When, forgetting the Self, one thinks
That the body is oneself and goes
Through innumerable births
And in the end remembers and becomes
The Self, know this is only like
Awaking from a dream wherein
One has wandered over all the world.
One ever is the Self. To ask oneself
"Who and whereabouts am I?"
Is like the drunken man's enquiring
"Who am I?" and "Where am I?"
The body is within the Self. And yet
One thinks one is inside the inert body,
Like some spectator who supposes
That the screen on which the film is thrown
Is within the picture.
Does an ornament of gold exist
Apart from the gold? Can the body exist
Apart from the Self?
The ignorant one thinks "I am the body";
The enlightened knows "I am the Self."
The Self alone, the Sole Reality,
Exists for ever,
If of yore the First of Teachers
Revealed It through unbroken silence
Say who can reveal It in spoken words?
