January 22, 2026
na dṛśyaṁ nopadeśārhaṁ nā ‘tyāsannaṁ na dūragaṁ
kevalānubhavaprāpyaṁ cidrūpaṁ śuddhamātmanaḥ (10)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
All these – the egosense and the space, etc. – have acquired the nature of real substances though they have not been created at all. Where nothing has arisen (been created) there everything is seen. Even so, the sages, gods, and the perfected ones remain in their transcendental consciousness tasting the bliss of their own nature. They have abandoned the illusion of duality of the observer and the object and the consequent movement of thought. Their gaze is fixed and unwinking.
Though these sages are active here, they do not entertain the least notion of illusory existence. They are firmly rooted in the abandonment of the relationship between the knower and the known (subject and object). Their life-force is not agitated. It is as if they were painted pictures; their mind does not move, even as the mind of painted figures does not move. For, they have abandoned the conceptualising tendency of the consciousness.
They engage themselves in appropriate activity by a little movement of thought in consciousness (even as the Lord does). However, such movement of thought and the experiencing of the contact of the observer with the object also produce great joy in them. Their consciousness is absolutely pure, purified of all images (concepts and notions).
Such a state of purity of the self, the true nature of the infinite consciousness, is not a vision (an experience of the mind and the senses). It is incapable of being taught. It is not very easy nor is it far distant or impossible. It is attained by direct experience alone.
That alone exists, naught else: neither the body nor the senses and life-force, neither the mind nor the storehouse of memory or latent tendencies, neither the jīva nor even a movement in consciousness, neither consciousness nor the world. It is neither real nor unreal nor something in-between, neither void nor non-void, neither time nor space nor substantiality. Free from all these and free from a hundred veils in the heart, one should experience the self in all that is seen.
It is neither the beginning nor the end. Because it is ever present everywhere, it is taken for something else. Thousands are born and thousands die: but the self which is everywhere, inside and outside, is not affected. It remains in all these bodies, etc., as if it were just a little different from the infinite.
Though radiantly engaged in diverse activities, remain free from the sense of I-ness and mine-ness. For whatever is seen in this world is Brahman, free from characteristics and qualities; it is eternal, peaceful, pure and utterly quiescent.