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Vyāsa said.
The mind generates emotion, the intellect determines, and the heart perceives pleasure and pain; thus, the impulse to action is threefold.
Objects are superior to the senses, the mind is superior to the objects, the intellect is superior to the mind, but the Self is considered supreme over the intellect.
The intellect is the true self of a human; it is the very essence of the self. When the intellect changes its state, it becomes what is called the mind.
Because the senses are distinct in nature, the intellect, which is indeed subtle, undergoes modification. Hearing is called the ear; touching is called touch.
The act of seeing becomes sight, tasting becomes the tongue; smelling becomes the nose, and intellect is transformed separately.
They say these are the senses; in them, the unseen (self) presides. The intellect remains in the person and exists in three states.
Sometimes one attains affection, sometimes one grieves. Here, one is never affected by happiness or sorrow.
She, who is of the nature of feeling, surpasses these three feelings, just as the ocean, lord of rivers, surpasses the great boundary with its waves.
When the mind desires something, it becomes that. Therefore, one should remember these bases separately with intellect. The senses alone, being pure, are to be entirely conquered.
All things, in their succession, whatever is not followed, the undivided intellect remains in the state within the mind. But when rajas is active, sattva also follows.
All the states that exist in these three (realms) move together with corresponding meaning, just like the spokes of a chariot wheel.
A man should, for the sake of a lamp, act using his senses and highest intellect, employing those who are active or indifferent, as appropriate, and as chance allows.
The wise, knowing this as the very nature (of things), is not deluded. He is always free from grief and elation, and ever devoid of envy.
Indeed, the self cannot be perceived by the senses that are subject to desire, engaged in unrighteousness, and difficult to restrain, by those whose selves are untrained.
But when one properly restrains the rays (senses) by the mind, then the self shines like a burning lamp in a pot. Just as, for all beings, when darkness has departed.
Just as a water bird, though moving in water, is not tainted by it, so too a person of established wisdom, moving among sense objects, is not tainted by faults. Remaining unattached in all situations, he is never tainted in any way.
He who has abandoned past actions, whose joy is in the true Self, who is the Self of all beings, and who is unattached to the paths of the guṇas.
The essence, the self, never produces the qualities at any time; nor do the qualities ever know the self. He always knows the qualities.
He who observes all qualities is also their creator as it is. Know this subtle difference between the principle of existence and the knower of the field.
But it is the qualities that create; the one does not create the qualities. Those two, having become separate by nature, are always joined together.
Just as a fish is joined with another in the water, so too are those two; and just as a mosquito and udumbara fruits are joined together, so too are they together.
Just as a reed and the muñja grass are both separate and together, so too these two are joined and established in each other.
