The guru now begins the core of his answer to the student’s question. Before he tells you directly what the self is, he shows you what the self is not. He picks up one object at a time, pauses to test it, and sets it aside. This method is called neti-neti, not this, not this either. A sculptor removes from the stone everything that is not the statue, and what remains is the statue. He begins with the most solid, most familiar object of all, this body. The opening is a plain list. Marrow, bone, fat, flesh, blood, skin, and legs, thighs, chest, arms, back, head, this body is built from these limbs and parts. We take this very thing to be the I and cling to it, so the guru first opens it out into its components, so that the thing you have been calling I all along can be paused over and seen with a clear eye.

Then the guru gives this body a name, the seat of delusion, the place from which all the confusion begins. I, meaning I am this body, and mine, meaning my house, my family, my things, both are rooted right here. Once the body is taken to be the I, the whole world of mine rises up on its own. Alongside this the guru opens another thread, this gross body is made of five subtle elements, space, air, fire, water, and earth. These same five elements combine through portions of one another to become gross, and become the cause of the body. More than that, their measures step forward as the five objects of sense, sound, touch, form, taste, and smell, standing ready for the enjoyer’s pleasure. A deep point is hidden in this. The body and the world, the one who sees and the thing that is seen, both are made of the same raw material, both are the not-self.

Now the guru gives a moving picture. The fools who are bound to these objects are bound by the thick rope of attachment, which is very hard to master. The fault does not lie in sound, form, or taste, which simply are; the bondage lies in the grip we build on them. And the one tied by this rope, even while feeling himself free, is dragged fast, up and down, pushed and pulled, at the hands of his own karma acting as a messenger. Then the guru keeps the most memorable reckoning of the part. Five animals, each one killed by the weakness of a single sense. The deer is drawn in by the hunter’s music, the elephant is trapped by its craving for touch, the moth burns to death on the brightness of form, the fish comes to the hook out of greed for taste, and the bee, lost in fragrance, is shut inside the flower. Each was pulled under by a single sense; and a human being has all five wide open.

This is meant to rouse you into wakefulness. The guru sets a sharp comparison before you, in the harm it does, an object of sense is faster than the venom of a black snake. A snake’s poison kills only when it reaches the body, when it is drunk or when it bites, it has a limit. But an object of sense kills even the one who only sees it with the eye. An object appears, desire wakes in the mind, a pull forms, and the object has done its work without a single touch. This is what makes it more deadly, it works from a distance, in stealth. So the guru says the next thing with great courage, whoever has slipped free of that great snare, the craving for objects, he alone is fit for liberation, even if another has mastered all six shastras. The measure of a seeker’s progress is how much the inner grip has loosened.

But a surface dispassion will not do the work. The guru gives a picture that makes you shudder. Those whose dispassion is only momentary, such seekers of liberation, when they set out to cross the ocean of the world, are seized at the throat midway by the crocodile of desire, dragged hard back, and drowned. Stopping at the very start is one thing; covering half the path and then being pulled back by hidden desire, this is the trap the guru is warning you against. And at once he gives the remedy too. The same crocodile, but now with a sword. Whoever has killed that crocodile of the senses with the sword of deep dispassion crosses the ocean of the world without a single obstruction. Fear and reassurance, the guru gives you both together.

Now the guru sets two paths face to face, and like a true teacher he stamps a small seal at the end of each. The first, the crooked path of the objects of sense, walked with an unclean mind, where death stands before you at every step, know this to be so. The second, guided by the words of well-wishers, good people, and the guru, walked with your own discernment, where the fruit is certain, take this to be true. On the second path two things travel together, guidance from outside and discernment within, hand in hand. And then a plain, practical piece of advice, if you truly long for moksha, then give up the objects of sense from a great distance, as you would poison, and take up contentment, compassion, forgiveness, simplicity, peace, and self-restraint, always and with respect, as you would nectar. Not one of these six qualities is a dazzling achievement, they are all easy, everyday qualities, which can be taken up today, right now.

Then the guru says something sharp, and worth pondering. The real work of every moment is to get free of the bondage built by beginningless ignorance; whoever sets this aside and stays busy only with feeding and tending the body kills his own self, because this body serves some other purpose. The body is a tool, a means to travel, a vehicle you ride. The mistake is to get so caught up in caring for the vehicle that you forget the journey itself. The guru does not ask you to neglect the body. He warns against sinking into it. And he gives a frightening picture too, whoever wants to reach the self while staying busy feeding the body is like a man who mistakes a crocodile for a log, takes hold of it, and sets out to cross the river. Clinging to the body and reaching the self at the same time are opposite directions; the seeker is leaning on the very thing that will drown him.

Here the guru gives a word a new definition, the great death. We fear death, the leaving of the body. But the guru says the real great death for a seeker is delusion about the body and the rest; whoever has fully conquered this delusion is the one entitled to the state of liberation. The leaving of the body comes to everyone, and it is no spiritual defeat; spending a whole life in the illusion that I am this body is the death that happens while you are still alive. So the guru gives a direct order, conquer that great death which is the delusion in body, wife, children, and the rest, the death that sages conquer to reach the supreme state of Vishnu. One thing must be kept clear here, the guru is not telling you to give up love. Delusion is the mistaken equation that my very existence rests on these relationships, that without them I am nothing. Winning over that grip means loving your own people more cleanly and more fearlessly.

Now the guru gives that same list of the body again, but this time with a little more bluntness. Filled with skin, flesh, blood, sinew, fat, marrow, and bone, filled with urine and excrement, this gross body is ordinary, not worth praising. This is medicine for one particular illness, our blind attachment to the body, our grooming and worry taken past all limit; a plain, honest look breaks that attachment. Then the guru opens a scheme, a state is joined to every body. Out of the fivefold-compounded gross elements, on account of past karma, this gross body was formed, the enjoyment-ground of the self, and its state is waking, because it is here that gross things are experienced. The body is called the seat of enjoyment, a house for experiencing. You are the tenant, the one who lives there.

The waking state is the time when the gross body is most in front. Through the outer senses, in garlands, sandal paste, and many forms, the jiva itself enjoys gross things, so the prominence of this body is in the waking state. One thing is worth noticing, the jiva does this enjoying as a participant who has stepped into the play itself; this will matter later, at the heart of things, when the guru shows that the real self is beyond all of this, only a witness. Then a comforting comparison, know this gross body, on which a man’s entire outer worldly life rests, to be like a householder’s house. A sensible person, even while loving his house, knows that he is not the house. The body is the same, the address where your outer life lives.

The guru ends the part about the gross body with something that sets you deeply free. Birth, old age, death; obesity and the like; the stages of childhood and youth; the rules of caste and life-stage; illnesses of every kind; and honor, insult, respect, this whole list is made of the body’s properties, not yours. We take all of these as happening to ourselves, I am growing old, I was insulted. The guru says they all happen to that house, while the one who lives in it stays free of them. Old age comes to the body, insult lands on the social identity that is tied to the body. If this truly settles inside you, that these are happening to the body while you look on, then half the weight of life comes off on its own.

Setting the gross body aside, the guru opens the next, finer layer, the subtle body. And its first part is the ten senses. Ear, skin, eye, nose, tongue, these five are the senses of knowledge, because they know the objects; and speech, hand, foot, anus, and generative organ, these five are the senses of action, because they stay engaged in works. It is a simple division, five bring news inward, five send action outward. The guru is running the neti-neti through this list, these ten senses too are not the self, they are only instruments that the self puts to use.

Now the guru opens the inner instrument, our inner apparatus, the one we most of all take to be the I. And he divides it into four functions, the mind (manas), the intellect (buddhi), the ego (ahamkara), and the chitta, each with its own work. The mind is the one that keeps wanting, then doubting, shall I do this or that; and the intellect is the one that pauses and decides, this is right. Then the other two, among all of these the one that says I out of pride is the ego, which drives its claim onto the mind’s wanting as I wanted, and onto the intellect’s decision as I decided; and by the quality of searching again and again for whatever serves it is the chitta, the part of the mind that keeps bringing up preferences, memories, and attachments. By giving each one a name the guru is really opening this I, which we take to be one solid thing, and showing it in its parts. What is made of parts cannot be the final I.

The third part of the subtle body is prana, the life-energy. And the guru says something lovely, prana is really only one; it takes on five forms through its different works, prana, apana, vyana, udana, and samana, the way gold is one yet becomes ring, necklace, bangle, and water is one yet becomes wave, whirlpool, drop. Then the guru ties all the parts of the subtle body together at once, and gives a beautiful word, puryashtaka, the city of eight. Five senses of action, five senses of knowledge, five pranas, five subtle elements, the inner instrument, ignorance, desire, and action, this city of these eight things is called the subtle body. A city holds a great deal, lanes, markets, people, bustle, and yet a city in itself is not any single person. This subtle body is a fully settled city, and it is this that we take most deeply to be the I; by calling it a city the guru gives a hint, you are a resident of this city, not the city itself.

Now one word becomes the key, upadhi, a borrowed identity, a layer laid on from outside. Listen, says the guru, this subtle-named linga-body is made of uncompounded elements, carries the vasanas, undergoes the fruits of karma, and through its own ignorance is a beginningless upadhi of the self. Set a red flower beside a clear crystal and the crystal begins to look red, it is only borrowing the redness; the moment the flower is taken away the crystal is clear again. Because of this very upadhi the spotless self begins to look bound, unhappy, and small, and yet there is relief too, this upadhi rests on a single not-knowing, which means the flower falls away the moment you know. And just as the companion of the gross body was the waking state, the companion of the subtle body is dream. In dream nothing happens outside; the intellect alone, out of the vasanas gathered during waking, builds a whole world from its own portion. This is daily proof of how solid a world the mind can build, and it leaves you with a question, if the mind can do this at night, then how different is this waking world of the day.

Until now the guru had only been counting off the not-self. For the first time, out of that heap, he gives a glimpse of the real you, and two words hold that glimpse, witness and unattached. This supreme self, where it appears to shine on its own while taking on the sense of being the doer and the rest, is the one whose upadhi is only the intellect, the witness of everything, and it is not smeared by even the least trace of karma, because it is unattached, untouched. On a cinema screen a fire breaks out, a flood rushes in, and the screen neither burns nor gets wet. Let the real you be that screen, whatever karma, pleasure, and pain move through the mind, that witness stays untouched. And the guru sets this same point into an everyday picture, the carpenter and his tool. This entire subtle body is the instrument for all the works of the conscious self, the purusha, exactly like an adze for a carpenter. The adze wears down, marks fall on it, and the carpenter neither wears down nor takes a mark. The tool’s works belong to the tool, not to the one who wields it; this is why the self is unattached.

Now the guru applies this unattachedness one case at a time. Blindness, weak sight, sharp sight, these are properties of the eye’s good or bad condition; in the same way deafness, muteness, and the rest are properties of the ear and the others, not of the knowing self. If the eye is weak, this is a matter of the instrument, not of the one who works the instrument; a clouded glass gives a clouded reflection, and the sight of the one looking has not gone cloudy. Then the same point on prana, breathing in and out, yawning, sneezing, discharge, and at the end the going out of the breath, the wise call all these acts the works of prana; and hunger and thirst too are properties of prana alone. The real you is the one who knows the hunger, who watches the experience of hunger as a witness does. Every lack of the body, every disease, every clouding of old age, and even the most earthy, most forceful bodily demand, is in the end the stir of an instrument, which you are watching.

Now another word opens everything, abhasa, meaning reflection, borrowed light. This inner instrument stays within the eye and the other senses, and within the body, with the pride of I, and it has no light of its own, it appears aware by a borrowed, reflected light. The moon shines at night, and it has no light of its own, it shines by borrowing the light of the sun. The inner instrument is exactly like this, it goes I, I, it seems alive, and it has no consciousness of its own, it appears aware by borrowing the consciousness of the self. And by this same borrowed light the ego does its real work, it takes the pride of I do, I enjoy, and through its yoking with sattva and the other gunas it undergoes all three states, waking, dream, and deep sleep. Here is the whole entanglement, the real you is the witness, unattached, the carpenter, and the ego is the part that sits down in the witness’s chair and plants the flag of I am the doer. The adze has seized the carpenter’s work.

Then the guru says something very large very calmly, pleasure and pain too are not yours. When objects are favorable the ego is happy, when they are unfavorable it is unhappy; pleasure and pain are properties of that same ego, not of the ever-blissful self. Whatever changes up and down is a quality of some changing thing, and the real self is ever-blissful, a steady bliss that does not change. And the guru goes deeper still, an object is dear only for the sake of the self, because the self is by its own nature the dearest thing to everyone. That famous line of the Upanishad stands behind this, a husband is dear to the wife for the sake of her own self. We want each thing because it seems to give something to our own being; so the dearest thing is you yourself, and if that you are the dearest thing, then you must by nature be bliss itself. This is why the self is ever-blissful, sorrow never touches it. We look for bliss outside, and the guru says it is your own nature.

The self is ever-blissful, and what is the proof? The guru gives a very plain, everyday proof, deep sleep. In deep, dreamless sleep there is no object, no thing, nothing gained; and still, waking in the morning, everyone says, I slept very well. Where did that bliss come from, when there was nothing outside at all? The guru says that bliss is the self’s own; when the mind and the senses come to rest, when everything outer falls away, what remains is that very bliss, and shruti, direct experience, tradition, and inference all confirm it. Every night, every person, unknowing, touches his own ever-blissful nature and comes back, only he does not recognize it. Now, the part about maya begins.

The guru now opens the last, and the most subtle, layer of the not-self, maya. Understand one thing first, maya does not mean magic or trickery. It is the supreme power named the unmanifest, the power of the Lord, beginningless ignorance, made of three gunas, the highest power, from which this entire universe is born, and which can be inferred only from its works, and only by a sharp intellect. You have never seen electricity, and the fan turns, the bulb lights, so you know it is there; maya is like this, a creating power that itself always stays behind the screen. And its nature is such that every statement about it must be cut off the moment it is made, maya is not sat, not asat, not both; not separate, not inseparable; not made of parts, not without parts; its nature simply cannot be told in words. Maya is not sat, because it vanishes the moment knowledge dawns; and it is not asat either, because it is seen to be fully experienced. It is like a dream, wholly real while you watch it, and once you wake you find it was never there. A thing like this cannot be put in any one clean slot, and so it is indescribable.

But the guru gives a great relief, maya may well be indescribable, and it can be destroyed. By the awakening to the pure, non-dual Brahman, maya vanishes the way the illusion of the snake vanishes when the rope is seen; Brahman is awakened to, maya disappears. And along with this a new theme begins, the three gunas of maya, rajas, tamas, and sattva, which are known by their well-known works. These are the three colors with which maya tints everything, and this is a tool for recognizing your own mind. The first guna is rajas, and its power is named vikshepa, meaning to throw, to scatter, to toss about. Rajas is the restlessness that will not let the mind settle, one task is not finished before the next, one desire not fulfilled before another. And the guru adds a fine point, all the mind’s disturbances, such as attachment and sorrow, are born from this; which means most of our restlessness is the work of an inner guna.

Then the guru sets out the full list of rajas, desire, anger, greed, show, envy, egotism, jealousy, spite, these are the terrible properties of rajas; and since all of a person’s running about is driven by these, rajas is a cause of bondage. This list makes you uneasy, because it is familiar, these come and go inside us every day. The guru counts these off to hand you a map, so that the next time anger or jealousy rises inside, a new way of seeing can form, this is not me, this is the work of rajas, the stir of a guna. And this very way of seeing creates a distance, you begin to recognize the disturbance and watch it, instead of staying sunk in it.

The second guna is tamas, and its power is named avarana, meaning to cover; by which a thing begins to look like something else altogether, and this is the root cause of a person’s wheel of worldly existence, and the cause too of the projecting power becoming active. Then the same rope and snake. First the dark covered the rope, its real form stopped showing, then onto that covered spot the mind threw a snake; covering first, projection after, only when the real is covered does the false rise up. And the guru says something frightening and honest, a sharp intellect is no armor against tamas; however intelligent, learned, and clever a person may be, if tamas has licked him up then even when the matter is explained clearly again and again he does not understand, he settles on the thing imposed by delusion as the right one. This is said to make you humble, the swagger of I am a sensible person, I will understand it all, is itself a form of tamas; real understanding calls for an open and humble mind.

The guru counts off four forms of the covering power too, and these can be recognized in your own mind, being unable to think at all, thinking in reverse, holding a thing to be impossible, and staying in constant doubt; whatever this covering attaches to, it does not let go, and the projecting power keeps tormenting it without pause. These four are obstructions on the road to self-knowledge, and the guru gives a picture of how the two powers work together, the covering holds you fast in the dark, and the projection in that dark keeps tormenting you with fear, restlessness, and likes and dislikes; one holds you, the other strikes. Then the guru counts off the everyday forms of tamas, ignorance, laziness, dullness, sleep, carelessness, foolishness; a person joined to these knows nothing, like one asleep, or stands like a post. The mark of rajas was restlessness, the mark of tamas is a heavy sluggishness. A post exists, and there is no life in it, no awareness; this is a mirror, and recognizing a little of yourself in it is the first stretch of waking from that sleep.

The third guna is sattva, and the guru says something lovely and fine. Sattva is pure like water, it is the guna that brings peace, understanding, goodness; and sattva too is in the end a guna, a part of maya itself, and joined with rajas and tamas it too becomes a cause of the journey through worldly existence. It has one special role, sattva is so clear that the reflection of the self falls clearly in it, and like the sun it lights up all inert things, like the moon in clear water. Tamas is muddy water, the reflection does not show at all; sattva is clear water, the reflection shows clearly. So sattva is the best companion on the road, and it is a resting place along the way, since beyond it you must rise up out of the water itself, to the real moon.

The guru describes two grades of sattva. The first, mixed sattva, carrying a little of the admixture of rajas and tamas, and how beautiful its fruits are, humility, the yamas and niyamas, faith, devotion, the longing for liberation, divine wealth, and turning the face away from the unreal. Even mumukshuta, the ache for liberation, is counted here in mixed sattva, which means the wish to walk the path is itself the fruit of a guna; our goodness too is the natural flower of a mind growing clean. The second, the higher grade, pure sattva, without admixture, and its fruits go deeper, spotless cheer, the experience of one’s own nature, the highest peace, contentment, joy, and steadiness in the supreme self, by which the seeker comes to taste the essence of ever-lasting bliss. The fruits of mixed sattva were the qualities for walking the road, the fruits of pure sattva are the ones near the destination; one is preparation, the other is arrival. And pure sattva too is only the final step, the doorway to the destination; the clearest reflection of the moon in clear water, and the real moon is still above.

Now the guru describes the third and final body, the causal body. Made of the three gunas, this unmanifest is called the causal body of the self, and its own separate state is sushupti, deep sleep, where all the senses and the stir of the intellect are absorbed. Causal, because it is the seed of the other two bodies; in deep sleep both the gross and the subtle bodies fold in, and they do not vanish, they stay in a seed-form and open out again in the morning. The stilling of every kind of knowing, and the intellect staying on only in a seed-form, this is sushupti, and its proof is that thing everyone knows, I knew nothing in my sleep. But pause and look for a moment, if there truly was nothing in the sleep, if no one was there at all, then who knew this I knew nothing? Someone must have been present in that emptiness, so that on rising he could bear witness to it; that very witness, who stayed awake even in the void of sleep, is the real self. In sleep the body slept, the mind slept, and one consciousness stayed awake, or else who knew that sleep.

Now comes the shloka that works like a broom. From shloka 72 until now the guru has picked up one thing at a time, tested it, and set it down saying you are not this, the body, the senses, prana, the mind, the ego, the three gunas, maya. Now he sweeps them all into a single heap, the body, the senses, prana, the mind, the ego, and the rest; all the modifications, the objects of sense, pleasure and the rest; the elements beginning with space; the whole universe, all the way to unmanifest maya, all of this is the not-self. The student had asked in Part 3 what the not-self is, and this is the full, clear answer; and how wide the range is, the whole universe, all the way to the unmanifest. Every single thing that can be experienced, that can be known, is the not-self, because the self is that which knows, and the knower can never be the known object. And at the end of the part the guru gives this entire not-self one final, memorable comparison, a mirage in the desert. In a mirage water appears, the eyes really do see a shimmer, and there is no water there; it neither fully is nor fully is not, exactly that indescribable matter. The guru grants that the world is experienced. His point is that you should not take it to be the solid, final truth it appears to be. And a tender note is hidden in this, the guru says, know this for yourself; the heap has been set aside, and the guru addresses the student directly.