“He knows bliss in the Atman And wants nothing else.
Cravings torment the heart: He renounces cravings. I call him illumined.
Not shaken by adversity, Not hankering after happiness: Free from fear, free from anger, Free from the things of desire. I call him a seer, and illumined.
The bonds of his flesh are broken. He is lucky, and does not rejoice: He is unlucky, and does not weep. I call him illumined.
The tortoise can draw in its legs: The seer can draw in his senses. I call him illumined.
The abstinent run away from what they desire But carry their desires with them: When a man enters Reality, He leaves his desires behind him. Even a mind that knows the path Can be dragged from the path: The senses are so unruly. But he controls the senses And recollects the mind And fixes it on me. I call him illumined.
Thinking about sense-objects Will attach you to sense-objects; Grow attached, and you become addicted; Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger; Be angry, and you confuse your mind; Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; Forget experience, you lose discrimination; Lose discrimination, and you miss life’s only purpose.
When he has no lust, no hatred, A man walks safely among the things of lust and hatred. To obey the Atman Is his peaceful joy: Sorrow melts Into that clear peace: His quiet mind Is soon established in peace.
The uncontrolled mind Does not guess that the Atman is present: How can it meditate? Without meditation, where is peace? Without peace, where is happiness?
The wind turns a ship From its course upon the waters: The wandering winds of the senses Cast man’s mind adrift And turn his better judgment from its course. When a man can still the senses I call him illumined.
The recollected mind is awake In the knowledge of the Atman Which is dark night to the ignorant: The ignorant are awake in their sense-life Which they think is daylight: To the seer it is darkness.
Water flows continually into the ocean But the ocean is never disturbed:
Desire flows into the mind of the seer But he is never disturbed. The seer knows peace:
The man who stirs up his own lusts Can never know peace.
He knows peace who has forgotten desire. He lives without craving: Free from ego, free from pride. This is the state of enlightenment in Brahman: A man does not fall back from it Into delusion. Even at the moment of death He is alive in that enlightenment: Brahman and he are one.”
