(2) This self is unknowable by the senses, unthinkable by the mind, and is not subject to any kind of change. Knowing this, you should not grieve.

(4) Verily, he Is the great, unborn Soul, who is this [person] consisting of knowledge among the senses. In the space within the heart lies the ruler of all, the lord of all, the king of all. He does not become gi eater by good action nor inferior by bad action. He is the lord of all, the overlord of beings, the protector of beings. He is the separating dam for keeping these worlds apart. Such a one the Brahmans desire to know by repetition of the Vedas, by sacrifices, by offerings, by penance, by fasting. On knowing him, in truth, one becomes an ascetic (muni). Desiring him only as their home, mendicants wander forth. Verily, because they know this, the ancients desired not off- spring, saying: <c What shall we do with offspring, we whose is this Soul, this home? " They, verily, rising above the desire for sons and the desire for wealth and the desire for worlds, lived the life of a mendicant. For the desire for sons is the desire for wealth, and the desire for wealth is the desire for worlds; for both these are desires. That Soul (Atman) is not this, it is not that (neti, neti}. It is unseizable, for it cannot be seized. It is indestructible, for it cannot be destroyed. It is unattached, for it does not attach Itself. It is unbound. It does not tremble. It is not injured. Him [who knows this] these two do not overcome — neither the thought <c Hence I did wrong," nor the thought " Hence I did right/' Verily, he overcomes them both. What he has done and what he has not done do not affect him.

(2) Ajatasatru said: ' When this man has fallen asleep thus, then the peison who consists of intelligence having by his intelligence taken to himself the intelligence of these senses (prana\ rests in that place which is the space within the heart. When that person restrains the senses, that person is said to be asleep. Then the breath is restrained, The voice is restrained. The eye is restrained. The ear is restrained. The mind is restrained. 1 8. When he goes to sleep, these worlds are his. Then he becomes a great king, as it were. Then he becomes a great Brahman, as it were. He enters the high and the low, as it were. As a great king, taking with him his people, moves around in his own country as he pleases, even so here this one, taking with him his senses, moves around in his own body (tarlra) as he pleases.

(2) When a man rejects the sense objects by withdrawing the senses, he becomes free from the sense world only. The longing or taste for them still remains in the mind. Even this longing is removed when the self is perceived.

(15) The deluded do not perceive him when he departs from the body or dwells in it, when he experiences objects or is united with the gunas; but they who have the eye of wisdom perceive him.

(3) O mighty-armed Arjuna! But the knower of Truth understands the divisions of qualities and functions. He knows that the qualities in the form of senses function amidst the objects of the senses, and he, as the Supreme Self, is not affected by them. Thus knowing, he remains unattached.

(1) 'When a man being asleep, reposing, and at perfect rest , sees no dreams, that is the Self, this is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.' Then Indra went away satisfied in his heart. But before he had returned to the Devas, he saw this difficulty. In truth he thus does not know himself (his self) that he is I, nor does he know anything that exists. He is gone to utter annihilation. I see no good in this.

(4) People see his pleasure-ground; Him no one sees at all. " Therefore one should not wake him suddenly," they say. Hard is the curing for a man to whom He does not return. Now some people say: " That is just his waking state, for whatever things he sees when awake, those too he sees when asleep." [This is not so, for] there [i.e. in sleep] the person Is self-illuminated/ [Janaka said:] < I will give you, noble Sir, a thousand [cows]. Declare what is higher than this, for my release [from trans- migration].'

(13) They who perceive with the eye of wisdom this distinction between the Field and the Knower of the Field, and also the deliverance from Prakriti, the cause of all beings— they attain the Supreme.

(5) The man of steady intellect, undeluded, knower of Brahman, established in Brahman, should not be elated having obtained the pleasant and should not be troubled having got the unpleasant.

ALL this equipment the Sage has ordained for the sake of wisdom; so he that seeks to still sorrow must get him wisdom. We deem that there are two verities, the Veiled Truth and the Transcendent Reality. The Reality is beyond the range of the understanding; the understanding is called Veiled Truth.... Thus there is never either cessation or existence; the universe neither comes to be nor halts in being. Life's courses, if thou considerest them, are like dreams and as the plantain's branches; in reality there is no distinction between those that are at rest and those that are not at rest. Since then the forms of being are empty, what can be gained, and what lost? who can be honoured or despised, and by whom? Whence should come joy or sorrow? What is sweet, what bitter? What is desire, and where shall this desire in verity be sought? If thou considerest the world of living things, who shall die therein? who shall be born, who is born? who is a kinsman and who a friend, and to whom? Would that my fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void! They are angered and delighted by their matters of strife and rejoicing; with grief and labour, with despair, with rending and stabbing one another, they wearily pass their days in sin as they seek their own pleasure; they die and fall into hells of long and bitter anguish; they return again and again to happy births after births and grow wonted to joy.... In life are oceans of sorrow, fierce and boundless beyond compare, a scant measure of power, a brief term of years; our years are spent in vain strivings for existence and health, in hunger, faintness, and labour, in sleep, in vexation, in fruitless commerce with fools, and discernment is hard to win; how shall we come to restrain the spirit from its wont of wandering? There, too, the Spirit of Desire is labouring to cast us into deep hells; there evil paths abound, and unbelief can scarce be overcome; it is hard to win j, a brief return, exceeding hard for the Enlightened « to arise to us; the torrent of passion can scarce be stayed. Alas, how sorrow follows on sorrow! Alas, how lamentable is the estate of them that are borne down in the floods of affliction, and in their sore distress see not how sad their plight is, like one who should again and again come forth from the waters of his bath and cast himself into fire, and so in their sore trouble deem themselves to be in happy estate! As thus they live in sport that knows not of age and dissolution, dire afflictions will come upon them, with Death in their forefront. Then when will the day come when I may bring peace to them that are tortured in the fire of sorrow by my ministrations of sweetness born from the rain-clouds of my righteousness, and when I may reverently declare to the souls who imagine a real world that all is void, and righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the Veiled Truth?

(5) When they have reached him (the Self), the sages become satisfied through knowledge, they are conscious of their Self, their passions have passed away, and they are tranquil. The wise, having reached Him who is omnipresent everywhere, devoted to the Self, enter into him wholly.

(3) 'Thus does that serene being, arising from this body, appear in its own form, as soon as it has approached the highest light (the knowledge of Self ) He (in that state) is the highest person (uttama pûrusha). He moves about there laughing (or eating), playing, and rejoicing (in his mind), be it with women, carriages, or relatives, never minding that body into which he was born . 'Like as a horse attached to a cart, so is the spirit (prâna, pragñâtman) attached to this body.

(1) He (the knower of the Self) knows that highest home of Brahman, in which all is contained and shines brightly. The wise who, without desiring happiness, worship that Person, transcend this seed, (they are not born again.)

(5) 'He who knows, let me think this, he is the Self, the mind is his divine eye . He, the Self, seeing these pleasures (which to others are hidden like a buried treasure of gold) through his divine eye, i. e. the mind, rejoices. 'The Devas who are in the world of Brahman meditate on that Self (as taught by Pragâpati to Indra, and by Indra to the Devas). Therefore all worlds belong to them, and all desires. He who knows that Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and all desires.' Thus said Pragâpati, yea, thus said Pragâpati.

(4) e Having had enjoyment in this state of sleep, having traveled around and seen good and bad, he hastens again 9 according to the entrance and place of origin, back to the state of waking. Whatever he sees there [i. e. in dreaming sleep], he is not followed by it, for this person is without attach- ments/ [Janaka said:] ' Quite so, Yajnavalkya. I will give you, noble Sir, a thousand [cows]. Declare what is higher than this, for my release/

(14) When a man of insight beholds no agent other than the gunas, and also knows Him who is beyond the gunas, he attains My being.

(2) Just as the man in this body passes through the various stages of boyhood, youth, and old age, like so, he passes into another body after death. The wise know it and are not deluded.

(6) Having abandoned all desires born of the ego-centric will, having restrained the group of senses with mind from all sides, one should attain quietude slowly and slowly by the intellect held firmly. And then, fixing the mind in Atma, he should not think of anything else at all.

(1) Pragâpati said: 'The Self which is free from sin, free from old age, from death and grief, from hunger and thirst, which desires nothing but what it ought to desire, and imagines nothing but what it ought to imagine, that it is which we must search out, that it is which we must try to understand. He who has searched out that Self and understands it, obtains all worlds and all desires.'