Adi Sankaracharya's
Upadesa Sahasri
Thousand Teachings
Translated by Swami Jagadananda
Published by Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai


Part-I [Prose]

CHAPTER-I
A METHOD OF ENLIGHTENING THE DISCIPLE

1. We shall now explain a method of teaching the means to liberation for the benefit of those aspirants after liberation who are desirous (of this teaching) and are possessed of faith (in it).

2. That means to liberation, viz., Knowledge, should be explained again and again until it is firmly grasped, to a pure Brahmana disciple who is indifferent to everything that is transitory and achievable through certain means, who has given up the desire for a son, for wealth and for this world and the next, who has adopted the life of a wandering monk and is endowed with control over the mind and senses, with compassion etc., as well as with the qualities of a disciple well-known in the scriptures and who has approached the teacher in the prescribed manner and has been examined in respect of his caste, profession, conduct, learning and parentage.

3. The Sruti also says, A Brahmana after examining those worlds which are the result of Vedic actions should be indifferent to them seeing that nothing eternal can be achieved by means of those actions. Then, with fuel in his hands he should approach a teacher versed in the Vedas and established in Brahman in order to know the Eternal. The learned teacher should correctly explain to that disciple who has self-control and a tranquil mind and has approached him in the prescribed manner, the knowledge of Brahman revealing the imperishable and the eternal Being. For only when knowledge is firmly grasped, it conduces to one’ss own good and is capable of transmission. This transmission of knowledge is helpful to people, like a boat to one who wants to cross a river. The scriptures too say, although one may give to the teacher this world surrounded by oceans and full of riches, this knowledge is even greater than that. Otherwise there would be no attainment of knowledge. For the Srutis say, A man having a teacher can know Brahman, Knowledge received from a teacher alone (becomes perfect), the teacher is the pilot, Right Knowledge is called in this world a raft, etc. The Smriti also says, Knowledge will be imparted to you etc.

4. When the teacher finds from signs that knowledge has not been grasped (or has been wrongly grasped) by the disciple he should remove the causes of non-comprehension which are: past and present sins, laxity, want of previous firm knowledge of what constitutes the subjects of discrimination between the eternal and the non-eternal, courting popular esteem, vanity of caste etc., and so on, through means contrary to those causes, enjoined by the Srutis and Smritis, viz., avoidance of anger etc., and the vows (Yama) consisting of non-injury etc., also the rules of conduct that are not inconsistent with knowledge.

5. He should also thoroughly impress upon the disciple qualities like humility, which are the means to knowledge.

6. The teacher is one who is endowed with the power of furnishing arguments pro and con, of understanding questions and remembering them, who possesses tranquility, self-control, compassion and a desire to help others, who is versed in the scriptures and unattached to enjoyments both seen and unseen, who has renounced the means to all kinds of actions, who is a knower of Brahman and is established in it, who is never a transgressor of the rules of conduct and who is devoid of shortcomings such as ostentation, pride, deceit, cunning, jugglery, jealousy, falsehood, egotism and attachment. He has the sole aim of helping others and a desire to impart the knowledge of Brahman only. He should first of all teach the Sruti texts establishing the oneness of the self with Brahman such as, My child, in the beginning it (the universe) was Existence only, one alone without a second, Where one sees nothing else All this is but the Self, In the beginning all this was but the one Self and All this is verily Brahman.

7-8. After teaching these he should teach the definition of Brahman through such Sruti texts as The self, devoid of sins, The Brahman that is immediate and direct, That which is beyond hunger and thirst, Not-this, not-this, Neither gross nor subtle, This Self is not-this, It is the Seer Itself unseen, Knowledge-Bliss, Existence-Knowledge-Infinite, Imperceptible, bodiless, That great unborn Self, Without the vital force and the mind, Unborn, comprising the interior and exterior, Consisting of knowledge only, Without interior or exterior, It is verily beyond what is known as also what is unknown and called Akasa (the self-effulgent One); and also through such Smriti texts as the following: It is neither born nor dies, It is not affected by anybody’ss sins, Just as air is always in the ether, The individual Self should be regarded as the universal one, It is called neither existent nor non-existent, As the Self is beginningless and devoid of qualities, The same in all beings and The Supreme Being is different - all these support the definition given by the Srutis and prove that the innermost Self is beyond transmigratory existence and that it is not different from Brahman, the all-comprehensive principle.

9. The disciple who has thus learnt the definition of the inner Self from the Srutis and the Smritis and is eager to cross the ocean of transmigratory existence is asked, who are you, my child?

10-11. If he says, I am the son of a Brahmana belonging to such and such a lineage; I was a student or a householder and am now a wandering monk anxious to cross the ocean of transmigratory existence infested with the terrible sharks of birth and death, the teacher should say, My child, how do you desire to go beyond transmigratory existence as your body will be eaten up by birds or will turn into earth even here when you die ? For, burnt to ashes on this side of the river, you cannot cross to the other side.

12-13. If he says, I am different from the body, the body is born and it dies; it is eaten up by birds, is destroyed by weapons, fire etc., and suffers from diseases and the like. I have entered it, like a bird its nest, on account of merit and demerit accruing from acts done by myself and like a bird going to another nest when the previous one is destroyed I shall enter into different bodies again and again as a result of merits and demerits when the present body is gone. Thus in this beginningless world on account of my own actions I have been giving up successive bodies assumed among gods, men, animals and the denizens of hell and assuming ever new ones. I have in this way been made to go round and round in the cycle of endless births and deaths, as in a Persian wheel by my past actions and having in the course of time obtained the present body I have got tired of this going round and round in the wheel of transmigration and have come to you, Sir, to put an end to this rotation. I am, therefore, always different from the body. It is bodies that come and go, like clothes on a person, the teacher would reply, you have spoken well. You see aright. Why then did you wrongly say, “I am the son of a Brahmana belonging to such and such a lineage, I was a student or a householder and am now a wandering monk?

14-15. If the disciple says, How did I speak wrongly, Sir ?, the teacher would reply, Because by your statement, “I am the son of a Brahmana belonging to such and such a lineage etc.,’s you identified with the Self devoid of birth, lineage and purificatory ceremonies, the body possessed of them that are different (from the Self).

16-17. If he asks, How is the body possessed of the diversities of birth, lineage and purificatory ceremonies (different from the Self) and how am I devoid of them ?, the teacher would say, Listen, my child, how this body is different from you and is possessed of birth, lineage and sanctifying ceremonies and how you are free from these. Speaking this he will remind the disciple saying, You should remember, my child, you have been told about the innermost Self which is the Self of all, with its characteristics as described by the Srutis such as “This was existence, my child’s etc., as also the Smritis and you should remember these characteristics also.

18. The teacher should say to the disciple who has remembered the definition of the Self, That which is called Akasa (the self-effulgent one) which is distinct from name and form, bodiless and defined as not gross etc., and as free from sins and so on, which is untouched by all transmigratory conditions, “The Brahman that is immediate and direct’s, “The innermost Self’s, “The unseen seer, the unheard listener, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower’s, which is of the nature of eternal knowledge, without interior or exterior, consisting only of knowledge, all-pervading like the ether and of infinite power - that Self of all, devoid of hunger etc., as also of appearance and disappearance, is, by virtue of Its inscrutable power, the cause of the manifestation of unmanifested name and form which abide in the Self through Its very presence, but are different from It, which are the seed of the universe, are describable neither as identical with It nor different from It and are cognized by It alone.

19. That name and form though originally, unmanifested, took the name and form of ether as they were manifested from that Self. This element called the ether thus arose out of the supreme Self, like the dirt called foam coming out of transparent water. Foam is neither water nor absolutely different from it. For it is never seen apart from water. But water is clear and different from the foam which is of the nature of dirt. Similarly, the Supreme Self, which is pure and transparent, is different from name and form, which stand for foam. These - corresponding to the foam - having originally been unmanifest, took the name and form of the ether as they were manifested.

20. Name and form, as they became still grosser in the course of manifestation, assumed the form of air. From that again they became fire, from that water and thence earth. In this order the preceding elements penetrated the succeeding ones and the five gross elements ending with earth came into existence. Earth, therefore, possesses the qualities of all the five gross elements. From earth, compounded of all five great elements, herbs such as paddy and barley are produced. From these, after they are eaten, are formed blood and the seed of women and men respectively. These two ingredients drawn out, as by a churning rod, by lust springing from ignorance and sanctified by Mantras, are placed in the womb at the proper time. Through the infiltration of the sustaining fluids of the mother’ss body, it develops into an embryo and is delivered at the ninth or tenth month.

21. It is born, or is possessed of a form and a name and is purified by means of Mantras relating to natal and other ceremonies. Sanctified again by the ceremony of investiture with the holy thread, it gets the appellation of a student. The same body is designated a house-holder when it undergoes the sacrament of being joined to a wife. That again is called a recluse when it undergoes the ceremonies pertaining to retirement into the forest. And it becomes known as a wandering monk when it performs the ceremonies leading to the renunciation of all activities. Thus the body which has birth, lineage and purificatory ceremonies different (from the Self) is different from you.

22. That the mind and the senses are also of the nature of name and form is known from the Sruti, “The mind, my child, consists of food’s.

23. You said, “How am I devoid of birth, lineage and sanctifying ceremonies which are different (from the Self)?’s Listen. The same one who is the cause of the manifestation of name and form and who is devoid of all connection with sanctifying ceremonies, evolved name and form, created this body and entered into it (which is but name and form) - who is Himself the unseen Seer, the unheard Listener, the unthought Thinker, the unknown Knower as stated in the Sruti text, “(I know) who creates names and forms and remains speaking.’s There are thousands of Sruti texts conveying the same meaning, for instance, “He created and entered into it’s, “Entering into them He rules all creatures’s. “He, the Self, has entered into these bodies’s, “This is your Self’s. “Opening this very suture of the skull He got in by that door’s, “This Self is concealed in all beings’s, “That Divinity thought - let Me enter into these three deities.’s

24. Smriti texts too elucidate the same truth; for example, “All gods verily are the Self’s, “The Self in the city of nine gates’s, “Know the individual Self to be Myself’s, “The same in all beings’s, “The witness and approver’s, “The Supreme Being is different’s, “Residing in all bodies but Itself devoid of any’s, and so on. Therefore it is established that you are without any connection with birth, lineage and sanctifying ceremonies.

25. If he says, I am in bondage, liable to transmigration, ignorant, (sometimes) happy, (sometimes) unhappy and am entirely different from Him; He, the shining One, who is dissimilar in nature to me and is beyond transmigratory existence, is also different from me; I want to worship Him through the actions pertaining to my caste and order of life by making presents and offerings to Him and also by making salutations and the like. I am eager to cross the ocean of the world in this way. So how am I He Himself?

26. The teacher should say, you ought not, my child, regard it so; because a doctrine of difference is forbidden.’s In reply to the question, Why is it forbidden, the following other Sruti texts may be cited: He who knows “that Brahman is one and I am another’s does not know (Brahman), He who regards the Brahmanical caste as different from himself is rejected by that caste. He who perceives diversity in Brahman goes from death to death, and so on.

27. These Srutis show that transmigratory existence is the sure result of the acceptance of (the reality of) difference.

28. That, on the other hand, liberation results from the acceptance of (the reality of) non-difference is borne out by thousands of Srutis; for example, after teaching that the individual Self is not different from the Supreme One, in the text, That is the Self, thou art That, and after saying, A man who has a teacher knows Brahman, the Srutis prove liberation to be the result of the knowledge of (the reality of) non-difference only, by saying, “A knower of Brahman has to wait only so long as he is not merged in Brahman’s. That transmigratory existence comes to an absolute cessation, (in the case of one who speaks the truth that difference has no real existence), is illustrated by the example of one who was not a thief and did not get burnt (by grasping a heated hatchet); and that one, speaking what is not true (i.e., the reality of difference), continues to be in the mundane condition, is illustrated by the example of a thief who got burnt.

29. The Sruti text commencing with “Whatever these creatures are here, whether a tiger or’s etc., and similar other texts, after asserting that “One becomes one’ss own master (i.e., Brahman)’s by the knowledge of (the reality of) non-difference, show that one continues to remain in the transmigratory condition in the opposite case as the result of the acceptance of (the reality of) difference, saying, “Knowing differently from this they get other beings for their masters and reside in perishable regions’s. Such statements are found in every branch of the Veda. It was, therefore, certainly wrong on your part to say that you were the son of a Brahmana, that you belonged to such and such a lineage, that you were subject to transmigration and that you were different from the Supreme Self.

30. Therefore, on account of the rebuttal of the perception of duality, it should be understood that, on the knowledge of one’ss identity with the Supreme Self, the undertaking of religious rites which have the notion of duality for their province and the assumption of Yajnopavita etc., which are the means to their performance, are forbidden. For these rites and Yajnopavita etc., which are their means, are inconsistent with the knowledge of one’ss identity with the Supreme Self. It is only on those people that refer classes and orders of life etc., to the Self that Vedic actions and Yajnopavita etc., which are their means, are enjoined and not on those who have acquired the knowledge of their identity with the Supreme Self. That one is other than Brahman is due only on account of the perception of difference.

31. If Vedic rites were to be performed and not meant to be renounced, the Sruti would neither have declared the identity of oneself with the Supreme Self unrelated to those rites, their means, castes, orders of life, etc., which are the conditions of Vedic actions, in unambiguous sentences like “That is the Self, thou art That;’s nor would it have condemned the acceptance of (the reality of) difference in clauses such as “It is the eternal glory of the knower of Brahman’s, “Untouched by virtue, untouched by sin’s, and “Here a thief is no thief’s, etc.

32. The Srutis would not have stated that the essential nature of the Self was in no way connected with Vedic rites and conditions required by them such as a particular class and the rest, if they did not intend that those rites and Yajnopavita etc., their means, should be given up. Therefore, Vedic actions which are incompatible with the knowledge of the identity of oneself with the Supreme Self, should be renounced together with their means by one who aspires after liberation; and it should be known that the Self is no other than Brahman as defined in the Srutis.

33. If he says, the pain on account of burns or cuts in the body and the misery caused by hunger and the like, Sir, are distinctly perceived to be in me. The Supreme Self is known in all the Srutis and the Smritis to be “free from sin, old age, death, grief, hunger, thirst, etc. and devoid of smell and taste’s. How can I who am different from Him and possess so many phenomenal attributes, possibly accept the Supreme Self as myself, and myself, a transmigratory being, as the Supreme Self? I may then very well admit that fire is cool! Why should I, a man of the world entitled to accomplish all prosperity in this world and in the next and realise the supreme end of life, i.e., liberation, give up the actions producing those results and Yajnopavita etc., their accessories?

34. The teacher should say to him, “It was not right for you to say, “I directly perceive the pain in me when my body gets cuts or burns’s. Why? Because the pain due to cuts or burns, perceived in the body, the object of the perception of the perceiver like a tree burnt or cut, must have the same location as the burns etc. People point out pain caused by burns and the like to be in that place where they occur but not in the perceiver. How? For, on being asked where one’ss pain lies, one says, “I have pain in the head, in the chest or in the stomach.’s Thus one points out pain in that place where burns or cuts occur, but never in the perceiver. If pain or its causes viz., burns or cuts, were in the perceiver, then one would have pointed out the perceiver to be the seat of the pain, like the parts of the body, the seats of the burns or cuts.

35. Moreover, (if it were in the Self) the pain could not be perceived by the Self like the colour of the eye by the same eye. Therefore, as it is perceived to have the same seat as burns, cuts and the like, pain must be an object of perception like them. Since it is an effect, it must have a receptacle like that in which rice is cooked. The impressions of pain must have the same seat as pain itself. As they are perceived during the time when memory is possible (i.e., in waking and dream, and not in deep sleep), these impressions must have the same location as pain. The aversion to cuts, burns and the like, the causes of pain, must also have the same seat as the impressions (of pain). It is therefore said, “Desire, aversion and fear have a seat common with that of the impressions of colours. As they have for their seat the intellect, the knower, the Self, is always pure and devoid of fear’s.

36. ’sWhat is then the locus of the impressions of colours and the rest?’s “The same as that of lust etc.,’s “Where again are lust etc.?’s “They are in the intellect (and no where else) according to the Sruti - lust, deliberation, doubt’s. “The impressions of colours and so forth are also there (and nowhere else) according to the Sruti. - what is the seat of colours? The intellect’s. That desire, aversion and the like are the attributes of the embodiment, the object and not the Self, is known from the Srutis “Desires that are in the intellect’s, “For he is then beyond all the woes of his heart (intellect)’s. “Because It is unattached’s, “Its form untouched by desires’s and from Smritis such as “It is said to be changeless’s, “Because It is beginningless and without attributes’s and so on. Therefore (it is concluded that) impurity pertains to the object and not to the Self.

37-38. Therefore you are not different from the supreme Self in as much as you are devoid of impurities such as the connection with the impressions of colours and the like. As there is no contradiction to perceptional evidence etc., the supreme Self should be accepted as oneself according to the Srutis. “It knew the pure Self to be Brahman’s, “It should be regarded as homogeneous’s, “It is I that am below’s, It is the Self that is below’s, “He knows everything to be the Self’s, “When everything becomes the Self’s, “All this verily is the Self’s, “He is without parts’s, “Without the interior and exterior’s, “Unborn, comprising the interior and exterior’s, “All this verily is Brahman’s, “It entered through this door’s, “The names of pure knowledge’s, “Existence, Knowledge, Infinite Brahman’s, “From It’s, “It created and entered it’s, “The shining One without a second concealed in all beings and all-pervading’s, “In all bodies Itself bodiless’s, “It is not born and does not die’s, “(Knowing) dream and waking, He is my Self, thus one should know’s, “Who (knows) all beings,’s “It moves and moves not’s, knowing It, one becomes worthy of being worshipped, “It and nothing but It is fire’s, “I became Manu and the sun’s, “Entering into them He rules all creatures’s, “Existence only, my child,’s “That is real, That is the Self, thou art That’s.
It is established that you, the Self, are the supreme Brahman, the One only and devoid of every phenomenal attribute, from the Smritis also such as “All beings are the body of One who resides in the hearts of all,’s “Gods are verily the Self’s, “In the city of nine gates’s, “The same in all beings’s, “In a Brahmana wise and courteous’s, “Undivided in things divided and “All this verily is Vasudeva (the Self).’s

39. If he says, If, Sir, the Self is “Without interior or exterior’s, “Comprising interior and exterior, unborn’s, “Whole’s, “Pure consciousness only’s like a lump of salt, devoid of all the various forms, and of a homogeneous nature like the ether, what is it that is observed in ordinary usage and revealed in Srutis and Smritis as what is to be accomplished, its (appropriate) means and its accomplishers and is made the subject-matter of contention among hundreds of rival disputants holding different views ?

40. The teacher should say, whatever is observed (in this world) or learnt from the Srutis (regarding the next world) are products of Ignorance. But in reality there is only One, the Self, who appears to be many to deluded vision, like the moon appearing more than one to eyes affected by amaurosis. That duality is the product of Ignorance follows from the reasonableness of the condemnation by the Srutis of the acceptance of (the reality of) difference such as “When there is something else as it were’s, “When there is duality as it were, one sees another’s, “He goes from death to death’s, “And where one sees something else, hears something else, cognizes something else, that is finite and that which is finite is mortal’s, “Modifications (i.e., effects e.g., an earthen jar) being only names, have for their support words only, it is earth alone (i.e., the cause) that is real’s and “He is one, I am another’s. The same thing follows from the Srutis teaching unity, for example, “One only without a second’s, “When the knower of Brahman’s and “what delusion or grief is there?’s

41. If it be so, Sir, why do the Srutis speak of diverse ends to be attained, their means and so forth, as also the evolution and the dissolution of the universe ?

42. The answer to your question is this: Having acquired (having identified himself with) the various things such as the body and the rest, considering the Self to be connected with what is desirable and what is undesirable and so on, though eager to attain the desirable and avoid the undesirable by appropriate means - for without certain means nothing can be accomplished - an ignorant man cannot discriminate between the means to the realisation of what is (really) desirable for him and the means to the avoidance of what is undesirable. It is the gradual removal of this ignorance that is the aim of the scriptures; but not the enunciation of (the reality of) the difference of the end, means and so on. For, it is this very difference that constitutes this undesirable transmigratory existence. The scriptures, therefore, root out the ignorance constituting this (false) conception of difference which is the cause of phenomenal existence by giving reasons for the oneness of the evolution, dissolution, etc., of the universe.

43. When ignorance is uprooted with the aid of the Sruti, Smriti and reasoning, the one-pointed intellect of the seer of the supreme Truth becomes established in the one Self which is of the nature of pure Consciousness like a (homogeneous) lump of salt, all-pervading like the ether, which is without the interior and exterior, unborn and is within and without. Even the slightest taint of impurity due to the diversity of ends, means, evolution, dissolution and the rest is, therefore, not reasonable.

44. One who is eager to realise this right knowledge spoken of in the Sruti should rise above the desire for a son, wealth and this world and the next which are described in a five-fold manner and are the outcome of a false reference to the Self, of castes, orders of life and so on. As this reference is contradictory to right knowledge, it is intelligible why reasons are given regarding the prohibition of the acceptance of (the reality of) difference. For when the knowledge that the one non-dual Self is beyond phenomenal existence is generated by the scriptures and reasoning, there cannot exist side by side with it a knowledge contrary to it. None can think of chillness in fire or immortality and freedom from old age in regard to the (perishable) body. One, therefore, who is eager to be established in the knowledge of the Reality should give up all actions with Yajnopavita and the rest, their accessories, which are the effects of ignorance.
HERE ENDS A METHOD OF ENLIGHTENING THE DISCIPLE.