Part 4 - Important Couplets From Vedanta Panchadasi By Sri Vidyaranya Swami

Translated by Swami Swahananda Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai

222. (Reply): These two meanings do not accord with the Advaita view. They
postulate a difference between Jiva and Ishvara, but in the Advaita doctrine there is
no distinction between ‘That’ and ‘Thou’. Statements appearing to make such a
distinction are only steps towards understanding of non-duality.

235. The Shruti declares that in fact there is no destruction and no origination; none in bondage and none engaged in practice for liberation; no aspirant for liberation and none liberated. This is the transcendental truth.

236. Maya is said to be the desire-fulfilling cow. Jiva and Ishvara are its two calves.Drink of its milk of duality as much as you like, but the truth is non-duality.

261. Owing to lack of true discrimination a man identifies egoism with the Self, and then thinks: ‘May this object be mine’, and so forth. This is called desire.

274. The man who is attached to objects is troubled by the world; happiness is enjoyed by the unattached. Therefore give up attachment if you desire to be happy.

283. Without the knowledge of Reality even perfect detachment and complete
withdrawal from worldly actions cannot lead to liberation. A man endowed with
detachment and withdrawal, but failing to obtain illumination, is reborn in the
superior worlds because of great merit.

284. On the other hand by the complete knowledge of the Reality a man is sure to
have liberation, even though his detachment and withdrawal are wanting. But then
his visible sufferings will not come to an end owing to his fructifying Karma.

VII. THE LAMP OF PERFECT SATISFACTION

20. When a man is as firmly convinced of his identity with Brahman as an ordinary
man is convinced of his identity with the body, he is liberated even if he does not
wish for it.

22. The Self is ever cognised. We speak of Its being known directly or indirectly,
being known or unknown, as in the illustration of the tenth man.

23. The tenth man counts the other nine, each of whom is visible to him, but forgets himself the tenth, though all the time seeing himself.

24. Being himself the tenth, he does not find him. ‘The tenth is not visible, he is
absent’, so he says. Intelligent people say that this is due to his presence being
obscured by ignorance or Maya.

129. If you give up food, you will not live; but will you not be alive if you give up
studies (other than scriptures)? So why so much insistence on pursuing such
studies?

130. (Doubt): How then the ancient knowers like Janaka administered kingdoms ?
(Reply): They were able because of their conviction about the truth. If you have that,then by all means engage yourself in logic or agriculture or do whatever you like.

131. Once he is convinced of the unreality of the world, a knower, with mind undisturbed, allows his fructifying Karma to wear out and engages himself in worldly affairs accordingly.

147. ‘The desires are never quelled by enjoyment but increase more like the flame of a fire fed on clarified butter’.

162. When a man is neither willing nor unwilling to do a thing but does it for the
feelings of others and experiences pleasure and pain, it is the result of ‘fructifying Karma through the desire of others’.

163. (Doubt): Does it not contradict the text at the beginning of this chapter which
describes the enlightened man as desireless ? (Reply): The text does not mean that
desires are absent in the enlightened man, but that desires arising in him
spontaneously without his will produce no pleasure or pain in him, just as the
roasted grain has no potency.

164. Roasted grain though looking the same cannot germinate; similarly the desires
of the knower, well aware of the unreality of objects of desire cannot produce merit
and demerit.

168. That which is not destined to happen as a result of our past Karma will not happen; that which is to happen must happen. Such knowledge is a sure antidote to the poison of anxiety; it removes the delusion of grief.

191. There is therefore no contradiction between the two statements in the
scriptures that ‘desires are a sign of ignorance’ and that ‘the wise man may have
desires’, because the desires of a wise man are too weak to bind.

193. Many Shruti texts declare that a husband loves his wife not for her sake and the wife loves him not for his sake, but for their own sake.

198. When King Janaka asked Yajnavalkya about the nature of the Self, the sage
first told him of the sheath of intellect and then, pointing out its inadequacy (to be the Self), ended in teaching him of the immutable Kutastha.

211. It is common experience that the states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep are distinct from one another, but that the experiencing consciousness is the same.

213. ‘When a man realises his identity with that Brahman which illumines the worlds
of the waking, dreaming and sleeping states, he is released from all bonds’.

214. ‘One should consider the Self to be the same in the waking, dreaming and sleeping states. That Atman which knows itself as beyond the three states is free from rebirth’.

215. ‘That Self which is not subject to experience in any of the three states, which can be called pure consciousness, the witness, the ever blissful and which is neither the enjoyer nor the enjoyment or the object of enjoyment, That I am’.

225. The subtle body is affected on the one hand by desire, anger and so forth and
on the other by inner and outer control, peace of the mind and serenity of the
senses. The presence of the former affections and the absence of the latter lead to
misery.

Source: http://www.celextel.org/othervedantabooks/panchadasi.html