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Excerpts from "Tripura Rahasya or The Mystery Beyond Trinity"


1. As long as you are contaminated with notions of me or mine (e.g., my home, my body, my mind, my intellect), the Self will not be found, for it lies beyond cognition and cannot be realised as ‘my Self’.

2. Retire into solitude, analyse and see what those things are which are cognised as mine; discard them all and transcending them, look for the Real Self.

3. So the world is nothing but an image drawn on the screen of consciousness, it differs from a mental picture in its long duration; that is again due to the strength of will producing the phenomenon. The universe appears practical, material and perfect because the will determining its creation is perfect and independent; whereas the human conceptions are more or less transitory according to the strength or the weakness of the will behind them.

4. . One starts imagining something; then contemplates it; and by continuous or repeated association resolves that it is true, unless contradicted. In that way, the world appears real in the manner one is used to it.

5. As long as the mind is not inward, so long the Self cannot be realised. Turning inward means absence of desire.

6. The other perceptions require the two conditions, namely, elimination of other objects and concentration on the one. But Self-realisation differs from them in that it requires only one condition: elimination of all perceptions.

7. But since consciousness is the Self and not apart from the mind, concentration on it is not necessary for its realisation. It is enough that other perceptions (namely, thoughts) should be eliminated from the mind and then the Self will be realised.

8. The truth is that there is one Reality which is consciousness in the abstract and also transcendental, irradiating the whole universe in all its diversity from its own being, by virtue of its self-sufficiency, which we call Maya or Sakti or Energy. Ignorance lies in the feeling of differentiation of the creatures from the Creator. The individuals are only details in the same Reality.

9. The cycle of births and deaths is from time immemorial caused by ignorance, which displays itself as pleasure and pain, and yet is only a dream and unreal. Being so, the wise say that it can be ended by knowledge. By what kind of knowledge? Wisdom born of realisation (viz., ‘I am That’).

10. Individual bodies, their senses, minds, etc., are similar to visions in a dream; they are projected from me. Control of one mind leaves all other minds as they are. So what is the use of controlling my mind? Minds, controlled or uncontrolled, appear only to my mental eye.

11. My own light manifests diverse activities all about the world which is again my own manifestation.

12. At the time of cognising an object, the pure intellect assumes its shape and manifests as such. Of itself it is pure and has no form. Objective knowledge is thus a particularised section of pure intelligence. The Self is evershining, unparticularized, unblemished, ordinary existence — self-aware and self-sufficient.

13. If you say that the body, etc., usually appear as the Self, I tell you that they are only the play of thoughts and nothing more. For think well and observe carefully. When you see a pot, are you aware that it is your self like the body? (No, your body is no less a thought and appearance in consciousness, than the pot.) Then why should the body alone be confused with the Self?

14. Moksha (liberation) is not to be sought in heavens, on earth or in the nether regions. It is synonymous with Self-realisation.

15. Consciousness is one and non-dual, but shines as if diversified like the clean surface of a mirror reflecting variegated colours.

16. Note how the mind unmodified in sleep, remaining single and blank, is later modified by dream and manifests as the dream world. Similarly, the One Consciousness — Sri Tripura — flashes forth as the various phenomena of the universe.

17. Just as an axe was created in the dream for felling a tree, which is the purpose for which it was designed, so is the mind said to be the faculty for giving perception.
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