**Janaka said: **
**1.1 Master, how is Knowledge to be achieved, detachment acquired, liberation attained? **
HOW TO ATTAIN KNOWLEDGE
.It is only those that seek knowledge, they alone take to this book. Janaka is confused. He says, “Some say mukti (liberation) is attained if one goes to die in Benares, some say mukti is gotten after death. Some say it is achieved if one goes to Jerusalem, and so on. You tell me what is the true nature of mukti.”
Liberation: From the imprisonment of ignorance. We are surrounded on all sides by ignorance. I do not know this, I do not know that. I want to know what this wall is, what this body is, what death is, this is my object. There should be nothing left unknown.
Renunciation: True vairagyam (renunciation) is not running away from house or throwing away the cloth because even if I do so, my attachment to various things does not go.
**Ashtavakra said: **
1.2 To be free, shun the experiences of the senses like poison. Turn your attention to forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, simplicity, truth
Answer to the first question [in Verse 1]. Inwardness. The object of the Mandukya Upanishad is this search for truth.
Truth may sometimes seem unpleasant, but we have to see it as nectar.
Contentment: Don’t seek after this or that. Then your mind will be distracted and you will find no time for this search after jnanam (knowledge).
Truth as nectar: If you have any other object in view, name or fame or prosperity, you may go to religion or [go off for] something else.
1.3 You are not earth, water, fire or air. Nor are you empty space. Liberation is to know yourself as Awareness alone— the Witness of these.
The starting point of Vedanta is Drig drishya viveka (discrimination between the seer and object seen) c.f. Brahma Sutra Introduction.
Answers the second question [in Verse 1], the object of mukti. Separateness from another.
You are not the body which is made of these five elements.
Realize yourself as the seer [not knower - corrected in the text] You are the sakshi (witness).
Of the nature of consciousness: [Consciousness – the capacity to know. Drig drishya vivek. Separate the subject from the objects.
1.4 Abide in Awareness with no illusion of person. You will be instantly free and at peace.
Answers the third question [in Verse 1]. Vairagyam cha katham praytam: spiritual consciousness.
The body may be moving, growing, changing, but you see the change.
Intelligence: The capacity to know. You think that you are inside your body. The scientists say that consciousness is limited in the brain. This is “bondage”—the initial stage. Other bondages are various kinds of false “ideas”. See the next sloka (verse).
1.5 You have no caste or duties. You are invisible, unattached, formless. You are the Witness of all things. Be happy
5.The Jnani (knower of truth) is beyond all varnas (caste) and ashrams (stations in life). The European must forget [the notion] that he is superior to the colored races.
You are not visible to the eyes: The body is visible, not the Drik (seer).
Your sannyasa ashrama [renunciation stage of life] belongs to the body and not the Drik. I am the witness of the avasthas. Ten yeiars ago I was a registrar and twenty years ago another different something. I am the witness of millions of bodies. [These last two lines appear to be quotes from V. Subrahmanya Iyer, who was a registrar.]
Detachment – the first exercise.
1.6 Right and wrong, pleasure and pain, exist in mind only. They are not your concern. You neither do nor enjoy. You are free.
Ideas, thoughts, internal Drishyam (objects).
O All-Pervading One: In the third and the fourth sloka it has already been stated that you are not confined to the body. When you identify yourself with the body you become the ego and as such the doer and the enjoyer. If you give up the body idea, you become the witness.
1.7 You are the Solitary Witness of All That Is, forever free. Your only bondage is not seeing This.
If you think you are Shraddhananda, you are in bondage. The name belongs to the body.
How can the “seer” in you be different from the “seer” in the ass? I may see different bodies, but how do I know that there are different souls -different seers.
Free: when you think that you are confined in the body, then you are not free.
1.8 The thought: “I am the doer” is the bite of a poisonous snake. To know: “I do nothing” is the wisdom of faith. Be happy
[B-notes in bengali] Analyze deeply every action, every question, every opinion, every thought—try to find where this “I” is lurking. “This is so beautiful” in this innocent statement lurks a big ego. Maybe its beautiful from your point of view; have you thought whether its beautiful from everyone’s viewpoint?
**1.9 A single understanding: “I am the One Awareness,” consumes all suffering in the fire of an instant. Be happy. **
Grief, happiness and all other things come and go.
1.10 You are unbounded Awareness— Bliss, Supreme Bliss– in which the universe appears like the mirage of a snake in a rope. Be happy.
Supreme Bliss: Means there is absolutely no grief. Illustration: The whole world is in the mind of the dream. This same thing is to be known in the waking state.
1.11 It is true what they say: “You are what you think.” If you think you are bound you are bound. If you think you are free you are free.
True: This can be verified. This moment you think of the seer. You will be immediately convinced that you are not limited.
1.12 You are Self—the Solitary Witness. You are perfect, all-pervading, One. You are free, desireless, forever still. The universe is but a seeming in You.
Perfection only in Drik. All Drishyam imperfect.
Desireless: Everything is in it, therefore desireless.
Quiet: Nothing to be achieved; therefore, desireless. Illusion: Imagination.
Actionless: The witness does not produce anything.
[B]Question: I didn’t create the world. Answer: I’m not saying that. But the world is of the nature of ideas, therefore, not the mind. Then, when the burden of “causality” drops off, the question of where this world came from will not arise. You will see that you and the world are inseparable.
** 1.13 Meditate on this: “I am Awareness alone–Unity itself.” Give up the idea that you are separate, a person, that there is within and without. **
You think that you are one, Brahman is One. This is an imagined
Brahman. You have to know that you are Brahman
1.14 You have long been bound thinking: “I am a person.” Let the knowledge: “I am Awareness alone” be the sword that frees you.
The realists will say - What do you mean? Here is the body. We say – better analyze the body. We find what thing is steady here. It is continuously passing away.
1.15 You are now and forever free, luminous, transparent, still. The practice of meditation keeps one in bondage.
.Blemish: is a Drishyam.
This indeed is your bondage that you practice Samadhi: The Atman is actionless. But you by your effort for samadhi want to impose action on the Atman.
Self-effulgent: Known in dream; suns and moons are created.
1.16 You are pure Consciousness— the substance of the universe. The universe exists within you. Don’t be small-minded.
Pervade this universe…this universe exists in you [B]You are the mind. Yet it is not known where this mind has its beginning or its end. Therefore, what right do you have to say that you are limited? Since you cannot measure the mind with a measuring stick, then you (come to) speak the truth.
How to know? Go to dream.
Do not be small-minded: No proof for small-mindedness. Don’t be carried to dogma - many souls etc.
** 1.17 You are unconditioned, changeless, formless. You are solid, unfathomable, unperturbed Desire nothing. You are Consciousness,chit**
The European [Western philosophy] has no idea of the seer at all. And so [they have] many millions of confused theories of the mind.
Unconditioned: No limit to you.
Immutable: No change in you, though you see changes.
Formless: You see forms in the Drishyam, but however you may try, you cannot see the form of Drik.
Unfathomable intelligence: You do not know how many things you have the capacity to know. You may see and know the Himalayan mountains, the scientific discovery.
Unperturbed: The mind is perturbed. The seer sees the perturbed condition of the mind.
Chit: The essence of the mind which has the capacity to know.
1.18 That which has form is not real. Only the formless is permanent. Once this is known, you will not return to illusion.
Unreal: Going away every second.
Spiritual: Unhappy word. Tattvopadesh: knowledge of truth, instruction in truth.
Escape the possibility of rebirth: It is not a religious ‘gaffe’. It is a fact. It is the Drishyam that is born and reborn. The Drik is never born.
[B] When we see something, then we say it is “changing,” and when it goes away, then we say, it went away, it is “unreal.”. The body has birth and death, but I exist. There is nothing called the body – the body, too, is the indestructible soul.
** 1.19 Just as a mirror exists both within and without the image reflected, the Supreme Lord exists both within and without the body. **
Supreme Lord : Mind.
1.20 Just as the same space exists both within and without a jar, the timeless, all-pervasive One exists as Totality.
He started with reference to Atma and concluded with Brahman. This chapter is a commentary on ayam atma brahma.