Part 8 - Important Couplets From Vedanta Panchadasi By Sri Vidyaranya Swami

Translated by Swami Swahananda Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai

9. Thus even in the mutual love between husband and wife the incentive is one’s
own desire for happiness.

10. A child, when kissed by its father, may cry, being pricked by the latter’s bristly beard, still its father goes on kissing the child – it is not for its sake but for his own.

12. A merchant forces his bullock, though unwilling, to carry a load. He loves the bullock for his own sake, how can it be for the bullock’s ?

60. A son is dearer than wealth, the body dearer than the son, the sense-organs dearer than the body, life and mind dearer than the sense organs and the Self is supremely dearer than life and mind.

65. When a married couple desire to have a son and do not have one, they are
disappointed and miserable. After conception, a miscarriage or the pain of labour
causes sorrow.

66. When a son is born he may suffer from diseases or from the position of the
planets at his birth, or he may be stupid or obstinate, or after the investiture of
sacred thread, he may study nothing or if he is learned, he may remain unmarried.

67. Again he may start pursuing the wives of others, or he may have an unwieldy
family and remain in poverty, or he may grow wealthy and yet die in his youth.
Infinite are the sorrows of parents.

68. Having considered all this, the disciple must abstain from forming an attachment
to other things. He should focus his love on the Self and contemplate It day and
night.

83. Knowing that for some Yoga is difficult and for some others knowledge, the great
Lord Sri Krishna speaks of these two paths.

XIII. THE BLISS OF NON-DUALITY

10. So the illusive appearance of the world in the partless bliss can be explained.
Like the power of a magician, the power of Maya may be said to bring the objective
world into being.

14. “The supreme Brahman is eternal, perfect, non-dual and omnipotent”, so says
the Veda and Vasistha supports this.

18. ‘Just as a tree with its fruits, leaves, tendrils, flowers, branches, twigs and roots is latent in the seed, so does this world abide in Brahman’.

20. ‘O Rama, when the all-pervasive, eternal and infinite Self assumes the power of
cognition, we call it the mind’

21. ‘O Prince, first arises the mind, then the notion of bondage and release and then the universe consisting of many worlds. Thus all this manifestation has been fixed or settled (in human minds), like the tales told to amuse children’.

27. ‘Thus to those who have no discrimination the world appears to be real like the
tale repeated to the child’.

35. The pot is not different from the clay, as it has no existence apart from the clay; it is neither identical with the clay, as in the unmoulded clay it is not perceived.

47. Though a man appears head downwards when reflected in water, he is not so.
No one would ever mistake it for the real person standing on the bank.

48. According to the doctrine of the non-dualists, such knowledge (i.e., the
knowledge of the unreality of the superimposed thing, the world), gives liberation,
the supreme goal of life. As the substratum clay is not rejected, the appearance of a
pot in it is accepted.

49. In an actual modification of the substratum, when milk is turned into curd (for
example), the former form, milk, disappears. But in the modification of clay into a
pot or gold into an ear-ring, the substratum does not change.

50. (Doubt): When a pot is broken into pieces, they do not resemble the original
clay, for broken pieces only are seen. (Reply): It is not so, for when reduced to
powder they do. The persistence of gold in the ear-ring is very clear.

62. The nature of Brahman is existence, consciousness and bliss, whereas the nature of the world is name and form. In the Nrisimha-Uttara-Tapaniya Upanishad existence, consciousness and bliss are said to be the ‘indications’ of Brahman.

64. After creating names and forms Brahman remains established in His nature, i.e.,
remains as immutable as ever, says the Purusha Sukta. Another Shruti says that
Brahman as the Self reveals names and forms.

65. Another Shruti says that before creation the universe was unmanifest and that
afterwards it became manifest as name and form. Here Maya, the inexplicable power
of Brahman, is referred to as ‘unmanifest’.

69. Sri Krishna said to Arjuna: ‘O descendant of Bharata, beings are unmanifest in the beginning, manifest in the present and unmanifest again at the end’.

79. Both name and form are without any real existence because they are subject to
creation and destruction. So know them as superimposed by the intellect on
Brahman, just as waves and foam are on the ocean.

86. Just as in the sleeping state a power inherent in the Jiva gives rise to impossible dreams, so the power of Maya inherent in Brahman, projects, maintains and destroys the universe.

90. In a sleeping man various dreams are created; similarly the power of Maya
creates diverse appearances in the immutable Brahman.

92. Brahman characterised as existence, consciousness and bliss is the common
basis of both the animate and inanimate objects; they differ only in their names and
forms.

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