Superimposition, world-illusion, and the pure ātman

Translated by Thothica

Intellect, mind, and I-sense, the subtle elements (tanmātras) and the host of sense-faculties, and the aggregate of gross elements (bhūtas) — these, [products] of {{prakṛti / mūlaprakṛti|nature}}, competent only to bring forth and sustain the round of transmigration, are to be abandoned.

Merit and demerit, the constructs of pleasure and pain, dwelling in heaven and hell, birth and death, the [four] castes and life-stages — these do not exist here, in {{paramārtha|supreme reality}}.

Water in a mirage, silver in mother-of-pearl, a serpent on a rope — like the double-moon [seen] by one with diseased sight, the entire form of the world is an error ({{adhyāsa / bhrānti|superimposition / illusory error, as a snake on a rope}}).

Just as the one sun shines [reflected] in all reservoirs of water, so the {{ātman / paramātman|supreme Self}}, abiding in all the limiting adjuncts ({{upādhi|limiting adjuncts}}s), shines [as many].

Like space [present] within and without pots and the like, {{brahman|the absolute}} abides in all bodily lumps. The notion 'I' with respect to the body, which is not the Self, makes for the bondage of transmigration.

Free of all conceptual construction, pure, awakened, ageless and deathless, at peace, stainless, shining once for all, conscious — such is the {{ātman / paramātman|Self}}, all-pervading like space.

As juice, molasses, sugar-grains, jaggery, and candy are [but] transformations of sugarcane, so the differences of states, many in form, are [transformations] in the {{ātman / paramātman|supreme Self}} alone.

Discriminative knowing (vijñāna), the Inner Controller (antaryāmin), the vital breath (prāṇa), the Cosmic Person (virāj), the body, [the level of] genus, and finally the [individual] lump — these conventional designations (vyavahāra) regarding that Self are but particular states [of it].

There is no serpent on the rope — by what cause, then, arises the fear of a snake? Just so, the error of constructing duality is {{avidyā|nescience, the root of the rope-snake error}}; this [dual world] is not real.

This is that [great] darkness: that, through error, there is Selfhood [imputed] to the non-Self. Deluded men do not know Vāsudeva, the Self of all.

Spreading himself out, like a net, through the endless distinctions beginning with the vital breath, Vāsudeva [then] withdraws [it again] by his own power, as though at play.

By just those three — Viśva, Taijasa, and Prājña, called the first, the middle, and the last, [namely] waking, dream, and deep sleep, which are [all] of the nature of error — the {{turīya|the fourth, transcending the three states}} is veiled.

The God, as it were, deludes himself by his own {{māyā|deluding power}} in the form of duality; thus he [also] himself apprehends the Person ({{puruṣa|the conscious self}}), the Self, hidden in the cave [of the heart].

As, from a fire, by the risings of smoke, manifold shapes appear in the sky, so in Viṣṇu the creation, spread out as duality, appears by his own {{māyā|deluding creative power}}.

When the mind is calm [the Lord seems] as if calm, when it is glad as if glad, when it is deluded as if deluded; [but this is] only at the level of convention (vyavahāra) — the Lord is not so in {{paramārtha|supreme reality}}.

As the vault of the sky is not [really] soiled by [passing] clouds or by risings of smoke, so the supreme {{puruṣa|conscious self}} is untouched by the modifications of {{prakṛti / mūlaprakṛti|nature}}.

And [just as], although a single pot is covered with the grime of smoke and the like, the remaining [pots] do not [thereby] become defiled, so too here is the living self (jīva). [Note: 'eksaminn' is a scribal corruption for 'ekasminn'; the sense is 'although in a single pot'.]