November 21, 2025
bhedamabhyupagamyā ‘pi śṛṇu buddhi vivṛddhaye
bhavedalpaprabuddhānām api no duḥkhitā yathā (2)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
O Rāma, you are dear to me: hence I declare the truth to you once again. Listen attentively. Listen, though for doing so, you have to assume the existence of diversity. Your consciousness will expand. And, the truth that I shall expound will save from sorrow even they who are not fully awakened.
When one is ignorant, one entertains the wrong notion that the body is the self; his own senses prove to be his worst enemies. On the other hand, he who is endowed with self-knowledge and knows the truth, enjoys the friendship of his senses which are pleased and contented; they do not destroy him. He who has nothing but disgust for the physical body and its functions does not surely indulge it and thus invite suffering.
The self is not affected by the body, nor is the body in any way related to the self. They are like light and darkness. The self, which transcends all modifications and perversions, neither comes into being nor does it vanish. Whatever happens, happens to this body which is inert, ignorant, insentient, finite, perishable and ungrateful: let it happen. But, how can this body ever comprehend (through the senses or the mind) the eternal consciousness: for when either is seen as the reality the other ceases to be. When thus their nature is totally different, how can their experience of pain and pleasure be the same? When they do not and cannot have any relationship whatsoever, how can they exist together? When either arises the other ceases, even as when the day dawns the darkness of night ceases to be. Self-knowledge can never become self-ignorance; even as the shadow can never become hot.
Brahman, which is the reality, can never become unreal even when one is aware of diversity. Nor can the body ever acquire the nature of the infinite consciousness. Though the self is omnipresent, it is unaffected by the body, even as the lotus is not affected by water. Hence, even as space is not affected by the movement of air within it, this infinite self is not affected by conditions known as old age, death, pleasure and pain, existence and non-existence which pertain to the body. Even though all these bodies are seen by deluded understanding, they are all in the infinite consciousness alone even as waves appear on the ocean. The diversity and the perversity of the appearances belong to the reflecting medium: the truth or the infinite self is not affected by all this, even as the sun is not affected by the diversity and the agitation that its reflection undergoes in several mirrors or other reflecting media.
When the truth concerning the self is thus seen, the notion of self-ignorance vanishes instantly.