151. When all the five sheaths have been eliminated, the Self of man appears – pure, of the essence of everlasting and unalloyed
bliss, indwelling, supreme and self-effulgent.
152. To remove his bondage the wise man should discriminate between the Self and the non-Self. By that alone he comes to know
his own Self as Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute and becomes happy.
153. He indeed is free who discriminates between all sense-objects and the indwelling, unattached and inactive Self – as one
separates a stalk of grass from its enveloping sheath – and merging everything in It, remains in a state of identity with That.
154. This body of ours is the product of food and comprises the material sheath; it lives on food and dies without it; it is a mass of
skin, flesh, blood, bones and filth, and can never be the eternally pure, self-existent Atman.
155. It does not exist prior to inception or posterior to dissolution, but lasts only for a short (intervening) period; its virtues are
transient, and it is changeful by nature; it is manifold, inert, and is a sense-object, like a jar; how can it be one’s own Self, the
Witness of changes in all things ?
156. The body, consisting of arms, legs, etc., cannot be the Atman, for one continues to live even when particular limbs are gone,
and the different functions of the organism also remain intact. The body which is subject to another’s rule cannot be the Self which
is the Ruler of all.
157. That the Atman as the abiding Reality is different from the body, its characteristics, its activities, its states, etc., of which It is
the witness, is self-evident.
158. How can the body, being a pack of bones, covered with flesh, full of filth and highly impure, be the self-existent Atman, the
Knower, which is ever distinct from it ?
159. It is the foolish man who identifies himself with a mass of skin, flesh, fat, bones and filth, while the man of discrimination knows
his own Self, the only Reality that there is, as distinct from the body.
160. The stupid man thinks he is the body, the book-learned man identifies himself with the mixture of body and soul, while the sage
possessed of realisation due to discrimination looks upon the eternal Atman as his Self, and thinks, “I am Brahman”.
161. O foolish person, cease to identify thyself with this bundle of skin, flesh, fat, bones and filth, and identify thyself instead with
the Absolute Brahman, the Self of all, and thus attain to supreme Peace.
162. As long as the book-learned man does not give up his mistaken identification with the body, organs, etc., which are unreal,
there is no talk of emancipation for him, even if he be ever so erudite in the Vedanta philosophy.
163. Just as thou dost not identify thyself with the shadow-body, the image-body, the dream-body, or the body thou hast in the
imaginations of thy heart, cease thou to do likewise with the living body also.
164. Identifications with the body alone is the root that produces the misery of birth etc., of people who are attached to the unreal;
therefore destroy thou this with the utmost care. When this identification caused by the mind is given up, there is no more chance
for rebirth.
165. The Prana, with which we are all familiar, coupled with the five organs of action, forms the vital sheath, permeated by which the
material sheath engages itself in all activities as if it were living.
166. Neither is the vital sheath the Self – because it is a modification of Vayu, and like the air it enters into and comes out of the
body, and because it never knows in the least either its own weal and woe or those of others, being eternally dependent on the Self.
167. The organs of knowledge together with the mind form the mental sheath – the cause of the diversity of things such as “I” and
“mine”. It is powerful and endued with the faculty of creating differences of name etc., It manifests itself as permeating the
preceding, i.e. the vital sheath.
168. The mental sheath is the (sacrificial) fire which, fed with the fuel of numerous desires by the five sense-organs which serve as
priests, and set ablaze by the sense-objects which act as the stream of oblations, brings about this phenomenal universe.
169. There is no Ignorance (Avidya) outside the mind. The mind alone is Avidya, the cause of the bondage of transmigration. When
that is destroyed, all else is destroyed, and when it is manifested, everything else is manifested.
170. In dreams, when there is no actual contact with the external world, the mind alone creates the whole universe consisting of the
experiencer etc. Similarly in the waking state also; there is no difference. Therefore all this (phenomenal universe) is the projection of
the mind.
