Chapter Twelve


Janaka said:

1.  First I relinquished physical action, then immoderate speech and thought.  Now I abide in peace.

2.  Having relinquished all attachment to sound and other objects of sense, and also the Self, as Self is beyond perception (and conception), I now remain at peace, my mind being freed from agitation and distraction.

3.  Concentration is needed when the mind is distracted by false identification.  Realizing this, I abide in peace.

4.  O Sage!  I am not concerned with what is to be accepted and what is rejected.  I experience neither joy nor sorrow.  Thus do I abide.

5.  I am as indifferent to the presence of the four stages of life as I am to their absence.  Meditation, and renunciation of the contents of my mind, are likewise not for me.  This is the state in which I abide.

6.  Bother performance and cessation of action are notions born of nescience.  Knowing this, thus do I abide.

7.  To attempt to think of the Self, which is beyond the range of thought, is only to create a new thought.  Abandoning such a thought, I abide in peace.

8.  Blessed is he who is established in this peace.  Such a man has realized his own nature.