5.1
The utterance “OM” is pure and all-pervasive
like sky, free of concepts and connotations.
It carries no ideas of high and low,
absolute and relative.
Some say it is the sound of Brahman.
When Brahman is realized as Self,
the manifested universe and the unmanifested
void are seen as the same.
What use then is the utterance “OM.”
5.2
The scriptures have declared, “Thou art That”
and revealed you true nature is Brahman.
You are devoid of all attributes and obstructions.
You are the same as Everything.
You are the only One.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.3
You have no height or breadth or depth.
You have no inside or out. You are without number but are not the multitudes.
To say you are the One is one too many.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.4
Brahman cannot be realized
by following prescribed rules.
Brahman cannot be realized
by performing religious rituals.
Brahman cannot be realized
by reasoning or examination.
Brahman cannot be realized
by chanting euphoric sounds.
There is no cause and effect
between action and Realization.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.5
Samadhi is not the confluence
of ego-self and emptiness.
Samadhi is not the union
of consciousness and space.
Samadhi is not the meeting point
of time and absence of time.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.6
In Brahman there is no jar,
nor is there space inside the jar.
There is no body, nor is there a soul
indwelling the body.
There is no such thing as cause and effect.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.7
In the endless freedom of all-pervasive Brahman,
there are no concepts like short and long,
round and angular. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.8
Brahman is neither manifest nor void,
neither pure nor impure,
neither clear nor the nature of smoke.
Brahman is not everything, not nothing,
not either, not both. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.9
In Brahman there is no difference
between same and different.
There is no distinction
between outside and inside,
nor is there a meeting ground of opposites.
Brahman has no enemies or friends,
and is equal to All. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.10
In Brahman there are no names
like teacher and disciple, animate or inanimate,
living and dead. There is only unending freedom
in the infinite vastness of Self.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.11
Brahman has no form or body, nor is it formless.
Brahman exists without evolution.
It never begins or ends.
In Brahman there is no possibility
of separateness, nor of unity.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.12
In Brahman, concepts like good and evil
do not exist, nor do concepts like birth,
living and dying.
There is only immaculate pure Being,
empty and infinite, like space.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.13
Being has no thoughts, no feelings,
no knowledge, no knowing.
It desires nothing and wants for nothing.
It both does and does not exist.
It is spontaneous potentiality –
the ever-pure, ever-free source and seed.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.14
Being is Truth, Truth is Being.
It is not sullied by ideas about reality
and unreality, unity and separateness.
It both is and is not One.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.15
Being is Supreme.
Its home is infinity, its family is all things.
Ideas about bondage and liberation,
ignorance and wisdom, do not occur Here.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.16
This universe of ever-changing phenomena
is illusory, unreal. That which is forever
changeless is Reality. This world of names
and definitions is illusory, untrue.
That which is forever nameless
and undefinable is Truth. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.17
There is only one Soul.
It pervades everywhere forever.
There is only one Life.
It lives all beings and things.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.18
To see difference
in That which is undifferentiated is ignorance.
To imagine changes
in That which never moves is senseless.
Here, there is only the infinite stillness
of pure awareness. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.19
In Brahman there are no states –
no state of bondage, no state of liberation,
no state of virtue, no state of sin,
no state of wholeness, no state of emptiness.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.20
Being is not subject to notions
like cause and effect, color and no-color,
caste and no-caste, unity and separateness.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.21
Self is omnipresent. Self indwells all beings
and things, though they are all without reality
and do not indwell Self. Self is limitless
pure awareness, ever-free, ever-still.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.22
Brahman is Everything everywhere forever.
Brahman is No-Thing nowhere now.
It is pervasive and absent, immutable
and ephemeral, pure and manifest.
There is no day or night. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.23
Bondage and liberation, unity and separation,
reasoning and intuition –
the concept of opposites does not hold sway
in Brahman. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.24
Time and its divisions, like morning
and evening, are denied.
Atoms and sub-particles are denied.
The primordial elements of earth, air,
space, water and fire, are denied.
Ultimate reality cannot be denied.
It is Truth pure and simple.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.25
Self has no body or form,
nor does it lack a body or form.
Self has no different states,
like waking, dreaming and sleeping.
Self is forever nameless and observes no rules.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.26
Self is clear and vast like space.
Self pervades and transcends universe.
Self is always and everywhere the same.
Self is beyond reality, non-reality,
and everything that changes.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.27
Self is indifferent to virtue and vice,
wealth and poverty, desire and aversion,
substance and insubstantiality.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.28
Self knows nothing of grief and joy,
pleasure and pain. Self does not distinguish
between teacher and disciple.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.29
Self never moves but is not immovable.
Self does not give birth to reality and illusion.
Self is not strong or weak,
homogenous or diverse. Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.30
Self is the quintessence
of all elemental principles.
Activities in the phenomenal world are not real.
There is no division in Self.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.31
As the scriptures have said,
the unmanifested world of earth, people,
universe and so on, is like water in a mirage.
Truly, Brahman alone exists,
all-pervasive and never-ending.
Knowing Self to be All,
why does your mind choose to suffer?
5.32
Where knowing cannot go,
how can there be knowledge?
Supremely pure and free,
absorbed in infinite bliss,
the Avadhuta spontaneously sings
the song of Absolute Reality.