Having woken up from a dream, what duty have you toward your dream family? Once you reach sleep, how can the sleeper continue the effort of the waker, who was then but trying to compose himself to sleep.
All work ceases when the ego -I wakes up to the “I am the Self awareness. When a river reaches the ocean, its flow ends as it merges to become the ocean.
Non apprehension of the true nature of the Self created in you the misapprehension that you are a limited helpless, and tearful individual. Your non-apprehension of Reality (avarana) and the consequent misapprehensions (viksepa) are together called delusion (Maya). On apprehending the Self (jnana), all your misapprehensions (ajana) end. On realizing this grand goal, in that state of Self, no work is possible, no work is possible, no work is required. It is not really a question of your renouncing all activities -all activities simply slip off from you!
Text XVIII
yada paratmatmavibhedabhedakam vijnanamatmanyavabhati bhasvaram tadaiva maya praviliyate ‘njasa sakaraka karanamatmasamsrteh
English Meaning:
When the shining, direct knowledge of the Self -the destroyer of the difference between Paramatma and jiva -arises in the heart of an individual, then alone Maya, the cause for the jivs’s samsara, disappears instantaneously, along with its effects, all misapprehensions.
The Lord (Paramatma), the individual ego- sense, and the world of plurality created by God and perceived by the ego, all these three are destroyed by the direct experience of the higher Self (vijnana). Then , in the inner equipments of mind and intellect, arises (avabhati) the resplendent (bhasvaram) Self.
Just as on waking up from the dream the entire dream rolls away instantaneously, so also the delusory world of plurality rolls away when the contemplative student arrives at the direct knowledge of the self. All non apprehension and misapprehensions are instantaneously wiped out. The individual, the, universe perceived, and the Creator (God) all merge into the one experience divine.
It is profitable to remember that Laksmana’s demand was how he could cross over the ocean of nonapprehension instantaneously (verse 5). Here Sri Ramacandraji uses almost the same word (anjasa) and takes pains to explain how the seeker can instantaneously go beyond his delusions and come to apprehend Reality.
Text XIX
srutipramanabhivinasita ca sa katham bhavisyatyapi karyakarini vijnanamatradamaladvitiyata – stasmadavidya na punarbhavisyati.
Once Maya, (ignorance) is totally destroyed by the process expounded in the struti (the valid means of knowledge), how can she (Maya) even be capable of creating various delusory effects ? Since the Self is absolute Knowledge, pure and nondual (and is realized by the wise one) avidya will therefore not rise again.
There can still be a lingering doubt in the student’s mind that Maya, even if destroyed once, might again do her trick of projecting delusory misapprehensions. The teacher is denying this possibility because the misapprehensions were caused by the nonapprehension of Reality. When nonapprehension is destroyed in the direct apprehension of Reality. Maya folds her magic kit and disappear, never to come back.
In direct apprehension, all misapprehensions end; thereafter, in the state of the direct vision of the Self, nonapprehension cannot rise. Therefore, the individual in never more caught up with enchanting misapprehensions. Sri Ramacandra thus concludes. “Therefore, this Maya (avidya, ignorance) can never again arrive to delude the bosom of such an accomplished spiritual seeker.”
Text XX
yadi sma nasta na punah prasuyate kartahamasyeti matih katham bhavet tasmatsvatantra na kimapyapeksate vidya vimoksaya vibhati kevala.
If Maya, once destroyed, cannot ever rise again, how can the idea “I am the doer of this karma” ever rise for the realized person? Therefore, knowledge is independent and does not need anything else. By itself, it is capable of giving liberation. Sri Ramacandra is still trying to make the Samuccaya Vadin feel ridiculous at his own false assertions and arguments. If Maya, once destroyed through the apprehension of Reality, can no more bring any misapprehensions, how can the delusory sense of “I”, the sense of doership, arise ? Therefore, karma and jnana can never be performed at one and the same time by the same individual. Integral yoga is a palpable contradiction in terms. Knowledge alone removes ignorance. Apprehension alone ends nonapprehension. Thus, the path of knowledge is totally independent of all other help, and indeed self-sufficient in itself.
sa taittiriya srutiraha sadaram nyasam prasastakhilkarmanam sphutam etavadityaha ca vajinam srutir-jnanam vimoksaya na karma sadhanam.
The famous Taitiriya sruti declares clearly and emphatically that all sastra-prescribed karmas are to be given up entirely. The Vajasaneya scripture (the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad) also declares, by statements such as “This alone is immortality,” that the means to total liberation is knowledge (jnana) and not work (karma)
What has been already established through logic and reason is now being reaffirmed by the declarations in our famous scriptures. Other than direct knowledge (pratyaksa) and inference (anumana), Vedanta accepts as a third source of knowledge scriptural declarations (apa-vakya). Therefore, when an idea or point of view is logically established and that idea is found supported by the rishis in their Upanisadic declarations, that idea becomes an authentic conclusion.
That karma is not the means to liberation and that jnana alone is the effective and sole means has been proven so far on the strength of mere arguments and common-sense logic. Here, that very same conclusion shown to be doubly valid because the Upanisads also clearly declare the same idea.
