Important Couplets From Akshi Upanishad

Translated by Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier

Published by The Theosophical Publishing House, Chennai

5-6. Always one hesitates as regards the instinctive actions of the unregenerate; one never refers to what may compromise others, but attends to their righteous deeds. One does gentle deeds that pain none; always dreads sin and avoids all forms of sense-gratification.

7. Such a one’s speech is informed by affection and love; it is lovely and fit, with due regard to time and place.

8. With proper thought, act and speech, one waits upon the virtuous. Getting them from all conceivable sources, one studies the Shastras.

9-10(a). Then one attains the first stage of Yoga. Whoever entertains such thoughts as regards the crossing of transmigratory life is said to have attained a state of Yoga. The rest are said to be just ‘noble’ (arya).

10(b)-11. Coming to the next stage of Yoga, called ‘Analysis’ (vichara), the sadhaka resorts to the foremost scholars, well-known for their serious interpretations of Sruti and Smriti, good conduct, fixed attention, contemplation and activities.

18. As a result of his meritorious actions, the righteous (sadhaka) passes his time in the delights of detachment, repeatedly studying the positive Shastras.

23. ‘Enjoyments and non-enjoyments are dread diseases; possessions are great disasters. All contacts just promote separation. Sufferings are diseases of thoughts’.

27. The first stage that occurs is sweet on account of the satisfaction and joy (that attend it). The sadhaka (puman) has just stepped into the sequence of states. The first is an ambrosial sprout.

28. The first stage is the internal, cleansed, birth-place of the other stages. Thence one attains the second and third stages.

29. Among these, the all-pervading third (stage) is superior. Here the sadhaka has outgrown all proneness to imagine (and get ensnared).

30. Those who reach the fourth (stage) after the dwindling of nescience through the exercises of the three stages look on all things with the same eye.

31. When non-duality is established and duality dissolved, those who have reached the fourth stage look upon the phenomenal world as a dream.

32. The first three states are said to be the waking state; the fourth is called the dream state. And the mind dissolves like the fragments of an autumnal cloud.

34. Reaching the fifth stage called ‘deep sleep’, the sadhaka remains as pure non-dual being, all particulars having completely vanished.

35. Having reached the fifth stage, one stays consolidated in deep sleep, joyful, inwardly awake, all dual appearances gone.

36. Looking inwards, even when attending to outer things, he appears always indrawn, being extremely exhausted.

37. Practising in this fifth stage, free from all innate impulses, one reaches, as a matter of course, the sixth stage named ‘the Fourth’.

38. Where there is neither the non-existent nor the existent, neither the ‘I’ nor the non-‘I’, with all analytic thinking gone, one stays alone, totally fearless, in non-duality.

40. Having dwelt in the sixth stage, he shall reach the seventh. The state of disembodied liberation is called the seventh stage of Yoga.

47-48. Therefore, thou sinless one, renouncing everything, be devoted to Truth. Think: I am Brahman, solid Intelligence and Bliss, free from impurity, holy, lifted above mind and words, beyond the darkness of ignorance, beyond all appearances. This is the secret doctrine.

Source: http://www.celextel.org/108upanishads/akshi.html