Crest Jewel of Wisdom
(Viveka-Chudamani)

Verses 151-200

When the five sheaths have been removed, the supreme light shines forth, pure, eternally blissful, single in essence, and within. 151

To be free from bondage the wise man must practise discrimination between self and non-self. By that alone he will become full of joy, recognising himself as Being, Consciousness and Bliss. 152

Just as one separates a blade of grass from its sheaths, so by discriminating one's true nature as internal, unattached and free from action, and abandoning all else, one is free and identified only with one's true self. 153

This body is the product of food, and constitutes the material sheath. It depends on food and dies without it. It is a mass of skin, flesh, blood, bones and uncleanness. It is not fit to see as oneself, who is ever pure. 154

The body did not exist before birth, nor will it exist after death. It is born for a moment, its qualities are momentary, and it is inherently changing. It is not a single thing, but inert, and should be viewed like an earthen pot. How could it be one's true self, which is the observer of changing phenomena? 155

Made up of arms and legs and so on, the body cannot be one's true self as it can live on without various limbs, and other faculties persist without them. What is controlled cannot be the controller. 156

While the body of the observer is of a specific nature, behaviour and situation, it is clear that the nature of one's true self is devoid of characteristics. 157

How could the body, which is a heap of bones, covered with flesh, full of filth and highly impure, be oneself, the featureless observer? 158

The deluded man makes the assumption that he is the mass of skin, flesh, fat bones and filth, while the man who is strong in discrimination knows himself as devoid of characteristics, the innate supreme Reality. 159

'I am the body' is the opinion of the fool. 'I am body and soul' is the view of the scholar, while for the great-souled, discriminating man, his inner knowledge is 'I am God'. 160

Get rid of the opinion of yourself as this mass of skin, flesh, fat, bones and filth, foolish one, and make yourself instead the self of everything, the God beyond all thought, and enjoy supreme peace. 161

While the scholar does not overcome his sense of 'I am this' in the body and its faculties, there is no liberation for him, however much he may be learned in religion and philosophy. 162

Just as you have no self identification with your shadow-body, reflection-body, dream-body or imagination-body, so you should not have with the living body either. 163

Identification of oneself with the body is the seed of the pain of birth etc. in people attached to the unreal, so get rid of it with care. When this thought is eliminated, there is no more desire for rebirth. 164

The vital energy joined to the five activities forms the vitality sheath, by which the material sheath is filled, and engages in all these activities. 165

The Breath, being a product of the vital energy, is not one's true nature either. Like the air, it enters and leaves the body, and knows neither its own or other people's good or bad, dependent as it is on something else. 166

The faculty of knowledge and the mind itself constitute the mind-made sheath, the cause of such distinctions as 'me' and 'mine'. It is strong and has the faculty of creating distinctions of perception etc., and works itself through the vitality sheath. 167

The mind-made fire burns the multiplicity of experience in the fuel of numerous desires of the senses presented as oblations in the form of sense objects by the five senses like five priests. 168

There is no such thing as ignorance beyond the thinking mind. Thought is itself ignorance, the cause of the bondage of becoming. When thought is eliminated, everything else is eliminated. When thought increases everything else increases. 169

In sleep which is devoid of actual experience, it is the mind alone which produces everything, the experiencer and everything else, by its own power, and in the waking state there is no difference. All this is the product of the mind. 170

In deep sleep when the thinking mind has gone into abeyance there is nothing, by every one's experience, so man's Samsara is a mind creation, and has no real existence. 171

Cloud is gathered by the wind, and is driven away by it too. Bondage is imagined by the mind, and liberation is imagined by it too. 172

By dwelling with desire on the body and other senses the mind binds a man like an animal with a rope, and the same mind liberates him from the bond by creating simple distaste for the senses as if they were poison. 173

Thus the mind is the cause of a man's finding both bondage and liberation. When soiled with the attribute of desire it is the cause of bondage, and when clear of desire and ignorance it is the cause of liberation. 174

By achieving the purity of an habitual discrimination and dispassion, the mind is inclined to liberation, so the wise seeker after liberation should first develop these. 175

A great tiger known as the mind lives in the forest of the senses, so pious seekers after liberation should not go there. 176

The mind continually presents endless coarse or subtle sense experiences for a person -- all the differences of physique, caste, state and birth, and the fruits resulting from attributes and actions. 177

The mind continually confuses that which is by nature unattached, binding it with the fetters of body, senses and faculties so that it thinks in terms of 'me' and 'mine' in the experiences he is achieving. 178

Man's Samsara is due to the error of additions (to his true nature), and it is from the mind's imagination that the bondage of these additions comes. This is the cause of the pain of birth and so on for the man without discrimination who is filled with desire and ignorance. 179

That is why the wise who have experienced reality call the mind ignorance, for it is by that that everything is driven, like a mass of clouds by the wind. 180

So the mind must be earnestly purified by the seeker after liberation. Once it is purified, the fruit of liberation comes easily to hand. 181

Completely rooting out desire for the senses and abandoning all activity by one-pointed devotion to liberation, he who is established with true faith in study etc., purges away the passion from his understanding. 182

What is mind-made cannot be one's true nature, because it is changeable, having a beginning and an end, because it is subject to pain, and because it is itself an object. The knower cannot be seen as an object of consciousness. 183

The intellect along with its faculties, its activities and its characteristic of seeing itself as the agent, constitutes the knowledge sheath which is the cause of man's samsara. 184

Intellectual knowledge which as a function is a distant reflection of pure consciousness, is a natural faculty. It continually creates the awareness 'I exist', and strongly identifies itself with the body, its faculties and so on. 185

This sense of self is from beginningless time. As the person it is the agent of all relative occupations. Through its proclivities from the past it performs good and bad actions, and bears their fruit. 186

After experiencing them it is born in all sorts of different wombs, and progresses up and down in life, the experiencer of the knowledge-created states of waking, sleeping etc., and of pleasure and pain. 187

It always sees as its own such things as the body, and its circumstances, states, duties, actions and functions. The knowledge sheath is very impressive owing to its inherent affinity to the supreme self, which, identifying itself with the superimposition, experiences samsara because of this illusion. 188

This knowledge-created light shines among the faculties of the heart, and the true self, although itself motionless, becomes the actor and the experiencer while identified with this superimposition. 189

Allied to the intellect, just a part of itself, although the true self of everything, and beyond the limitations of such an existence, it identifies itself with this illusory self - as if clay were to identify itself with earthen jars. 190

In conjunction with such additional qualities, the supreme self seems to manifest the same characteristics, just as the undifferentiated fire seems to take on the qualities of the iron it heats. 191

The disciple

Whether it is by mistake or for some other reason that the supreme self has become a living being, the identification is beginningless, and there can be no end to what has no beginning. 192

So the state of a living being is going to be a continual samsara, and there can be no liberation for it. Can you explain this to me? 193

The teacher

You have asked the right question, wise one, so now listen. The mistaken imagination of illusion is not a reality. 194

Outside of illusion no attachment can come about for what is by nature unattached, actionless and formless, as in the case of blueness and space (the sky). 195

Existence as a living being, due to the mistaken intellect identifying itself with its own light, the inner joy of understanding, beyond qualities and beyond activity does not really exist, so when the illusion ceases, it does too, having no real existence of its own. 196

So long as the illusion exists, it too has existence, created by the confusion of misunderstanding, in the same way that a rope seems to be a snake so long as the illusion persists. When the illusion comes to an end, so does the snake. 197

Ignorance and its effects are seen as beginningless until with the arising of insight, ignorance and its effects are destroyed along with its root, even if beginningless, like dreams on awaking from sleep. Even if beginningless this world of appearances is not eternal - like something originally non-existent. 198, 199

Even if beginningless, something originally non-existent is seen to come to an end. In the same way the living organism which is thought to belong to oneself through its identification with the intellect, does not really exist. On the other hand, the true self is quite distinct from it, and the identification of oneself with the intellect is due to misunderstanding. 200, 201

This page was published on Realization.org on May 16, 2000.