Atma Bodha

This teaching on the Self is for seekers of freedom whose discipline has worn away wrongdoing, whose minds are quiet and whose cravings have subsided.

As cooking requires heat, liberation requires knowledge. Among the disciplines it is knowledge that directly brings freedom.

Action does not contradict ignorance and therefore cannot remove it. Knowledge dispels ignorance as light dispels darkness.

Ignorance makes the Self appear confined. When ignorance clears, the Self shines of itself, like the sun emerging from cloud.

Practised steadily, knowledge clears confusion from the individual mind. Its corrective thought then falls away, like clarifying seed powder settling out of water.

Life driven by attraction and aversion resembles a dream. It seems real while it lasts, but waking changes how one understands it.

Silver seems present in mother-of-pearl until one recognizes the shell. So the world appears independently real until its nondual ground, Brahman, is known.

Worlds arise, endure and dissolve in the Lord, their substance and support, as bubbles form and vanish in water.

Distinct forms are imagined in the eternal, all-pervading reality of being and awareness, just as bracelets and other ornaments are fashioned of gold.

Space seems divided by its enclosures. Likewise the one all-pervading Lord seems divided by limiting conditions. When these fall away, only unity remains.

Social class, birth and stage of life are assigned to the Self through its associations, as flavours and colours are attributed to water.

The physical body, formed of the five combined elements and shaped by past action, is the seat of pleasure and pain.

The subtle body arises from the unmixed elements. Its five vital functions, mind, intellect and ten faculties make experience possible.

Beginningless ignorance, which defies precise description, is the causal condition. Discern the Self as distinct from all three conditions.

A clear crystal seems blue beside blue cloth. Likewise the pure Self appears to take on the character of the five sheaths surrounding it.

As pounding separates rice from its husk, careful inquiry distinguishes the pure inner Self from the body and its other coverings.

Though present everywhere, the Self is particularly evident in the intellect, as a reflection is visible in a clean surface.

Know the Self as the witness of the activities of body, senses, mind and intellect, distinct from them all, like a king observing affairs.

When clouds race past, the moon seems to move. When the senses are busy, one may likewise mistake their activity for the Self’s.

People work by sunlight. So body, senses, mind and intellect rely on the light of awareness to perform their functions.

As blueness is attributed to the sky, the qualities and actions of the senses and body are mistakenly attributed to pure being and awareness.

Ripples make the reflected moon seem restless. Similarly the mind’s sense of doing is projected onto the Self.

Desire, attachment, pleasure and pain arise with the active intellect and are absent in deep sleep. They belong to the intellect.

Light belongs to the sun, coolness to water and heat to fire. Being, awareness, joy, eternity and purity are intrinsic to the Self.

The thought “I know” arises when one confuses the Self’s presence and awareness with a changing state of the intellect.

The Self undergoes no change, and the intellect has no awareness of its own. Confusing the two, the individual takes itself to be a separate knower and seer.

Mistaking a rope for a snake gives rise to fear. Recognizing oneself as the supreme Self dispels the fear that comes from feeling confined to individuality.

As a lamp lights a pot, the Self illumines the intellect and senses. These objects cannot in turn illumine the Self.

One lamp needs no second lamp to reveal its light. Awareness needs no other act of knowing to reveal itself.

Set aside each limiting condition through the teaching “neither this nor this.” The great Upanishadic sayings disclose the unity of individual and supreme Self.

The body and other perceived forms pass away like bubbles. Recognize the pure reality distinct from these appearances through the insight “I am Brahman.”

Since I am distinct from the body, birth, age, wasting and death do not belong to me. Since I am beyond the senses, sound and other objects cannot bind me.

Grief, attachment, aversion and fear belong to the mind. Scripture describes the Self as pure, beyond mind and vital breath.

I am beyond qualities, action, distinctions and stain. Eternal, formless and unchanging, I am always free.

Like space, I pervade what is within and without. I am everywhere the same, ever present, unattached and unmoving.

I am that supreme Brahman which is reality, knowledge and infinity, ever pure and free, undivided joy without a second.

Repeated contemplation of “I am Brahman” removes the projections of ignorance as a restorative medicine removes illness.

Sit in seclusion with the senses steady and attachments loosened. Let attention rest undivided on the one infinite Self.

Through understanding, resolve all that is perceived into the Self. Contemplate that one reality as clear and open as a cloudless sky.

Letting go of distinctions of form and colour, the knower abides in the fullness of awareness and joy.

In the supreme Self there is no separation of knower, knowing and known. As awareness and joy it shines by itself.

Meditation is like the steady turning of a fire drill. The flame of insight it kindles consumes ignorance as fire consumes fuel.

Dawn clears the darkness before the sun appears. When understanding removes ignorance, the Self shines forth of itself.

A necklace already around one’s neck can seem lost. In the same way, realization seems a new attainment although the Self was always present.

A post can be mistaken for a person. Individual separateness is similarly imagined in Brahman and falls away when its true nature is seen.

Direct recognition of reality corrects the confusion of “I” and “mine,” as finding one’s bearings corrects a mistake about direction.

With the eye of understanding the yogi sees the entire world in the Self and recognizes the one Self in everything.

Pots and other clay objects are all clay. In the same way, the whole world is the Self, and the knower sees it everywhere.

One freed while living sheds identification with former limitations and abides as being, awareness and joy. The verse compares this change to an insect becoming a winged creature.

Having crossed the ocean of delusion and overcome the demons of attachment and aversion, the yogi rests peacefully in the joy of the Self.

Giving up dependence on passing pleasures, the knower finds fulfilment within and shines like a lamp inside a pot.

Even while embodied, the sage remains untouched like space. Possessing insight, the sage may seem simple and may wander unattached like the wind.

When the limiting conditions dissolve, the sage enters all-pervading reality without distinction, like water joining water, space joining space, or light joining light.

Know Brahman as that beyond which there is no greater gain, no deeper happiness and no higher knowledge.

Know Brahman as that whose realization leaves nothing else to see or know, and whose attainment brings rebirth to an end.

In every direction, above and below, there is the one infinite and eternal fullness of being, awareness and joy. Know this as Brahman.

The Upanishads point to Brahman by setting aside everything other than it. What remains is one undivided joy.

From Brahma the creator onward, beings experience happiness in different measures, each drawing on a mere fraction of that boundless joy.

Every object and every ordinary activity depends on Brahman. It pervades everything as butter is present throughout milk.

Brahman is neither minute nor gross, short nor long. Unborn and imperishable, it is beyond form, quality, colour and name.

By its light the sun and other lights become known. Nothing they illumine can illumine it. Know that revealing presence as Brahman.

Brahman pervades the world within and without, illuminating it throughout, as fire brings an iron ball to a glow.

Brahman transcends the world, yet nothing exists apart from it. Whatever seems independent of it resembles water in a desert mirage.

Whatever is seen or heard has no being apart from Brahman. Understanding reveals the one reality of being, awareness and joy.

The eye of knowledge discerns the all-pervading Self. Ignorance misses it, as one without sight misses the shining sun.

Hearing the teaching and reflecting on it kindle the fire of knowledge. Freed of impurities, the individual shines like refined gold.

In the open space of the heart rises the sun of understanding. The Self dispels darkness, supports everything and lights up all experience.

The pilgrimage is to one’s own Self, beyond direction, place and time. Whoever rests in this stainless, lasting joy, free from compulsive action and the distress of opposites, realizes deathless, all-pervading awareness.