Know that all the instruments of actions, such as the mind, the intellect, the memory and the ego are all like space. Know that all the objects that you see outside are like empty space. Know that this one truth which is pure and is neither bound nor free. This truth is the essence of Jnana, which is equally present everywhere like the sky.
Sri Dattatreya explains beautifully in this verse about the simplicity of truth. Truth is so simple that the mind which is trained always to comprehend complexity, fails to see it. The truth speaks for itself here through the Master, who says that he is not difficult to comprehend, nor is he hidden in awareness. He is not a hidden goal that is difficult to attain, nor is he hidden in this world behind the names and forms. The indirect meaning is that all the names and forms we see around, is nothing but this self, consciousness or God. As the Ishavasya Upanishad begins, “Ishavasyam Idam Sarvam Yad Kinchith Sa Jagathyam Jagat|” Everything in this universe is pervaded by that Isha, Lord or the supreme self, everything that moves and doesn’t move.
The following is a verse of contrasts. “I am the fire that burns up the seeds of action of the person who has transcended action! I am the fire that burns the sorrow of the person who has transcended it. I’m the one who burns the body of the bodiless person. I am the supreme essence.” Though these statements seem very contradictory, Sri Dattatreya says that the self or the truth can be attained only by the person who has given up all action or movements of the body and mind. The supreme truth cannot be reached by a sorrowing heart. When all the clouds of sorrow are cleared, the light of truth shines.
When a person is living and seeing this world of duality through the body and the physical eyes, the truth that is one, is never revealed. However, the moment the person comes out of the body consciousness is when they are able to perceive that self everywhere. When here the truth seems to apparently do some action of burning away karma, sorrow or the body, it only means that with the grace of the truth when these limitations are gone, that truth reveals itself as the light of consciousness—one without a second.
When a person is sinless, the self is the fire that burns such a person’s sins! Same contradiction again, yet the implication is that the self is what helps us transcend sin and remain so too. The self burns the very existence with qualities of the one who has transcended existence and the one that burns the bondages of the person who is free.
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