1. One should never mind whether the teacher is a boy or one
addicted to sensuous pleasure or whether he is an idiot or a menial servant or
a householder. Would one give up a diamond which is encrusted with impurities?
2. One should not mind whether the Guru is endowed with
poetic learning or not. The wise should pick up the good that is in him. Can
not a boat that has no vermillion painting on it, carry passengers across the
river?
3. The whole movable and immovable world is encompassed by
the immutable soul without any effort. That Atma is by nature tranquil,
intelligent and free as the space.
4. He moves the whole movable and immovable World without
the least effort. It is all- pervading. How can it be separate from me?
5. Subtler than Nature itself I am eternal and immutable
Bliss free from good and evil, free from motion and inertia.
6. I am bodiless and worshipped thus by the gods. 1 being
all- pervading, the gods are not different from me.
7. Do not think that it is I who propel the •deceitful
impulses of the mind. They arise and dissolve themselves just like bubbles in a
river.
8 & 9. Just as softness, hardness, sweetness and
bitterness are inseparable from soft, bug, , sweet and bitter things as
coldness and softness are inseparable from water, so the Prakriti (Nature or
matter) infilling all, from the subtlest element to the .grossest objects,
appears to be inseparable from the Purusha.
10. It is beyond all distinctions of names; it is subtler
than the subtlest; it is beyond the sweep of the intellect, the mind and the
senses. It is the stainless Lord of the Universe*
11. It being so by its nature, how can there be ‘I’ or ‘thou’
or this world in Him?
12. That which is called free and unbounded like the sky, is
truly so (for there is no other sky to whom this comparison applies). It is immaculate
and absolute. It alone is all-knowing Intelligence.
13. It (Atma) does not move on the ground, nor is it carried
about by the wind nor covered by the water. B is declared to be seated in the
midst of Light Eternal.
14. The space is all over pervaded by it. It is not pervaded
by anything. It stands encompassing all within and without and is Eternal and
impartite.
15. Being subtle, invisible and attributeless, it cannot be realized
at once. Its realisation comes in slowly as explained by the Yogis.
16. He who depends upon none and is unceasingly absorbed in
devotion and has become free fifom all internal merits or defects, merges in
the course of this discipline into the Brahm. There is. no other way to attain
to this absorption.
17. This is the only one sovereign remedy (Nector) to
destroy the bitter and illusion-creating poison-tree of the world.
18. That which has a form can be seen by the eye but that,
which is formless, can be reached only by the feeling. It is beyond existence
and non- existence alike and is therefore called Antarat, the innermost one.
19. All that appears externally is the world. Within it, is
the Prakriti. That which is within this, inner environment deserves to be
understood as you understand the existence of water in a cocoanut which appears
externally made up of a hard shell, behind which is the layer of the pulp and
then there is its water which is the innermost thing.
20. The knowledge of the external appearances is false. The
knowledge of their inner meaning is wisdom but the knowledge of that which is
still deeper within is worth attaining. -The example. of the cocoanut with its
hard shell, pulp and water holds good in this case as well.
21. Just as the Moon on the night of the Purnamasi (last day
of the Hindu month) is one and without defects, so is the Atma.
The duality is the result of only the perversion of the
vision.
22. The distinctions are in this way simply the results of
one's vision, not the characteristics of the All-pervading. The gainer of this
knowledge attains the necessary mental strength. That (Brahm).is chanted by
millions of names.
23. One whether a fool or a scholar, who is awakened to the
knowledge of the Truth by the teachings of a Guru, cares not for the ocean of
existence i.e., he is liberated from the cycles of migrations.
24. He, who is free from passions and animosity, who is
disposed to do good to all beings, who has firm convictions and is
strong-minded, attains to the supreme goal.
25, Just as the space occupied by a pot merges, on the
breaking of the pot, into the all-pervading space, so the Yogi, on the
dissolution of his body, merges into the supreme spirit.
26. It is only in the case of the Karmayogi (he who practices
the path of action) that his last desire determines his future birth. This
doctrine of the future birth following the last desire is not said to apply in
the case of the Yogis who practice the path of knowledge.
27. The goal of those who follow the path of actions can be
described by the faculty of speech, but the goal of the Yogis is altogether
indescribable.
28. This goal of the Yogis is everlasting and beyond
conception. He who inows it, success comes to him of itself.
20. The Yogi, whether he dies in a place of pilgrimage or in
the house of a chandal (a low impure person) or anywhere else, does not see
birth again. He merges into the Supreme Self.
30. He who realizes the Atma which is, by its nature, beyond
birth and conception, is not contaminated by any impurities though he acts as
he likes. Being thus undefilable by sin, this Yogi really does nothing that could
bind him.
31. He attains to that Supreme Eternal Atma which is free
from all ills, which is without form, without contour, without support, without
body, without desire, free from passion animosity and attachment and which is
an inexhaustible power.
32. He attains to that Supreme Eternal Atma, which has as
little to do with the Vedas as with die teacher and the pupil or the holy
instruction- The rite of shaving the head, the secrets of the Mantras, and the
practice of devotional postures and gestures, have no connection with it.
33. He attains to that Supreme Atma which is not characterized
by the sectarianism of the Shiva or of the Shakti, which is neither globular
nor of any other form, which has no hands or feet and in which there is no
space.
34. He attains to that Supreme Eternal Atma from which this
universe emerges, by which it is maintained and in which it is ultimately
dissolved, just as the bubbles of a river that emerge from and merge into its
waters.
35. He attains to that Supreme Eternal Atma, which cannot be
realized by fixing the gaze on the tip of the nose, in which there is neither
knowledge nor ignorance and in which there is neither muscles nor veins.
36. He attains to that Supreme Eternal Atma which is free
from all notions of relativity such as variety unity, quality, otherwiseness,
greatness, smallness, breadth, or emptiness, all notions of measurement and its
capacity or notions of equality or disparity,
37. He attains to that Supreme Eternal Atma whether he has
or he has not controlled his senses, whether he is or he is not covetous of
possessions, whether he abstains from or performs actions.
38. He attains to that Supreme eternal Atma all-pervading
like ether, which has neither mind nor intellect, nor body, nor senses, nor the
quintessence of elements, nor the elements, nor the Ahankar (egoism).
39. For the Yogi whose mind, stripped of all notions of
duality, is merged into the Supreme Spirit, there is neither duty nor
abstinance from duty, neither ordinance of purity nor its prohibition
In other words, there is nothing for him which is prescribed
or proscribed for men.
40. What mind and speech are unable to explain, how can the
teaching of guru explain it?
To the Guru who is one with that Atma and who explains this
(divine) secret, the truth appears to be the same everywhere.