English
£ The words andya and (if/niiiid are usually rendered " ignorance ;'' but it is necessary to state that in this connection the word ignorance has a meaning slightly different from the usual one. It does not mean negation of knowledge but is a positive concept as we said before. Perhaps error is a better rendering. The negative particle a in these; words docs not imply the negation of the term itfij^nlities but its antithesis. Thus akarma — evil act, i.i .• ;ii r /S?S ' <^ .• the unreal for the real and gets enveloped in objects of sense iu the same way as a cocoon maker (larva) gets enveloped in its own secretion. 140. 0 friend listen ! The notion of ego in one deluded by tamas becomes strengthened in this (asat). From such absence of discrimination springs forth the notion* of rope in the snake. From this a mass of great suffering befalls the entertainer of such notion. Therefore the acceptance of asat as the " I" in bondage.f 141. The enveloping power of tamas completely enshrouds this atma, having infinite powers (Vibkava), manifested by the indivisible, eternal, non-dual power of knowledge, as Rahu (the shadow of the moon) enshrouds the sun's orb. 142. On the disappearance of the supremely stainless vadiance of one's atma, the deluded individual imagines the body which is not self to be self. Then the great power of rajas called viltshepa (extension) gives great pain to this in dividual by the ropes of bondage [such as] lust, anger, etc. 143. This man of perverted intellect, being deprived of the real knowledge of the atna through being devoured by the shark of great delusion, is subject to conditioned existence on account of this expansive energy (viksliepd). Hence he, con temptible in conduct, rises and falls in this ocean of condition ed existence, full of poison. 144. As clouds produced (i.e., rendered visible) by the rays of the sun manifest themselves by hiding the sun, so egotism * The original word is dhishana. It signifies that sub-conscious octivit which goes 011 during the vivid cognition of any particular state of conscious ness and becomes realized in the succeeding state. Thus the dhiehana of wak ing consciousness becomes real and objective in dream-life. See Sankara's Commentary on the opening Stanza of G attrapada's karika 011 the Mandukya Upanishad. t In other words bondage is the condition in which the notion of I has any content which is objective, in the largest sense of the word. But as there are grades of liberation this definition of bondage is to ^i^kfl as the absolute limit. p ( 122 ) arising through connection with the atma (or ego) manifests itself by hiding the real character of the atma (or ego). 145. As on the unpropitious day when thick clouds devour the sun, sharp cold blasts torment the clouds, so when the ego is without intermission enveloped by tamas the man with de luded buddhi is, by the intense expansive power [vikshepa,] goaded on with many sufferings. 146. By these two powers is produced the bondage of the individual ; deluded by these two he thinks the body to be the atma. 147. Of the tree of conditioned life truly the seed is tamax, the sprout is the conviction that the body is the ego, attach ment is the leaf, karma truly is the sap, the body is the trunk, the vital airs are the branches of which the tops are the organs, the flowers the objects [of the organs], the fruit the variety of sufferings from manifold karma, and jiva* is the bird that feeds. 148. The bondage of non-ego, rooted in ignorance, produces the torrent of all birth, death, sickness, old-age and other evils of this (the jiva), which is in its own nature manifest without beginning or end. 149. This bondage is incapable of being severed by weapons of offence or defence, by wind, or by fire or by tens of millions of acts,t but only by the great sword of discriminative know ledge, sharp and shining, through the favour of Yoga.+ 150. For a man having his mind fixed upon the conclusions of the Vedas (there is) the application to the duties prescribed for him ; from such application comes the self-purification of the jiva. In the purified baddhl is the knowledge of the supreme ego and from that is the extinction of conditioded life down to its roots. * Individual ego, t Religious socrifices, etc. % Dhatuh IK used in this sense in several Upanishads also. ( 123 ) 151. As the water in the tank covered by a collection of moss does not show itself, so the dtma enveloped by the five sheaths, produced by its own power and beginning with the annamaya, does not manifest itself. 152. Upon the removal of the moss is seen the pure water capable of allaying heat and thirst, and of immediately yielding great enjoyment to man. 153. When the five sheaths are removed the pure pratyafj- atma (the Logos), the eternal happiness, all-pervading, the supreme light itself shines forth. 154. A wise man must acquire the discrimination of spirit and not spirit ; as only by realising the self which is absolute being, consciousness and bliss, he himself becomes bliss. 155. Whoever, having discriminated the pratyagatnia that is without attachment or action, from the category of objects, as the reed is discriminated from the tiger-grass, and having merged everything in that, finds rest by knowing that to be the true self, he is emancipated* by recognition of the pra- tyagatma and transfer of the human individuality to it. 156. 157. This food-produced body, which lives through food and perishes without it, and is a mass of skin, epidermis, flesh, blood, bone, and filth, is the annamaya sheath : it can not be regarded as the self which is eternal and pure. 158. This (dtma) was before birth and death and is now : how can it, the true self, the knower of cenditionf and modi fication, be ephemeral, changeable, differentiated, a mere vehicle of consciousness ? 159. The body is possessed of hands, feet, and the rest; not so the true self which, though without limbs, by reason of its being the vivifying principle and the indestructibility of its various powers, is the controller and not the controlled. * i.e.. By recognition of the pratyagdtma (logos) as the individuality in man. t The original word bhava would perhaps be better explained as the stable basis ot modifications. ( 124 ) 160. The true self being the witness of the body and its properties, its actions and its conditions, it is self evident that none of these can be a characteristic mark of the atma. 161. Full of misery, covered with flesh, full of filth, full of sin, how can it be the knower ? The ego is different from this. 162. The deluded man considers the ego to be the mass of skin, flesh, fat, bones and filth. The man of discrimination knows the essential form of self, which is the supreme truth, to be without these as characteristic marks. 168. " I am the body" — such is the opinion of a deluded man ; of the learned the notion of I is in relation to the body, as well as to the jiva (monad). Of the great soul possessed of discrimination and direct perception, " I am Brah man," such is the conviction with regard to the eternal self. 164. 0 you of deluded judgment, abandon the opinion that the ego consists in the mass of skin, flesh, fat, bone, and filth ; know that the real self is the all-pervading, changeless atma, and so obtain peace. 165. As long as the wise man does not abandon the notion that the ego consists of the body, organs and the rest, the pro duct of illusion, so long there is no prospect of his salvation, even though he be acquainted with the Yedas and their meta physical meaning. 166. As one's idea of /is never based on the shadow or reflection of the body, or the body seen in dream or imagined by the mind, thus also may it be with the living body. 167. Because the false conviction that the ego is merely the body is the seed producing pain in the form of birth and the rest, pains must be taken to abandon that idea ; the attraction towards material existence will then cease to exist. 168. Conditioned by the five organs of action, this vitality becomes the pranamaya sheath through which the embodied ego performs all the actions of the material body. ( 125 ) 1G9.