the mind.

 

The mind alone is advidya, the cause of the bondage of transmigration.

 

When that is destroyed, all else is destroyed, and when it is manifested,

 

everything is manifested.

 

 

 

171. In dreamless sleep, when the mind is reduced to its causal state,

 

there exists nothing as is evident from universal experience.

 

Hence man's relative existence is simply the creation of His mind,

 

and has no objective reality.

 

 

 

172. Clouds are brought in by the wind and again driven away by the

 

same agency. Similarly, man's bondage is caused by the mind, and

 

liberation too is caused by that alone.

 

 

 

17. The man who discriminates between the Real and the unreal, whose

 

mind is turned away from the unreal, who possesses calmness and the

 

allied virtues, and who is longing for liberation, is alone considered

 

qualified to inquire after Brahman.

 

 

 

Satchitananda

 

Kathy

 

 

 

377. Sever thy craving for sense-objects, which are like poison,

 

for it is the very image of death. And giving up thy pride of caste, family,

 

and order of life, fling actions to a distance.

 

Give up thy identification with such unreal things as the body, and fix thy

 

mind on the Atman.

 

For thou art really the Witness, Brahman, unshackled by the mind,

 

the One without a second, and Supreme. OM.