Vivekachudamani Verses 384-397

384. One should behold the Ātman, the Indivisible and Infinite, free from all limiting adjuncts such as the body, organs, Prāṇas, Manas and egoism, which are creations of one’s own ignorance – like the infinite sky.

385. The sky, divested of the hundreds of limiting adjuncts such as a jar, a pitcher, a receptacle for grains or a needle, is one, and not diverse; exactly in a similar way the pure Brahman, when divested of egoism etc., is verily One.

386. The limiting adjuncts from Brahma down to a clump of grass are all wholly unreal. Therefore one should realise one’s own Infinite Self as the only Principle.

387. That in which something is imagined to exist through error, is, when rightly discriminated, that thing itself, and not distinct from it. When the error is gone, the reality about the snake falsely perceived becomes the rope. Similarly the universe is in reality the Ātman.

388. The Self is Brahma, the Self is Vishnu, the Self is Indra, the Self is Shiva; the Self is all this universe. Nothing exists except the Self.

389. The Self is within, and the Self is without; the Self is before and the Self is behind; the Self is in the south, and the Self is in the north; the Self likewise is above as also below.

390. As the wave, the foam, the whirlpool, the bubble, etc., are all in essence but water, similarly the Chit (Knowledge Absolute) is all this, from the body up to egoism. Everything is verily the Chit, homogeneous and pure.

391. All this universe known through speech and mind is nothing but Brahman; there is nothing besides Brahman, which exists beyond the utmost range of the Prakriti. Are the pitcher, jug, jar, etc., known to be distinct from the clay of which they are composed? It is the deluded man who talks of ‘thou’ and ‘I’, as an effect of the wine of Māyā.

392. The Śruti, in the passage, ‘Where one sees nothing else’, etc., declares by an accumulation of verbs the absence of duality, in order to remove the false superimpositions.

393. The Supreme Brahman is, like the sky, pure, absolute, infinite, motionless and changeless, devoid of interior or exterior, the One Existence, without a second, and is one’s own Self. Is there any other object of knowledge?

394. What is the use of dilating on this subject? The Jīva is no other than Brahman; this whole extended universe is Brahman Itself; the Śruti inculcates the Brahman without a second; and it is an indubitable fact that people of enlightened minds who know their identity with Brahman and have given up their connection with the objective world, live palpably unifold with Brahman as Eternal Knowledge and Bliss.

395. (First) destroy the hopes raised by egoism in this filthy gross body, then do the same forcibly with the air-like subtle body; and realising Brahman, the embodiment of eternal Bliss – whose glories the Scriptures proclaim – as thy own Self, live as Brahman.

396. So long as man has any regard for this corpse-like body, he is impure, and suffers from his enemies as also from birth, death and disease; but when he thinks of himself as pure, as the essence of good and immovable, he assuredly becomes free from them; the Śrutis also say this.

397. By the elimination of all apparent existences superimposed on the soul, the supreme Brahman, Infinite, the One without a second and beyond action, remains as Itself.