Janaka said:
** 2.1 I am now spotless and at peace– Awareness beyond Consciousness. All this time I have been duped by illusion.**
STATE OF REALIZATION
.Cf. 13th Chapter of the Gita. That which comes and goes. Going is more important. But I am permanent. Then, subsequently, I will see that even nature is myself. Nature: Sense objects. Illusion: i.e. which goes and comes and goes away. Inside thoughts come and go, and outside, if you have studied science, you will see that every particle changes.
** 2.2 By this light alone the body and the universe appear. I am Everything or Nothing.**
.Cf. Berkeley: “To exist is to perceive.”
Mine is all this universe: Waking and dream.
Or verily nothing is mine: Non-ideation namadhi.
“I, as the revealer of this body, am Viswa. As the revealer of the universe, I am Virat”. - Shyamlatal, July 11, 1941.
“The universe and the body are both simultaneously revealed to me. I have no right to say that the body is mine and the universe is not mine. Both are mine because both are revealed to me”. - Kurseong, July 3, 1940. [It is assumed these words were written down on these dates at these Himalayan retreats quoting Revered Swami Virajananda, President of the Ramakrishna Order from 1939-1951, while Swami Shraddhananda was serving as his private secretary.]
**2.3 Seeing there is no universe or body, by grace the Self is revealed. **
Renounced the universe: Giving up the idea of its separate existence apart from me. I am now. perceiving: Supreme authority–verification. The Guru is required for this – the pupil may imagine anything to be the Self. The Guru will point out the true Self. The pupil may imagine some vision in Yoga. All that nonsense. “The Salem Ashrama report has come. I had a vision of Guru Maharaj to start a separate organization and so I am starting this under his inspiration!”
B] I don’t have the intellect to take on the difficult task of giving up this world. Finally, today, by what trick did I see the formless Supreme Being.
2.4 As waves, foam and bubbles are not different from water, so the universe emanating from Self is not different from Atman
Because foam, bubbles, etc. appear and disappear into water
.Emanating: You must be seeing the waves, foam and bubbles and then say they are all water. So see everything in this universe and know that everything is Brahman.
Atman: How? In my dream. Modern science says that the world is a series of ideas. There is no difference between waking and dreaming .
**2.5 Look closely at cloth, you see only threads. Look closely at creation, you see only Self. **
Analyzed: Analyze this universe into atoms and electrons, etc.
In religion you may go without analysis. You may imagine anything you like. But in Vedanta, analysis is unavoidable. Analyze everything.
Duly considered
2.6 As sweetness pervades sugarcane juice, I am the essence of creation.
Even in the waking [state] when you think of a napkin, which part of the napkin is not in your mind?
But you must not confound this mind with the mind of the [system of] European psychoanalysis or that of some Indian thinkers. (Cf. dream).
**2.7 Not seeing Self, the world is materialized. Seeing Self, the world disappears. A rope is not a snake, but can appear to be. **
.Disappears: i.e. ceases to appear as a separate reality apart from the Self.
[B] Without the knowledge of the rope, the “snake” engenders fear; with familiarity, that misunderstanding clears. As the world floats, the true nature of Atman awakens that note of fearlessness - once you have the knowledge of the Atman – the world is nothing but Atman.
2.8 I am not other than Light. The universe manifests at my glance.
Light: The capacity to know.
C.f. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.6. [S] atmaivasya jyotir bhavati (The Self is his light). [‘When the sun and the moon have both set, the fire has gone out, and speech has stopped, Yajnavalkya, what exactly serves as the light for a man?’ ‘The self serves as his light. It is through the light of the self that he sits, goes out, works and returns.’ ‘It is just so, Yajnavalkya.’ Translated by Swami Madhavananda, Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta.]
When the universe manifests itself, verily then it is I that shine: in waking and dream.
[B] My true nature is illumination. There is nothing else. Yet, when you reveal yourself, I am behind that. When you say that if the electric light fails, I can’t see, then you are already sitting holding a basket of preconceptions. “I need physical light to see this world.” Waking bias – drop that preconception – you will see that every idea has to be illumined by the Atman.
2.9 The mirage of universe appears in me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon.
The universe is the subject of enquiry.
The most important thing is that even when I imagine something, it may appear as something external to me. Even when Ganesha or Sri Krishna appears before me, they are in my mind only.
[B] Imagined is this wide world, enhancing my beauty by my illusion.
**2.10 As a pot returns to clay, a wave to water, a bracelet to gold, so will the universe return to Me. **
In fact, everyday in sleep it [the world] dissolves in me and again emerges in waking and dream.
[B] My creation, this universe, in me shall dissolve, just as a pot in clay, a wave in water, a bangle [in gold].
** 2.11 I am wonderful indeed– beyond adoration. I cannot decay nor ever die, though God and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass. **
No decay:
I have seen the decay of other things but not of myself. Brahma: The creator, the God of all religions.
In fact, such destruction actually happens everyday. I as pure consciousness remain unaffected.
**2.12 I am wonderful indeed– beyond adoration. Even with a body I am One. I neither come nor go. I am everywhere at once. **
[B] Salutations, salutations to my true nature.
2.13 I am wonderful indeed– beyond adoration. I am astounded at my powers. The universe appears within me but I do not touch it.
Bearing the universe:
Compare dream. The body is not outside me. It is inside – it is the body. But this mind is not the ‘Western’ mind - it is not confined within the brain.
2.14 I am wonderful indeed– beyond adoration. I am everything thought or spoken, and have nothing.
Nothing: Outside me.
[B] Salutations, Salutations to my true nature – I, who have lost everything beyond mind and speech – I am again this entire universe. Just as all nerves meet in the brain, so also all things expressed by words and thoughts are centered in me. I am the refuge of all.
** 2.15 In Reality, knowledge, the knower, and the knowable do not exist. I am the transparent Self in which through ignorance they appear.**
Exist: Apart from the Atman.
Appears: Just as the triad [knowledge, knower and knowable] appears in dream.
[B] Knowledge of oneness (unbroken) is without blemish. The sense of subject and object (duality) is multiplicity (broken) and is blemished.
** 2.16 Looking at One and seeing many is the cause of all misery. The only cure is to realize what is seen is not there. I am One—aware, blissful, immaculate. **
You want something. You don’t want to lose something – The cause of misery.
All objects known: Objects are known, seen, but known to be unreal. How to know that objects are unreal? Study the world.
2.17 I am unbounded Awareness. Only in imagination do I have limits. Reflecting on this, I abide in the Absolute
I have imposed: Why I say that I have imposed? Because I have not seen anybody else imposing on me.
Absolute: that which cannot be negated but which cannot be described. Exercise – Always think ‘I am not limited, I am in all’ and the best practical way is to do service to others. Because you are in all.
[S] : Ideation. Constantly keep yourself aloof from ideation.
2.18 I am neither free nor bound. The illusion of such things has fallen into disbelief. Though I contain creation, it has no substance
Freedom: Liberation.
The last position – when you do not even think that the universe exists in you. Then, what is, is. [S] Neti neti (not this, not this) Not that you do not see the universe. No question of Nirvikalpa samadhi. That is not the highest. You will see the universe, but have known that it is your Self.
[B] When I think/imagine, then the world appears; when I don’t, the world disappears.
2.19 Having seen for certain that this universe and body is without form or substance, I am revealed as Awareness alone. Imagination has no place here.
Pure intelligence: pure consciousness. The ultimate truth – Everything is Atman. No ideas superimposed on the mind even. But in the highest stage - we ask what is the essence of ideas? And we see - mind.
2.20 The body exists only in imagination, as do heaven and hell, bondage, freedom, fear. Are these my concern? I, who am pure Awareness?
All these: Which come and go. Chit: [S] Drik.
2.21 I see no differences or separation. Even the multitudes appear as a single formless desert. To what should I cling?
Desert [crossed out and replaced with] wilderness: that which puzzles you. This is the standpoint of the [S] sannyasin, to be steady in your conviction of the world as unreal.
[B] This standpoint is the second thorn [Note: Remember Sri Ramakrishna’s use of the thorn to take out another thorn?] If you can see the world as Brahman, then no longer this standpoint. Then, all is Brahman – no wilderness – then there is nothing to leave out.
** 2.22 I am not the body. I do not have a body. I am Awareness, not a person. My thirst for life bound me to a seeming of life.**
This is an exercise. Body: The body is not something different from the mind. Mine: I have no ‘I’ so I can’t say the body is mine.
Chit: the seer of the Jiva. Life: Bodily enjoyment. When I am the Seer, all bodies are equal to me. I can not say this or that body is mine.
** 2.23 In the limitless ocean of Myself the winds of the mind roil the myriad waves of the world.**
Wind of the mind: thinking. The purport of the sloka is to show that ‘nothing is lost’. Appearance and disappearance [are] also in me .
** 2.24 But when the wind subsides in the limitless ocean the ark of personhood is swallowed up, along with the universe it carries. **
Jiva: the ego In sushupti, no ego.
2.25 And how wonderful it is! In the limitless ocean of Myself, waves of beings arise, collide, play for a time, then disappear–as is their nature.
Individual selves: the Jivas, the egos. In me: Atman. Disappear: in [S] sushupti.