Part 3 - Important Couplets From Vedanta Panchadasi By Sri Vidyaranya Swami

Translated by Swami Swahananda Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai

102. The Yogis postulate the existence of Ishvara. Prakriti functions owing to the proximity of consciousness and Ishvara is the controller of Prakriti. He is quite distinct from and superior to the Jivas, says the Shruti.

108. It is a fact that the Jivas, too, are not affected by sufferings etc., as they too are unattached; but when they fail to comprehend their real nature, they imagine that they are affected by sufferings, works and so forth.

116. So say people who worship the creator Brahma for obtaining children and quote
passages which say, ‘Brahma created the people’.

117. The Bhagavatas call Vishnu the only Ishvara because the lotus-born Brahma
issued from the navel of Vishnu.

118. The Saivas on the authority of their Agamas declare Shiva alone to be Ishvara,
as according to a tradition in the Puranas, Vishnu in spite of all his efforts could not discover the feet of Shiva.

119. The followers of the creed of Ganesha say that the elephant-faced Lord is the
only Ishvara for Shiva in order to conquer the demons of the three cities worshipped
Ganesha.

120. There are many other sects which try to declare their own favourite deity to be
the supreme. They quote hymns from Shruti and alleged traditions in support of their
views.

121. So every entity from the Inner Ruler to inert objects is considered as Ishvara by someone or other, for we find that even the sacred fig tree, the sun-plant and the
bomboo etc., are worshipped by the people as family deities.

143. Even if all the learned people of the world try to determine the nature of this world, they will find themselves confronted at some stage or other by ignorance.

144. Tell us, if you can, how the body and senses came out of the seed, or how
consciousness was born in the foetus. What answers will you give to these questions
?

146. In the end you will have to say, ‘I do not know’. Therefore the wise declare this world to be like a magic show.

147. What can be more magical than the fact that the seed in the uterus becomes a conscious individual, that it develops head, hands, feet and other organs, that it passes through the states of childhood, youth and old age and that it perceives, eats,smells, hears, comes and goes ?

152. As the tree is latent in the seed, so the waking and dreaming worlds are implicit in deep sleep. Similarly, the impressions of the entire universe are latent in Maya.

185. The creation and destruction of the world are comparable to day and night, to
the waking and sleeping states, to the opening and closing of the eyes and the
activity and quiescense of the mind.

199. There are two types of Shruti text describing the creation of the world either as a gradual evolution or as instantaneous. There is no contradiction, for the dream
world sometimes arises gradually out of deep sleep, but at other times it arises
instantaneously.

200. Hiranyagarbha or Sutratman, otherwise called the subtle-body, is the totality of
the subtle bodies of all Jivas. He conceives Himself as the totality of all egos or ‘I’ - consciousnesses, like the threads of a piece of cloth; and He is said to be endowed with the powers of volition, conation and cognition.

209. In whatever form Ishvara is worshipped, the worshipper obtains the appropriate
reward through that form. If the method of worship and the conception of the
attributes of the deity worshipped are of a high order, the reward also is of a high
order; but if otherwise, it is not.

210. The Liberation, however, can be obtained through the knowledge of reality and not otherwise. The dreaming does not end until the dreamer awakes.

216. From the worshippers of objects like grass to the followers of Yoga, all have
wrong ideas about Ishvara. From the materialist Charvakas to the followers of
Sankhya, all have confused ideas about Jiva.

219. Therefore the aspirants to liberation should never engage themselves in
disputations about the nature of Jiva and Ishvara. They ought to practise
discrimination and realise the reality of Brahman.

220. (Doubt): Such disputation is a means to the understanding of Brahman.
(Reply): It may be so, but be careful to avoid being drowned helplessly in the sea of
confusion.

221. (Doubt): All right, but the Vedantins must accept the Sankhya doctrine that Jiva
and Ishvara are associationless, pure consciousness and eternal and the Yoga
doctrine that Jiva and Ishvara, referred to as ‘thou’ and ‘that’ respectively in the
dictum ‘That thou art’, are of a pure nature.

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