Dashak 9 · Samāsa 10

Ramdas opens with an image that recurs through the samasa: in the temple sits Jagannayaka (the deity), and on the temple roof perches a crow — yet no one should say the crow, by virtue of height, is greater than the Deva.

Don't mistake visibility or position for actual worth — notice where you're crediting someone, or yourself, with superiority just because they're 'on top' rather than because of what they actually are.

A second image of the same point: an assembly convenes at the royal court, and a monkey climbs a pillar above it — but the discerning would never call the monkey superior to the assembly merely for reaching higher.

Judge status by substance, not by who has climbed highest in the room — a loud or elevated position is not the same as real authority.

Two more pairs: a Brahmin bathes ritually and leaves, while a heron simply stands still the same way — yet the heron isn't 'better' for its stillness. Among Brahmins themselves, some are disciplined, some dissolute; a dog that sits motionless as if meditating is not thereby excellent either.

Don't confuse outward stillness or ritual posture — yours or another's — with genuine inner discipline; check what's actually happening inside before granting credit.

The Brahmin may not know a certain yogic sign, while a cat is naturally skilled at watching prey — but no one should therefore call the cat more special than the Brahmin.

A narrow skill you lack doesn't make someone with that skill your spiritual superior — weigh the whole person, not one isolated talent.

The Brahmin discriminates carefully, while the fly treats everything without distinction — but the fly's indifference isn't wisdom; non-discrimination born of ignorance is not the same as non-discrimination born of insight.

Don't mistake indifference or not caring for spiritual equanimity — check whether your evenness comes from understanding or simply from not paying attention.

Fine clothes worn by a lowly person, or a truly powerful person sitting plainly uncovered — appearances mislead in both directions. What settles the matter is genuine testing by one capable of examining.

Resist judging people by their dress or display, whether it's impressive or humble — take the time to actually test and observe before concluding anything.

All of this — refined outward bearing, elevated appearance — is merely worldly. The one thing that actually matters, Ramdas says plainly, is inner steadfastness.

Before polishing your outward presentation further, ask honestly how steady your inner attention actually is — that's the one metric that matters here.

A person can manage their worldly affairs well while remaining inattentive within; missing the 'chief Deva,' the inward Self, this way, Ramdas calls such a person a killer of their own true self.

Don't let competence at managing your outer life become a substitute for inner attention — neglecting that inward work is, in real terms, self-sabotage.

A law of worship is stated: worshipping the Deva leads to deva-loka; worshipping ancestors leads to pitr-loka; worshipping spirits leads to bhuta-loka — one arrives wherever one's devotion is directed.

Notice that what you devote your attention to is where you end up living — check what you actually worship with your time, not what you claim to.

The principle generalizes: whatever is worshipped, that is the loka one reaches. Worshipping the nirguna, the attributeless Absolute, means one must, in the end, become nirguna itself — not merely attain a place.

If your deepest aim is inner freedom rather than a reward, understand that the path is becoming that freedom, not just arriving somewhere for it.

How does one 'worship' the nirguna, which has no form to approach? By being ananya — undivided, without a second — within it. Becoming ananya, one becomes blessed with full certainty.

Practice not holding yourself apart from what you're attending to in meditation or prayer — collapse the distance between watcher and watched rather than keeping a formal devotional gap.

The fruit of every practice, ultimately, is recognizing the One Deva — and this requires directly examining the question 'who am I?'

Whatever spiritual or ethical practice you're doing, let it eventually circle back to the direct question of who is doing it — don't let technique substitute for that inquiry.

On examination, Deva is formless, and one's own apparent form is illusory, a product of maya. The certainty 'I am That' becomes impressed and settled.

When you catch yourself over-identifying with your body or role, quietly recall that your deepest identity, like the divine you seek, has no fixed form — let that loosen the grip.

What inference is even left? The Real simply exists in its own place — and on searching, the sense of being a body turns out to be nothing at all.

When you search directly for the solid 'body-self' you assume you are, notice how it dissolves under close inspection rather than confirming itself.

Even the categories 'accomplished one' and 'means' are, at this level, merely inference — mental constructs. Likewise 'liberated' and 'bondage' don't actually touch each other; they belong to different orders of reality.

Don't get stuck comparing your progress against categories like 'advanced' or 'beginner' — those labels are provisional tools, not descriptions of what you actually are.

Whatever a practice accomplishes was, in fact, one's own nature all along; under the very name 'practitioner' lies an emptiness, not a solid separate identity doing the practicing.

Don't build your self-image around being 'a serious practitioner' — the identity of the one practicing is itself provisional, not the goal.

A vivid image: a potter has been elevated to royal rank — why on earth would he still go tend donkeys? The whole fuss and identity of potter-hood becomes unnecessary once the higher station is reached.

Once you've genuinely outgrown an old role or habit, stop maintaining its trappings out of habit — let go of identities that no longer serve where you actually are.

Likewise, all mental modifications and the various means of practice — once the goal is actually achieved, what further place is there for the means that got you there?

Recognize when a discipline or routine has done its job — don't cling to the ladder once you've reached the room it was built to reach.

Ramdas presses the logic further: what exactly can practices accomplish, and what rule-bound fruit is there to gain, if oneself is already the Real itself? Why keep stumbling about looking for what you already are?

Before chasing another technique or program for self-improvement, check honestly whether you're searching outside for something you already possess.

A layered map: the body is made of the five elements; the individual soul is a portion of Brahman; the Supreme Self is the ground of the undivided — Ramdas asks the listener to actually see this structure, not just recite it.

When you think about who you are, separate the three layers — body, individual awareness, and the ground beneath both — rather than collapsing them into one confused sense of 'me.'

On a casual look, a sense of 'I-ness' appears solid; but on searching, nothing substantial is found there. Each element is negated in turn by careful inquiry, until pure Atman alone remains ahead.

When your sense of 'I' feels under threat, search for it directly rather than defending it reflexively — inquiry, not defense, is what actually resolves the anxiety.

Each level operates according to its own nature: Atman exists as Atman, jiva exists as jiva, maya exists as maya — each has genuinely expanded and functions within its own domain.

Don't collapse different levels of your experience into one — your practical personality, your deeper awareness, and the play of circumstance around you each operate by their own logic; treat them accordingly.

All of this simply is, as described — and 'oneself' too is something within it. Ramdas defines the jnani precisely: the one who searches through all of this thoroughly, not the one who merely knows facts about it.

Don't settle for collecting spiritual information — actually search through your own experience the way this verse describes, since that search itself is what makes the understanding real.

A pointed limitation: one may be skilled at examining everything else, yet not know how to look at oneself. Such a jnani, Ramdas says, is only partial — still located within the form of mental activity.

Turn your habit of analyzing everyone and everything else back onto yourself — expertise about the world outside is incomplete without equally rigorous self-examination.

If that mental activity doing all this examining is itself examined, then nothing remains — by negating outward nature, everything that bears modification disappears.

Take your self-examination one level deeper: examine the examining mind itself, not just its conclusions — that's where real settling happens.

What remains after this is pure nirguna; on further inquiry, that itself turns out to be oneself. Ramdas calls this the profound mark of paramartha, the ultimate goal.

When your inquiry strips away every layer of role and activity, notice what's left — that remainder, not any of the layers, is the real ground worth trusting.

There is finally no real distinction between 'the fruit' and 'oneself' — a discernment that would keep them apart doesn't hold up. The fruit of the fruit — the One alone — is what oneself becomes.

Stop treating the goal of your practice as something separate you're reaching for — recognize that what you seek and who is seeking collapse into the same thing.

The image returns: a beggar becomes a king; looking to that elevated station, conviction arises. The fuss of beggar-hood — old anxieties, old habits — should now be left entirely to those who are still beggars, not carried forward by the king.

Once you've genuinely moved past an old insecurity or limitation, stop rehearsing its worries — leave that fuss behind rather than dragging it into your new station.

Ramdas surveys the whole apparatus of tradition — scriptures, the countless teachings and practices, the saints and sages who labor hard — and is about to ask, in the next verse, what all this effort is actually for.

Take stock of all the practices and teachings you've collected over time, and prepare to ask honestly what they were all actually aimed at achieving.

The answer: what all that effort points toward is Brahma-form — oneself — arrived at through discerning the essential from the inessential. Once seen, the distinction between 'doing' and 'not-doing' turns out to be hollow — nothing real hangs on it.

After sifting the essential from the inessential in your practice, don't get anxious about whether you're doing enough — that anxiety itself belongs to the inessential layer you just set aside.

The beggar-turned-king image completes: the beggar once feared the royal command, yet that very beggar became king; once king, the fear itself flew off along with the beggar-identity that carried it — fear and false identity leave together.

Notice that a fear you're carrying may be tied to an old, outgrown self-image — when you genuinely release the identity, the fear that depended on it often leaves with it.

Ramdas opens a closing set of riddles pointing to non-dual paradox: one should proceed by the tradition's own command, study scripture by scripture itself, go to sacred fords by way of the ford — but he leaves open exactly how, since at the deepest level, means and end are not separate things.

When following a discipline or teaching, notice the paradox that you use the practice to reach what the practice itself already is — don't expect a clean separation between the tool and the goal.

Continuing the riddle: nectar should be tasted by nectar itself, the Infinite should be seen by the Infinite, the Divine should be aimed at by the Divine — Ramdas again leaves 'in what manner' open, since only the like can truly know the like.

Trust that the capacity to recognize what's most real in you comes from that same reality already present in you — you're not reaching for something wholly foreign.

Saints and non-saints alike should be set aside as categories; nirguna should be 'broken open' by nirguna itself; one's true form should be steeped in itself — again, 'in what manner' is left as a genuine open question for the listener to sit with.

Stop sorting people, or yourself, into saintly and unsaintly bins — that framework itself is one of the things this inquiry asks you to finally let go of.

Kohl is applied using kohl; wealth is accumulated using wealth; the stainless, beyond-perception reality should be directly experienced by itself — Ramdas again poses this as an unanswered 'how,' underscoring that ordinary means cannot reach it.

Accept that some things — deep peace, clear seeing — can't be manufactured by an external technique; they arise from what is already stainless in you, not added from outside.

The final riddle of the set: the goal should be achieved by the means, the object of meditation should be held by meditation, and the no-mind state should be what tames the mind — Ramdas leaves the 'how' open, setting up the deeper resolution to come in the samasas that follow.

When you try to still a restless mind, notice that the stilling itself can't be done by more mental effort — let the quiet that's already there do the taming, rather than adding another layer of striving.