Tripura Rahasya

Sage Dattatreya

The relation of the cosmos to Pure Intelligence, i.e., abstract Self, is like that of a pot to earth, or of an ornament to gold, or of sculpture to the granite rock. O Parasurama! Denial of the existence of the world does not amount to Perfection. Denial is absurd. For, it implies intelligence, and intelligence displays itself as the universe. The intelligence denying or admitting the world is there shining over all! Can the world be erased out of existence by mere denial of it?

[Note: Here the point is that the Absolute is alone real and remains ever absolute, notwithstanding the concrete modifications which are no better than images in a mirror, not tainting it, nor existing apart from it. All are real, but real in their abstraction.]

Just as images appear in a mirror and partake of its nature, so also the cosmos is of and in the Self and real inasmuch as it is the Self.

[Note: The world is not real as an object and apart from the Self.]

This wisdom in perfection is the realization of all as the Self. Intelligence appears as objects by its own virtue, as a mirror appears as the images on it. This is the whole essence of the sastras. There is no bondage, no liberation, no aspirant, no process of attainment. The transcendental Conscious Principle alone subsists in the three states of being. She remains as the one uniform, absolute being. She is ignorance; She is wisdom; She is bondage; She is liberation and She is the process therefore.

This is all that need be known, understood and realized. There is nothing more. I have told you all in order.