Tripura Rahasya

Sage Dattatreya

Being thus reprimanded by the ascetic, he could not speak for some time because he felt mortified and ashamed; so he remained with bent head thinking it over. However, the Brahmin youth could not find any satisfactory answer to her question, so he submitted to her in great humility: 

'O Ascetic, Truly I cannot find the answer to your question. I submit to you as your disciple. Pray tell me how the two scriptural statements are to be reconciled. But I assure you that I have not told a deliberate lie, for I know that any merits a liar may have counteracted by his lies so that he is condemned as unworthy.'

Thus requested, the ascetic was pleased with Ashtavakra's sincerity and said to him, in the hearing of the assembly: 

'Child, there are many who being ignorant of this sublime truth, live in a state of delusion. Dry polemics will not help one to Reality, for it is well guarded on all sides. Of all the people now assembled here, none has experienced Reality, except the king and myself. It is not a subject for discussion. The most brilliant logic can only  approach it but never attain it. Although unaffected by logic coupled with a keen intellect, it can however be realized by service to one's Guru and the grace of God. O thou who art thyself the son of a Sage, listen to me carefully, for this is hard to understand even when hearing it explained. Hearing it a thousand times over will be useless unless one verifies the teachings by means of investigation into the Self with a concentrated mind. Just as a prince labors under a misapprehension that the string of pearls clinging to his neck has been stolen away by another and is not persuaded to the contrary by mere words but only believes when he finds it around his neck by his own effort, so also, O youth, however clever a man may be, he will never know his own self by the mere teaching of others unless he realizes it for himself. Otherwise he can never realize the Self if his mind is turned outward.

A lamp illumines all around but does not illumine itself or another light. It shines of itself without other sources of light. Things shine in sunlight without the necessity for any other kind of illumination. Because lights do not require to be illumined, do we say that they are not known or that they do not exist? Therefore, as it is with lights, thus are things made aware by the conscious self. What doubt can you have regarding abstract consciousness, namely the Self?

Lights and things being insentient, cannot be self-aware. Still, their existence or manifestation is under no doubt. That means they are self-luminous. Can you not similarly investigate with an inward mind in order to find out if the all-comprehending Self is conscious or not conscious?'