What is ‘I’? How these three states are created? Who is its creator? Of what material is these three states are made? This is the way of that inquiry, analysis and reasoning on the true base.
Ataman/Self/soul is neither the body, nor the matter, nor is Ataman/Self an aggregate of the senses; Ataman/Self is something different from these.
Three states are produced by ignorance, and dissolves in the wake of self-Knowledge. Ataman/Self is the substance and witness and the true self.
The cause of these three states is the One without a second, subtle and unchanging, just as the earth is the material (cause) of the pot and the like.
As Ataman/Self is also the One, the formless, the Subtle, the Knower, the Witness, the Ever-Existent, and the Unchanging, so there is no doubt that Ataman/Self is the true self.
Ataman/Self/soul is verily one and without parts, whereas the body consists of many parts; and yet the people see (confound) these two as one! What else can be called ignorance but this?
Ataman/Self/soul is the ruler of the three states and is internal; the three states are the ruled and is external. Ataman/Self /soul is all consciousness and pure, the body and the world are diversity is impure.
Ataman/Self is the supreme Illuminator, which gives sentient; the three states is said to be of the nature of insentient. Ataman/Self is eternal, since it is Existence itself; the three states are transient, as it is nonexistence in essence.
The luminosity of Ataman/Self consists in the manifestation of all the three states. Its luminosity is not like that of fire or any such thing, for in spite of the presence of such lights darkness prevails at night (at some place or other).
How strange is it that a person ignorantly rests contented with the idea that he is the body, while he knows it as something belonging to him and therefore apart from him even as a person who sees a pot knows it as apart from him !
Ataman/Self is verily Brahman, being equanimous, quiescent, and by nature absolute Existence, Knowledge, and Bliss. Ataman/Self is not the body which is non-existence itself. This is called true Knowledge by the Gnanis.
Ataman/Self is without any change, without any form, free from all blemish and decay. Ataman/Self is not subjected to any disease; Ataman/Self is beyond all comprehension, free from all alternatives and all-pervading.
