23. If you want to attain Brahman all longings for objects should perish. The more you are removed from objects, the more the effulgence of Brahman will radiate in you.

When the desire for Brahman is generated, the consequential attitude of the one who desires for it should be a distaste for the objects of the senses. The desire for the part cannot be cherished together with a yearning to gain the whole. The mortal and the Immortal are utter contradictions. When the shadow is run after, the substance is left behind. When there is love for the world, the love for the Infinite is cast aside. The mind cannot think of diversity and Unity at one and the same time. In fact, it cannot even think of two objects at a time. It cleverly manages to shift its centres of imagination from one object to another presenting a false appearance that it is centred on one idea. To rest on one idea is not in the scheme of mental activity. When it is forced to centre itself in the thought of Brahman, it must drop down all the clustering objective thoughts.

There are grades in reality. The more the mind is centred in Truth, the more is it detached from particularised thinking. The whole universe is a stage where different individuals in the different degrees of their consciousness are let to play their own parts. Each individual has its own thought-form or the imagined world based on its own degree of consciousness. From the highest Ishwara to the lowest straw things are arranged in the various orders of consciousness. This consciousness-order is due to the degrees of their connections with the plural universe. Thus the highest Ishwara is the least connected with the pluralistic reality of the universe. He is the nearest to the Absolute or Brahman. When even the dual consciousness which characterises the region of Ishwara is transcended, the individual is no more an individual, it is absolutely cut off from objective relation, it becomes Brahman, the Great!

24. You will never be able to go into Samadhi although you can sit in the Padma or Siddha Asana for six hours at a stretch, if you are not free from attraction and repulsion, anger, egoism and pride.

Samadhi or the Balance of Consciousness is not the outcome of formalistic practices. Formality is concerned with externality and externality is not the cause of the misery of Samsara. Asanas and breath-regulations alone cannot steady the consciousness of the individual. It is the regulation of thought-functioning that gives rise to higher experiences in the spiritual realm. In Vedantic Sadhana the physical body and the vital are not taken much into account. They being the products of subtler powers that control the life of the individual, the control of those internal forces implies the stoppage of the activity of all their manifestations. Therefore the Vedantic aspirant controls his mind and the intellect, subdues anger, egoism and pride, and thus gets control over the whole nature.

Attraction and repulsion are the main twin-powers which keep in tact the existence of the world. Love for a certain object automatically indicates indifference or hatred towards other objects. Here is created a difference in the undivided nature of Truth. Where there is difference, there is the seed of sorrow, pain, death, birth and all that is undesirable.

Pride is seated in the intellect. The sense of superiority which gives rise to pride creates a difference between things of the universe. Egoism and anger are very powerful agents which bring in sharp differentiation within the One Indivisible Brahman. Thus they are the creators of the appearance of untruth, and as long as these are not held in check, the state of Samadhi cannot be experienced, for Samadhi is an experience of utter Oneness of Consciousness.

The entire ideal of all Sadhanas for Self-realization is to root out differences in life. When this is done, it is immaterial whether one is sitting on Asana or not, practises Pranayama or not. When the sun rises, there is no need of lighting a candlestick. The stars shine only so long as it is not day-break.

25. Merge the speech in the mind; merge the mind in the intellect; merge the intellect in the witness of the intellect or Brahman and enjoy the Supreme Peace.

Speech is loud thinking. It is the manifestation of thought only. When speech is hushed, the activity of the mind is accelerated. Talking is a method employed by the mind to keep itself in touch with the external universe. Speech is, therefore, a desire to materialise. Hence if self-expression is to be checked and the same power directed inward, speech is to be checked and the energy that is spent in talking should be stored up in the internal mind.

The mind, again, is a gross form of consciousness. It is itself a materialisation or a self-expression of the higher intelligence. To effect self-withdrawal, the mind should be merged in the higher intellect which is the reflection of Brahman or Atman within.

The intellect is only a shadow of Consciousness. It acts like a projection of the Self-existent and Self-luminous Self. It has got the nature of distracting Self-awareness because it is characterised by the quality of Rajas. Hence, the intellect should be merged in the eternal Self, Atma or Brahman.

This is the progressive involutionary method of meditation. Those who cannot at once practise the deep affirmation of the One Reality may practise this gradual process of turning back objectivity into the inward Self.

The method of this withdrawing of external consciousness can be practised only when there is not much of disturbance from the outside world. The objective reality of the world is as much true as the subjective reality of the body, and hence it cannot be easily thought that because the world is an imagination of the individual, abstraction of senses can be practised amidst bustle, business and hurry. The influence of the external universe is terrible on the individual, because the individual is a part of the universe. The part cannot deny the whole of the world unless it has transcended worldly consciousness. Therefore, in the beginning, seclusion, silence, penance are all necessary for the disciplining of the brutal self.

26. Restrain the senses. Silence the bubbling thoughts. Drown the mind in Brahman, who is within. Now you can realise your identity with Brahman.

The restraining of the senses is not done through forced suppression. No natural desire or instinctive impulse can be suppressed with might without allowing it to torment the individual at a later date. It is not punishing but coaxing the senses through discriminative understanding that can make them rest at peace. The senses are not the enemies, the mind that orders them to work is the real enemy of peace. The mind can never be killed by plucking the eyes or cutting the ears. It is by cutting the ears and plucking the eyes of the mind that true peace can be gained. There is nothing bad with things as such. It is the perceiving mind that is bad, that has to be taught lessons.

The bubbling thoughts can be silenced by tasting the bliss of the Atma. The mind throbs because it wants pleasures. Let it taste the bliss of the Self. Then it will work no more. When the mind is drowned in Brahman, when it becomes melted in Brahman, when it sports in the heart of Brahman, when it drinks deep the nectar of Brahman, when it is identical with Brahman, then it will cease to function, then it will crave not for pleasures any more. The drowning of individuality in Brahman is the supreme purpose of life. All activity is for this purpose. All bustle and business of life is for this purpose. If this is not achieved, nothing is achieved. If this is lost, all is lost. He is an unfortunate creature who dies without realising Brahman in this birth. For what other use is human life here? Nothing is great, nothing is noble, nothing is sacred before the act of the dissolution of oneself in the Supreme Brahman.

All aspirants for the ultimate Good aim at this end, whatever be the paths they may take, Glory to those people who have dedicated their lives for losing themselves in the Ocean of Brahman. Are there more blessed men than these fortunate, people?

27. Acquire the four means. Control your speech. Annihilate all hopes. Hear the Srutis. Reflect on what you have heard. Then meditate. You will attain Self-realisation.

Viveka or discrimination between the Reality and the shadow is the first of the four means to self purification. All objects which are seen or heard are unreal. The whole universe is a dream. The world is a mere show. Brahman alone is the Truth. Anything that is sensed by the organs, thought by the mind or understood by the intellect is unreal. What remains is the Real. The knowledge of this fact is Viveka.

Such a Viveka leads to complete disgust for the shadow or the unreal phantasm. The mind wants the Real Brahman only and nothing else that appears. Being filled with an overwhelming love for Brahman, there arises in the mind a total dispassion for the separative and differentiated things. This dispassion for or renunciation of the three worlds, for the sake of attaining Brahman is Vairagya, the second of the four means. Vairagya should be the outcome of the intense desire for the Real, and other forms of false temporary disgust should not be mistaken for spiritual Vairagya.

Because of the appearance of Viveka and Vairagya, the Shatsampat constituting Sama (tranquillity of the mind), Dama (restraint of the senses), Uparati (cessation from activity), Titiksha (patience and endurance), Sraddha (faith in the scriptures, Guru and God), Samadhana (one-pointedness of mind), follows as a corollary. This treasure of the sixfold virtues is the third of the four means.

The fourth is Mumukshuttwa or the fiery love for Moksha or Final Emancipation of the self. These qualities make a person fit for the practical courses of meditation - Sravana, Manana and Nididhyasana.

All hopes for acquiring name and fame should be buried under the love for the Eternal. Casting aside the earth and the heaven as worthless, the aspirant should get initiation from a Guru into the mysteries of meditation on Brahman. The grace of God and the blessings of the Preceptor will elevate the mind of the aspirant and make it successful in its meditation. The process of Self-realization will not become very difficult if the prescribed method of Sadhana is correctly followed with care and vigilance.

28. Brahman can be clearly and definitely realised only through Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Samadhi ensues only when the purified mind is merged in Brahman.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the highest expansion of the mind into Brahman-Consciousness. It is existing as Pure Satchidananda. This state is reached through the integration of personality. The rays of consciousness which are scattered through objectification are withdrawn and centred in the Root-Noumenon. When the sun comes to the centre of the head, there is no perception of the shadow, for it becomes identified with its source, the substance. When the consciousness-rays centre themselves in their Substance, the Imperishable Self, the shadow of the universe vanishes, for it gets merged in the Source of Brahman.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is not Infinite Perception as in the case of Savikalpa Samadhi, but Infinite Being. The Upanishad describes this State as the Fullness of Perfection where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else. It is called the Bhuma, the Great Plenum. It is without duality and hence without sense-cognition. It is the getting of everything, the fulfilment of all desires, the most supreme blessing, the only Ideal worth coveting. Nothing on earth or in heaven can give that joy. The joys of the fourteen worlds put together are a drop in the Ocean of Brahman-Bliss. The world cannot give that bliss, nor can it take it away. It is what is real in the absolute sense immutable, eternally existent, exempt from all change, all satisfying, undivided, Self-luminous, with neither good nor evil, neither past nor present nor future, disembodied, the glory beyond all grasp of thought, the peace that is the very purpose of all striving, nearer than the nearest, dearer than the dearest, the Self-Identical Existence, here and now. This is Brahman-realization experienced through the passage of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

Here the highly purified mind is dissolved in Brahman and individual reality and egoistic independence is lost in the splendid light of the Real.

29. When Brahman is realised by means of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, then the heart's knot viz., Avidya (ignorance), Kama (desire) and Karma (action), is destroyed.

Avidya, Kama and Karma are the three knots of the heart. Avidya breeds Kama and Kama begets Karma. Avidya is the ignorance which makes the individual perceive pluralistic reality and dualistic truth and thus gives rise to Kama or desire to acquire the objects which are other than the self. Kama or desire puts forth effort or Karma to obtain the desired objects. Avidya goads Kama and Kama goads Karma. Karma perpetrates self-indulgence! This sinful activity of worldly life is kept up by the operation of Avidya, Kama and Karma.

The Hridaya-Granthi or the knot of the heart is cut asunder when the majesty of Brahman is beheld. All doubts are cleared. All Karmas perish. The experience of Samadhi is the identification of the Self with the natural Essence of Existence Here, the seed of Avidya is burnt beyond further appearance, and the darkness of unconsciousness is lighted up by the brilliance of Absolute Consciousness. Hence, Avidya being no more, the urge for desiring objects is brought to cessation, whereby the impulse for action is sublimated into its source.

Birth is overcome, death is negated. The joy of the completeness of Being cannot be had in a semblance of it appearing to reflect in a point of space. The thought-force is entirely sucked in by the Sun of Consciousness and together with it all its modifications. When the root is pulled out, the trunk and the branches and the leaves are all levelled down. Hence the physical body has to drop off of itself being not fed by thought-relations. In such an exalted condition the physical body cannot be retained for more than two or three weeks. All bodies are possessed by the same Consciousness and, therefore, one who has realised his identity with Absoluteness cannot be attached to any particular body in speciality.

30. You cannot have Samadhi without perfect dispassion; you cannot have Self-realization without Samadhi; you cannot have perfect freedom without Self-realization.

Samadhi is the equilibrium of Consciousness. Passion is the clinging to particularised consciousness. Hence Samadhi cannot be attained without dispassion.

Self-realization is the resting in the conscious equanimity of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. It cannot be attained without reaching the equilibrium of Samadhi.

Perfect Freedom is the existence in the state of Absolute Independence or Kaivalya. Absolute Independence is Self-rootedness, Self-existence and eternal Self-sufficiency which is possible only after realising the non-related nature of the Self through its realization.

Kaivalya-Moksha is Absolute Liberation. The soul is drowned in the sea of Joy. Timeless and incorruptible, spaceless and absolute, a cessation of all life and a losing of everything, and yet, it is the real Divine Life, the being of All at once! It is the Zenith of Intelligence and Strength, of Knowledge and Power, of Wisdom and Bliss. The pride of individual greatness is superseded by a magical touch, a trembling shock, and the soul enters the Hall of Eternity. An intoxication of All-Unity overpowers the persisting multitudinousness, and there Pure Consciousness without ever losing its Self-Identity gives itself to the torrential flood of Limitless Bliss and Infinite Light. The Light is satisfied only in the supra-essential Essence. It is the simple ground, the still waste, wherein is nothing, but which is everything. It is the state where no man dwells, the immovable static being, and yet by this Immovability are all things moved. It is the vacuous plenitude, the dynamic statis, the great fulfilment effected by great renunciation. It is the Goal of life!