Be Not Deluded

Sage Vasishtha

O Rama, you are not born when the body is born, nor do you die when it dies. To think that the space within the jar came into being, when it was made and the space perishes with the jar is sheer foolishness. Moreover, the indwelling consciousness is free from notions of the desirable and the undesirable in relation to the body, mind and senses. The indwelling consciousness seems to come into contact with these even as travellers meet in an inn or logs of wood meet and part in a stream: meeting and paring do not cause happiness or unhappiness to the consciousness. Why then do people exult or grieve in these circumstances?

The self on account of its ignorant self-limitation as the mind becomes as if tainted by the objects of the world: but, the same self when it is awakened to its true nature abandons its ignorant delusion and regains its self-knowledge. Then, the mind sees the body as if from a great height. Recognizing the body as an aggregate of the elements, it transcends body-consciousness and becomes enlightened. Such an enlightened person is untainted by worldliness or ignorance even while acting in this world. He is neither attracted nor repelled by anything in the world. He knows "What is known as 'I' and what is known as 'the world' in the three periods of time are but the expansion of the conjunction between pure experiencing and the experience itself." Whether the object of experiencing be real or unreal, it is entirely dependent upon the experiencing: how then do joy and sorrow arise? The false is false, the truth is the truth; a mixture of these two is of course false! Be not deluded. Abandon false perception and behold the truth; you will never again be deluded.