Joy of Self-Realization

 Joy of Self-Realization

Janaka said:
2.1
I am now spotless and at peace--
Awareness beyond Consciousness.
All this time
I have been duped by illusion.
2.2
By this light alone
the body and the universe appear.
I am Everything
or Nothing.
2.3
Seeing there is no
universe or body,
by grace the Self is revealed.
2.4
As waves, foam and bubbles
are not different from water,
so the universe emanating from Self
is not different from Self.
2.5
Look closely at cloth,
you see only threads.
Look closely at creation,
you see only Self.
2.6
As sweetness
pervades sugarcane juice,
I am the essence of creation.

Not seeing Self, the world is materialized.
Seeing Self, the world is vanished.
A rope is not a snake,
but can appear to be.
2.8
I am not other than Light.
The universe manifests
at my glance.
2.9
The mirage of universe appears in me
as silver appears in mother-of-pearl,
as a snake appears in a rope,
as water appears on a desert horizon.
2.10
As a pot returns to clay,
a wave to water,
a bracelet to gold,
so will the universe return to Me.
2.11
I am wonderful indeed--
beyond adoration.
I cannot decay nor ever die,
though God and all the universe
should perish to the last blade of grass.
2.12
I am wonderful indeed--
beyond adoration.
Even with a body I am One.
I neither come nor go.
I am everywhere at once.
2.13
I am wonderful indeed--
beyond adoration.
I am astounded at my powers.
The universe appears within me
but I do not touch it.
.14
I am wonderful indeed--
beyond adoration.
I am everything thought or spoken,
and have nothing.
2.15
In Reality,
knowledge, the knower, and the knowable
do not exist.
I am the transparent Self
in which through ignorance
they appear.
2.16
Looking at One and seeing many
is the cause of all misery.
The only cure is to realize
what is seen is not there.
I am One—aware, blissful, immaculate.
2.17
I am unbounded Awareness.
Only in imagination do I have limits.
Reflecting on this,
I abide in the Absolute.
2.18
I am neither free nor bound.
The illusion of such things
has fallen into disbelief.
Though I contain creation,
it has no substance.
2.19
Having seen for certain
that this universe and body
is without form or substance,
I am revealed as Awareness alone.
Imagination has no place here.
20
The body exists only in imagination,
as do heaven and hell,
bondage, freedom, fear.
Are these my concern?
I, who am pure Awareness?
2.21
I see no differences or separation.
Even the multitudes appear
as a single formless desert.
To what should I cling?
2.22
I am not the body.
I do not have a body.
I am Awareness, not a person.
My thirst for life bound me
to a seeming of life.
2.23
In the limitless ocean of Myself
the winds of the mind
roil the myriad waves of the world.
2.24
But when the wind subsides
in the limitless ocean
the ark of personhood is swallowed up,
along with the universe it carries.
2.25
And how wonderful it is!
In the limitless ocean of Myself,
waves of beings
arise, collide, play for a time,
then disappear--as is their nature.