Vedic Literature | Ekamsat | Uddhava-Gita | Jnana-Yoga
2. The man, who takes to praising men’s actions and character or to criticizing them, quickly swerves away from his goal of unitary consciousness because of his mind getting excited over impure and changing values.
3. When the senses, which are the products of taijas-ahamkara, are overcome by drowsiness, the individual is in the false world of dream. When the mind is dissolved in deep sleep, he falls into total unconsciousness, resembling death itself. The man who sees multiplicity is very much in multiple states of awareness as to his spiritual identity.
4. In the realm of duality, the classification of things as good and bad has no significance. For, all that is spoken by words, experienced by the senses and thought by the mind belong to the realm of falsity.
5. Though a reflection, an echo or a ‘snake in a rope’ has no active resistance, still it generates experiences felt as pleasant or unpleasant. Even so, the body and the entities allied to it generate fears until illumination destroys the identification of the atman with these experiences.
6. All this world is nothing but the Atman. That Omnipotent Supreme Being is the creator and the created, the savior and the saved. That Eternal Being is what destroys and what is destroyed.
7. Therefore, great seers have not accepted any existent entity other than the uninvolved and unaffected Atman as Reality. It is He, the Supreme Cause that shines as the many. What is accepted as the universe in its three-fold aspect of adhyatmika, adhidaivika and adhibhautika is a false appearance on the Atman. This world constituted of the three gunas is the creation of Maya, Its power.
8. One, who has intellectually understood and spiritually realized the truth that I revealed to you, will neither praise nor insult anyone, but go about the world like the sun which is utterly unconcerned with all that is high or low.
9. Understanding through observation, reasoning, scriptures and one’s own
realization that everything having a beginning and an end is false, one should
cultivate absolute detachment.
11. The atman is un-decaying, free from passion, unaffected by merits and
demerits, untouched by ignorance and free from the limitations of space and
time. As for the body, it is an inert substance in itself, like a log of wood.
It being so, whose is the involvement in samsara?
13. In the case of a man who thinks of various objects in waking consciousness, the impressions left in his mind by that consciousness and its objects make him see many phantoms in dream. Similarly, the body and other objects are perceived real as a result of the delusion arising from their super-imposition on the atman. Samsara persists so long as this delusion continues.
14. A man who has awakened from a dream is free from the delusion of enjoyment and / or suffering he was having in the dream state, though he retains a memory of it in his waking-state.
15. Sorrow, joy, fear, anger, greed, delusion and all forms of desire, as also experiences like birth and death pertain to the ego-sense and not to the atman. When one is in deep-sleep, there is no ego-sense and then all such experiences disappear.
16. It is the Jiva that is involved in the trans-migratory cycle, not mere ego-sense. The trans-migrating self or the Jiva is none but the atman which identifies itself as the ‘I’ with reference to the complex of the body, senses, mind and prana by way of super-imposition. It is the subtle body (linga-sarira). Residing within this complex, in identification with it, the Jiva is mistaken as an expression of the modification of matter and within the realm of Time.
17. The sage wanders about, cutting asunder the knot of ego-sense with the sword of knowledge rendered sharp by the service of the Lord and the guru.
18. Knowledge means discriminative understanding. The means for developing it are the scripture, tapas, tradition, reasoning and experience. It consists in the understanding that the Supreme Spirit alone had been before universe came into being, is what exists in the middle and will continue to be when the universe including Time dissolves itself into IT.
19. The gold of which several ornaments are made is the same at the beginning and at the end of the series of its changes as objects. In spite of all its transformation, the same gold is there when the objects made of it are seen as existing. In the same way, I am the One that appears as the multitudinous and changing universe.
20. Oh dear Uddhava! The Pure Consciousness permeates and illumines the mind in its three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. IT illumines also the three gunas of Prakrti forming the cause of these states as also the universe with its triple division of cause, effect and agency. The Pure Consciousness exists in the fourth (turiya) state beyond the three states of human consciousness. As IT is concomitant with the world of objects as also existent in its transcendence, the Pure Consciousness alone is the ultimate Reality.
21. An entity that did not exist before its origin and ceases to be after it no longer exists cannot be there in the middle. If it is seen to exist, it is said to exist only in name. Whatever is the substance with which a thing is made and held in manifestation that alone can be the causal and manifesting substance. This is My firm and settled view.
22. This multitudinous world which is a projection of rajas was non-existent before it came into being, and is yet experienced as existing. It is so because the Brahman alone, self-existent and self-luminous, shines as all these effects – the world.
23. One is to withdraw from objects of the lustful senses and be established in the Atman. One is to cut asunder all doubts about the Supreme Being with the help of the scriptures and sound dialectic that dispel the view that the body is the Self.
24. The body is not the Self as it is constituted of physical matter as pots are made of clay. In the same way, the senses, the vital energy, the intellect, the ego-sense, etc cannot be the atman as they are not spiritual, but non-physical. The five gross elements, the five tanmatras, Prakrti, etc cannot be the atman, for they are not spiritual.
25. For one who has known My Being fully and is established in IT, of what consequences, good or bad, are the controlled or the wandering moods of the senses? Does the gathering or dispersal of clouds make any difference to the sun?
26. Just as air, fire, water and earth do not dry, burn, wet or contaminate the space, just as the recurring climatic changes like summer, winter, etc do not make any impression on it, so the un-decaying Self which transcends the ego-sense is not affected by sattva, rajas and tamas, the gunas of Prakrti causing involvement to the Jiva in samsara.
27. Though this is, in fact, the truth, the aspirant should not slacken his efforts at self-control. Until, by whole hearted devotion to Me, the aspirant has totally cleansed his mind of its addiction to sense-enjoyment, he should, with extreme vigilance, prevent his mind from cultivating attachment to objects of the senses created by Maya.
28. Just as an inadequately treated disease lurks behind and troubles a patient from time to time, so also an immature yogi, whose sensuous and active tendencies lie suppressed and hidden, is constantly harassed by these tendencies subsisting in his subconscious mind.
29. But such yogis, whose fall is caused by such agencies as friends and relatives, return to the path of yoga in their next life on account of the powerful impressions of their past life. They will no more be addicted to worldliness.
30. An ignorant Jiva, prompted by some desire or other, will be performing karma till the fall of its body, carrying further the impressions of such actions. But a man of enlightenment, though living in the body, is free from all desires as he is established in the Self. Being thus free from ego-centred desires, his actions do not affect him.
31. An enlightened man who is ever established in the Self does not even know that he has a body, much less that he is doing anything, even when he is seen performing all natural functions like resting, sitting, walking, lying, eating and evacuating.
32. Even though such person perceives the objects of the senses, he is convinced of their falsity, just like the experiences of a dream on awakening.
33. Oh Uddhava! In the state of ignorance, the body wrought out of the gunas of Prakrti and karma, which are the products of ignorance, is super-imposed on the atman. It is, therefore, experienced in inseparable identity with it. It is this ignorance, and its product, the body that are sublimed by jnana. The atman, on the other hand, is always the same. It is not newly realized in liberation, nor is it lost in bondage.
34. Just as the sun, when it rises, only removes the obstacle to vision from the eye, and does not create anything new to be seen, so the perfect spiritual intuition relating to Me only removes the ignorance from the aspirant’s understanding. Thereupon the Atman shines as it always has been shining. Nothing new comes into being.
35. The Atman is the self-luminous Consciousness, un-originated and unfathomable. IT is the Self-Consciousness all-pervading, without the polarity of ‘subject and object’. IT is the Absolute One without a second, intuited beyond word and thought.
36. When the Atman is the sole Existence, it is a delusion of the mind to see anything different from IT. For, apart from IT, the Atman realized as the Self, there is no other support for duality or multiplicity of the world of objects.
37. It is only the purva-mimamsakas that consider this world of multiplicity, constituted of the five gross elements and distinguished by name and form, as real and hold that the passages in the Vedanta revealing the nature of Reality are only eulogies of the agents, celestials and other factors entering into the sacrificial cult of the Veda. Such a contention is without basis.
38. Yogis who are yet to attain the goal of realization may suffer from physical ailments. The following is the instruction for counter-acting such a state.
39. By concentration (dharana) on sun and moon, the fevers owing to cold and heat respectively can be counteracted. Ailments owing to vata (wind-related) can be overcome by asanas (yogic postures) combined with concentration. Other ailments arising from sins, planetary influence and serpents can be overcome by austerity, mantras and (herbal) medicines.
40. Emotions like lust and anger can be overcome by the continuous practice of the disciplines of hearing, praising and remembering Me. Pride, hypocrisy and other bad traits of character can be overcome by the service of great men.
41. There are some yogis who, through ways stated above and otherwise, seek to make the body strong and young, and then utilize it for acquisition of psychic powers (siddhis).
42. Wise men shall not approve of such course. For, the body being perishable like the fruit of a tree, any attempt to preserve it for all time is futile.
43. A person following the path of yoga may have health and strength of body. But the intelligent devotee holding Me as the highest end for attainment shall not divert his attention from spiritual discipline to physical well-being and attainment of siddhis.
44. But, if the aspirant treading the path of yoga, entirely dependent on Me, is completely desire-less, he will meet with no obstacles, being full of bliss of the Self.