Self, Potencies, Vestures · 2

Here the higher self shines of itself and rules, taking on the condition of doer, with pure thought as its disguise, an unaffected witness, nor is it stained by the actions, there done, as it is not attached to them, therefore it is not stained by actions, whatever they be, done by its disguise; let this form-vesture be the minister, doing the work of the conscious self, the real man, just as the tools do the carpenter's work; thus this self remains unattached.

Blindness or slowness or skill come from the goodness or badness of the eye; deafness and dumbness are of the ear and not of the Knower, the Self.

Up-breathing, down-breathing, yawning, sneezing, the forward moving of breath, and the outward moving--these are the doings of the life-breaths, say those who know these things; of the life-breaths, also, hunger and thirst are properties.

The inner activity dwells and shines in sight and the other powers in the body, through the false attribution of selfhood, as cause.

Self-assertion is to be known as the cause of this false attribution of selfhood, as doer and enjoyer; and through substance and the other two potencies, it reaches expansion in the three modes.

When sensuous things have affinity with it, it is happy; when the contrary, unhappy. So happiness and unhappiness are properties of this, and not of the Self which is perpetual bliss.

Sensuous things are dear for the sake of the self, and not for their own sake; and therefore the Self itself is dearest of all.

Hence the Self itself is perpetual bliss--not for it are happiness and unhappiness; as in dreamless life, where are no sensuous things, the Self that is bliss--is enjoyed, so in waking-life it is enjoyed through the word, through intuition, teaching and deduction.

(Verses 108--135)

The power of the supreme Master, that is called unmanifested, beginningless unwisdom whose very self is the three potencies, to be known through thought, by its workings--this is glamor (Mâyâ), whereby all this moving world is made to grow.

Neither being nor non-being nor of the self of both of these; neither divided nor undivided nor of the self of both of these; neither formed nor formless nor of the self of both of these--very wonderful and ineffable is its form.

To be destroyed by the awakening to the pure, secondless Eternal, as the serpent imagined in a rope, when the rope is seen; its potencies are called substance, force, and darkness; each of them known by their workings. The self of doing belongs to force, whose power is extension, whence the pre-existent activities issued; rage and all the changes of the mind that cause sorrow are ever its results.

Desire, wrath, greed, vanity, malice, self-assertion, jealousy, envy, are the terrible works of Force, its activities in man; therefore this is the cause of bondage.

Then enveloping is the power of Darkness, whereby a thing appears as something else; this is the cause of the circling birth and rebirth of the spirit, and the cause whereby extension is drawn forward.

Though a man be full of knowledge, learned, skillful, very subtle-sighted, if Darkness has wrapped him round, he sees not, though he be full of manifold instruction; he calls good that which is raised by error, and leans upon its properties, unlucky man that he is; great and hard to end is the enveloping power of Darkness.

Wrong thinking, contradictory thinking, fanciful thinking, confused thinking--these are its workings; this power of extension never leaves hold of one who has come into contact with it, but perpetually sends him this way and that.

Unwisdom, sluggishness, inertness, sloth, infatuation, folly, and things like these are of the potency of Darkness. Under the yoke of these he knows nothing at all, but remains as though asleep or like a post.

But the potency of substance is pure like water, and even though mixed with the other two, it builds for the true refuge; for it is a reflected spark of the Self, and lights up the inert like the sun.

Of the potency of Substance when mixed the properties are self-respect, self-restraint, control, faith and love and the longing to be free, a godlike power and a turning back from the unreal.

Of the potency of substance altogether pure the properties are grace, direct perception of the Self, and perfect peace; exulting gladness, a resting on the Self supreme, whereby he reaches the essence of real bliss.

The unmanifest is characterized by these three potencies; it is the causal vesture of the Self; dreamless life is the mode where it lives freely, all the activities of the powers, and even of the knowing soul having sunk back into it.

Every form of outward perceiving has come to rest, the knowing soul becomes latent in the Self from which it springs; the name of this is dreamless life, wherein he says "I know nothing at all of the noise of the moving world."

The body, powers, life-breaths, mind, self-assertion, all changes, sensuous things, happiness, unhappiness, the ether and all the elements, the whole world up to the unmanifest--this is not Self.

Glamor and every work of glamor from the world-soul to the body, know this as unreal, as not the Self, built up of the mirage of the desert.

But I shall declare to you the own being of the Self supreme, knowing which a man, freed from his bonds, reaches the lonely purity.

There is a certain selfhood wherein the sense of "I" forever rests; who witnesses the three modes of being, who is other than the five veils; who is the only knower in waking, dreaming, dreamlessness; of all the activities of the knowing soul, whether good or bad--this is the "I";

Who of himself beholds all; whom none beholds; who kindles to consciousness the knowing soul and all the powers; whom none kindles to consciousness; by whom all this is filled; whom no other fills; who is the shining light within this all; after whose shining all else shines;

By whose nearness only body and powers and mind and soul do their work each in his own field, as though sent by the Self;

Because the own nature of this is eternal wakefulness, self-assertion, the body and all the powers, and happiness and unhappiness are beheld by it, just as an earthen pot is beheld. This inner Self, the ancient Spirit, is everlasting, partless, immediately experienced happiness; ever of one nature, pure waking knowledge, sent forth by whom Voice and the life-breaths move.

Here, verily, in the substantial Self, in the bidden place of the soul, this steady shining begins to shine like the dawn; then the shining shines forth as the noonday sun, making all this world to shine by its inherent light; knower of all the changing moods of mind and inward powers; of all the acts done by body, powers, life-breaths; present in them as fire in iron, strives not nor changes at all.