Part 5 - Important Couplets From Vedanta Panchadasi By Sri Vidyaranya Swami

Translated by Swami Swahananda Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai

244. After a man has realised the nature of the rope, the trembling caused by the
erroneous idea of the snake disappears gradually only and the idea of the snake still
sometimes haunts him when he sees a rope in darkness.

247. In the example already cited, the tenth man, who may have been crying and
beating his head in sorrow, stops lamenting on realising that the tenth is not dead;
but the wounds caused by beating his head take a month gradually to heal.

255. Let the ignorant people of the world perform worldly actions and desire to possess wives, children and wealth. I am full of supreme bliss. For what purpose should I engage myself in worldly concerns ?

279. The realm of duality, destroyed by knowledge, may still be perceived by the
senses, but such perception does not affect illumination. A living rat cannot kill a cat;then how can it do so when dead ?

VIII. THE LAMP OF KUTASTHA

21. That consciousness which witnesses the interval between the disappearance and the rise of successive Vrittis and the period when they do not exist and which is itself unmodifiable and immutable, is called Kutastha.

37. The Upanishad says that the Self (Atman) thought: ‘This body with the organs
cannot live without me’, and so cleaving the centre of the skull it entered into the
body and started experiencing the changeable states (e.g., wakeful, dreaming etc.,).

39. The Self becomes the ego identifying itself with the body composed of the five
elements and when the body perishes (once for all) the ego too perishes with it.
Thus said Yajnavalkya to Maitreyi.

40. ‘This Self is not perishable’ – thus the Shruti differentiates the Kutastha from
everything else. ‘The Self is associationless’ – such statements sing the everdetached state of Kutastha.

41. The passage which says that the body only dies and not the Jiva does not mean
that he is released but only that he transmigrates.

43. A man may be mistaken for the stump of a tree; but the notion of the stump is destroyed when the man is known to be a man. Similarly, when the Jiva knows ‘I am Brahman’, his notion ‘I am Buddhi (the ego-consciousness in the mind)’ is destroyed.

48. The consciousness, the substratum on which the illusion of Chidabhasa together
with the body and the sense organs is superimposed, is known as Kutastha in
Vedanta.

57-58. As the support of the unreal world, its nature is existence; as it cognises all insentient objects, its nature is consciousness; and as it is always the object of love,its nature is bliss. It is called Shiva, the infinite, being the means of revelation of all objects and being related to them as their substratum.

63. When we sleep, our dreams create even Jiva and Ishvara. What wonder is there then that the Great Maya creates them in the waking state ?

IX. THE LAMP OF MEDITATION

14. After indirectly knowing the one indivisible homogeneous Brahman from the books on Vedanta, one should meditate on or think repeatedly ‘I am Brahman’.

15. Without realising Brahman to be one’s own Self, the general knowledge of Him
derived through the study of the scriptures, viz., ‘Brahman is’, is here called indirect knowledge, just as our knowledge of the forms of Vishnu etc., is called.

16. One may have knowledge of Vishnu from scriptures as having four arms etc., but if one does not have a vision of Him, he is said to have only indirect knowledge,inasmuch as he has not seen Him with his eyes.

18. From the scripture a man may have a conception of Brahman as existence,
consciousness and bliss but he cannot have a direct knowledge of Brahman unless
Brahman is cognised as the inner witness in his own personality.

33. If a person does not realise the Self even after practising till death, he will surely realise it in a future life when all the obstacles will have been eliminated.

34. Knowledge will arise either in this birth or the next, says the author of the
Brahma Sutras. The Shruti also says that there are many who listen to the teachings
on non-duality and yet do not realise in this life.

35. By virtue of the practice of spiritual enquiry in a previous birth, Vamadeva had realisation even while in his mother’s womb. Such results are also seen in the case of studies.

36. In spite of reading many times a boy may not be able to memorise something,but sometimes, next morning, without any further study, he remembers all that he has read.

47. Because of his practice of enquiry such a Yogi enters into the heaven of the
meritorious and then if he is not freed from desires, he is born again in a pious and
prosperous family.

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