1. Wait! Listen first before setting this book aside. Listen attentively to what is said here.
2. The essence of listening is listening to spiritual discourses and explanations about Self-Knowledge. With concentration of the inner-mind, focus on the meaning of the explanations given in this text.
3. By listening, reflecting, and enquiring into what has been heard, gain direct experience of Self-Realization. What is spoken of here is immediate liberation. There is no talk about liberation in the future found here.
4. One must be alert while examining various gemstones or when weighing out the best quality of gold before casting it in the mold.
5. Just as how one takes care when carefully counting coins, and when evaluating various objects before accepting them, one should use discrimination and be attentive when speaking with others.
6. Likewise, when a huge offering of grain is made, it must first be cleaned properly. If uncleaned grain is offered, it is not acceptable, and God (in the form of the recipient) becomes displeased.
7. Just as one has to be very careful when discussing private affairs in secrecy, one must be much more careful when discussing the topics contained in spiritual texts.
8. There are many religious stories, narrations, parables, ballads, and important biographies of great people, but greater than these is the discussion about spiritual knowledge (adhyatma vidya).
9. What merit is gained by listening to stories from the past? It is said that merit is acquired, but that merit cannot be seen.
10. The essence of spiritual knowledge is not like that. It is of the nature of experience gained from investigation. When this type of understanding is gained, speculation and guesswork come to an end.
11. Many great beings have appeared and passed away. They all lived only for the Self. Who can describe the greatness of the Self?
12. Throughout all ages it is the one Self alone that governs the three worlds. Utilizing the power of discrimination one must see and experience the Self for oneself.
13. Many living beings have appeared, lived, and passed away. As per your request I have described their nature and behavior.
14. Where the power of the Self is not present everything becomes worthless. Without the Self, one becomes inert and helpless like a piece of wood. What can be understood in that state?
15. The superiority of Self-Knowledge is such that there is nothing else that compares to it in the entire universe. Virtuous people understand this through the power of discrimination.
16. The elements of earth, water, and light are all contained within the earth. However, the Inner-Self is the basic seed of these that always remains quite different from the elements.
17. One who goes beyond the wind with discrimination discovers the close connection of the Self.
18. Wind and space together are "Illusion with attributes" (GunaMaya), which is the Primal Illusion of the half-male and half-female principle (PrakritiPurusha). It is not easy to experience the subtlety of this.
19. Who will make the effort to understand the subtlety of the complex structure of the creation of Illusion? For the one who understands this, all doubts disappear.
20. The Primal Illusion is the fourth body (Turya; the Great Causal Body). One should realize what it is to be without this body. Blessed is the sage who remains after going beyond this body.
21. Only those who inquire and are thoughtful ascend higher and gain a higher evolution. All others, who only gain the knowledge of objects, vainly fall into spiritual poverty.
22. Objects appear to be good and attractive, but their nature is that they are destined for destruction. People who are mesmerized by them only become tarnished by worldly life and do not achieve success in spiritual life.
23. For this reason, one should give up the objective knowledge and imagination of many topics and seek the invisible Reality.
24. Greater than the eight-limbed yogic body of knowledge is the knowledge about Reality. Even greater than that is Self-Knowledge which must be experienced for oneself.
25. At the extremity of the Primal Illusion arose the original concept or desire of God, Vishnu. Through effort in spiritual practice one must embrace and experience this.
26. Then one can know the attributeless Brahman that is beyond the Primal Illusion. Its indication is that it is pure and unmoving like the Sky.
27. Prevailing everywhere, Brahman is present in all living beings. It permeates and adheres to all objects.
28. There is nothing as great as Brahman. It is more subtle than the subtlest thought. When there is the dissolution of the body and the universe one comes to know it.
29. Even though the body and the universe may still be in existence, if the dissolution is seen through the power of discrimination one begins to understand this eternal principle.
30. It is only after the elimination of all the elements, and arriving at the conclusion as to what is Essence and what is non-essence through careful consideration, that one should set aside this text, remaining content in Supreme Knowledge.