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Further Teachings on the Sage
520. Seeing his noble disciple, who had achieved
the joy of his true nature in samadhi, who had awaken to the Truth, and
experienced deep inner contentment, kneeling thus before him, the best
of teachers and supreme great soul spoke again and said these words.
521. The world is a sequence of experiences of God, so it is God that
is everything, and one should see this in all circumstances with inner
insight and a peaceful mind. What has ever been seen by sighted people
but forms, and in the same way what other resort is there for a man of
understanding but to know God?
522. What man of wisdom would abandon the experience of supreme bliss
to take pleasure in things with no substance? When the beautiful moon
iself is shining, who would want to look at just a painted moon?
523. There is no satisfaction or elimination of suffering through the
experience of unreal things, so experience that non-dual bliss and
remain happily content established in to your own true nature.
524. Pass your time, noble one, in being aware of your true nature
everywhere, thinking of yourself as non-dual, and enjoying the bliss
inherent in yourself.
525. Imagining things about the unimaginable and indivisible nature
of awareness is building castles in the sky, so transcending this,
experience the surpreme peace of silence through your true nature
composed of that non-dual bliss.
526. The ultimate tranquillity is the return to silence of the
intellect, since the intellect is the cause of false assumptions, and in
this peace the great souled man who knows God and who has become God
experiences the infinite joy of non-dual bliss.
527. For the man who has recognised his own nature and who is
enjoying the experience of inner bliss, there is nothing that gives him
greater satisfaction than the peace that comes from having no desires.
528. A wise and silent ascetic lives as he pleases finding his joy in
himself at all times whether walking, standing, sitting, lying down or
whatever.
529. The great soul who has come to know the Truth and whose mental
functions are not constrained has no concerns about such things as his
aims in matters of locality, time, posture, direction and discipline
etc. There can be no dependence on things like discipline when one knows
oneself.
530. What discipline is required to recognise that "This is a jar"?
All that is necessary is for the means of perception to be in good
condition, and if they are, one recognises the object.
531. In the same way this true nature of ours is obvious if the means
of perception are present. It does not require a special place or time
or purification.
532. There are no qualifications necessary to know one's own name,
and the same is true for the knower of God's knowledge that "I am God.
533. How can something else, without substance, unreal and trivial,
illuminate that by whose great radiance the whole world is illuminated?
534. What can illuminate that Knower by whom the Vedas, and other
scriptures as well as all creatures themselves are given meaning?
535. This light is within us, infinite in power, our true nature,
immeasurable and the common experience of all. When a man free from
bonds comes to know it, this knower of God stands out supreme among the
supreme.
536. He is neither upset nor pleased by the senses, nor is he
attached to or averse to them, but his sport is always within and his
enjoyment is in himself, satisfied with the enjoyment of infinite bliss.
537. A child plays with a toy ignoring hunger and physical
discomfort, and in the same way a man of realisation is happy and
contented free from "me" and "mine".
538. Men of realisation live free from preoccupation, eating food
begged without humiliation, drinking the water of streams, living freely
and without constraint, sleeping in cemetery or forest, their clothing
space itself, which needs no care such as washing and drying, the earth
as their bed, following the paths of the scriptures, and their sport in
the supreme nature of God.
539. He who knows himself, wears no distinguishing mark and is
unattached to the senses, and treats his body as a vehicle, experiencing
the various objects as they present themselves like a child dependent on
the wishes of others.
540. He who is clothed in knowledge roams the earth freely, whether
dressed in space itself, properly dressed, or perhaps dressed in skins,
and whether in appearance a madman, a child or a ghost.
541. The wise man lives as the embodiment of dispassion even amid
passions, he travels alone even in company, he is always satisfied with
his own true nature and established in himself as the self of all.
542. The wise man who is always enjoying supreme bliss lives like
this - sometimes appearing a fool, sometimes a clever man, sometimes
regal, sometimes mad, sometimes gentle, sometimes venomous, sometimes
respected, sometimes despised, and sometimes simply unnoticed.
543. Even when poor always contented, even without assistance always
strong, always satisfied even without eating, without equal, but looking
on everything with an equal eye.
544. This man is not acting even when acting, experiences the fruits
of past actions but is not the reaper of the consequences, with a body
and yet without a body, prescribed and yet present everywhere.
545. Thoughts of pleasant and unpleasant as well as thoughts of good
and bad do not touch this knower of God who has no body and who is
always at peace.
546. Pleasure and pain and good and bad exist for him who identifies
himself with ideas of a physical body and so on. How can there be good
or bad consequences for the wise man who has brokened his bonds and is
one with Reality?
547. The sun appears to be swallowed up by the darkness in an eclipse
and is mistakenly called swallowed up by people through misunderstanding
of the nature of things.
548. In the same way the ignorant, see even the greatest knower of
God, though free from the bonds of the body and so on, as having a body
since they can see what is obviously still a body.
549. Such a man remains free of the body, and moves here and there as
impelled by the winds of energy, like a snake that has cast its skin.
550. Just as a piece of wood is carried high and low by a stream, so
the body is carried along by causality as the appropriate fruits of past
actions present themselves.
551. The man free from identification with the body lives
experiencing the causal effects of previously entertained desires, just
like the man subject to samsara, but, being realised, he remains
silently within himself as the witness there, empty of further mental
imaginations - like the axle of a wheel.
552. He whose mind is intoxicated with the drink of the pure bliss of
self-knowledge does not turn the senses towards their objects, nor does
he turn them away from them, but remains as a simple spectator, and
regards the results of actions without the least concern.
553. He who has given up choosing one goal from another, and who
remains perfect in himself as the spectator of his own good fortune - he
is the supreme knower of God.
554. Liberated forever here and now, having achieved his purpose, the
perfect knower of God, being God himself by the destruction of all false
indentifications, goes to the non-dual God.
555. Just as an actor, whatever his costume may or may not be, is
still a man, so the best of men, the knower of God, is always God and
nothing else.
556. Wherever the body may wither and fall like a tree leaf, that of
the ascetic who has become God has already been cremated by the fire of
the knowledge of Reality.
557. There are no considerations of place and time laid down with
regard to relinquishing this mass of skin, flesh and filth for the wise
man who is already forever established in God within himself as the
perfect non-dual bliss of his own nature.
558. Liberation is not just getting rid of the body, nor of one's
staff or bowl. Liberation is getting rid of all the knots of ignorance
in the heart.
559. Whether a leaf falls into a gutter or a river, into a shrine or
onto a crossroad, in what way is that good or bad for the tree?
560. The destruction of body, organs, vitality and intellect is like
the destruction of a leaf, a flower or a fruit. It is not the
destruction of oneself, but of something which is not the cause of
happiness for one's true self. That remains like the tree.
561. The scriptures that teach the truth declare that the property of
one's true nature is "a mass of intelligence" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
4.5.13), and they talk of the destruction of secondary additional
attributes only.
562. The scripture declares of the true self that "This Self is truly
imperishable" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.5.14), the indestructible
reality in the midst of changing things subject to destruction.
563. In the same way that burnt stones, trees, grass, rice, straw,
cloth and so on turn to earth, so what we see here in the form of body,
organs, vitality, mind and so on when burned by the fire of knowledge
take on the nature of God.
564. Just as darkness, though distinct from it, disappears in the
light of the sun, so all that we can see disappears in God.
565. Just as when a jar is broken the space in it becomes manifest as
space again, so the knower of God becomes the God in himself with the
elimination of false identifications.
566. Like milk poured into milk, oil into oil and water into water,
so the ascetic who knows himself becomes united with the One in himself.
567. The ascetic who has thus achieved the nature of God, perfectly
free of the body and with the indivisible nature of Reality, does not
come back again.
568. How could the brahmin come back again after becoming God when
his external features of ignorance and so on have been burned by the
recognition of his oneness with the Truth?
569. The Maya-produced alternatives of bondage and liberation do not
really exist in one's true nature, just as the alternatives of there
being a snake or not do not exist in the rope which is not affected by
them.
570. Bondage and liberation can be referred to only in connection
with the existence or absence of something covering what is really
there, but there can be no covering of God as there is nothing else and
no covering, since this would destroy the non-duality of God, and the
scriptures do not admit duality.
571. Bondage and liberation are unreal. They are an effect of the
intellect which the stupid identify with reality just like the covering
of the sight caused by a cloud is applied to the sun. For this
imperishable Reality is non-dual, unattached and consciousness.
572. The opinion that this covering exists or does not exist in the
underlying reality is an attribute of the intellect and not of the
eternal reality underneath.
573. So these alternatives of bondage and liberation are produced by
Maya and not in one's true nature. How can there be the idea of them in
the non-dual supreme Truth which is without parts, actionless, peaceful,
indestructible, and without blemish, like space?
574. There is neither end nor beginning, no one in bondage and no
aspirant, no one seeking liberation and no one free. (Amritabindu
Upanishad 10). This is the supreme truth.
575. I have shown you today repeatedly, as my own son, this ultimate
secret, the supreme crest of the scriptures and of the complete Vedanta,
considering you one seeking liberation, free from the stains of this
dark time, and with a mind free from sensuality.
576. On hearing these words of his guru the disciple prostrated
himself before him and with his permission went away free from bondage.
577. The guru too with his mind immersed in the ocean of Truth and
Bliss, and with his mind free of discriminations went on his way
purifying the whole world.
578. In this way, in the form of a dialogue between teacher and
pupil, the nature of one's true self has been taught for easy attainment
of the joy of Realisation by those seeking liberation.
579. May those ascetics who have removed all defilements of mind by
the designated methods, whose minds are at peace and free from the
pleasures of the world, and who delight in the scriptures, reverence
this teaching.
580. For those who are suffering in samsara from the heat of the
threefold forms of pain, and wandering in delusion in a desert thirsting
for water, may these words of Shankara which secure nirvana and excel
all others, procure for them the ocean of nectar close by in the form of
the non-dual God.
Vivek Chudamani
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