Canto Ten - Chapter 87

Śrī Parīkṣit said: O brāhmaṇa, how do the Vedas, whose expressions operate through qualities, directly approach Brahman, which is indescribable, free from material qualities, and beyond both manifest effects and their unmanifest cause?

Śrī Śuka said: The Lord created the intelligence, senses, mind, and vital airs of living beings for the experience of sense objects, for embodied existence, and ultimately so that the self might become free from false constructions.

This very teaching concerning Brahman was upheld by the ancient predecessors of our predecessors. One who possesses nothing and faithfully holds it within reaches the highest well-being.

I shall now relate to you an account concerning Nārāyaṇa: the dialogue between Nārada and the sage Nārāyaṇa.

Once, while the Lord's beloved Nārada was traveling through the worlds, he went to Nārāyaṇa's hermitage to see the eternal sage.

From the beginning of the age, that sage has practiced austerity in Bhārata-varṣa, endowed with dharma, knowledge, and tranquillity, for the security and welfare of humankind.

There Nārada found Him seated amid sages who lived in the village of Kalāpa. Bowing before Him, he asked this very question, O glory of the Kurus.

As the sages listened, the Supreme Lord told him of an ancient discussion about Brahman among the residents of Janaloka.

The Supreme Lord said: O son of the self-born Brahmā, long ago a sacred session concerning Brahman was held in Janaloka among its resident sages, mind-born sons of Brahmā whose seed flowed upward.

You had gone to Śvetadvīpa to see its Lord, in whom the Vedas repose. In your absence a profound discussion of Brahman arose there, and in it appeared the very question that you now ask Me.

Equal in learning, austerity, and character, and equal toward their own, their enemies, and those between, they appointed one to speak while the others listened eagerly.

Śrī Sanandana said: At the end of creation, the Supreme withdrew this universe He had made and lay down with His powers absorbed within Him. Then the Vedas awakened Him through words that revealed His distinguishing glories.

It was just as court bards, servants of a sleeping emperor, approach him at dawn and awaken him with beautiful verses celebrating his heroic deeds.

The personified Vedas said: Victory, victory to You, O unconquered Lord! Please subdue unborn Māyā, who assumes the modes that bind beings through fault. By Your own nature You possess every perfection. You awaken all the powers of the moving and unmoving beings, and when You sport through Māyā while remaining Yourself, the Veda follows and reveals You.

The wise discern this universe as the vast Brahman because Brahman remains as its ultimate substance, from which transformations arise and into which they subside, just as vessels arise from and return to unchanged clay. Therefore the sages dedicate mind, speech, and action to You. How could the footsteps of people placed upon the earth ever fail to rest upon it?

Thus, O Lord of the three worlds, the wise plunge into the nectarean ocean of accounts about You, which washes away the impurity of every world, and abandon their sufferings. What then need be said of those who worship Your own abode, whose minds are cleansed of time and its qualities, and who experience ceaseless bliss at Your supreme feet?

Those who bear breath truly live only when they follow You; otherwise they breathe like bellows. By Your grace the principles beginning with the mahat and false ego created the cosmic egg. You enter the successive sheaths beginning with food in forms corresponding to the embodied person, yet You are the final indwelling reality, beyond both gross and subtle matter and remaining beneath them all.

Among those who follow the paths of the sages, persons of coarser vision worship You in the abdomen, while the Āruṇis worship the subtle space within the heart, from which the channels radiate. From there, O Infinite One, consciousness rises to Your supreme station at the crown of the head. Reaching it, one never again falls here into the mouth of death.

Entering as their cause into the varied species You have created, You seem to shine in higher and lower degrees, like fire assuming the appearance of its fuel. Yet amid these unreal forms, those whose understanding is stainless discern Your real, equal, and undivided abode, one in essence everywhere.

The Vedas say that the person dwelling in these self-made cities of bodies is covered neither within nor without, for he is an emanated part of You, the bearer of every power. Discerning this as the true destiny of humanity, the wise place their trust in You and worship Your birthless feet, the field in which all the Vedas sow their seed.

To reveal the difficult truth of the Self, You assume divine forms. Some souls, relieved of all weariness by moving within the vast nectar-ocean of Your deeds, desire not even liberation, O Lord. Through fellowship with the swanlike devotees at Your lotus feet, they have left attachment to home behind.

This bodily nest behaves like one's own self, friend, and beloved when it follows Your path and turns toward You, its benefactor, beloved, and true Self. Alas, those who do not delight in You destroy themselves by serving the unreal. Bound by that attachment, they wander through this greatly fearful world bearing degraded bodies.

Sages who firmly join breath, mind, and senses in yoga worship You within the heart, while even Your enemies reached You through constant remembrance. Women whose minds cling lovingly to Your arms, mighty as the coils of the serpent king, also attain You. Since Your vision is impartial, we Vedas likewise seek the same nectar of Your lotus feet.

Who born recently and soon to die can know the One who existed first, from whom arose the primal sage and after him both orders of gods? When He draws everything into Himself and lies at rest, neither gross nor subtle existence remains, nor their combination, nor the force of time, nor any scripture at all.

Those who teach that the unreal gives birth to being, that the eternal self dies, that the self is internally divided, or that worldly exchange is ultimate truth speak from imposed conceptions. The belief that the person is composed of the three modes is a division made by ignorance. It cannot exist in You, the pure essence of awareness beyond that ignorance.

From the threefold mind down to the human body, the unreal appears as real because it shines within You. Knowers of the Self therefore recognize this entire universe as real inasmuch as it is Your manifestation. One does not reject an ornament made of gold, because gold is its substance. In the same way, this creation is understood as You, for You made it and entered it as its Self.

Those who worship You as the dwelling place of every being step fearlessly upon the head of Death. By Your Vedic words You bind like animals even the learned gods who turn away from You. Those who have made You their beloved purify themselves and others; those who remain averse do not.

Though without material instruments, You are self-sovereign and bear the power of all the senses and agents. The gods and unborn Nature carry tribute to You while enjoying their allotted shares, like provincial rulers who receive tribute yet offer it to the emperor of the whole earth. Fearful of You, the creators of the universe perform the duties You assign them.

The moving and unmoving species arise when unborn Nature, joined with the karmic causes of the souls, is stirred by Your playful glance, O ever-free Lord. Yet for the Supreme there is neither an intimate nor a stranger. Like unconditioned space, You remain unattached and seem as empty of distinctions as a void.

If embodied souls were limitless, immutable, and all-pervading, no absolute ruler could govern them. The rule is certain, O immutable Lord, and cannot be otherwise: whatever a thing is born from remains inseparable from that cause, which therefore controls it. Those who suppose that finite souls equal You hold a corrupted doctrine, and their supposed knowledge is ignorance.

Neither unborn Nature nor the unborn conscious person can independently produce living bodies, but beings arise from their conjunction like bubbles from water and air. Together with their many names and qualities, all these beings finally dissolve into You, the Supreme, as rivers enter the ocean and the nectars of many flowers blend into honey.

Understanding fully how Your Māyā deludes human beings, the wise direct powerful devotion toward You, the birthless source of freedom from becoming. How could fear of worldly existence touch those who follow You? Your knitted brow, appearing as time's three-rimmed wheel, repeatedly creates terror only for those who take no shelter in You.

Even after mastering the senses and breath, those who try by exhausting methods to restrain the wildly restless horse of the untamed mind, yet abandon the feet of the guru, meet hundreds of calamities here. O unborn Lord, they are like merchants upon the ocean who have failed to appoint a helmsman.

For those who take shelter of You, the Self and essence of every delight, what need is there of relatives, children, body, spouse, wealth, home, land, life-breath, or vehicles? But those who do not know this truth pursue sexual pleasure. What in this world, which destroys itself and casts away its own good, can ever truly satisfy them?

Humble sages dwell on earth in the supremely sacred places of pilgrimage. Because they hold Your lotus feet in their hearts, the water washing their feet destroys sin. Those who even once place their minds in You, the eternally blissful Self, no longer devote themselves to houses that steal away the essence of human life.

If one argues that this world is permanently real because it arose from the Real, reason defeats the claim: sometimes the effect differs from its cause, sometimes what arises is false, and this world partakes of both reality and illusion. Distinctions are imagined by a blind succession merely for practical dealings. Your Vedic speech, rich in manifold expressions, bewilders those dulled by ritual formulas.

This universe did not exist before its creation and will not remain after its destruction. During the interval it appears falsely within You, the one changeless essence. It is therefore compared to substances taking various forms. The unwise nevertheless regard this unreal play of mind as ultimate reality.

When the living being embraces unborn Nature and enjoys her modes, he assumes forms like hers, loses his spiritual fortune, and undergoes death. You, however, abandon her as a serpent casts off its skin. Possessing Your inherent glory, You shine in majesty endowed with the eight divine powers and immeasurable perfection.

If renunciants do not uproot the tangled desires in their hearts, You remain difficult for them to realize even though You dwell within, like a jewel forgotten upon one's own neck. O Lord, yogis who seek only to satisfy their senses find misery both here and hereafter: death does not release them, and they do not ascend to Your abode.

One who knows You no longer takes account of the good and evil arising from You, their virtues and faults, or the praise and blame of embodied beings. O Lord of divine qualities, through an unbroken tradition Your glories are sung in every age and heard day after day; by carrying them in their ears, human beings reach You, the path to liberation.

Because You are infinite, even the rulers of heaven do not reach Your end, nor do You reach an end of Yourself. Countless universes with their coverings move within You under time's power like particles of dust in the sky. The Vedas attain their fruit in You by successively negating all that is not You, for You are their final conclusion.

The Supreme Lord said: After hearing this instruction concerning the Self, Brahmā's sons understood their own final destination and worshiped Sanandana with honor.

Thus those ancient great souls who travel through the heavens extracted the concentrated essence of all the Vedas, Purāṇas, and Upaniṣads.

O heir to Brahmā, faithfully hold this instruction concerning the Self as you wander freely over the earth. It burns away the desires of human beings.

Śrī Śuka said: Receiving with faith the sage's command, the self-possessed Nārada, heroic in his vows and complete in purpose, retained all he had heard and replied, O King.

Śrī Nārada said: Obeisance to the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa of stainless fame, who manifests delightful forms so that all beings may cease from repeated becoming.

After bowing to the primeval sage and to His great-hearted disciples, Nārada went to the hermitage of my father Dvaipāyana Vyāsa.

The divine sage Vyāsa honored him and offered him a seat. Once seated, Nārada related what he had heard from the mouth of Nārāyaṇa.

Thus, O King, I have answered the question you asked us: how the mind may approach Brahman, though Brahman is indescribable and beyond material qualities.

He is the witness of this universe at its beginning, middle, and end, the Lord of unmanifest Nature and of the living being. Having created this world, He enters it with the soul, fashions its bodies through the cosmic intelligence, and governs them. Reaching Him, the soul abandons unborn Māyā and its bodily nest as a sleeper leaves the body imagined in a dream. One should constantly meditate upon that fearless Hari, whose absolute being is free from every material birth.