From the CREST JEWEL OF DISCRIMINATION

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Shankara’s Vivekachudamani (Crest Jewel of Discrimination)

Most significant verses selected by Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi (translator unknown)

 

Of all the means to liberation, the greatest is devotion (bhakti). Devotion is defined as the investigation of one’s true nature, or the investigation of the true nature of the Self.

The supreme Self, indicated directly (but not correctly represented) by the notion promoted by the word ‘I’, is the one Consciousness, eternal, indivisible and non-dual. It is the witness of the mind and other factors in the human personality. Neither being nor non-being in the empirical sense, it is a homogenous mass of bliss, the inmost reality.

Of the nature of pure Consciousness, different from nature and its modifications, illumining all this world and showing what does and what does not exist, itself without particular characteristics, the supreme Self shines throughout waking, dream and dreamless sleep, immediately evident as ‘I’, the witness of the mind.

Become aware of that which is present in your own heart as the Self. It manifests clearly within as the inmost Self throughout waking, dream and dreamless sleep. It always asserts itself as ‘I’-‘I’ in various forms. It assumes the ego-sense and so on, and assumes their various modifications. It manifests with the nature of eternal bliss and Consciousness.

Control your mind and obtain, through the radiance of your higher mind, immediate knowledge of your own true Self in yourself in the form “This I amâ€. Cross over the shoreless ocean of worldly life with its waves of birth and death. Establish yourself in the Absolute and gain your highest end.

The Self is self-luminous. It is the Witness, ever shining within the sheath of the higher mind. Make this your goal, different in nature from the unreal. Identify yourself with it through inhibiting all differentiation in the mind.

 

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One cannot apprehend the extremely subtle reality as the supreme Self through coarse worldly vision. It can only be known by noble souls of very subtle intellect through an extremely subtle modification of the mind brought about by yogic concentration (Samadhi).

When the mind, thus matured by constant practice, dissolves in the Absolute, there ensues a natural concentration, void of all false imagination, which brings immediate experience of the savour of non-dual bliss.

Through this concentration, there ensues the destruction of the whole knot of the subtle impressions and of all merit and demerit. Reality manifests effortlessly all the time, everywhere, on all sides, within and without.

The Absolute, the supreme non-dual principle, neither being nor non-being in the empirical sense, is present in the cave of the heart. He who dwells in that cave, identifying himself with That, never again enters the hovel of the body.

 

 

 

 

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