1. Neither is there invocation of the Deity, nor send-off; how can there be meditation and the muttering of Mantras? How can there be leaves and flowers, an even seat and the worship of Shiva?
2. I am not merely freed from bondages and obstructions; I am not merely the pure stainless, and the free; I am not barely devoid of union with the supreme and disunion; I am That Freed who resembles etherial space,
3. All these become true and all these become false – such a doubt has never risen in me; I am essentially blissful and whole.
4. Neither am I with blemish nor without it; neither am I the interspace nor the unintercepted, nor do I appear as the variously divided within; I am essentially blissful and whole.
5. Neither the illumination of ignorance has happened to me nor the essential nature of knowledge has arisen to me. How can I speak of unknowable knowledge? I am essentially blissful and whole.
6. Neither am I endowed with virtue nor possessed of sin; neither am I the bound nor am I the freed; neither congruity nor incongruity appertains to me. I am essentially blissful and whole.
7. The distinctions of higher and lower never attach to me nor does the state of neutrality. How can I speak of good and evil? I am essentially blissful and whole.
8. Neither am I the pervader nor the pervaded; neither am I the temple of the supreme spirit nor am, the non-container of the same. How can I speak of the voidless and the void? I am essentially blissful and whole.
9. Neither am I the worshipper, nor of the nature of the worshipped; to me there is neither a teaching nor action. How can I speak of the essence of consciousness? I am essentially blissful and whole.
10. I am not the cogniser and in no respect the cognised; neither am I the cause nor is there anything to be done for me. How can I speak of the unthinkable and thinkable? I am essentially blissful and whole.
11. Neither am I the differentiating attribute nor am I the differentiated; neither am I the knower nor the knowable. How can I speak, my dear child, of exit and entrance? I am essentially blissful and whole.
12. To me there is neither the body nor the bodilessness, nor organs of intellection and perception, nor senses. How can I speak of attraction and repulsion? I am essentially blissful and whole.
13. It is merely figurative, from high, nothing is divided; it is merely figurative, nothing is concealed. How can I describe that which is equal and unequal in all? I am essentially blissful and whole.
14. Whether I be one who has subdued the senses or one who has not subdued the senses; neither internal self-control nor external obligation attaches to me. How can I speak, my dear friend, of success and failure? I am essentially blissful and whole.
15. The unembodied and embodied states never existed to me; a beginning, end and middle never existed to me. How can I speak of strength and weakness? I am essentially blissful and whole.
16. Neither death nor immortality, neither poison nor non-poison can ever exist to me, my dear child. How can I speak of the unpurified and purified? I am essentially blissful and whole.
17. Dream, wakefulness and the Yogic posture of sleep do not exist to me; neither night nor day ever exists to me. How can I speak of the fourth state and what is not the fourth state of consciousness? I am essentially blissful and whole.
18. Know me to be free from both all and not-all; illusion and non-illusion never exist to me. How can I speak of the morning and evening devotions and other acts? I am essentially blissful and whole.
19. Know me to be absorbed in the all-pervading consciousness, know me to be free from object of contemplation and objectless meditation. How can I speak of union with the supreme and separation? I am essentially blissful and whole.
20. I am not a fool; I am not a pandit; neither silence nor the want of it ever exists to me. How can I speak of abstract reasoning and logical inference? I am essentially blissful and whole.
22. Neither do I set nor rise at any time; neither here is radiance nor darkness to me. How can I speak of morning and evening acts of devotion and such others? I am essentially blissful and whole.
21. Father, mother, descent, race, have I none; birth, death and such other states never exist to me. How can I speak of attachment and non-attachment? I am essentially blissful and whole.
23. Know me undoubtedly to be unagitated, know me undoubtedly to be uninterrupted; know me undoubtedly to be immaculate. I am essentially blissful and whole.
24. My dear child, the bold forsake all meditations, abandon all auspicious and inauspicious rites: they always drink the nectar of renunciation; I am essentially blissful and whole.
25. Wherever one does not receive knowledge, there metrical qualifications do not all exist. The great ascetic who is merged in the all-pervading essence and who is purified by meditation prattles about the supreme tattva.
This ends the fourth chapter of the Song of the Ascetic, a discourse between Dattatreya and Kartikeya, entitled the elucidation of the nature of Self in the teaching of knowledge.