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VIVEKACŪDAMAŅI
161
neither beginning nor end, He does not grow. He does not decline. As there is no origination, there is no being or existence as a state after that. As He is eternal and partless, He does not undergo any change. It is only what is itself subject to change that can effect change in another thing. That is why in the previous śloka it was said: na vikaroti. Why it does not effect change is explained in this sloka. Though this particular body is destroyed, even as space does not disappear when a pot is destroyed, so too the ātman is not destroyed on the destruction of the body, i.e., it does not become extinct by itself nor is it made so by another.
137 For proper understanding, unifying the nature of the vijñānātman with that of the Paramātman, the Guru says:
प्रकृति-विकृतिभिन्नः शुद्धबोधस्वभावः
सदसदिदमशेषं भासयन्निविशेषः। विलसति परमात्मा जाग्रदादिष्ववस्था
स्वहमहमिति साक्षात् साक्षिरूपेण बुद्धेः॥ १३७ ॥ prakrti-vikyti-bhinnah suddhabodhasvabhāvah
sadasadidamašeşam bhāsayannirviseşahi vilasati paramātmā jāgradādişvavasthāsu
ahamahamiti säkşāt sāksirūpena buddheḥ 11
Different from praksti (avidyā) and its tranformations, of the nature of-pure intelligence, and being quality-less, illumining all this material world with all that has form and is formless, the ātman shines through the waking and other states as their witness and is referred to as the 'I'.
prakstiņ: avidyā: vikştayaḥ: ākāśa etc., its transformations. tadbhinnah: different from all causes and effects.
śuddhabodhasvabhāvaḥ śuddhaḥ: nirvişayaḥ: of the nature of pure knowledge without an object of knowledge, i.e., the seer (drk) by itself.
idam: whatever is known by the instruments of sense-perception etc.
sat: whatever has form like tejas etc. asat: whatever has no form like space, wind (ākāśā, vāyu) etc. aśeşam: everything.
bhāsayan: illumining. V.C.-12
