Dashak 8 · Samāsa 7

Earlier the listener's question was — in how many days does mokṣa happen? / That very topic, alert listeners, hear with attention.

How should mokṣa be known? To whom is 'mokṣa' said? / How is it attained through the company of saints — [listen].

Then 'bound' means tied, and 'mokṣa' means become free. / How that is attained by saint-company — hear that very thing.

The creature is bound by samkalpa (intentional resolve); as jīva-hood it became bound. / That one is made free by vivek (discrimination) by the saint-folk.

'I am jīva' — this samkalpa, holding firm, aeons passed; / by that the creature became small, reduced to deha-buddhi (body-intellect).

'I am jīva, I have bondage, I have birth-death; / the fruit of karmas done, I myself must now bear.'

The fruit of pāpa is duḥkha, and the fruit of puṇya is sukha; / pāpa-puṇya must inevitably be borne.

The experience of pāpa-puṇya does not cease, and womb-dwelling also does not cease. / Such is the kalpanā (imagination) that has become firm.

He is named 'the bound one'; as jīva-hood he became bound — / just as silkworm spinning itself in cocoon meets death.

Thus that creature is ajñāna; does not know Bhagavant's knowledge. / Says, 'my birth-death does not release.'

'Now let me do some dāna — as support for next birth; / thereby my samsāra will be blissful.'

'Formerly I did no dāna, so poverty has arrived; / now at least something must be done.'

So he gave an old cloth and one copper coin; / says, 'now in crore-multiples I shall attain ahead.'

In Kuśāvarta, in Kurukṣetra — hearing the mahimā (greatness) he gives dāna; / āśā (hope) held within for crore-multiples.

A rukā (quarter-paisa), an āḍakā he gave in dāna; to the mendicant he tossed a crust; / says 'my heap has become a crore of crusts.'

'That I shall eat in the next birth' — so he imagines in the inner-self. / Thus vāsanā gets entangled in birth-karma of creatures.

'Now what I give, that I shall attain in next birth' — / such imagining is ajñāna; know him as bound.

After many births at the end, the human-body is attained; / here if sadgati through jñāna is not had, womb-dwelling does not cease.

'Womb-dwelling occurs [only] in human-body' — this is not at all so; / sudden experience comes, again of low yoni.

Such is the determination in the śāstras, made by many in many ways — / human-body in samsāra is supremely rare.

When pāpa-puṇya reach parity, only then is human-body obtained; / otherwise this birth does not occur — this is Vyāsa's saying in Bhāgavata.

[Śloka: nara-dehamādyam sulabham sudurlabham | plavam sukalpam gurukarṇadhāram | māyānukūlena nabhasvatoritam | pumānbhavābdhim na taret sa ātmahā ||] / Human-body is rare; small samkalpa brings [no] gain; / Guru is the helmsman svayambhū — gives happiness.

He for whom fate is not favourable, himself the sinner, that creature / cannot cross the bhava-sindhu — is called ātma-hatyārā (self-killer).

Without jñāna, creatures have 84-lakh birth-deaths; / all those are self-killings — hence called ātma-hatyārā.

In human-body without jñāna, birth-death is never avoided; / terrible sufferings must be borne in various low yonis.

Bear, monkey, dog, pig, / horse, ox, buffalo, donkey, / crow, cock, jackal, cat, / lizard, frog, fly —

— etc., low yonis; without jñāna they must be borne among people. / The foolish creature entertains hope of the next birth.

'When this human-body falls, again at once it will be attained' — / such trust he holds, has no shame.

What accumulation of puṇya that human-body would again be attained? / Vain hope he has held regarding next birth.

Such ignorant foolish people have made bondage by samkalpa; / they have become their own enemy to themselves.

[Śloka: ātmaiva hy ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ ||] / Such bondage of samkalpa — by saint-company it snaps; know. / Hear its characteristics — they will be told.

The body of five elements — the moving and unmoving was created; / by prakṛti-svabhāva the world-form began to operate.

Deha, avasthā (state), abhimāna (ego), sthāna (place), bhoga, mātrā, guṇa, / śakti and so on — characteristics in four-fold of the tattvas.

Such piṇḍa-brahmāṇḍa rachanā — with expansion kalpanā grew; / in determining tattva-jñāna, doctrines became confused.

Various doctrines, various divisions; by divisions disputes grow. / But the saints know that dialogue of unity.

Of that dialogue the mark — know the five-elemental body; / within that body the Cause — Ātman is to be recognized.

The body at the end perishes; it should not be called Ātman. / Collection of various tattvas has come into the body.

Antaḥkaraṇa, the prāṇas and so on; ten sense-objects and sense-organs — / this is the sūkṣma (subtle) vivek taught in the śāstras.

Taking the purification of subtle [analysis], separate are antaḥkaraṇa, manas, buddhi; / various tattvas are upādhis — Ātman is distinct.

Sthūla, sūkṣma, kāraṇa, mahākāraṇa, virāṭ, hiraṇya, / avyākṛta, mūla-prakṛti — know these as eight bodies (aṣṭa-deha).

Four in piṇḍa, four in brahmāṇḍa — such is the grandeur of aṣṭa-deha. / With prakṛti-puruṣa's pair added, ten bodies are spoken (daśa-deha).

Such are the characteristics of tattvas; Ātman is sākṣī (witness), distinct. / Cause, doer, kāraṇa — dṛśya (object) is theirs.

Jīva-Śiva, piṇḍa-brahmāṇḍa — these are the uproar of māyā-avidyā. / To expound this is endless; yet the Ātman is apart.

If you look, Ātmās are four; their characteristics attend closely. / Knowing this within, hold firmly.

First jīvātmā, second śivātmā, third paramātmā who is viśvātmā, / fourth know as nirmalātmā — such are the four Ātmās.

Distinctions appear high-low, but the four are only one. / On this topic the dṛṣṭānta (example) and sanction — attentively hear.

Ghaṭākāśa (pot-space), maṭhākāśa (room-space), / mahadākāśa (great-space), cidākāśa (consciousness-space) — / all together, ākāśa is but one.

Likewise jīvātmā and śivātmā, paramātmā and nirmalātmā — / all together, Ātman is but one.

The ākāśa pervading within a pot — its name is ghaṭākāśa. / The brahmāmśa pervading in the piṇḍa — that is called jīvātmā.

The ākāśa pervading within a room — its name is maṭhākāśa. / Likewise the brahmāmśa in the brahmāṇḍa — that is called śivātmā.

The ākāśa outside the room — its name is mahadākāśa. / The brahmāmśa outside the brahmāṇḍa — that is called paramātmā.

The ākāśa free of upādhi — its name is cidākāśa. / Likewise nirmalātmā pareśa — it is free of upādhi.

By upādhi-association it appears divided; yet ākāśa is indivisible. / Likewise Ātman is svānanda-ghana (mass of self-bliss) — it is but one.

Inside and outside the dṛśya, the subtle Ātman is continuous. / To praise its greatness even Śeṣa is not capable.

Such are the characteristics of Ātman; knowing this, there is no jīva-hood. / On searching through upādhis it is non-different — it was there from the root.

As jīva-hood, it is located in one region; by ahamkāra it bears birth. / On looking with vivek, for the creature — whence is birth?

Released from birth-death — this is known as 'mokṣa attained.' / Searching with tattvas, he has attained the Real Substance (tattvatā-vastu).

That very Substance is yourself — this is the characteristic of the Mahāvākya. / Saints give expounding with their own mouth.

The very moment anugraha (grace) is done, that very moment mokṣa has occurred. / Bondage cannot even be spoken of for the Ātman.

Now the doubt has dissolved; the vṛtti of uncertainty has set. / By saint-company, instantly the mokṣa-padavī was attained.

He who was bound in dream — by waking he is released. / By jñāna-vivek, for the creature, the attainment of mokṣa.

At the end of the ajñāna-night, the sorrows of samkalpa perish. / By that quality, instant attainment of mokṣa.

To break dream-bondage, no other sādhana is needed; / for that one, beyond waking, no effort is to be spoken of.

Likewise the jīva bound by samkalpa — for him there is no other means; / on looking with vivek, bondage becomes vain (vāva).

Without looking through vivek, every means is only exhaustion; / on looking with vivek, you yourself are Ātman.

In the Ātman's locus, there is neither baddha nor mokṣa — neither of the two; / birth-death — all this — does not occur in Ātman-hood.