A story · Tripura Rahasya · Tripura Rahasya — The World, the Mind and the Free

Dattatreya Explains Varied States of Jnanis

Tripura Rahasya 19.56

The story · English

Dattatreya was speaking to Rama, the son of the Bhrigu line, and he began with how a person comes to the path at all. A being wanders through many kinds of births until it reaches a human one. There, desire pulls it toward actions done for a reward. If its longing turns toward the Lord, it finds itself drawn to the scriptures about him. It hears what rewards such rites promise and sets out to do them. Then it is let down. The reward does not come, because the subtle workings of the rite were never quite right. Disappointed, it starts to ask what it ought to be doing, and that question sends it looking for a good and steady person.

Dattatreya went on. Through that company, somewhere along the way, the seeker hears of the greatness of Maheshvara. Because of merit earned in the past, a new urge rises to win his favor. So it is old merit ripening that brings a person into good company, and good company gives them a staircase toward the highest good, one that is very hard to find. Dattatreya said this is how it usually goes: the good is reached through the company of the wise. Sometimes it comes through unusual merit or great austerity, and then it arrives suddenly, like fruit falling from the sky. The causes differ, so the ways of arriving differ too.

From this Dattatreya drew his point. Minds differ, the impressions held in them differ in strength, and the practices people use differ, so the conditions of the knowers differ as well. Where a mind by nature carries few impressions, a little practice is enough for knowledge to be complete. Where a mind is naturally clean, without even a trace of them, a small cause can bring great knowledge. But where the mind is thick with impressions, knowledge may arise and still stay half covered. Such a person must keep working at it, and over a long time reaches fullness. This, he said, is why the knowers are seen in such varied states.

Dattatreya asked Rama to look at the differences between them. Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesha are knowers by their very nature, yet their conditions differ, shaped by the qualities they were born with. Their knowledge cannot be called stained in any way, but the greatness of each one's nature remains distinct. A knower's fair body does not turn dark, he said, and in the same way the temperament of a mind does not turn into another. Then he named examples. The sons of Atri: Durvasas, Chandra, and himself, Dattatreya, each in a different state. Durvasas is angry, Chandra is full of desire, and Dattatreya has given up every outward mark.

He continued the list. Vasishtha is devoted to ritual action. Sanaka and his brothers are renunciants. Narada is steeped in devotion. Bhargava, who is Shukra, is a poet who sides with the demons, and Brihaspati takes refuge with the gods. Vyasa is a fine speaker, busy composing the scriptures. Janaka is a king, and Bharata a renouncer. All of them, Dattatreya said, differ by their own nature. Then he told Rama he would share a secret with him, and asked him to listen. Of the three kinds of impressions that were spoken of, the second is the heaviest: the one born of action, which takes the form of dullness.

Dattatreya described the first kind of knower. Some people have not even a trace of that dullness in the mind. They are sharp and free of fault. Their desires and the like are worn thin by practice, and these do not block knowledge. So for them renunciation and similar disciplines are not needed, nor more reflection, nor deep absorption. A single hearing is enough. They reflect and meditate a little at that moment, and the truth stands clear and beyond doubt. They become liberated while alive, like Janaka and others. Yet they never fully cleared away the fine desires, because their habits ran the other way. After knowing the truth the desires go on as before, but never stain their minds even slightly. Wise people call them liberated, and also those of many minds.

Then he spoke of the mind that is deeply dull with impressions from action. For such a mind, knowledge does not arise, even when Shiva himself has spoken it. The same holds for those with firm faults. But take someone whose faults and actions leave only small impressions, though desire is strong in them. Through much hearing, much reflection and many absorptions, knowledge comes after a long time and with great hardship. Their dealings with the world are few, because practice has been so intense. If the mind becomes almost destroyed, with no impressions left, Dattatreya called these knowers middling, those whose minds are gone. For others practice was less intense, and the impressions only thinned out, so the mind stays. They are called those with a mind, whose knowledge is weaker.

Dattatreya explained what follows for each. Those who keep a mind are called knowers of the single truth alone. Some are liberated while alive, others are not. The ones who only know suffer visible pain, are bound by their fated karma, and find liberation at the death of the body. For those whose minds are destroyed, fated karma is set aside. Fated karma is a seed that sprouts as enjoyment in the soil of the mind. With no soil, in time it perishes like seed stored in a granary, its power lost. Then he gave pictures. A very sharp person can do fifteen things at once without a slip. People are seen walking, speaking and working together. A teacher follows many students at once. Rama, Arjuna the Haihaya king with a thousand arms once fought, without faltering, with many weapons all together, and Rama had seen it himself.

So the mind of such a knower becomes many, Dattatreya said, following each task in turn and doing many things at once. The best knowers see the self even while looking outward, and the two never conflict. These are the ones of many minds. Their fated karma sprouts in the soil of the mind, but knowledge burns it again and again. The sprout brings pleasure and pain, but the fruit is in dwelling on it, and a burnt sprout bears none. They deal with the world by taking up chosen tasks, as a grown man plays with a child. They show joy or sorrow in their work, as if over smashing stones and elephants of clay, yet remain level, like someone absorbed in other work. Because they lack the practice that would uproot old impressions, some are seen as ritualists, some as lustful, some as angry.

Dattatreya ended with the mind-keeping knower of weaker knowledge. He knows everything knowable to be unreal. In the states of absorption, when he rests in his own nature, nothing appears. Absorption is simply the awareness of one's own nature, and nothing else. That formless nature shines for everyone, as the ground of all, and without it nothing would appear. But not everyone has absorption, only those who hold that awareness. Awareness of the world goes on without any real object, as sky's blue is known to be unreal on looking again. Such a knower is always both awake and absorbed. Their awareness stays free of anything real, and Dattatreya said this answers what Rama had asked him before.

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In this book

• Before: Dattatreya Explains Vasanas and Intense Desire for Liberation · Tripura Rahasya 19.1
• Next: Goddess Tripura Reveals Her Supreme Nature · Tripura Rahasya 20.1
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