Updated: April 20, 2025
Hello, my friends today is my last installment of the Shiva Sutras as commented upon by Lakshmanjoo and my slightly updated modern interpretation. And I have come to the end of this series, if you want, I can start a new series on the Brahma Sutras as explained by Adi Shankara in a more contemporary fashion. We do know that all these Sutras point us in the same direction, how to liberate ourselves from suffering and find our true self. So there's some redundancy but also looking at it from the knowledge from different points of view, different angles, different commentators our both knowledge and our experience deepens.
So you have to tell me whether I should start this series on Brahma sutras. I'll take a day or two to incubate and then based on your feedback, I will or will not do the Brahma Sutras. So our final Shiva Sutra today. bhūtakañcukī tadā vimukto bhūyaḥ patisamaḥ paraḥ bhūtakañcukī tadā vimukto bhūyaḥ patisamaḥ paraḥ For the self realized Yogi, the five elements are only coverings knowing this, the Yogi is absolutely liberated and becomes supreme being just like Shiva just like pure consciousness. So conclusion, knowing the five elements as only coverings, the Yogi is liberated into its supreme state. So a little bit from what Lakshmanjoo says in this sutra what is being said is that Bhutan Bhuta Noki covering of the five elements is a projection. Therefore, the Yogi maintains his or her physical frame externally and not in his or her internal consciousness. From the point of view of the internal consciousness, the Yogi is above the physical body or beyond the physical body or does not identify necessarily with the physical body internally.
The Yogi does not insert ego or eye consciousness into the physical body nor does the Yogi say I am this body. The Yogi thinks this body is the frame and let it be as it is and let it fulfill its karmic destiny. So the Yogi understand that the five elements are projections of the five senses and the tanmātras, they are projected as a construct of mind, intellect, and ego, which is also a construct. So this is a deep understanding of identity free from the constructs of mind, body, intellect, ego, chronic body, physical body, and the physical world, all this projections of the pure consciousness. I AM, before I am this or that I know we've said this many times. But now let's actually do a little experiment. OK. And the experiment is a kind of reflective meditation. So first ask yourself, who am I? Look around everything that you're seeing and say to yourself, this physical world is a perceptual activity in me.
And this perceptual activity is a continuum of perceptual snapshots which I call the world. OK. So that's it. Now look at your own body and say the same thing. This physical body is a changing, perceptual activity, perceptual snapshots. But I construct the idea the concept of a physical body with this perceptual activity. Or look at the body, touch it, feel it look at the colors, shapes, but that which I call my body is a continuum of perceptual snapshots all the way from fertilized egg all the way to dusty death. This is an activity that I'm projecting. OK. So now close your eyes and the physical world and the physical body have disappeared. So what remains? well sound of my voice remains. Sensations in your body remain thoughts and images and feelings in your mind remain. OK? So now slowly withdraw your awareness from the sensations in your body and put your awareness only on whatever thoughts or feelings, sensations, mental sensations, images are floating across the screen of your awareness.
Know that's your own activity. Those thoughts, those feelings, those images are going on and off in the Self. So now withdraw your awareness from those thoughts, images, feelings, questions, ideas and simply sink into I AM awareness. So at this point, nothing should be left. I mean, I'm just giving you the instructions right now. But when you actually practice this form of yoga and and then transcendence, then nothing should be left. All that's left is awareness and that awareness is timeless and eternal. And we also call it now. So now is timeless and when is timeless. But the fluctuations of now that appear as knowers, modes of knowing, objects known are also eternally fluctuating just like consciousness as the source of all the experience is timeless and eternal. Even though the fluctuations cause the experience of time because of misidentification, subject-object split. Then of course, we have the experience of time. Time is the continuity of memory using our ego identity as the internal reference point. It's basically identifying with this body mind and which is a particular set of fluctuation; qualia, and then separating this particular qualia from that qualia, OK, the world, the universe, everything in the universe.
But as you can see, the subject object split is artificial and is created by misidentification. As soon as we correct the misidentification, go beyond the subject object split. Then immediately you realize time doesn't exist, there's only the eternal now and actually even that which we call the body and mind and universe is an ongoing eternal fluctuation in the eternal now. And that's all there is. And we are that the eternal timeless now.
And knowing this one is liberated one does not need to be fearful of the transiency of perceptual activity, including that which we call the body of the world. Because that too is eternal, that too is eternal. The activity is eternal. You are eternal and timeless and acausal and constantly recycling yourself and evolving into higher levels of abstraction. Creativity, manifestation, eternally, and always now. So slowly the experience should evolve. There's only the eternal now and its fluctuations which are also eternal in the eternal now and now there is total freedom, Moksha, liberation. So not only are you tasting with this experience, the nectar of immortality, but at some point, you drink the nectar of immortality and then you know that you are important.
This is the secret to your immortal self. OK. End of series. Goodbye. And thank you and let me know if you want me to do the Brahma Sutras..
