100 Verses of Peace
(Vedic text excerpts from the "Astavakra Samhita")
Words found in the   illuminated manuscript  "Unbound Prayers", by artist Carolyn Goodridge

71. Rule of conduct, dispassion, renunciation, and restraint of the senses--
what are all these to one who is of the nature of
Pure Effulgence and who does not perceive any object reality.

72. Where is bondage or liberation, joy or sorrow for one who
shines as the Infinite and does not perceive relative existence?

73. Only the illusion of the world prevails.
The reality of the world vanishes with the knowledge of the Self.
The wise one lives without the feeling of 'I-ness' and 'mine-ness', and attachment.

74. The wise one who perceives the Self as imperishable and free from grief,
where is knowledge and where is the universe?
Where is the feeling 'I am the body' or 'the body is mine'?

75. No sooner does the woman of dull intellect give up such
practices as mind-control than she becomes a prey to desires and fancies.

76. Even hearing the Truth the woman of dull intellect
does not give up her delusion. Though, through suppression,
she appears devoid of mental activity, a craving for sense-objects lurks within her.

77. She whose work has ceased with the dawn of Knowledge does not
find an opportunity to do or say anything,
even though in ordinary people's eyes she is doing work.

78. For the wise one who is ever immutable and fearless,
where is there darkness, where light?
Where, moreover, is there any loss? There is nothing whatsoever.

79. Where is patience, where is discrimination, and where, even,
is fearlessness for the yogin who is impersonal and of indescribable nature?

80. There is no heaven, and there is no hell;
there is not even liberation-in-life. In short,
nothing exists in yogic consciousness.

Also See Verses:
1-10 | 11-20 | 21-30 |  31-40 | 41-50  |  51-60 |  61-70  | 81-90 | 91-100