The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom

by Shankaracharya

  "Sons and kin can pay a father's debts, but none but a man's self can set him free,

  "If a heavy burden presses on the head others can remove it, but none but a man's self can quench his hunger and thirst.

  "Health is gained by the sick who follow the path of healing: health does not come through the acts of others.

  "The knowledge of the real by the eye of clear insight is to be gained by one's own sight and not by the teacher's.

  "The moon's form must be seen by one's own eyes; it can never be known through the eyes of another.

  "None but a man's self is able to untie the knots of unwisdom, desire, and former acts, even in a myriad of ages.

  "Freedom is won by a perception of the Self's oneness with the Eternal, and not by the doctrines of Union or of Numbers, nor by rites and sciences.

  "The form and beauty of the lyre and excellent skill upon its strings may give delight to the people, but will never found an empire.

  "An eloquent voice, a stream of words, skill in explaining the teaching, and the learning of the learned; these bring enjoyment but not freedom.

  "When the Great Reality is not known the study of the scriptures is fruitless; when the Great Reality is known the study of the scriptures is also fruitless.

  "A net of words is a great forest where the fancy wanders; therefore the reality of the Self is to be strenuously learned from the knower of that reality.

  "How can the hymns (Vedas) and the scriptures profit him who is bitten by the serpent of unwisdom?

  How can charms or medicine help him without the medicine of the knowledge of the Eternal?

  "Sickness is not cured by saying 'Medicine,' but by drinking it. So a man is not set free by the name of the Eternal without discerning the Eternal.

  "Without piercing through the visible, without knowing the reality of the Self, how can men gain Freedom by mere outward words that end with utterances?

  "Can a man be king by saying, 'I am king,' without destroying his enemies, without gaining power over the whole land?

  "Through information, digging, and casting aside the stones, a treasure may be found, but not by calling it to come forth.

  "So by steady effort is gained the knowledge of those who know the Eternal, the lonely, stainless reality above all illusion; but not by desultory study.

  "Hence with all earnest effort to be free from the bondage of the world, the wise must strive themselves, as they would to be free from sickness.

  "And this question put by thee to-day must be solved by those who seek Freedom; this question that breathes the spirit of the teaching, that is like a clue with hidden meaning.

  "Hear, then, earnestly, thou wise one, the answer given by me; for understanding it thou shalt be free from the bondage of the world."

  02. Self, Potencies, Vestures

  THE first cause of Freedom is declared to be an utter turning back from lust after unenduring things. Thereafter Restfulness, Control, Endurance; a perfect Renouncing of all acts that cling and stain.

  Thereafter, the divine Word, a turning of the mind to it, a constant thinking on it by the pure one, long and uninterrupted.

  Then ridding himself altogether of doubt, and reaching wisdom, even here he enjoys the bliss of Nirvâna.

  Then the discerning between Self and not-Self that you must now awaken to, that I now declare, hearing it, lay hold on it within yourself.

  THE VESTURES

  (Verses 72--107)

  Formed of the substances they call marrow, bone, fat, flesh, blood, skin and over-skin; fitted with greater and lesser limbs, feet, breast, trunk, arms, back, head; this is called the physical vesture by the wise--the vesture whose authority, as "I" and "my" is declared to be a delusion.

  Then these are the refined elements: the ethereal, the upper air, the flaming, water, and earth.

  These when mingled one with another become the physical elements, that are the causes of the physical vesture. The materials of them become the five sensuous things that are for the delight of the enjoyer--sounds and other things of sense.

  They who, fooled in these sensuous things, are bound by the wide noose of lust, hard to break asunder--they come and go, downwards and upwards on high, led by the swift messenger, their works.

  Through the five sensuous things five creatures find dissolution to the five elements, each one bound by his own character: the deer, the elephant, the moth, the fish, the bee; what then of man, who is snared by all the five?

  Sensuous things are keener to injure than the black snake's venom; poison slays only him who eats it, but these things slay only him who beholds them with his eyes.

  He who is free from the great snare, so hard to be rid of, of longing after sensuous things, he indeed builds for Freedom, and not another, even though knowing the six philosophies.

  Those who, only for a little while rid of lust, long to be free, and struggle to reach the shore of the world-ocean--the toothed beast of longing lust makes them sink half way, seizing them by the throat, and swiftly carrying them away.

  By whom this toothed beast called sensuous things is slain by the sharp sword of true turning away from lust, he reaches the world-sea's shore without hindrance. He who, soul-destroyed, treads the rough path of sensuous things, death is his reward, like him who goes out on a luckless day. But he who goes onward, through the word of the good Teacher who is friendly to all beings, and himself well-controlled, he gains the fruit and the reward, and his reward is the Real.

  If the love of Freedom is yours, then put sensuous things far away from you, like poison. But love, as the food of the gods, serenity, pity, pardon, rectitude, peacefulness and self-control; love them and honor them forever.

  He who every moment leaving undone what should be done--the freeing of himself from the bonds of beginningless unwisdom--devotes himself to the fattening of his body, that rightly exists for the good of the other powers, such a one thereby destroys himself.

  He who seeks to behold the Self, although living to fatten his body, is going to cross the river, holding to a toothed beast, while thinking it a tree.

  For this delusion for the body and its delights is a great death for him who longs for Freedom; the delusion by the overcoming of which he grows worthy of the dwelling-place of the free.

  Destroy this great death, this infatuation for the body, wives and sons; conquering it, the pure ones reach the Pervader's supreme abode.

  This faulty form, built up of skin and flesh, of blood and sinews, fat and marrow and bones, gross and full of impure elements;

  Born of the fivefold physical elements through deeds done before, the physical place of enjoyment of the Self; its mode is waking life, whereby there arises experience of physical things.

  Subservient to physical objects through the outer powers, with its various joys--flower-chaplets, sandal, lovers--the Life makes itself like this through the power of the Self; therefore this form is pre-eminent in waking life.

  But know that this physical body wherein the whole circling life of the Spirit adheres, is but as the dwelling of the lord of the dwelling.

  Birth and age and death are the fate of the physical and all the physical changes from childhood onward; of the physical body only are caste and grade with their many homes, and differences of worship and dishonor and great honor belong to it alone.

  The powers of knowing--hearing, touch, sight, smell, taste--for apprehending sensuous things; the powers of doing--voice, hands, feet, the powers that put forth and generate--to effect deeds.

  Then the inward activity: mind, soul, self-assertion, imagination, with their proper powers; mind, ever intending and doubting; soul, with its character of certainty as to things; self-assertion, that falsely attributes the notion of "I"; imagination, with its power of gathering itself together, and directing itself to its object.

  These also are the life-breaths: the forward-life, the downward-life, the distributing-life, the uniting-life; heir activities and forms are different, as gold and wa
ter are different.

  The subtle vesture they call the eightfold inner being made up thus: voice and the other four, hearing and the other four, ether and the other four, the forward life and the other four, soul and the other inward activities, unwisdom, desire, and action.

  Hear now about this subtle vesture or form vesture, born of elements not fivefolded; it is the place of gratification, the enjoyer of the fruits of deeds, the beginningless disguise of the Self, through lack of self-knowledge.

  Dream-life is the mode of its expansion, where it shines with reflected light, through the traces of its own impressions; for in dream-life the knowing soul shines of itself through the many and varied mind-pictures made during waking-life.

  Here the higher self shines of itself and rules, taking on the condition of doer, with pure thought as its disguise, an unaffected witness, nor is it stained by the actions, there done, as it is not attached to them, therefore it is not stained by actions, whatever they be, done by its disguise; let this form-vesture be the minister, doing the work of the conscious self, the real man, just as the tools do the carpenter's work; thus this self remains unattached.

  Blindness or slowness or skill come from the goodness or badness of the eye; deafness and dumbness are of the ear and not of the Knower, the Self.

  Up-breathing, down-breathing, yawning, sneezing, the forward moving of breath, and the outward moving--these are the doings of the life-breaths, say those who know these things; of the life-breaths, also, hunger and thirst are properties.

  The inner activity dwells and shines in sight and the other powers in the body, through the false attribution of selfhood, as cause.

  Self-assertion is to be known as the cause of this false attribution of selfhood, as doer and enjoyer; and through substance and the other two potencies, it reaches expansion in the three modes.

  When sensuous things have affinity with it, it is happy; when the contrary, unhappy. So happiness and unhappiness are properties of this, and not of the Self which is perpetual bliss.

  Sensuous things are dear for the sake of the self, and not for their own sake; and therefore the Self itself is dearest of all.

  Hence the Self itself is perpetual bliss--not for it are happiness and unhappiness; as in dreamless life, where are no sensuous things, the Self that is bliss--is enjoyed, so in waking-life it is enjoyed through the word, through intuition, teaching and deduction.

  THE THREE POTENCIES

  (Verses 108--135)

  The power of the supreme Master, that is called unmanifested, beginningless unwisdom whose very self is the three potencies, to be known through thought, by its workings--this is glamor (Mâyâ), whereby all this moving world is made to grow.

  Neither being nor non-being nor of the self of both of these; neither divided nor undivided nor of the self of both of these; neither formed nor formless nor of the self of both of these--very wonderful and ineffable is its form.

  To be destroyed by the awakening to the pure, secondless Eternal, as the serpent imagined in a rope, when the rope is seen; its potencies are called substance, force, and darkness; each of them known by their workings.

  The self of doing belongs to force, whose power is extension, whence the pre-existent activities issued; rage and all the changes of the mind that cause sorrow are ever its results.

  Desire, wrath, greed, vanity, malice, self-assertion, jealousy, envy, are the terrible works of Force, its activities in man; therefore this is the cause of bondage.

  Then enveloping is the power of Darkness, whereby a thing appears as something else; this is the cause of the circling birth and rebirth of the spirit, and the cause whereby extension is drawn forward.

  Though a man be full of knowledge, learned, skillful, very subtle-sighted, if Darkness has wrapped him round, he sees not, though he be full of manifold instruction; he calls good that which is raised by error, and leans upon its properties, unlucky man that he is; great and hard to end is the enveloping power of Darkness.

  Wrong thinking, contradictory thinking, fanciful thinking, confused thinking--these are its workings; this power of extension never leaves hold of one who has come into contact with it, but perpetually sends him this way and that.

  Unwisdom, sluggishness, inertness, sloth, infatuation, folly, and things like these are of the potency of Darkness. Under the yoke of these he knows nothing at all, but remains as though asleep or like a post.

  But the potency of substance is pure like water, and even though mixed with the other two, it builds for the true refuge; for it is a reflected spark of the Self, and lights up the inert like the sun.

  Of the potency of Substance when mixed the properties are self-respect, self-restraint, control, faith and love and the longing to be free, a godlike power and a turning back from the unreal.

  Of the potency of substance altogether pure the properties are grace, direct perception of the Self, and perfect peace; exulting gladness, a resting on the Self supreme, whereby he reaches the essence of real bliss.

  The unmanifest is characterized by these three potencies; it is the causal vesture of the Self; dreamless life is the mode where it lives freely, all the activities of the powers, and even of the knowing soul having sunk back into it.

  Every form of outward perceiving has come to rest, the knowing soul becomes latent in the Self from which it springs; the name of this is dreamless life, wherein he says "I know nothing at all of the noise of the moving world."

  The body, powers, life-breaths, mind, self-assertion, all changes, sensuous things, happiness, unhappiness, the ether and all the elements, the whole world up to the unmanifest--this is not Self.

  Glamor and every work of glamor from the world-soul to the body, know this as unreal, as not the Self, built up of the mirage of the desert.

  But I shall declare to you the own being of the Self supreme, knowing which a man, freed from his bonds, reaches the lonely purity.

  There is a certain selfhood wherein the sense of "I" forever rests; who witnesses the three modes of being, who is other than the five veils; who is the only knower in waking, dreaming, dreamlessness; of all the activities of the knowing soul, whether good or bad--this is the "I";

  Who of himself beholds all; whom none beholds; who kindles to consciousness the knowing soul and all the powers; whom none kindles to consciousness; by whom all this is filled; whom no other fills; who is the shining light within this all; after whose shining all else shines;

  By whose nearness only body and powers and mind and soul do their work each in his own field, as though sent by the Self;

  Because the own nature of this is eternal wakefulness, self-assertion, the body and all the powers, and happiness and unhappiness are beheld by it, just as an earthen pot is beheld. This inner Self, the ancient Spirit, is everlasting, partless, immediately experienced happiness; ever of one nature, pure waking knowledge, sent forth by whom Voice and the life-breaths move.

  Here, verily, in the substantial Self, in the bidden place of the soul, this steady shining begins to shine like the dawn; then the shining shines forth as the noonday sun, making all this world to shine by its inherent light; knower of all the changing moods of mind and inward powers; of all the acts done by body, powers, life-breaths; present in them as fire in iron, strives not nor changes at all.

  This is not born nor dies nor grows, nor does it fade or change forever; even when this form has melted away, it no more melts than the air in a jar.

  Alike stranger to forming and deforming; of its own being, pure wakefulness; both being and non-being is this, besides it there is nothing else; this shines unchanging, this Supreme Self gleams in waking, dream and dreamlessness as "I," present as the witness of the knowing soul.

  BONDAGE AND FREEDOM

  (Verses 136--153)

  Then, holding firmly mind, with knowing soul at rest, know your self within yourself face to face saying, "This am I" The life-ocean, whose waves are birth and dying, is shoreless; cross over it, fulfilling the end of being, r
esting firm in the Eternal.

  Thinking things not self are "I"--this is bondage for a man; this, arising from unwisdom, is the cause of falling into the weariness of birth and dying; this is the cause that he feeds and anoints and guards this form, thinking it the Self; the unreal, real; wrapping himself in sensuous things as a silk-worm in his own threads.

  The thought that what is not That is That grows up in the fool through darkness; because no discernment is there, it wells up, as the thought that a rope is a snake; thereupon a mighty multitude of fatuities fall on him who accepts this error, for he who grasps the unreal is bound; mark this, my companion.

  By the power of wakefulness, partless, external, secondless, the Self wells up with its endless lordship; but this enveloping power wraps it round, born of Darkness, as the dragon of eclipse envelops the rayed sun.