Neti-Neti and Tat-Tvam-Asi
The dissolving of maya · Shlokas 17 to 26
In the previous part, Rama has already fixed the point: what binds is karma, and what frees is knowledge. Now he carries that same point out to its very last edge. First the shears of neti-neti go to work, and one notion after another falls away beneath them; then, before that clear awareness, maya melts; and once everything has been shed, Rama sets the great saying in your hands, tat-tvam-asi, you are That.
Rama first strikes a balance. So long as the maya-born conviction still stands in the body and the rest, the conviction that this is who we are, it is right to keep performing the works the injunctions prescribe. Yet in the same breath he shows the way out: with the sentences of neti-neti, deny each thing one by one, and once the awareness of the supreme self has dawned, set these acts down. Then he paints that hour. The moment the radiant knowledge that severs the distinction between the supreme self and the individual self blazes up within, in that same moment maya, along with its agents and its effect, the root of this whole wandering of the self, dissolves at once.
Shlokas 17 · 18
यावच्छारीरादिषु माययात्मधीस्तावद्विधेयो विधिवादकर्मणाम्। नेतीति वाक्यैरखिलं निषिध्य तत् ज्ञात्वा परात्मानमथ त्यजेत्क्रियाः ॥17॥
यदा परात्मात्मविभेदभेदकं विज्ञानमात्मन्यवभाति भास्वरम्। तदैव माया प्रविलीयतेऽञ्जसा सकारका कारणमात्मसंसृतेः ॥18॥
Now Rama loosens a knot in the argument. Once maya has been destroyed by the authority of shruti, how could it fashion any effect again? By pure, non-dual knowledge alone, ignorance departs in such a way that it is never born a second time. And when it is not born at all, from where would the sense that we are the doer ever return? So Rama sets down his conclusion: that knowledge stands on its own, beholden to nothing else, and shines alone for moksha.
Shlokas 19 · 20
श्रुतिप्रमाणाभिविनाशिता च सा कथं भविषत्यपि कार्यकारिणी। विज्ञानमात्रादमलाद्वितीयतस्तस्मादविद्या न पुनर्भविष्यति ॥19॥
यदि स्म नष्टा न पुनः प्रसूयते कर्ताहमस्येति मतिः कथं भवेत्। तस्मात्स्वतन्त्रा न किमप्यपेक्षते विद्य विमोक्षाय विभाति केवला ॥20॥
Here Rama sets shruti itself up as a witness. The Taittiriya shruti, with reverence, plainly calls the renunciation of all works the highest thing; and the Vajasaneyi shruti stops after saying only this much, that the means to moksha is knowledge, not action. Then he lays a hand on the comparison the opposing side raises: you have made knowledge look equal to action, yet the yajna (fire-rite) you offered as an illustration does not hold as its equal. A yajna is brought off by separate fruits and many agents, and knowledge is its exact reverse, single and agentless.
Shlokas 21 · 22
सा तैत्तिरीयश्रुतिराह सादरं न्यासं प्रशस्ताखिलकर्मणां स्फुटम्। एतावदित्याह च वाजिनां श्रुतिर्ज्ञानं विमोक्षाय न कर्म साधनम् ॥21॥
विद्यासमत्वेन तु दर्शितस्त्वया क्रतुर्न दृष्टान्त उदाहृतः समः। फलैः पृथक्त्वाद्बहुकारकैः क्रतुः संसाध्यते ज्ञानमतो विपर्ययम् ॥22॥
Now Rama takes hold of the root of the feeling by which action binds. I exist, and a flaw clings to me: this non-self notion is lodged in the ignorant, and not in the knower who has already seen the truth. From this he says that those whose self has grown changeless, such wise ones, should lay down the action the ordinance prescribes. And then Rama turns straight to you. When a mind filled with faith, made pure by the guru’s grace, comes to know through the words tat-tvam-asi the oneness of the individual self and the atman, it grows content, unshaken as Mount Meru, which no one can move.
Shlokas 23 · 24
सप्रत्यवायो ह्यहमित्यनात्मधीरज्ञप्रसिद्धा न तु तत्त्वदर्शिनः। तस्माद्बुधैस्त्याज्यमविक्रियात्मभिर्विधानतः कर्म विधिप्रकाशितम् ॥23॥
श्रद्धान्वितस्तत्त्वमसीति वाक्यतो गुरोः प्रसादादपि शुद्धमानसः। विज्ञाय चैकात्म्यमथात्मजीवयोः सुखी भवेन्मेरुरिवाप्रकम्पनः ॥24॥
At the last, Rama shows you how to look inside the great saying. In the method for grasping a sentence’s meaning, the first cause is to grasp the meaning of its words. Tat and tvam: the meanings of these two words are the supreme self and the individual self, and then asi opens the oneness of the two. But here a caution follows. The surface contradiction between the two selves, one remote and distant, the other immediate and near, is to be let go; and the single nature of consciousness that is the same in both is the thing to hold. Purify the sense through lakshana, know that self of yours which lakshana points to, Rama says, and then you become non-dual.
Shlokas 25 · 26
आदौ पदार्थावगतिर्हि कारणं वाक्यार्थविज्ञानविधौ विधानतः। तत्त्वम्पदार्थौ परमात्मजीवकावसीति चैकात्म्यमथानयोर्भवेत् ॥25॥
प्रत्यक्परोक्षादि विरोधमात्मनोर्विहाय सङ्गृह्य तयोश्चिदात्मताम्। संशोधितां लक्षणया च लक्षितां ज्ञात्वा स्वमात्मानमथाद्वयो भवेत् ॥26॥