2.1
When looking for a true teacher,
do not be concerned if he is young
and addicted to sensual pleasure.
Do not be concerned if he is illiterate, a servant,
or a householder. None of these things matter.
Would you cast aside a diamond
because of dust?
2.2
Do not consider scholarship to be the test
of a teacher. It matters little whether or not
a guru can recite scriptures.
The wise ones feel his essence.
A boat does not need beauty or vermillion paint
to ferry you across.
2.3
Without effort, the Supreme One encompasses
both the unmovable and the unchanging,
the manifest and the unmanifest.
It is Awareness itself, still and transparent as sky.
2.4
Without effort, the Supreme One appears
as living and inert, animate and inanimate.
How can you talk about it being this or that?
It is all things at all times all at once.
2.5
I am more subtle than primordial substance,
more primal than elements,
essences and compounds.
I am prior to notions of birth and death.
I am still, undivided, indifferent.
2.6
It is said my all-pervading formlessness
is worshipped by the gods
in undivided emptiness,
there is no difference between gods,
nor between gods and non-gods.
2.7
Illusory life does not make me doubt.
Movements of mind do not touch me.
Thoughts and volitions arise in me
like bubbles in a river,
then vanish into the pool of Unknowing.
2.8
As the qualities of softness and hardness,
sweetness and bitterness, are inseparable
from their respective objects, so do I pervade
all existence and non-existence.
2.9
As the softness, coldness or sweetness of water
is not separate from the water,
so are worldly existence and the Absolute
inseparable to me.
2.10
The Lord of the Universe is unnamable.
His subtlety is more subtle than the subtlest.
He is spotless, beyond the senses,
beyond mind and intellect.
He is Supreme.
2.11
Knowing the nature of Being to be indivisible
and unchanging, how can you believe
there is an “I”? How can there be
a “you” or “me”? How can there be a world?
2.12
True Nature is like space – truly like space.
Infinite, clear, empty, blameless, full.
2.13
Brahman walks not the earth.
It is neither carried by wind
nor submerged in water.
It does not dwell in fire.
2.14
Brahman pervades all Space.
Nothing pervades Brahman.
Brahman exists both inside and outside itself.
Brahman is complete, undivided, uninterrupted.
2.15
Brahman is subtle, invisible, without qualities.
Realization of Brahman
does not come on first hearing.
Realization comes with practice.
2.16
Realization comes through faithful practice
of yoga. When consciousness abides
with no object, dissolution happens.
The realized yogi becomes the Absolute.
His faults and merits are absorbed into All.
2.17
There is only on antidote
to the poison of worldly illusion –
the sweetness of True Nature.
2.18
Forms are visible to the eye. The formless
is imagined in mind. Brahman is neither.
It is beyond existence and non-existence.
Sometimes it is called Inner Self.
2.19
Maya and prakriti create and experience
the illusory universe. The offerings of experience
can be compared to a coconut.
The outer layer is the husk. Within the husk
is the pith, within the pith, the shell,
within the shell, the kernel of dense white flesh.
See to know that which is inside
the kernel of flesh. Drink the milk of Brahma.
2.20
Knowledge of appearances is false knowledge,
pertaining only to an ephemeral illusion.
Knowledge of inner truths and explanations
is a step away from ignorance,
but knowing Brahma is the only wisdom.
Brahma is the milk of the coconut.
2.21
On a full-moon night,
you see one clear and brilliant moon.
See Self like this, transparent, luminous, singular.
There is only one moon, only one Self.
Duality is an error of vision.
2.22
All perceived distinctions are defects
of your own seeing, not valid attributes
of the all-pervading One. One who realizes Truth
becomes Brahman. One who teaches Truth,
is worthy of the highest praise.
2.23
Whether he is illiterate or learned,
whoever comes to full awareness of Truth
by the grace of the Guru within,
is no longer fooled by the mirage of the world.
2.24
He who is free from animosity and attachment,
whose commitment and effort never waver,
who works for the welfare of all beings –
such a one shall realize God.
2.25
As when a jar breaks, the jar-space it defines
becomes one with infinite Space,
so when a yogi quits his body,
the ego-self it formed becomes infinite Self –
the One Awareness.
2.26
It has been said that one’s final deathbed desire
determines one’s next birth. This applies only
to those who live lives of worldly action.
It does not apply to realized yogis.
2.27
The destiny of those who live lives of worldly action
can be expressed in speech.
The destiny of yogis transcends expression.
2.28
Yogis follow no particular path.
They surrender self and attainment happens.
2.29
No matter where a yogi dies – whether in
a holy place or the house of an untouchable –
he becomes Supreme Self alone,
and never again enters a womb.
2.30
One who realizes Supreme Self,
which is innate, inconceivable and unborn,
is not tainted by the fulfillment of desires,
nor defiled by any evil.
He performs no actions
and is not bound by karma.
He is forever free and benevolent to all.
He lives as he likes and accumulates no stains.
2.31
One who realizes Supreme Self,
which is formless and eternal,
is beyond the realm of opposites.
He lives on with no body, no desire, no fear,
no hope, no support. Not bound by illusion,
his power is without limit or end.
2.32
One who realizes Supreme Self
finds no scriptures, no teachers, no students,
no initiations, no shaved heads,
no postures, no meditation or anything else.
2.33
One who realizes Supreme Self
finds no sumbhavi, sakti, or anavi initiations,
He finds no sphere of flesh, no images
or symbols, no hands, no fee, no jars or any
other thing without beginning, middle and end.
2.34
One who realizes Supreme Self becomes
that from which the universe emerges,
that by which the universe is maintained,
and that into which the universe is dissolved.
Into the still water of Self, bubbles of universe
arise, linger and disappear.
2.35
One who realizes Supreme Self
has no use for yoga postures, fixed gazing,
control of breath, or exercises of the nerve-current.
Attainment and non-attainment
are meaningless to him.
2.36
One who realizes Supreme Self
is devoid of all relative notions,
like one and many, great and small,
full and empty, all and nothing,
same and different. He is devoid of notions
about knowledge, knower and knowableness,
of ideas about capacity and measurement,
of concepts like equality and disparity.
2.37
One who realizes Supreme Self
does so regardless of being disciplined
or undisciplined, wealthy or impoverished,
active or withdrawn, sensual or restrained.
2.38
One who realizes Supreme Self
knows beyond a shadow of doubt
that he is not the body, not the mind,
not the senses, not the ego, not intelligence –
that he is neither the subtle elements
nor the gross elements, nor is his nature
that of space.
2.39
One who realizes Supreme Self
transcends the injunctions of scriptures.
He claims neither duty or absence of duty.
Notions of separateness and oneness
do not apply to him.
Even that which the scriptures prohibit
for others, for him is permissible.
2.40
How can the guru teach that which cannot
be grasped by mind or expressed in speech?
Through the teacher who is ever-one with
Brahma, the light of Truth shines without words.