The Avadhuta said:
1. A teacher whether he be young, addicted to sensual enjoyment, stupid, a dependent or a householder, none of these would tell against him. In whatsoever impurity placed, does a gem deteriorate in value?
2. Merit of composition is not the only quality to be considered in judging of a Guru; by the good, essence alone is to be grasped. In this world, does not a ferry, formless and devoid of red-painting, carry across to the shore those persons that are desirous of crossing?
3. Which calm person grasps without any exertion and by intuition alone, the internal intelligent Self-composed of the moveable and the immoveable, which is peaceful and which resembles the etherial space?
4. Let him without any exertion, set in motion the one only existence which is the aggregate of all created things. How can that all-pervading, non-dual existence become dual to me?
5. I alone am therefore that supreme and blissful Shiva who is greater than both essence and non-essence, who is free from births and deaths and who is without conditioning distinctions and calm.
6. I am that supreme existence devoid of limbs who is worshipped by the gods. Because I am perfect and full I do not contain divisions into gods and such other beings.
7-8. There is no need for doubt as to what I shall do assuming activity by means of ignorance. Just as in water bubbles rise and die, so also Mohat and products of Prakriti do so, becoming elaborated into soft, hard, sweet and pungent substances.
9. Just as in the same water the qualities of pungency, coldness and softness, exist in union, in the same way Prakriti and Purusha appear to me inseparable.
10. The Lord of the universe is devoid of all names, is subtler than the subtlest, and supreme, and transcends the mind, intellect and the senses and is spotless.
11. Wherever there is such an innate existence, how can there be "I"? How can there be "you"? And how can there also be these moveable and immoveable objects?
12. Whatever has been stated as resembling etherial space, that itself is the blameless, omniscient, and perfect Intelligent self which is like etherial space.
13. Such a Being has no purpose in earth, not wafted by the wind, not covered with water, but is situated in the midst of light.
14. Etherial space is pervaded by him but he is not pervaded by anything. He exists both inside and outside, undivided and uninterrupted.
15. Being subtle, invisible and unconditioned, what is described by the Yogins as gross forms of mental perception that becomes gradually those forms of support.
16. By means of constant practice when a person becomes supportless, he does not become dissolved, dissolution of it becoming devoid of virtue and vice within its self by its dissolution.
17. For the destruction of the poisonous universe which is calamitous, productive of the swoon of delusion, the nectar of the innate state is the one only infallible remedy.
18. The formless is perceivable mentally; that which is endowed with form is visible to the eye. That which is neither imaginable nor visible is called the intermediate space.
19. The whole universe is of the state of externality; that which is internal is called Prakriti. That which is to be known is inner than the internal like water within the kernel of a coconut.
20. Illusory knowledge relates to what is outside; correct knowledge relates to what is inside. That which is to be known is more to the interior than even the internal like water within the kernel of coconut.
21. Just as the moon who is one is perfectly bright on the full-moon day, so also one shall see by means of him everything as resembling him. The perception of duality is perversion.
22. In this manner a perverted mind does not qualify all. Even a teacher of religion rises to the state of solemnity and is praised by millions of names.
23. He who is awakened to the knowledge of Truth by the grace of a Guru, whether he be a fool or a learned man, he surely becomes detached from the ocean of Samsara.
24. He who is free from love and hatred who is devoted to the good of all beings, who is firm in knowledge and brave shall attain the supreme state or Heaven.
25. Just as when the pot is broken, the pot-space becomes dissolved in the universal space, in the same way when the body is destroyed a Yoga becomes absorbed into the nature of the Supreme Self.
26. This is what has been said of those that are freed from worldly activity – whatever is the state of mind at the time of the dissolution of body that is the goal; but it is not said of those practicing Yoga that whatever is the state of mind at the time of the dissolution of body that is His goal.
27. Whatever is the goal of those devoted to action, one shall mention that by means of the organ of speech. Whatever is the goal of the Yogin, assuredly that is not to be uttered by you anywhere.
28. Knowing this path thus, it was not ordained for the Yogins. To these getting rid of ignorance is by itself the attainment of perfection.
29. In whatsoever place a Yogin may die, whether in a holy place or in the house of a Chandala, he shall not enter the womb again but shall get dissolved in the Supreme Brahman.
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33. He who shall see the essential nature of self which is innate, unborn, unthinkable, even though he lives in the world as much as he likes he shall not be touched by sin.
34. He reaches that supreme Lord who is the eternal Self, who is untainted, peerless, formless and supportless, who is bodiless, without desire, indifferent to pleasure and pain and free from illusion and who is of undiminished power.
32. He reaches that Supreme Lord who is the eternal Self, in whom there are no Vedas, no consecration ceremony, no tonsure, no teacher and taught, no gathering of appliances, and no manifestation of symbols and such other postures.
33. He reaches that Supreme Lord who is the eternal Self, who is neither of the nature of Shiva, nor of Sakti, nor a man, who is neither an embryo, nor the developed or inflected form, nor a word and such other sounds and who is neither the preparatory, nor the proficient, nor the restrained and such other states of the practice of concentration.
34. He reaches that Supreme Lord who is the eternal Self in whose essence this universe of moveable and immoveable objects has its birth, sustentation and dissolution, in the same way as bubbles do in the modification of water.
35. He reaches that Supreme Lord who is the eternal Self, before whom neither the restraint of the nostrils nor sight and posture, neither knowledge nor ignorance shine, even the currents of nerves are nothing.
36. He reaches that Lord who is the eternal Self who is devoid of the states of manifoldness, oneness, both, or of being otherwise, the states of atomicity, hugeness, heaviness or nothingness, as also those of the instrument of knowledge, the object of knowledge or the sameness, in all.
37. He reaches that Lord who is the eternal Atman, whether he has perfect concentration or not, whether he has completely gathered in the senses or not, or whether he has quieted his activity or is busily active.
38. He reaches that Supreme Lord who is the eternal Atman who is neither the mind, nor the intellect, who is not the body, the senses, the subtle rudiments, or the five gross elements or the organ of egotism, but is of the nature of etherial space.
39. When both the obligatory and prohibitory injunctions reach the standpoint of the Supreme Self, in the mind of the Yogin which is devoid of the perception of distinction, neither purity nor impurity can ever form the meditation on the non-existence of distinguishing attributes. All acts are either obligatory or prohibitory.
40. How can there be the teaching of a Guru with reference to an object which the mind and speech are incapable of reaching? So, a Guru who is always devoted to Brahman, who has uttered these facts, the Supreme Truth shines equally in all.
Thus ends the second chapter of the Avadhuta Gita taught by Sri Dattatreya, named "The Teaching of the knowledge of Atman.