Prose-section 19
In plain words
Taking “I” to be the non-Self, the body and the rest that are not oneself: this is bondage, and it is the root of every evil. It is what gives a person birth and death, and it has come from ignorance. Through this ignorance people take this unreal body for real and take it to be themselves; they feed it on sense objects and so destroy themselves, as the silkworm wraps itself in the thread from its own mouth and perishes in it. Everyone covered by the veiling power lacks discrimination, and so the notion of a real thing arises, as a matter of course, in what is not real, as the notion of a rope might arise in a snake. The Self is undivided, eternal and non-dual, shining by itself with the light of its own stainless knowledge, of endless glory. As Rahu swallows the sun, this dark veiling power hides it. Then a person forgets his own nature. The crocodile of delusion swallows him; deluded, he takes the body that is not himself to be himself. Joined with desire, anger and the rest, his understanding goes astray; he claims all the intellect’s states as his own; and so, in the boundless ocean of samsara full of the poison of objects, he sinks and rises and wanders with no refuge. That great misery is the work of the projecting power of rajas. The sun’s own rays raise rows of clouds, and the clouds cover that very sun and spread. In the same way the bondage of the ego, arising in the Self through ignorance, covers the Self and itself grows. On a rainy day, when clouds hide the sun, frost and cold wind torment people; in the same way, while the veiling power of tamas hides the Self, the projecting power of rajas deludes the ignorant man into taking the body, which he is not, as himself, and torments him with every kind of pain. So it is through these two powers that bondage comes upon a person. Of this tree of samsara, tamas, the veiling, is the seed; taking the body as the Self is the sprout; attachment is the young shoot; action is the water; the body is the trunk; the vital breaths are the branches; the senses are their tips; objects are the flowers; the many sorrows born of many actions are the fruit; and the individual on that tree is the bird that eats it. This bondage of the non-Self, born of ignorance, heaps birth, death, old age and sorrow on beings again and again. It has no beginning, and yet it is cut down at the root. The sword that does it is sharp: immediate knowledge of the Self, whetted free of all impurity by continual meditation, and that meditation rests on the inner purity that comes from trusting scripture and doing without desire the duties it teaches. No other weapon or blade, neither wind nor fire, nor ten million rites, can cut it.
Word for word
The notion “I” applied to the non-Self—body and the like which are not oneself—is bondage, the cause of every misfortune. Arising through ignorance, it causes birth and death. Through this ignorance people take the unreal body as real, identify it as Self, nourish it with sense-objects and perish, like a silkworm enclosing itself in threads from its mouth. For those covered by concealment, lack of discrimination naturally produces a notion of reality in what is not reality, as when a snake is taken for a rope. The tamasic concealing power obscures the undivided, eternal, non-dual Self of boundless glory, self-luminous through pure knowledge, as Rahu conceals the sun. Forgetting his own nature, swallowed by delusion’s crocodile, the person takes the non-Self body as himself. Desire and anger cloud understanding; he identifies the intellect’s conditions as his own. Rajas’s projecting power causes great suffering, making him sink, rise and wander without refuge in samsara’s boundless ocean filled with sense-object poison. As rows of clouds produced through the sun’s rays conceal the sun and grow, egoic bondage arising in the Self through ignorance conceals the Self and grows. As cold and chill winds trouble people when rainy-season clouds obscure the sun, projection afflicts the ignorant person while concealment obscures the Self. Bondage thus comes through these two powers. In the tree of samsara, concealment is the seed, bodily self-identification the sprout, attachment the shoot, action the water, body the trunk, vital forces the branches, senses their tips and objects the flowers. Varied suffering produced by varied action is the fruit; the individual is the bird that eats it. Though this bondage involving the non-Self is beginningless and repeatedly produces birth, death, ageing and suffering, it is destroyed at the root by the sharp sword of immediate Self-knowledge. This sword is sharpened free of impurity through continual meditation, with inner purity arising from trust in revelation and desireless performance of the duties it teaches. No other weapon, wind, fire or tens of millions of actions can sever it.