Tripura Rahasya

Hemachuda thought to himself,

• My home, wealth, kingdom, treasure, women, cattle - none of these is me, and they are only mine. I certainly take the body for the Self but it is simply a tool of mine. I am indeed the king's son, with godly limbs and a fair complexion. These people, too, are taken up by this same notion that their bodies are their egos.
• Reflecting thus, the considered the body. He could not identify the body as the Self, and so began to transcend it. "This body is mine, not me. It is built up of blood and bones, and is changing each moment. How can this be the changeless, continuous me. It looks like a chattel, it is apart from me as is a waking body from the dream etc. "I" cannot be the body; nor can the vital force be the Self; mind and intellect are clearly my tools, so they cannot be "I". "I" am surely something apart from all these, beginning from the body and ending with the intellect. (Note: The intermediaries are 1. Senses 2. Mind including the thinking, reasoning and coordinating faculties, 3. Vital force. I am always aware, but do not realize that pure state of awareness. The reason of this inability is not clear to me.)
• "Objects are cognized through the senses, not otherwise; life is recognized by touch, and mind by intellect. By whom is the intellect made evident? I do not know .. I now see I am always aware. Realization of that pure awareness is obstructed by other factors butting in. Now I shall not imagine them. They cannot appear without my mental imagery of them and they cannot obstruct the glory of the Self, without appearing."
• Thinking thus, he forcibly arrested his thoughts.