The guru opens the great saying directly into its two words. “तत्”, meaning Brahman, the root of all. “त्वम्”, meaning your own atman, your self. And Shruti has this one single purpose, to show again and again that the two are one. One word here is worth attention, “शोधितयोः”, the purified. Both words have to be purified first, the mistaken layers laid over them have to be removed, and only then does their oneness come out. And “मुहुः”, again and again. The Upanishad repeats it nine times, because it has to settle within you, and simply hearing it will not do that.

Now the guru sets that difficulty in front of you with full clarity. Take the plain meaning of the words and “तत्” and “त्वम्” seem to contradict each other, and he counts out four pairs: the firefly and the sun, the servant and the king, the water of a well and the ocean, a tiny atom and Mount Meru. The heart of these opposed pairs’ oneness lies in one term, the implied meaning. A word has two meanings, the direct and the indicated. In the direct meaning the firefly and the sun are different, one tiny, one vast. Yet the light inside each is one and the same essence, differing only in quantity. “तत् त्वम् असि” points to the light within that “you”, and that light is one with the light of Brahman. It makes no claim about the limited body-and-mind “you”.

Then the guru names the root of this opposition: it is manufactured, imagined out of the adjuncts. And he counts two adjuncts. “तत्”, Brahman, appears as “Ishvara” because one adjunct rests on it, maya, the cause of the whole creation. “त्वम्”, the atman, appears as “jiva” because one adjunct rests on it, the five sheaths that are its effects. Let both adjuncts fall away, and what remains is one and the same in both places. The difference sits in the covering laid over the light, and the light itself holds none. The guru opens this fully with the illustration of the king and the soldier. How much distance seems to lie between a king and a soldier. Yet the king is a king by his kingdom, his throne, his crown, and the soldier is a soldier by his uniform, his shield. Strip these things from both, take away the crown, take away the shield, and what remains is two human beings, and as human beings the two are equal. Exactly this happens when maya and the five sheaths are removed: no “Ishvara” remains, no “jiva”, only one pure consciousness, one in both places.

For this statement of his the guru now makes Shruti itself his witness. The famous “नेति-नेति” saying of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, this is not it, this is not it, goes on forbidding every layer laid over Brahman, one by one. So the work the guru is doing, the removal of both adjuncts, is nothing new; Shruti does exactly this itself. And one phrase matters, “it must indeed be done”. Understanding alone does not accomplish it; the removal of the adjuncts is a practice the seeker must carry out himself, again and again, with clear discernment about each layer, this is not me. From this the whole method binds into two steps. The first step, removal: to see by honest reasoning about every seen thing that it is imagined, that it is not real, like the snake seen on a rope, like a dream. The second step, after that: when all that is seen has fallen away, to know the one being that remains. This is the order, first removal, then knowledge. The sculptor removes from the stone everything that is not the statue, and what remains is the statue itself.

Now a technical point comes, though its heart is simple. There are three ways to draw out the implied meaning of the words, and the guru chooses the middle one. One, to drop the direct meaning of the word entirely. The second, to drop nothing at all. Neither suits here. The third, to drop one part of the word’s meaning and keep one. In “तत् त्वम् असि” the part of “त्वम्” that is the body-mind-limited jiva falls away, and the part that is consciousness stays; in the same way the distant-Ishvara part of “तत्” falls away, and the consciousness part stays. The remaining part of both, consciousness, turns out to be one and the same. And this becomes clear in a moment through a simple illustration drawn from everyday experience. Years ago, in some other city, in your youth, you once met a man named Devadatta. Today that same Devadatta appears here, in this city, looking old, and at once you say, why, this is that same Devadatta. The time is different, the place is different, the condition is different, and still the two are called one. The mind, on its own, without effort, drops the contradictory part, and recognizes the one person who remains. “तत् त्वम् असि” does exactly this: from “त्वम्” the time-place-body part falls away, from “तत्” the distance-and-vastness part falls away, and what remains is one consciousness, why, this is that very thing.

With this the guru gathers up the first stretch. What is common to both “तत्” and “त्वम्” is only being-conscious, and by that one essence the two become inseparable. Recognizing this, the wise know the undivided single being of Sat and the atman. And there is a stirring hint here, from a hundred great sayings. In the Upanishads “तत् त्वम् असि” is not the only great saying. There is “अहं ब्रह्मास्मि”, I am Brahman, “प्रज्ञानं ब्रह्म”, consciousness is Brahman, “अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म”, this atman is Brahman, and many more. The guru says all these sentences in the end say one thing, Brahman and your atman are inseparable. Then the guru recalls the Brihadaranyaka’s description of “अस्थूलम्, अनणु”, Brahman is not gross, not subtle, not this, not that. After each “not this”, Brahman remains, self-established, like space. No one makes space, it does not have to be established; when all the rest is removed, space simply is. And then the guru gives direct instruction, in two parts: first, let go of that false “I” you have taken to be your self, and second, “ब्रह्म अहम्”, I am Brahman, know this. The guru says you are That, and the student knows from within, I am That.

Now three shlokas repeat “तत् त्वम् असि” with full force. The guru returns again to clay and the pot. The pot is only clay, and stays clay always. In the same way, whatever has arisen from Sat, from Brahman, is only Sat, and beyond Sat there is nothing at all. So Sat alone is the truth, and that is your atman, and for this reason, you are That. This sentence is the fruit of a proof, and it earns every word: all is Sat, Sat itself is the atman, therefore you are That. And the shloka ends on four tender words, calm, pure, one-without-a-second, supreme. That “you” is a calm, clear refuge. There is nothing fearsome in its vastness.

Now the same sentence comes from the other direction. Before, the proof came from the side of Sat: all is Sat, therefore you are Sat. Now it comes from the side of denying the unreal. The device is the dream. In the dream there was a whole world, place, time, objects, and an “I” who was knowing them. On waking, that whole knowing “I” also turned out to be false. The guru says this waking world too is just like that, and in it this body-sense-breath “I” is also like that false “I” of the dream. When this limited “I” too falls away, what remains as the real “you”, that same calm, pure, one-without-a-second. And you are That. The guru deepens this further with a subtle question. All night a long, crowded dream ran on, people, places, events. The eyes opened, the dream ended. Then where did that whole dream-world go? Did it go off somewhere outside, separate from the seer, to be finished? No, it went nowhere at all, because it was never separate from the seer; it was fashioned from his own mind, and on waking it simply returned to its own ground. This waking world is exactly the same. When real waking comes, this world is not destroyed anywhere; it only becomes clear that it was never separate from Brahman, that it was Brahman itself.

Now a string of ten shlokas begins, each one telling a facet of Brahman, and each one ending on the same refrain, that Brahman is you, settle it within. Read this string like a mantra. The things the first shloka begins with are caste, family, lineage, the very identities whose weight is carried a whole life long, and in the very first refrain the guru says the real “you” is far, far from all of these. One word here is stirring, “भावय”, the act of letting something settle within, deeper than mere knowing. It is something to let settle within, again and again, and no piece of information handed to the intellect will do that. In the second shloka there is a subtle secret: Brahman lies beyond the grip of speech, and it is still the object of the eye of pure awareness, which is to say no words can hold Brahman, and its experience remains open. And there is that word which answers the student’s earlier fear of emptiness, “चित्-घन”, dense with consciousness. The atman is a full, beginningless, pure conscious essence, complete and with no emptiness in it.

Next the guru takes up a fixed list of six urmis, the six waves that beset a life: hunger and thirst, the two of the vital breath; grief and delusion, the two of the mind; old age and death, the two of the body. That is, everything that torments the jiva, unsettles it, wears it down. The guru says the real “you” is untouched by all six of these waves, it never joins them at all. On the surface of the ocean waves keep rising and falling, and the water in the depths stays still, and the atman is that depth. Let these waves play on the surface, the real you stays untouched by them, and this essence is known only through the heart’s experience, while neither the senses nor the intellect reach it. Then two more deep words come, its own ground, and that which has no comparison. Every thing in the world rests on something else, the pot on clay, the wave on the ocean, the dream on the mind. Brahman rests on nothing; it is itself the ground of all, and its own ground is itself. And this whole text has given many comparisons for Brahman, space, the sun, the ocean, and every comparison in the end falls short, because there is no second thing like Brahman, and comparison is possible only when there are two things.

Next the guru counts out another list, of six modifications, the six stages of every embodied thing: being born, growing, changing, declining, falling ill, perishing. This is the sequence of every thing, and for this reason every thing is impermanent. The guru says the real “you” is beyond all six of these; it is not born, it does not perish, and the four modifications in between do not touch it either; these six happen along with the body, and the “you” watches them. Along with this a weighty point: that same Brahman is the cause of the whole universe, which is to say the unmoving witness within is the very source of all creation without, the atom and the vast are one and the same. Then comes the loveliest comparison of this string, a great body of water with no wave, an ocean on which not a single wave rises, utterly calm, utterly still, like glass. And two words stand out. In which all distinctions have set: our whole dealing runs on distinctions, I and you, this and that, mine and another’s, and Brahman is that state where all these lines dissolve. And ever free, this is deeply important. Freedom is not a matter of the future. The atman has always been free, and bondage was only an illusion. This shloka lifts liberation out of the future and sets it in the present: you are already, and always, free.

Now the guru says a weighty thing: Brahman stands outside the chain of causes. The intellect looks for a cause of every thing, this came from that, that from something else, and that from something else again, an endless ladder. Brahman is the state where this ladder finds its rest; it is the cause of the many, and it has itself no cause, and deeper still, it stands apart from both effect and cause. Brahman is not even a part of this whole traffic of cause and effect; it is that ground on which this whole traffic appears, and that ground is you. Next comes a stirring word, the happiness that never wanes. Every happiness in the world thins out, ends: some desired thing is gained, happiness comes, then it fades, then the search for the next thing, and this very wearing-away of happiness is the root of the whole chase. The guru says the real “you” is a happiness that never thins, it does not come from outside, and so it does not leave with the outside either. The atman does not obtain happiness. The atman is itself that happiness which never wanes.

Now a new and very exact comparison comes, gold. At a goldsmith’s there are many things, rings, necklaces, bangles, figurines, different names, different shapes, different prices. Yet in truth how many things are there, only one, gold. Every ornament is only gold, cast into a name and a form; ornaments keep being made and unmade, and the gold stays as it is, unchanging. The guru says this whole world is just like this, countless things, countless names, yet in truth all one gold, one Brahman, cast into many forms. And that gold is you. You are not any single ornament in the world. You are the gold that is in every ornament. And then the ten-shloka refrain ends on its highest words, सत्-चित्-सुख, that is सत्-चित्-आनन्द, being, knowing, and bliss, all three at once. One more stirring word is here, one inner rasa, the nearest of all, undivided. Each time this string calls Brahman boundless, infinite, supreme, each time it brings it near, you are That, settle it within. Vast and near, at once. And a tenth time the same refrain, which by now has settled deep within, past the intellect.

Now the remaining three shlokas tell what the practice of all this is. The guru gives a beautiful comparison, water held in the palm. A little water taken in the palm is perfectly clear, right there in front of you, every drop visible, no blur, no doubt. Self-knowledge too can be this clear, and it must be. Two words matter here, oneself and reasoning. The guru has explained everything, and now the settling of that meaning within is for the student to do himself, another can hand you the medicine, and your hunger you have to end yourself. And this is not blind faith. You are to make it so clear by your own reasoning, by testing, that no doubt is left.

Then another beautiful comparison comes, the king in the army. A vast army stands there, thousands of soldiers, horses, elephants, banners, and in that whole crowd how is the king to be recognized. He stands right there, among them, and still a trained eye picks him out from all the rest. Within there is a crowd just like it, the five sheaths, the senses, thoughts, feelings, a ceaseless stir, and in the middle of that whole crowd, silent, the king stands, pure consciousness, the witness. This is the practice, to pick out the king in that crowd, then to take refuge in him alone, and when the footing there grows firm, then the final task, to dissolve the whole universe into Brahman, which is to say, to see every thing you now look upon outside dissolving into that one Brahman, no longer as separate fragments. And this is the close of Part 9, which ends on a subtle play on one word, the cave. There are two caves: one, the cave of the intellect, that inner still place where Brahman already dwells, and the other, the cave of the body, that is, a new birth, a new body. The guru says whoever settles into the first cave, as Brahman, does not have to enter the second cave again; whoever has returned to his own true nature does not have to wander body after body again. This is the fruit of the whole part built on “तत् त्वम् असि”: the great saying heard, understood, made clear by the intellect, settled within ten times over by “भावयात्मनि”, and now you are to stand firm in it.