🕉 Adi Shankaracharya ✅ Vivekachudamani

“Though various obstacles contribute to the bondage of the soul,

the primary cause of them all is the rising of the false ego-sense.

It is through the superimposition of the ego

on the Self that this bondage of birth, death and sorrow has come upon you who are by nature Being-Consciousness-Bliss,

of boundless glory, eternal, single in essence, unchanging.

By nature you have no such bondage.

Just as there can be no sound health so long as the effect of a little poison in the body continues, so there can be no liberation so long as identification

with the ego continues.

Knowledge of the identity of the self

with Brahman is clearly revealed as soon as the ego is completely destroyed without residue, together with the illusion of multiplicity caused by the veiling of tamas.

Therefore,

by investigation into the nature of the unattached Self,

discover the Truth of your own Self, complete, perfect,

self-effulgent and ever-blissful.

He who is freed from the ego shines eternally as the Self, like the full moon, radiant when delivered from the dragon’s head (of eclipse).

In the field of the Heart the terrible cobra of the ego is coiled round the Bliss of the Self to which it denies access with the threefold

hood of the gunas.

These three fearful heads of the serpent of

ego are to be severed,

in accordance with the scriptures,

only by great courage with the mighty sword of actual experience of the Self.

He who has thus destroyed the three-hooded serpent can obtain and enjoy the vast treasure of the Bliss of

Brahman.

Therefore you, too,

give up the ‘I-sense’ in the ego,

which appears like being and assumes that it is the doer,

whereas it is only the reflected light of the Self.

Turn inwards all the thought-forms that adhere to the ego. He is an enemy

of yours, so kill him with the sword of knowledge. He has been harming you like a thorn in your throat while eating.

Give up all desires in order to realize your state as the Supreme Self.

Enjoy the kingdom of the Self, be perfect, be still in the stillness of the immutable state of Brahman.

The ego may in this way be killed,

but if thought is given to it even for a moment it revives and engages in activity,

driving a man before it as the wind drives winter clouds.

Remember that he who associates the ‘I-sense’ with the body and its faculties is bound while he who does not is liberated."