Ch 2

2: Joy of Self-Realization

Janaka said: 

I am now spotless and at peace-Awareness 

beyond Consciousness. 

All this time 

I have been duped by illusion. 

By this light alone 

the body and the universe appear. 

I am Everything 

or Nothing. 

Seeing there is no 

universe or body, 

by grace the Self is revealed. 

As waves, foam and bubbles 

are not different from water, 

so the universe emanating from Self 

is not different from Self. 

Look closely at cloth, 

you see only threads. 

Look closely at creation, 

you see only Self. 

As sweetness 

pervades sugarcane juice, 

I am the essence of creation. 

Not seeing Self, the world is materialized. 

Seeing Self, the world is vanished. 

A rope is not a snake, 

but can appear to be. 

I am not other than Light. 

The universe manifests 

at my glance. 

The mirage of universe appears in me 

as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, 

as a snake appears in a rope, 

as water appears on a desert horizon. 

As a pot returns to clay, 

a wave to water, 

a bracelet to gold, 

so will the universe return to Me. 

I am wonderful indeed-beyond 

Adoration. 

I cannot decay nor ever die, 

Though God and all the universe 

Should perish to the last blade of grass. 

I am wonderful indeed-beyond 

Adoration. 

Even with a body I am One. 

I neither come nor go. 

I am everywhere at once. 

I am wonderful indeed-beyond Adoration. 

I am astounded at my powers. 

The universe appears within me 

but I do not touch it. 

I am wonderful indeed-beyond 

adoration. 

I am everything thought or spoken, 

and have nothing. 

In Reality, 

knowledge, the knower, and the knowable 

do not exist. 

I am the transparent Self 

in which through ignorance 

they appear. 

Looking at One and seeing many 

is the cause of all misery. 

The only cure is to realize 

what is seen is not there. 

I am Oneaware, blissful, immaculate. 

I am unbounded Awareness. 

Only in imagination do I have limits. 

Reflecting on this, 

I abide in the Absolute. 

I am neither free nor bound. 

The illusion of such things 

has fallen into disbelief. 

Though I contain creation, 

it has no substance. 

Having seen for certain 

that this universe and body 

is without form or substance, 

I am revealed as Awareness alone. 

Imagination has no place here. 

The body exists only in imagination, 

as do heaven and hell, 

bondage, freedom, fear. 

Are these my concern? 

I, who am pure Awareness? 

I see no differences or separation. 

Even the multitudes appear 

as a single formless desert. 

To what should I cling? 

I am not the body. 

I do not have a body. 

I am Awareness, not a person. 

My thirst for life bound me 

to a seeming of life. 

In the limitless ocean of Myself 

the winds of the mind 

roil the myriad waves of the world. 

But when the wind subsides 

in the limitless ocean 

the ark of personhood is swallowed up, 

along with the universe it carries. 

And how wonderful it is! 

In the limitless ocean of Myself, 

waves of beings 

arise, collide, play for a time, 

then disappear--as is their nature.