What is the right knowledge of these things?

Q. 6.--What is the means to that knowledge?

Q. 7.--What good accrues to him from the knowledge?

Q. 8.--How can Jiva and Isvara be one?

7. How can Atman, the Self, be the All-knower and All-doer? To the pupil thus asking, the Guru proceeds to say as follows.

Being mutually opposed in their nature, either they (Jiva and Isvara) are said to be one only by courtesy; or, if they be one in reality, they are mutually opposed only in appearance. Which of these alternatives is meant here?

In answer to these questions, the Teacher chants this (Hymn to the Blessed Dakshinamurti).

The meaning (of the first stanza) may be explained as follows:

The Universe exists in the Self.

8. All the things which we perceive exist here within (in our Self--the Paramatman,

the Highest Self). Within is the whole of this universe. By Maya it appears as external, like one's own body in a mirror.

9. Just as in svapna (dream) the universe existing in one's own Self is seen as if it were external, so, be it known that even in the jagrat (waking) state this universe exists within and yet appears to be external.

10. It is certain that the existence of objects seen in svapna is not independent of the existence of one's own Self. What difference is there in the objects of jagrat consciousness, impermanent and insentient (jada) as they always are?

The Universe shines by the light of the Self.

11. In svapna, things appear by the light of one's own Self. There is then indeed no other light. The wise have concluded that the case is just the same even in jagrat.

Realisation of Non-duality.

12. Just as, when awake, a man sees not the things which were presented to his view during sleep, so, subsequently to the rise of right knowledge, he sees not the universe.

13. "When Jiva is awakened from the sleep of delusion which has no beginning, then does he realise the Unborn, the Sleepless, the Dreamless, the One without a second." (Gaudapadacharya's Karikas on the Mandukya Upanishad, i. 16).

14-15. When, by Sruti, by the master's favour, by practice of Yoga, and by the Grace of God, there arises a knowledge of one's own Self, then, as a man regards the food he has eaten as one with himself, the Adept Yogin sees the universe as one with his Self, absorbed as the universe is in the Universal Ego which he has become.

Thus far has the first stanza been literally interpreted. Now the Vartikakara proceeds to develop answers to other questions. First he shows, on the analogy of svapna, how by Maya the one conscious Atman becomes Isvara and Jiva:

Atman as Isvara and Jiva.

16. Just as in svapna a man becomes a king, enjoys all the pleasures that can be wished for, conquers the enemy in the battle-field with the aid of a well-equipped army;