446. Prarabdha work is acknowledged to persist so long as there is the perception of happiness and the like. Every result is
preceded by an action, and nowhere is it seen to accrue independently of action.
447. Through the realisation of one’s identity with Brahman, all the accumulated actions of a hundred crore of cycles come to
nought, like the actions of dream-state on awakening.
448. Can the good actions or dreadful sins that a man fancies himself doing in the dream-state, lead him to heaven or hell after he
has awakened from sleep ?
449. Realising the Atman, which is unattached and indifferent like the sky, the aspirant is never touched in the least by actions yet
to be done.
450. The sky is not affected by the smell of liquor merely through its connection with the jar; similarly, the Atman is not, through Its
connection with the limitations, affected by the properties thereof.
451. The work which has fashioned this body prior to the dawning of knowledge, is not destroyed by that knowledge without yielding
its fruits, like the arrow shot at an object.
452. The arrow which is shot at an object with the idea that it is a tiger, does not, when that object is perceived to be a cow, check
itself, but pierces the object with full force.
453. Prarabdha work is certainly very strong for the man of realisation, and is spent only by the actual experience of its fruit; while
the actions previously accumulated and those yet to come are destroyed by the fire of perfect knowledge. But none of the three at
all affects those who, realising their identity with Brahman, are always living absorbed in that idea. They are verily the transcendent
Brahman.
454. For the sage who lives in his own Self as Brahman, the One without a second, devoid of identification with the limiting adjuncts,
the question of the existence of Prarabdha work is meaningless, like the question of a man who has awakened from sleep having
any connection with the objects seen in the dream-state.
455. The man who has awakened from sleep never has any idea of “I” or “mine” with regard to his dream-body and the
dream-objects that ministered to that body, but lives quite awake, as his own Self.
456. He has no desire to substantiate the unreal objects, nor is he seen to maintain that dream-world. If he still clings to those
unreal objects, he is emphatically declared to be not yet free from sleep.
457. Similarly, he who is absorbed in Brahman lives identified with that eternal Reality and beholds nothing else. As one has a
memory of the objects seen in a dream, so the man of realisation has a memory of the everyday actions such as eating.
458. The body has been fashioned by Karma, so one may imagine Prarabdha work with reference to it. But it is not reasonable to
attribute the same to the Atman, for the Atman is never the outcome of work.
459. The Shrutis, whose words are infallible, declare the Atman to be “birthless, eternal and undecaying”. So, the man who lives
identified with That, how can Prarabdha work be attributed ?
460. Prarabdha work can be maintained only so long as one lives identified with the body. But no one admits that the man of
realisation ever identifies himself with the body. Hence Prarabdha work should be rejected in his case.
461. The attributing of Prarabdha work to the body even is certainly an error. How can something that is superimposed (on another)
have any existence, and how can that which is unreal have a birth ? And how can that which has not been born at all, die ? So how
can Prarabdha work exist for something that is unreal ?
462-463. “If the effects of ignorance are destroyed with their root by knowledge, then how does the body live?” – it is to convince
those fools who entertain a doubt like this, that the Shrutis, from a relative standpoint, hypothesise Prarabdha work, but not for
proving the reality of the body etc., of the man of realisation.
464. There is only Brahman, the One without a second, infinite, without beginning or end, transcendent and changeless; there is no
duality whatsoever in It.
465. There is only Brahman, the One without a second, the Essence of Existence, Knowledge and Eternal Bliss, and devoid of
activity; there is no duality whatsoever in It.
