Crest Jewel Of Wisdom
Imagined attributes added to one’s true nature come and go. They create karma and experience its effects. They grow old and die, but I always remain immovable like mount Kudrali. 501
There is no outward turning nor turning back for me, who am always the same and indivisible. How can that perform actions which is single, of one nature, without parts and complete, like space? 502
How can there be good and bad deeds for me who am organless, mindless, changeless and formless, and experience only indivisible joy? The scriptures themselves declare “he is not affected” (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.22). 503
Heat or cold, the pleasant or the unpleasant coming into contact with a man’s shadow in no way affect the man himself who is quite distinct from his shadow. 504
The qualities of things seen do not touch the seer, who is quite distinct from them, changeless and unaffected, just as household objects do not touch the lamp there. 505
Like the sun’s mere witnessing of actions, like fire’s non-involvement with the things it is burning, and like the relationship of a rope to the idea superimposed on it, so is the unchanging consciousness within me. 506
I neither do nor make things happen. I neither experience nor cause to experience. I neither see nor make others see. I am that supreme light without attributes. 507
When intervening factors (the water) move, the ignorant ascribe the movement of the reflection to the object itself, like the sun which is actually immovable. They think “I am the doer”, “I am the reaper of the consequences”, and “Alas, I am being killed.” 508
Whether my physical body falls into water or onto dry land, I am not dirtied by their qualities, just as space is not affected by the qualities of a jar it is in. 509
Such states as thinking oneself the doer or the reaper of the consequences, being wicked, drunk, stupid, bound or free are false assumptions of the understanding, and do not apply in reality to one’s true self, the supreme, perfect and non-dual God. 510
Let there be tens of changes on the natural level, hundreds of changes, thousands of changes. What is that to me, who am unattached consciousness? The clouds never touch the sky. 511
I am that non-dual God, who like space is subtle and without beginning or end, and in whom all this from the unmanifest down to the material is displayed as no more than an appearance. 512
I am that non-dual God who is eternal, pure, unmoving and imageless, the support of everything, the illuminator of all objects, manifest in all forms and all-pervading, and yet empty of everything. 513
I am that non-dual God who is infinite Truth, Knowledge and Bliss, who transcends the endless modifications of Maya, who is one’s own reality and to be experienced within. 514
I am actionless, changeless, partless, formless, imageless, endless and supportless - one without a second. 515
I am the reality in everything. I am everything and I am the non-dual beyond everything. I am perfect indivisible awareness and I am infinite bliss. 516
I have received this glory of the sovereignty over myself and over the world by the compassion of your grace, noble and great-souled guru. Salutation upon salutation to you, and again salutation. 517
You, my teacher, have my supreme saviour, waking me up from sleep through your infinite compassion, lost in a vast dream as I was and afflicted every day by countless troubles in the Maya-created forest of birth, old age and death, and tormented by the tiger of this feeling myself the doer. 518
Salutation to you, King of gurus, who remain always the same in your greatness. Salutation to you who are manifest as all this that we see. 519
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. 520
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? 521
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? 522
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. 523
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. 524
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. 525
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. 526
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. 527
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. 528
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. 529
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. 530
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. 531
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.” 532
How can something else, without substance, unreal and trivial, illuminate that by whose great radiance the whole world is illuminated? 533
What can illuminate that Knower by whom the Vedas, and other scriptures as well as all creatures themselves are given meaning? 534
This light is within us, infinite in power, our true nature, immeasurable and the comon experience of all. When a man free from bonds comes to know it, this knower of God stands out supreme among the supreme. 535
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. 536
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”. 537
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. 538
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. 539
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. 540
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. 541
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. 542
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. 543
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. 544
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. 545
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? 546
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. 547
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. 548
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. 549
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. 550
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. 551
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. 552
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. 553
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. 554
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. 555
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. 556
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. 557
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. 558
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? 559
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. 560
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. 561
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. 562
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. 563
Just as darkness, though distinct from it, disappears in the light of the sun, so all that we can see disappears in God. 564
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. 565
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. 566
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. 567
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? 568
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. 569
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. 570
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. 571
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. 572
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? 573
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. 574
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. 575
On hearing these words of his guru the disciple prostrated himself before him and with his permission went away free from bondage. 576
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. 577
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. 578
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. 579
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. 580
THE END
Appendix
The following verse is found in some editions, following verse 327, which also then omit verses 328 and 329. There are also other minor differences, above all in the division of the verses, but these make little difference in practice to the meaning.
He who has achieved perfection while still alive, is perfect when free from the body too. The Yajur Veda declares that he who sees duality experiences fear. 328
