On the Relationship between observation and observed
Sri Vasista
O Rama, if one makes the inquiry (I am going to suggest), people with discrimination will never be attracted to pleasures even when they come before them.
Bullocks bear the burden. But the owner gets the fruits of the labour. Eyes see. But a Jiva suffers sorrows and joys.
When eyes get enchanted by form, why should the Self be troubled? If a donkey drowns itself in a pond? Why should the commander be worried?
-7 O foolish eye, do not delight in the mire of form. It will ruin itself soon and will destroy you too. Wise people restrain quickly cruel people with actions driven by discrimination. O eye, Form is prone to destruction. It is unreal and tentatively charming. You will get destroyed if you take refuge in it. You look at form like a witness. Why do get troubled by uniting with something that is under the control of time?
Sight is fickle like quivering waters. It can see peacock tail in a sky. Form is a mere sparkle. Oh mind, what use is such a sight for you?
O ego, this world is a sparkle in mind. May be so, but wherefrom have you come?
O mind, visible form is always inert. It springs out purposelessly. Why worry about it?
-12 . Form, sight and mind are not mutually related. Yet they give the feeling that they are related. It is like a face and its reflection in a mirror. This kind of feeling occurs only to ignorant persons, not for 'jnanis'. For him they are separate and so remain separate.
-16 . Form, sight and mental movement - these get united due to mind. It is like a resin bonding the limbs of a doll. By mulling over with effort, these irrational feelings can be shattered. When mind itself declines, the union of the three things will not occur. Since mind is the inciter of all such emotions and senses, mind itself has to be demolished.
O mind, you are pompously displaying yourself. Now I have discovered your nature. You are always nonexistent. You shall be annihilated even now, in the present.
-24 . O mind, you are the very embodiment of the five elements. Why are you leaping and gallopping inside the body? You are perhaps doing this for some one who thinks that you are his. I am a wicked person. I am not satisfied even a little by you. Maya is deceitful. You are unnecessarily, purposelessly responding to its vibrations and are getting burnt by it. You may persist or depart. You are not living. You are, infact, not there. You are by nature dead. By inquiring into your nature one can realize that you are dead. You have no principle of living. You are inert. You are confused and bevildered. You are obstinate. You look eternally dead. You harass only the ignorant, not a thinking person. Due to our foolishness, we did not realize soon that you are dead. We have now realized that you are dead due to our awakening to light. Our darkness in dispelled. You could obstinately persist in the house of (my) body for a long time due to our lack of association with noble and wise people. With your departure, my house of body can welcome good quests like selfcontrol and dispassion.
-32 . O demon-like mind, you were never existing, neither in the past nor in the present and will never be in the future. You obstinately let the world persist. Are you not ashamed of such an action? Leave my house of body along with your friends, desire, anger and such emotions. Fortunately, due to the mantric effect of 'viveka' (discrimination), thoughts, feelings and perceptions have left my house of body like a fox which leaves its cave residence. Oh! What a surprise, this mind, which is arrogant and stupid has cast a spell on people! What is your intrepidity and prowess? What is your strength? Who is your support? On whom do you depend? (Because of such support) you are perhaps harassing people to death with your leaps and gallops. My miserable thinking made me feel that you are always existing. Now I know that you are dead. I was absolutely ignorant. All these days I felt that you were alive and spent immumerable nights with you. Now that I know that you are not, I shall abide in the Self with delight.
-39 . Now it is realised by me, by myself that 'mind is dead'. I should not spend my life purposelessly now. With the demon inside thrown out from the house of body, I must abide in myself at ease. I smile at all the ugly things and actions that I did while I was posessed by the demon of mind. Realizing this, I have cut asunder this connection with the sword of inquiry and pushed it out of the house of body. With the demon of mind slayed, I have attained the sacred state. I am fortunately sitting at ease in the city of body. Mind is dead. Thinking and worry are gone. The rakshasa of ego is dead. All this due to the 'mantra' of inquiry. I am now abiding at ease in a state of absolute equality. What is this mind for me? What is this desire of mine? Why am I becoming egoistic? Fortunately, I have realized that wife and such are enormously damaging.
-49 . Salutations to me who am fulfilled, eternal, pure and changeless consciousness. These is no grief in me; no delusion in me, no egoism. I am not anything else other than Self. To such I, my salutations. There are no desires in me, no works, no mutable world, no ownership of work, no enjoyment of pleasure, no body. To such I, my salutations. I am not, I am not even Self, not anyother, I am all and primordial one. I am the creator. I am consciousness. I am the worlds. There is no differentiation in me. Salutations to such I. I am changeless. I am eternal. I have no parts. I am in all. I am all times. To such I salutations. I have no form, no name. I am self-luminous. I abide as Self. Salutations to such I. I am equal. I am immanent in all. I am subtle. I shine all the world. I have attained that state. Salutations to such I. I am not this world with all its rivers, hills and such. Even so I am this world with all the plenitude of matter and objects. Salutation to such I. With thinking departed, radiant with equality, being infinite even after the manifested universe I am beyond qualities, I am that Lord, who never is ephemeral. Salutations to such I.
