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÷
  
       ÷
   



yaya, papaya parapeedanam (one attains merit by working for the
welfare of others and commits sin by hurting others). The most important verse in
Mahabharata.

÷  


½
ÔThrough the grace of God alone, the desire for non-duality arises in wise
persons to save them from great fearJ 

Ê
0. How shall I salute the formless, non-dual Being, indivisible, auspicious,
immutable, who fills all this with His Self and also fills the self with His Self.

3. I alone am, ever free from all taint. The universe composed of five elements
exists like a mirage within me. To whom shall I bow?

4. All is verily the absolute Self, free from distinction and non-distinction.
Neither can it be said, ³It is´ nor ³It is not.´ What a great mystery!

5. The quintessence and the whole of Vedanta is this Knowledge: I am the Self, by
nature formless and all-pervading.

6. That God who is indeed the Self in all, impersonal and changeless,
like unto space, by nature purity itself, verily, verily, that alone I am.
Ê
½


 

 


 
There is no you, no me,
nor is there this universe. All is verily the Self alone.


½
 



 
  (18). Behold the Self
indivisible. Be happy through renunciation of attachment.

01. Know that which has form to be unreal, that which is formless to be eternal.
Through the instruction of this truth there is no longer rebirth into this world.


 
 
 



If all is one and of the
nature of liberation, how can there be Samadhi?

05. By such utterances as ³That thou art,´ your own self is affirmed. Of that which is
untrue and composed of the five elements the Sruti says, ³Not this, not this.´
 33. Know me to be that Self who is everything and everywhere at all times, who is
eternal, stead, the All, the nonexistent, and the Existent. Have no doubt.
36. Some seek nonduality, other duality. They do not know the Truth, which is the
same at all times and everywhere, which is devoid of both duality and notduality.

43. tattvam ekam idam sarvam vyomakaram niranjanam. All this in one Truth, all
this is of the nature of space and without taint.

49. 
 




 . All is verily the Self alone.

How can there be three states and the forth.

59. 

 





  


 

 
 

 
.
I was not born nor have I death. I have no action, good or evil. I am Brahman,
stainless, without qualities. How can there be bondage or liberation for me?

68

 
 





. I have told you that which is the essence: you
indeed are the Truth, like the sky.

74. Where there are neither the three states of consciousness nor the fourth, there
one attains the Absolute in the Self. How is it possible to be bound or free where there
is neither the virtue nor the vice.

÷
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All this, whatever exists in this world of becoming, is permeated by the Lord.
Therefore, find your joy in renunciation (by giving up the sense attachment, of
³me´ or ³mine´). Do not covet, for whose is the wealth?

! 
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Always thus doing one¶s work here, one may desire to live a hundred years.
There is no other way than this to live; thus living, the work does not bind.
 
2
 32
2 2 +

 3 
22




4



And he who sees all beings in the self itself, and the Self in all beings, feels no
hatred towards anyone by virtue of that realization.


  







 



-

For one who clearly sees all beings in his own self and his own self in all beings,
everywhere²To him who has realized Oneness, what delusion is there, what
grief? Or
5

 

 

## 
5 
6  

 

 7 8

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 The Vedas deal with the three ". Be thou free, O Arjuna, from the triad
of the gunas1
)
 

., free from the pairs of opposites,
ever-equanimous, free from (the thought of) getting and keeping, and
established in the Self. (II. 45)
 When a man completely casts away all the desires of the mind, satisfied in
the Self alone by the Self, then is he said to be one established in steady
wisdom. (II. 55)
 The gunas (qualities) of Nature perform all work. One whose mind is deluded
by egoism thinks, "I am the doer." (III. 07)
 But, one, with true insight into the domains of 
and action, knowing that
gunas as senses merely acting on 
as objects, does not become
attached. (III. 08)
 Learn the Truth by humble submission, by inquiry, and by service to the
knowers of Truth. Those wise men, the Seers of Truth, will teach you that
Knowledge." (IV. 34)
 The knower of Truth, (being) centered (in the Self) should think, "I do nothing
at all"²though seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping,
breathing, speaking, letting go, holding, opening and closing the eyes²
convinced that it is the senses that move among sense-objects. (V. 8-9)
 Resting in Brahman, with intellect steady and without delusion, the knower of
Brahman neither rejoices in receiving what is pleasant nor grieves on
receiving what is unpleasant. (V. 0 )

1
"
is a technical term of Sankhya philosophy also used in the same sense by the Vedanta. ( or
Nature is constituted of three ": * (equilibrium or purity), 9
 (attraction or activity), and
' (inertia). Prakrti is the three "+
 that she has them. " is wrongly translated as quality;
it is substance as well as quality, matter,  force. Where ever there is name and form, there is Guna.
Guna also means a rope, that which binds. (Swarupananda, 1996, pp. 55-56)
  Persons who, meditating on Me as non-separate, worship Me in all beings (all
round), to them who are constant and devout in this, I provide what they lack
and secure what they have. (IX. 00)
 When one has renounced all thoughts, then is one said to have attained to
yoga.0 (**
+
  

 ) (6.4) 

  
 

 It is just like an empty pitcher placed in the sky, having nothing inside or outside;
and again, it is just like a full pitcher placed in the sea, full of (water) both inside
and outside. U
0    in Nikhilananda (1998, p. 35)
 !

 

 
 


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.

Mind alone is the cause for bondage and liberation; cause of bondage when
attached to sense objects, cause of liberation when freed from them.

~: , verse 0, in Harshananda, 1999, p. 1 7

 The Sruti says, ³With the disappearance of the attachment to the body and with
the realization of the Supreme Self, to whatever object the mind is directed one
experiences *  ;
(VS Iyer trs. cited in &&
0 , 1998, p. iii)

0
In explaining the phrase Ô  
  ,¶ Shankara's commentary is illuminating: "When he has learned to 

 

   which give rise to desire for objects of this world and of the next, then he is said to have become a U
  , to be one who is attained to yoga (or established in yoga)" (Sastry, 1995, p. 186, emphasis added). To underscore the fact
that desire has thought as its source/root (



 ) and hence the vital link between our thoughts and
desires, Shankara then quotes !  : "O desire, I know where thy root lies. Thou art born of thought. I shall not think of thee,
and thou shall cease to exist as well as thy root." (* 
(, 177-05). And that Ôwhatever actions a man does, all that is the
effect of desire itself¶ (!* 0.4). Therefore, when one gives up all desires, renunciation of all action becomes possible.
Shankara finally concludes his commentary on this verse noting that Ôby saying that the aspirant should renounce all thoughts, the
Lord implies that he should abandon all desires and all actions as well¶ (Sastry, 1995, pp. 186-187).


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 In dream, when there is no actual contact with the external world, the mind
alone creates the whole universe consisting of the enjoyer, etc., and similarly
in the waking state also²there is no difference. Therefore, all this
phenomenal universe is the projection of the mind. (0  , 7 )



 Just as one, within a dream, sees the world within oneself as if it is separate,
in the same way, during the waking state also, let this world be judged. (9)

 Just as one who has woken up from sleep does not see the objects shown in
dream, even so, one does not see the world after attaining knowledge 

<   , i.e, knowledge of Brahman-Atman as the basis of all existence
and consciousness. (10) !, Harshananda, 0 , pp. 6-7.

 It is the essence of the Consciousness manifesting as the self in the three

states, and it is the cessation of all phenomena. It is Peace, Bliss, and the
One without a second. This is what is known as the Fourth (Turiya). This is
Atman and this has to be realized. (!
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 The eternal Atman, which²through the changes of waking,

3
Daksinamurti (literally, south facing portrait), the personification of spiritual wisdom, is one of the aspects of Lord Siva. He is
usually depicted as sitting, under a bunyan tree, in yoga posture exhibiting cinmudra²the

²a hand with the index
finger touching the thumb, the other three fingers extended. The meaning of the  is that one cannot know Truth if one has not
mastered the analysis of the three states of consciousness,  . As VS Iyer explains it: ³The bent forefinger touching the
thumb means that when you separately stretch out the fingers, i.e. examine the three states, there is a seer or 
which knows
them, symbolized by the index finger; this is ', the fourth. The touching of the forefinger with the thumb means that this fourth
state is one with the 
or Self.´ ) 

Fung+
(
:=
:
 5 
>

? +
0 4, p.77.

 dreaming, and dreamless sleep,
Through childhood, youth, maturity, and old age ²
Persists as the inexhaustible flow of consciousness,
Revealing Itself in the heart as the ever present sense of "I."
~%

*
& , Nikhilananda, 1987, p. 179.


* :

  
 
 +


 
 

 

 
 
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I am neither the mind, intelligence, ego or memory,

Neither the ears nor the tongue, nor the senses of smell and sight;
Neither ether nor air, nor fire or water nor earth:
I am Eternal Bliss and Awareness²I am Siva! I am Siva!
~*<
*7

+ Nikhilananda, 1987, p. 017

 



 

 






 

 
  
  



I have neither dualities nor shape or form;
I am present everywhere and pervade all the senses;
I am always equanimous;
I am neither liberation nor bondage;
I am of the nature of Pure Consciousness-Bliss-Absolute,
I am Shiva, I am (verily) Shiva. (Reddy, 0 7, p. 178)

: 
+


 +


 

 A The world is illusory.
: 
)$ 
* #.
s the sole reality. Individual Self (Atman) is not
apart from : , though.

÷  

:

4
In the first part of this  , the reality of phenomenal world is denied and the reality of : 
is upheld; and, finally,
the identity between :  (universal Self)
and 
(individual Self) is established (The Atman is the individual Self within, the
eternal witness of all. The Brahman is the Self without, the universal Self of all). In other words, the world as perceived by our
senses is ultimately unreal. The world is unreal not in the sense that it does not exist  
 B#
 
5



 
#


  Bbut unreal in the sense that it does not exist on its own, apart from : , the ultimate reality. This is one good
summary of Advaita Vedanta.

  If you separate yourself from the body and mind and rest in consciousness,
you will at once be happy, peaceful, and free from bondage.
(1.4)

 You are the one seer of all and really ever free. Verily this alone is your
bondage that you see the seer as other than yourself. (1.7)
 Do you who have been bitten by the great black serpent of egoism ÔI am the
doer,¶ drink the nectar of the faith ÔI am not the doer,¶ and be happy. (I.8)
 The body bound up with the organs of senses comes, stays and goes. The
Self neither comes nor goes. Why do you then mourn it?* (XV 9)
 Let the body last to the end of a Kalpa (a cycle of time) or let it go even today.
Where is the increase and decrease in you who are pure Consciousness?*
(XV 1 )

*These verses were chanted while VS Iyer was breathing his last breath!

Sri Ramakrishna used to emphasize that renunciation of unreal represents

the true significance of : 
": ³If the word ÔGita¶ is rapidly repeated it
would sound ÔTagi, Tagi«¶ And Tagi is a modification of Tyagi²the man of
renunciation. Renunciation of the phenomenal existence is the gist of the
Gita (
., Chidbhavananda, 0 , p. 17 ). It must be pointed out that
dispassion does not mean relinquishing one¶s duties. As Iyer (198 a, p. xix)
points out: ³Neglect of one¶s duties, on the pretext of detachment means
nothing but selfishness and love of inactivity.´ In the ultimate analysis,
renunciation is an inner, mental act and should not be confused with outward
tokens of abandonment. True renunciation is the renunciation of ²
the deeply ingrained sense of doership. Only then, the actions do not bind a
man: 


 (Isa Upanisad, 0). This is the high art of ³inaction
in action and action in inaction´ that the Gita (4.18) declares to be the way of
the wise ones ( 
). Sri Ramana Maharshi once said: ³An 


 alone can be a good 
. (!  
" , p. 16)

* #

  7 

Therefore, we have only to eliminate what is falsely ascribed to Brahman by

5; we have to make no more effort to acquire knowledge of Brahman as He
is quite self-evident. Though thus quite self-evident, easily knowable, quite near,
and forming the very Self, Brahman appears²to the unenlightened, to those
whose reason (Buddhi) is carried away by the differentiated phenomenon of

5
 means nescience,  ., ignorance of our true nature.
 names and forms created by avidya²as unknown, difficult to know, very remote,
as though He were a separate thing. But to those whose reason (Buddhi) has
turned away from external phenomena, who have secured the grace of the guru,
and attained the serenity of the self (manas), there is nothing else so blissful, so
well known, so easily knowable, and quite so near as Brahman. Accordingly, the
knowledge of Brahman is said to be immediately comprehended. (Sastry, 1995,
p. 487)

This is also borne out by the key verse in the Gita (0.55) that defines  

as follows: ³When a man completely casts away all the desires of the mind,
satisfied in the Self alone by the Self, then is he said to be one established in steady
wisdom.´

In this regard, a verse from Brhadaranyaka Upanisad (4-4-5) is highly pertinent:

³Whatever forms the object of desire, that he wills; and whatever he wills, that he acts´
(Sastry, 1995, p. 186). Likewise, Ôwhatever actions a man does, all that is the effect of
desire itself (Manu-Smrti 0.4). Therefore, when one gives up all desires, renunciation of
all action becomes possible. (Gambhirananda, 1984, 
 + pp. 08 -081)

At the end of many births, the man of wisdom attains Me, realizing that all this is
Vasudeva (the innermost Self). Such a great-soul is very hard to find. ( CDE

D
 +

DD
DE
 @
D  F

+

 DD

  F.
(VII, 19)

Namantro aksharam nasti, nasti mullakam aushdham

Ayogayam pursho nasti, yojakah tatra dhurlabham. 



satyam bruyat priyam bruyat

ma bruyat satyam apriyam

priyam ca nanr¶itam bruyat

eshha dharmah santananh ÷


Word Meaning:
satyam -- truth; bruyat -- speak; priyam -- pleasing; bruyat -- speak; ma --
do not; bruyat -- speak; satyam -- truth; apriyam -- not pleasing.

TRANSLATION

One should speak the truth, which is agreeable, not the

truth which is disagreeable. One should not speak an untruth
which is agreeable. This is the eternal dharma.
Ê