________________
VIVEKACŪDĀMAŅI
463
touched by punya and pāpa and unaffected by any grief of the heart. That is the actual experience of everybody. In this context (i.e., in the case of the jivanmukta), even the causal ajñāna (kāraṇājñāna) having been destroyed, that there is no connection at all of punya, pāpa or sorrow is declared by the use of the word 'kutah' (whence or how) after the manner of the śruti: ko mohaḥ kaśśokah (where is the delusion or the grief?). Their existence is effectively denied by an interrogative.
If punya and päpa pertain to the ātman, then it must accompany the state of dreamless sleep also. At that time there is the transcendental experience of bliss of one's real nature; the effect of punya is not experienced as a limited sukha. For, that sukha is not generated by connection with sense-objects. At that time, there is no grief either; for, the śruti says: eşo'sya parama anandah: “this is this person's supreme bliss". And this is also a matter of experience by the jīvanmukta. Therefore, there is no accompaniment of pāpa. By the expression: hrdayasya śokān: the griefs of the heart, it is conveyed that no grief signified by the word śoka is a quality of the ātman. Waking and dream are conditions of super-imposition; hence they are imagined. Here, however, there is no super-imposition and so no imagination (by super-imposition). That is the meaning of the śruti.
505 The meaning of the above is explained clearly with the aid of an illustration in two ślokas.
छायया स्पृष्टमुष्णं वा शीतं या सुष्ठु दुष्ठु वा ।
न स्पृशत्येव यत्किचित् पुरुष तद्विलक्षणम् ।। ५०५॥ chāyayā sprştam uşņam vā śītam vā suşthu dusțhu vā na sprśatyeva yatkiñcit puruşam tadvilaksanam 11
If heat or cold, good or evil touches the shadow of a man, it does not affect the man who is different from the shadow.
Even as there is no connection of a body with cold or heat etc., by contact of the body's shadow with cold or heat, or good or evil, so too the upādhi reflected in the buddhi (which is the pratibimba) does not touch the ātman which is the original (bimba) different from it and plenary in nature, after it has got over its jivatva (quality of being a jīva) upon the destruction of ajñāna. In the case of puruşa here, the body is to be understood in the place of the shadow.
