Tripura Rahasya ✅ Chapter XV

85. A lamp illumines all around but

does not illumine itself or another light.

It shines of itself without other sources of light.

Things shine in sunlight without the

necessity for any other kind of illumination.

Because lights do not require to be illumined, do we say that they are

not known or that they do not exist?

Therefore,

as it is with lights,

thus are things made aware by the conscious self.

What doubt can you have regarding abstract consciousness, namely the Self?

Lights and things being insentient, cannot be self-aware.

Still, their existence or manifestation is under no doubt.

That means they are self-luminous.

Can you not similarly investigate with an inward mind in order to find out if the all-comprehending Self is conscious or not

conscious?

That Consciousness is absolute and transcends the three states (wakefulness, dream and deep sleep) and comprises all the universe making it manifest.

Nothing

can be apprehended without its light.

Will anything be apparent to you,

if there be no consciousness?

Even to say that nothing is apparent to

you (as in sleep) requires the light of consciousness.

Is not your awareness of your unawareness (in sleep) due to consciousness?

If you infer its eternal light, then closely investigate whether the light is of itself or not. Everybody fails in this investigation however learned and proficient he may

be, because his mind is not bent inward but restlessly moves outward.

As long as thoughts crop up, so long

has the turning inward of the mind not been

accomplished.

As long as the mind is not inward, so long the Self cannot be realised.

Turning inward means absence of desire. How can the mind be fixed within if

desires are not given up?

Therefore become dispassionate and inhere as the Self.

Such inherence is spontaneous

(no effort is needed to inhere as the Self).

It is realised after thoughts are

eliminated and investigation ceases.

Recapitulate your state after you break off from it, and then you will know

all and the significance of its being knowable and unknowable at the same time.

Thus realising the unknowable, one abides in immortality for ever and ever.