The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom by Shankara: The Crest-Jewel of Wisdom: For Ever Free
(Verses 549--561) BUT the body he has left, like the cast-off slough of a snake, remains there, moved hither and thither by every wind of life. As a tree is carried down by a stream, and stranded on every shallow; so is his body carried along to one sensation after another. Through the mind-pictures built up by works already entered on, the body of him who has reached freedom wanders among sensations, like an animal; but the adept himself dwells in silence, looking on, like the center of a wheel, having neither doubts nor desires. He no longer engages his powers in things of sense, nor needs to disengage them; for he stands in the character of observer only. He no longer looks at all to the personal reward of his acts; for his heart is full of exultation, drunk with the abounding essence of bliss. Leaving the path of things known or unknown, he stands in the Self alone; like a god in presence is this most excellent knower of the Eternal. Though still in life, yet ever free; his last aim reached; the most excellent knower of the Eternal, when his disguise falls off, becoming the Eternal, enters into the secondless Eternal. Like a mimic, who has worn the disguises of wellbeing and ill, the most excellent knower of the Eternal was Brahma all the time, and no other. (Verses 562--574) Indestructible, verily, is the Self--thus says the scripture of the Self, declaring that it is not destroyed when all its changing vestures are destroyed. Stones, and trees, grass, and corn, and straw are consumedTHE SERPENT'S SLOUGH
// More from Hinduism
[8 texts]See all >
