The Lamp of Vijnana Is Prepared within the Chamber of Consciousness
Uttara Kanda, Doha 118
Doha 118 · Movement 2 of 2
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The butter of detachment enters the fire of yoga. Good and evil actions alike are brought as fuel, and the impurity of possessiveness burns away. What remains is clarified into the shining ghee of knowledge, pure enough for an inward lamp.
Discriminating intelligence receives the ghee and fills the vessel of consciousness. Equanimity shapes its steady stand. From the cotton of waking, dream, deep sleep, and the three gunas, the seeker draws out the subtle fiber of turiya and twists it into a firm wick.
Then the lamp is lit. Vijnana rises as a mass of radiance within the heart, requiring the whole long preparation that preceded its flame. Pride, passion, and their companions fly toward it like moths and are consumed at the edge of its brilliance. Garuda beholds knowledge not as a cold conclusion, but as sacred craftsmanship: fire, vessel, cotton, oil, and wick brought into exact relation until consciousness recognizes its own light.
When every element of sadhana is purified, the heart becomes a lamp in which ignorance cannot keep its wings.
Read the passage from the Manas
जोग अगिनि करि प्रगट तब कर्म सुभासुभ लाइ। बुद्धि सिरावैं ग्यान घृत ममता मल जरि जाइ।।117(क)।। तब बिग्यानरूपिनि बुद्धि बिसद घृत पाइ। चित्त दिआ भरि धरै दृढ़ समता दिअटि बनाइ।।117(ख)।। तीनि अवस्था तीनि गुन तेहि कपास तें काढ़ि। तूल तुरीय सँवारि पुनि बाती करै सुगाढ़ि।।117(ग)।। एहि बिधि लेसै दीप तेज रासि बिग्यानमय।। जातहिं जासु समीप जरहिं मदादिक सलभ सब।।117(घ)।।
Kindling the fire of yoga, offering good and evil deeds as fuel, wisdom pours the clarified butter of knowledge, burning away the impurity of attachment. Then the intellect, in the form of vijnana, receiving pure, clarified understanding, fills the lamp of consciousness firmly, fashioning a steady wick of equanimity. Drawing out the three states and three gunas like cotton from the pod, preparing the turiya (fourth state) as cotton, it twists a well-made wick. Thus one lights the lamp of pure consciousness, a blazing mass of brilliance. In whose presence all moths of pride and passion are consumed.