Love your true Self, 1
Which is naturally happy
And peaceful and bright!

Awaken to your own nature,
And all delusion melts like a dream.

How much pleasure you take 2
In acquiring worldly goods!

But to find happiness
You must give them all up.

The sorrows of duty, 3
Like the heat of the sun,
Have scorched your heart.

But let stillness fall on you
With its sweet and cooling showers,
And you will find happiness.

For the world is nothing. 4
It is only an idea.

But the essence of what is
And of what is not
Can never fail.

The Self is always the same, 5
Already fulfilled,
Without flaw or choice or striving.

Close at hand,
But boundless.

When the Self is known, 6
All illusions vanish.

The veil falls,
And you see clearly.

Your sorrows are dispelled.

For the Self is free 7
And lives forever.

Everything else is imagination,
Nothing more!

Because he understands this,
The master acts like a child.

When you know you are God 8
And that what is and what is not
Are both imaginary,
And you are at last free of desire,
Then what is there left
To know or to say or to do?

For the Self is everything. 9

When the seeker knows this,
He falls silent.

He no longer thinks,
"I am this, I am not that."

Such thoughts melt away.

He is still. 10

Without pleasure or pain,
Distraction or concentration,
Learning or ignorance.

His nature is free of conditions. 11

Win or lose,
It makes no difference to him.

Alone in the forest or out in the world,
A god in heaven or a simple beggar,
It makes no difference!

He is free of duality. 12

Wealth or pleasure,
Duty or discrimination
Mean nothing to him.

What does he care
What is accomplished or neglected?

Finding freedom in this life, 13
The seeker takes nothing to heart,
Neither duty nor desire.

He has nothing to do
But to live out his life.

The master lives beyond the boundaries of desire. 14

Delusion or the world,
Meditation on the truth,
Liberation itself--
What are they to him?

You see the world 15
And you try to dissolve it.

But the master has no need to.
He is without desire.

For though he sees,
He sees nothing.

When you have seen God 16
You meditate on Him,
Saying to yourself, "I am He."

But when you are without thought
And you understand there is only one,
Without a second,
On whom can you meditate?

When you are distracted, 17
You practice concentration.

But the master is undistracted.

He has nothing to fulfill.
What is there left for him to accomplish?

He acts like an ordinary man. 18
But inside he is quite different.

He sees no imperfection in himself,
Nor distraction,
Nor any need for meditation.

He is awake, 19
Fulfilled,
Free from desire.

He neither is nor is not.

He looks busy,
But he does nothing.

Striving or still, 20
He is never troubled.

He does whatever comes his way,
And he is happy.

He has no desires. 21
He has cast off his chains.
He walks on air.

He is free,
Tumbling like a leaf in the wind,
From life to life.

He has gone beyond the world, 22
Beyond joy and sorrow.

His mind is always cool.
He lives as if he had no body.

His mind is cool and pure. 23
He delights in the Self.

There is nothing he wishes to renounce.
He misses nothing.

His mind is naturally empty. 24
He does as he pleases.

He is not an ordinary man.
Honor and dishonor mean nothing to him.

"The body does this, not I." 25
"My nature is purity."

With these thoughts,
Whatever he does,
He does nothing.

But he pretends not to know. 26

He finds freedom in this life,
But he acts like an ordinary man.

Yet he is not a fool.

Happy and bright,
He thrives in the world.

Weary of the vagaries of the mind, 27
He is at last composed.

He does not know or think,
Or hear or see.

Undistracted, 28
He does not meditate.

Unbound,
He does not seek freedom.

He sees the world,
But knows it is an illusion.

He lives like God.

Even when he is still, 29
The selfish man is busy.

Even when he is busy,
The selfless man is still.

He is free. 30

His mind is unmoved
By trouble or pleasure.

Free from action, desire or doubt,
He is still, and he shines!

His mind does not strive 31
To meditate or to act.

It acts or meditates without purpose.

When a fool hears the truth, 32
He is muddled.

When a wise man hears it,
He goes within.

He may look like a fool,
But he is not muddled.

The fool practices concentration 33
And control of the mind.

But the master is like a man asleep.

He rests in himself
And finds nothing more to do.

Striving or still, 34
The fool never finds peace.

But the master finds it
Just by knowing how things are.

In this world 35
Men try all kinds of paths.

But they overlook the Self,
The Beloved.

Awake and pure,
Flawless and full,
Beyond the world.

The fool will never find freedom 36
By practicing concentration.

But the master never fails.

Just by knowing how things are,
He is free and constant.

Because the fool wants to become God, 37
He never finds him.

The master is already God,
Without ever wishing to be.

The fool has no foundation. 38
Fretting to be free,
He only keeps the world spinning.

But the master cuts at its root,
The root of all suffering.

Because the fool looks for peace, 39
He never finds it.

But the master is always at peace,
Because he understands how things are.

If a man looks to the world, 40
How can he see himself?

The master is never distracted by this or that.

He sees himself,
The Self that never changes.

The fool tries to control his mind. 41
How can he ever succeed?

Mastery always comes naturally
To the man who is wise
And who loves himself.

One man believes in existence, 42
Another says, "There is nothing!"

Rare is the man who believes in neither.

He is free from confusion.

The fool may know that the Self 43
Is pure and indivisible.

But because of his folly,
He never finds it.

He suffers all his life.

The mind of a man who longs to be free 44
Stumbles without support.

But the mind of a man who is already free
Stands on its own.

It is empty of passion.