236 - Vedanta and Sankhya

The Lord said: 

1. O Narada, I shall explain the knowledge of the soul in the proper perspective. Please listen. The Advaita (the un bifurcated) itself is called Sankhya and Yoga is the concentration in it.

2. Those who are endowed with Advaita Yoga are released from the bondage. The Karmans (results of actions) whether past or beginning to fructify or those yet to come become quelled through knowledge. 

3. He who has cut down the tree of worldly existence by the axe of right conception and has taken his plunge in the sacred river of Jnana (knowledge) and Vairágya (non attachment) attains the status of Vişhnu. 

4. Måyå is called Tripura inasmuch as the three states of waking, dreaming and slumbering are brought about by Máya. This is included in the nondual Brahman. 

5. The great status of Brahman is free from name, form and action. After creating the boundless universe, Ishvara entered it Himself. 

6. "I know this Puruşha, who is in the form of Chit (consciousness) and who is beyond darkness. I am He'. This knowledge is conducive to salvation. There is no other means to that. 

7. Shravana (listening to noble tenets) Manana (deliberation) and Dhyana (meditation) are the means of knowledge. Salvation cannot be secured through sacrifices, gifts, austerities, pilgrimages and Vedic recitation. 

8. By some, Dhyana is secured by renunciation as by means of worship and sacred rites in the case of others. Vedic injunctions are twofold: Do the rites' and 'renounce the rites in the supreme deity.' 

9. Sacrifices etc. are not for the liberation of those who cherish no desire. They are for the sake of purification of the mind of those who are not liberated. This is what some say. 

10. Those who fancy a twofold existence cannot gain salvation in the course of a single life even, due to perfect knowledge. Those who err from Yogic practices or those who do not practise Yoga properly are born again asbrahmins in the families of Yogins. 

11. Man is fettered through actions. He is saved from worldly existence through knowledge. One shall resort to the knowledge of the Soul. What is opposed to this is ignorance. 

12. When all passions stationed in the heart leave one off, one becomes liberated undoubtedly even as one lives. 

13. Since the soul is all pervasive how can he go? Who is it that goes? Where does he go? Since he is unlimited there is no place for him to go. How can there be any movement since he is disembodied? 

14. Since he is without a second there is none for him to go to. Since he is knowledge itself how can there be sluggishness? Others' going or coming or standing is with some one in view. 

15. It is like the firmament and hence its movement is like the movement of the firmament i.e. it is stationary. The three states of waking, dreaming and slumbering are fancied through ignorance. 

16. The indivisible constituents of the individual soul are the very constituents of the universal soul. That is why each and every individual is attracted to his or her own soul. 

17. O Närada that is why the mind of each and every individual is inclined towards his or her own self. 

18-19. It is the soul, not intellect that passes through the four states of consciousness. It is the soul, not intellect that being omniscient knows past, present and future. 

20. If there were no soul in the body of a person he would not feel the thrill of pleasure nor the pang of the pain in the different states of consciousness. 

21-22. It is the soul, the witness of all activities which is truth, intelligence, eternal principle, not distinct from intellect and which is bliss itself. 

23-24. By knowing Brahman one knows every thing, just as on knowing a jar of clay one knows all the jars or on knowing gold one knows all that is made of gold. 

25-26. Just as in darkness one cannot cognize the rope, similarly through ignorance we cannot perceive the soul. We super-impose a snake on what is in fact a rope, we super impose the elements, ether, etc. on what is in reality the soul. 

27-28. Even the evident reality assumes a different form. The rope becomes a snake; the mother-of-pearls becomes silver. A deer cannot quench its thirst in the inirage; similarly, a man cannot satisfy his desire by indulging in the false pleasures of the senses, 

29-30. So long a man has the sense of pleasure, he is called a possessor. But when possession is lost he remains his true self. The individual soul asscciated with Máyä identifies himself with the body but when māya withdraws he realizes his reality as Brahman. 

31. Just as a noble person is not affected by the loss of possession, similarly, the withdrawal of Máyå does not affect a person who has realized Self. 

32. Reality and illusion are both eternal. But Reality is an unassailable truth while illusion is a mirage. 

33. Though declared to be unborn he passes through a series of birth and death. Though onc, he becomes many in the form of husband, wife, pleasure, universe, etc. 

34-35. The three Guņas multiplied by twenty-eight be come eighty-four and these contribute to the formation of bodies, male and female and the universe with all its parts, names, forms, and actions from beginningless time to the endless one. 

36-37. The existence of forms, names, etc is assumed and not real just as the chariot, etc which exist in the state of dream are not real. Similarly, things or objects which exist in the state of wakefulness do not exist in reality. 

38-39. By his association with Máyå born of ignorance, Brahma appears to be dual, while by the withdrawal of Maya through knowledge he remains non-dual. 

40-41. Thus the non-dual Brahman is as the refulgent sun, Reality, Truth, Existence, Knowledge. It is eternal, complete, inward bliss. As eternal it is unborn, as non-doer it is nectar, as the light of an earthen lamp, it is an inward light. The realization that the individual soul is identical with the Supreme Soul leads one to release.