101. Blindness, weakness and sharpness are conditions of the eye, due merely to its fitness or defectiveness; so are deafness,dumbness, etc., of the ear and so forth– but never of the Atman, the Knower.

102. Inhalation and exhalation, yawning, sneezing, secretion, leaving this body, etc., are called by experts functions of Prana and the rest, while hunger and thirst are characteristics of Prana proper.

103. The inner organ (mind) has its seat in the organs such as the eye, as well as in thebody, identifying with them and endued with a reflection of the Atman.

104. Know that it is egoism which, identifying itself with the body, becomes the doer or experiencer, and in conjunction with the Gunas such as the Sattva, assumes the three different states.

105. When sense-objects are favourable it becomes happy, and it becomes miserable when the case is contrary. So happiness and misery are characteristics of egoism, and not of the ever-blissful Atman.

106. Sense-objects are pleasurable only as dependent on the Atman manifesting through them, and not independently, because the Atman is by Its very nature the most beloved of all. Therefore the Atman is ever blissful, and never suffers misery.

107. That in profound sleep we experience the bliss of the Atman independent of sense-objects, is clearly attested by the Shruti, direct perception, tradition and inference.

108. Avidya (Nescience) or Maya, called also the Undifferentiated, is the power of theLord. She is without beginning, is made up of the three Gunas and is superior to the effects (as their cause). She is to be inferred by one of clear intellect only from the effects She produces. It is She who brings forth this whole universe.

109. She is neither existent nor non-existent nor partaking of both characters; neither same nor different nor both; neither composed of parts nor an indivisible whole nor both. She is most wonderful and cannot be described in words.

110. Maya can be destroyed by the realisation of the pure Brahman, the one without a second, just as the mistaken idea of a snake is removed by the discrimination of the rope. She has her Gunas as Rajas, Tamas and Sattva,named after their respective functions.

111. Rajas has its Vikshepa-Shakti or projecting power, which is of the nature of anactivity, and from which this primeval flow of activity has emanated. From this also,mental modifications such as attachment andgrief are continually produced.

112. Lust, anger, avarice, arrogance, spite, egoism, envy, jealousy, etc.,– these are the dire attributes of Rajas, from which the worldly tendency of man is produced. ThereforeRajas is a cause of bondage.

113. Avriti or the veiling power is the power of Tamas, which makes things appear other than what they are. It is this that causes man’s repeated transmigrations, and starts the action of the projecting power (Vikshepa).

114. Even wise and learned men and men who areclever and adept in the vision of the exceedingly subtle Atman, are overpowered by Tamas and do not understand the Atman, even though clearly explained in various ways. What is simply superimposed by delusion, they consider as true, and attach themselves to its effects. Alas ! How powerful is the great Avriti Shakti of dreadful Tamas!

115. Absence of the right judgment, or contrary judgment, want of definite belief and doubt– these certainly never desert one who has any connection with this veiling power, and then the projecting power gives ceaseless trouble.

116. Ignorance, lassitude, dullness, sleep, inadvertence, stupidity, etc., are attributes of Tamas. One tied to these does not comprehend anything, but remains like one asleep orlike a stock or stone.

117. Pure Sattva is (clear) like water, yet in conjunction with Rajas and Tamas it makes for transmigration. The reality of the Atman becomes reflected in Sattva and like thesun reveals the entire world of matter.

118. The traits of mixed Sattva arean utter absence of pride etc., and Niyama, Yama,etc., as well as faith, devotion, yearning for Liberation, the divine tendencies andturning away from the unreal.

119. The traits of pure Sattva are cheerfulness, the realisation of one’s own Self,supreme peace, contentment, bliss, and steady devotion to the Atman, by which the aspirant enjoys bliss everlasting.

120. This Undifferentiated, spoken of as the compound of the three Gunas, is the causalbody of the soul. Profound sleep is its special state,in which the functions of the mindand all its organs are suspended.

121. Profound sleep is the cessation of all kinds of perception, in which the mind remains in a subtle seed-like form. The test of this is the universal verdict, “I did not know anything then”.

122. The body, organs, Pranas, Manas, egoism, etc., all modifications, the sense-objects,pleasure and the rest, the gross elements such as the ether, in fact, the whole universe,up to the Undifferentiated– all this is the non-Self.

123. From Mahat down to the gross body everything is the effect of Maya: These and Maya itself know thou to be the non-Self, and therefore unreal like the mirage in a desert.

124. Now I am going to tell thee of the real nature of the supreme Self, realising which man is freed from bondage and attains Liberation.

125. There is some Absolute Entity, the eternal substratum of the consciousness of egoism, the witness of the three states, and distinct from the five sheaths or coverings:1

26. Which knows everything that happens in the waking state, in dream and in profound sleep; which is aware of the presence or absence of the mind and its functions;and which is the background of the notion of egoism.– This is That.

127. Which Itself sees all, but which no one beholds, which illumines the intellect etc.,but which they cannot illumine.– This is That.

128. By which this universe is pervaded, but which nothing pervades, which shining, all this (universe) shines as Its reflection.– This is That.

129. By whose very presence the body, the organs, mind and intellect keep to their respective spheres of action, like servants!

130. By which everything from egoism down to the body, the sense-objects andpleasure etc., is known as palpably as a jar– for It is the essence ofEternal Knowledge !

131. This is the innermost Self, the primeval Purusha (Being), whose essence is the constant realisation of infinite Bliss, which is ever the same, yet reflecting through the different mental modifications, and commanded by which the organs and Pranas perform their functions.

132. In this very body, in the mind full of Sattva, in the secret chamber of the intellect,in the Akasha known as the Unmanifested, the Atman, of charming splendour, shines like the sun aloft, manifesting this universe through Its own effulgence.1

33. The Knower of the modifications of mind and egoism, and of the activities of the body, the organs and Pranas, apparently taking their forms, like the fire in a ball of iron;It neither acts nor is subject to changein the least.

134. It is neither born nor dies, It neither grows nor decays, nor does It undergo anychange, being eternal. It does not cease to exist even when this body is destroyed, likethe sky in a jar (after it is broken), for It is independent.

135. The Supreme Self, different from the Prakriti and its modifications, of the essence of Pure Knowledge, and Absolute, directly manifests this entire gross and subtle universe, in the waking and other states, as the substratum of the persistent sense of egoism, and manifests Itself as the Witness of the Buddhi, the determinative faculty.

136. By means of a regulated mind and the purified intellect (Buddhi), realise directly thy own Self in the body so as to identify thyself with It, cross the boundless ocean of Samsara whose waves are birth and death, and firmly established in Brahman as thy own essence, be blessed.

137. Identifying the Self with this non-Self– this is the bondage of man, which is due to his ignorance, and brings in its train the miseries of birth and death. It is through this that one considers this evanescent body as real, and identifying oneself with it,nourishes, bathes, and preserves it by means of (agreeable) sense-objects, by which he becomes bound as the caterpillar by the threads of its cocoon.

138. One who is overpowered by ignorance mistakes a thing for what it is not; It is the absence of discrimination that causes one to mistake a snake for a rope, and great dangers overtake him when he seizes it through that wrong notion. Hence, listen, my friend, it is the mistaking of transitory things as real that constitutes bondage.

139. This veiling power (Avriti), which preponderates in ignorance, covers the Self,whose glories are infinite and which manifests Itself through the power of knowledge,indivisible, eternal and one without a second– as Rahu does the orb of the sun.

140. When his own Self, endowed with the purest splendour, is hidden from view, aman through ignorance falsely identifies himself with this body, which is the non-Self.And then the great power of rajas called the projecting power sorely afflicts him through the binding fetters of lust, anger, etc.,

141. The man of perverted intellect, having his Self-knowledge swallowed up by theshark of utter ignorance, himself imitates the various states of the intellect (Buddhi), as that is Its superimposed attribute, and drifts up and down in this boundless ocean of Samsara which is full of the poison of sense-enjoyment, now sinking, now rising– a miserable fate indeed!

142. As layers of clouds generated by the sun’s rays cover the sun and alone appear (in the sky), so egoism generated by the Self, covers the reality of the Self and appears by itself.

143. Just as, on a cloudy day, when the sun is swallowed up by dense clouds, violent cold blasts trouble them, so when the Atman is hidden by intense ignorance, the dreadful Vikshepa Shakti (projecting power) afflicts the foolish man with numerous griefs.

144. It is from these two powers that man’s bondage has proceeded– beguiled by which he mistakes the body for the Self and wanders (from body to body).

145. Of the tree of Samsara ignorance is the seed, the identification with the body is itssprout, attachment its tender leaves, work its water, the body its trunk, the vital forces its branches, the organs its twigs, the sense-objects its flowers, various miseries due to diverse works are its fruits, and the individual soul is the bird on it.

146. This bondage of the non-Self springs from ignorance, is self-caused, and is described as without beginning and end. It subjects one to the long train of miseries such as birth, death, disease and decrepitude.

147. This bondage can be destroyed neither by weapons nor by wind, nor by fire, nor by millions of acts– by nothing except the wonderful sword of knowledge that comes ofdiscrimination, sharpened by the grace of the Lord.

148. One who is passionately devoted to the authority of the Shrutis acquires steadiness in his Svadharma, which alone conduces to the purity of his mind. The man of pure mind realises the Supreme Self, and by this alone Samsara with its root is destroyed.

149. Covered by the five sheaths– the material one and the rest– which are the products of Its own power, the Self ceases to appear, like the waterof a tank by its accumulation of sedge.

150. On the removal of that sedge the perfectly pure water that allays the pangs of thirst and gives immediate joy, appears unobstructed before the man