Practice of Knowledge – disciple (verses 480-520):

480. Through the words of the teachers, the pronouncements of the scriptures and by one‘s own reasoning with senses controlled and mind fixed, at an auspicious moment realising the supreme Truth, such a person becomes motionless in form and perfectly established in the Self.


481. After concentrating his mind on the supreme Brahman for some time, he rose, and out of supreme Bliss, he spoke as follows.


482. My intellect is completely vanished and all activities have dropped off by realizsing the oneness of the Self and the Brahman; I understand neither 'this' nor 'not-this', nor do I know what or of what measure is this endless Bliss.


483. Impossible for speech to express, impossible for the mind to conceive is the splendour of the ocean of the supreme Brahman, replete with the swell of the nectarine Bliss of the Self. In an infinitesimal part of It my mind has merged like a hailstone in the ocean, is now content with the essence of that Bliss.


484. Where has it gone, who has removed it, where has the universe merged? Just now it was seen by me; has it now ceased to be? Wonder of wonders!


485. In the great ocean of Brahman filled with the nectar of absolute Bliss, what is then to be rejected or accepted? What else exists and what is there that is different in any way?


486. In this, I see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing. I abide as the Self, Bliss Eternal, completely different from everything else.


487. Salutations to thee, O noble Guru, who art free from attachments, best of the best among the noble ones, the embodiment of the essence Eternal, Non-dual Bliss, who art endless, ever the shoreless ocean of compassion.


488. Whose gracious glance, like a cascade of moon-beams, has removed the weariness caused by the afflictions of the world, and has taken me to the state of indestructible Bliss of infinite splendour, the Self, in but a moment.


489. Blessed am I, have reached the fulfillment of my life and am free from thejaws of transmigration. I am the embodiment of eternal Bliss, I am the Infinite, all by your Grace.


490. Unattached am I, disembodied am I, free from the subtle body am I and undecaying; serene am I, Infinite am I, unsullied am I, and endless too.


491. I am not the doer, I am not the enjoyer, I am without modification and without activity; I am the embodiment of pure Consciousness, I am Absolute, and ever-auspicious.


492. Indeed, I am other than the seer, the hearer, the speaker, the doer and the enjoyer of individual experience . I am eternal, unbroken, beyond activity, boundless, unattached and Infinite, the essence of all-pervading Knowledge.


493. I am neither this nor that but the supreme Illuminator of both, pure, devoid of anything inner or outer.I am infinite; verily, I am the non-dual Brahman.


494. I am unparalled, the beginningless Reality, beyond all imagined disctintions such as ‗you‘ and ‗I‘, ‗this‘ and ‗that.‘ The essence of Bliss eternal, the Truth, non-dual Brahman am I.


495. There is neither 'engaging-in-work' nor 'abstaining-from-it' for me who am always the same and without parts. How can that which is One, complete, and infinite like the sky, ever strive?I am Narayana, I am the slayer of Naraka, I am the destroyer of Tripurasura; I am the supreme Being, the Lord, I am the undifferentiated consciousness, I am the Witness of everything; I have no other Lord and I am devoid of sense of "I" and "mine".


496. I am the sole reality residing in all beings in the form of Knowledge. Being their external and internal support, I myself am the experiencer and the experienced; I am all that was previously experienced by me distinctly as 'this' and 'not-this.'


497. In me, the ocean of unbroken Bliss, endless waves of the universe arise and subside by the play of the storm of Maya.


498. Concepts of gross etc., are wrongly imagined in me by people due to the continuous manifestation of superimpositions---just as in time, which is the indivisible and absolute, cycles, years, half-years, seasons etc. are imagined.


499. That which is superimposed by people deluded by the defects in their minds can never sully the substratum, even as the great onrush of waters perceived in a mirage can never wet the desert tract.


500. Like space, I am beyond all contamination, like the sun I am distinct from things illumined, like the mountain I am always motionless, like the ocean I am limitless.


501. I am not connected with the body just as the clouds (have no connection) with the sky; so how can I be subject to the states of waking, dreaming and deep-sleep (that are attributes of the body).


502. It is only the conditioning adjunct which comes and goes; it performs actions and experiences (their results); it alone grows old and dies---I remain immovable like the Kula mountain.


503. There is neither 'engaging-in-work' nor 'abstaining-from-it' for me who am always the same and without parts. How can that which is One, complete, and infinite like the sky, ever strive?


504. How can there be merits and demerits for me who have no sense-organs, no mind, who am without modification and form---who am the realization of Absolute Bliss? In the passage, 'not touched' etc., Sruti also mentions this.


505. If the shadow of a person is touched by heat or cold, good or evil, it does not in the least affect the person who is other than the shadow.


506. In the same way, the witness is not affected by the properties of things observed, for it is distinct from them; it is without modification and indifferent just as the properties of a room (do not affect) the lamp (that illumines it).


507. Just as the sun is the witness of all actions, just as the fire burns everything without distinction, just as the rope is connected with a superimposition, so too am I, the immutable Self, the pure consciousness.


508. am neither the doer nor do I make others do anything, I am neither the experiencer nor do I make other experience, I am neither the seer nor do I make others see. That Self am I, self-luminous and transcendent.


509. When the conditioning adjunct moves, the confused attribute the resulting movement of the reflection to the object reflected, like the sun which is devoid of any activity; and they cry out, "I am the doer, I am the enjoyer. I am being killed, Alas!"


510. Let his inert body move on water or on land ; I am untouched by its properties like the space (is untouched) by the properties of the jar.


511. Doership, enjoyership, cunning, drunkenness, dullness, bondage and freedom---these passing states of the intellect are, in reality, never in the Self, which is the supreme Brahman, Absolute and Non-dual.

512. Let there be modifications in Prakriti* ten, hundred or thousand ways. What have I, unattached, Knowledge Absolute, got to do with them? The clouds can never touch the sky!

*Material Nature characterized by three qualities of sattva, rajas, and tamas.


513. That in which the entire universe from the unmanifest, down to the grossest thing, appears as but a shadow, which is like the sky, subtle and without beginning and end, indeed, that non-dual Brahman am I.


514. That which is the support of all, which is the illuminator of all things, which is of all forms, which is omnipresent, devoid of multiplicity, eternal, pure, motionless and Absolute, indeed, that non-dual Brahman am I.


515. That which transcends the endless differentiations of Maya, which is the inmost essence in all, which is beyond the range of Consciousness, which is of the nature of Truth, Knowledge and endless Bliss, indeed, that non-dual Brahman am I.


516. I am devoid of activity, modifications, parts and forms. I am absolute and eternal, not depending on any other support, and non-dual am I.


517. I am the Universal, I am all in all, I am transcendent and non-dual, I am absolute, indivisible knowledge, I am Bliss and eternal am I.


518. By the supreme majesty of your Grace, I have gained the grandeur of the soverignity of Self-effulgence. O noble Teacher, salutations to thee, again and again.


519. By your sheer Grace, O Teacher, you have awakened me from 'sleep' and saved me, who was roaming in a never-ending 'dream', in the forest of birth, decay and death created by illusion, and was tormented day after day by innumerable illusory afflictions and greatly tormented by the tiger of the ego.


520. Salutations to you O king among Teachers, and to that great unfathomable glory of yours, which manifests as the splendor this entire universe. To you my salutations.