Sat-darshana Bhashya (translation)

WHAT IS MYSELF NOW?

D. -I want to know, what the Heart is and where it is and all that. But I want to have this doubt cleared first. I am ignorant of mine own truth, my knowledge is growing, limited, imperfect. You say “I” means the self, atman. But the atman is said to be always self-aware whereas I am unaware....

M. People always allow this confusion. What you call your self now is not exactly the real Self which is neither born nor dies.

D. — Then you admit that what I call my self is the body or part of this body?

M. --But the body is matter jada, it never knows, it is always the known.

D. — Then if I am neither the atman, the self nor the anatman, the not-self,........

M. I am coming. Between spirit and matter the self and body, there is born something which is called the ahamkara, the ego-self, jiva, the living being. Now what you call your self is this ego-self which is different from the ever-conscious Self and the unconscious matter but which at the same time partakes of the character of both spirit and matter, joda and cetana.

D. -Then when you say “know thyself” you want me to know this ego-self?

M. But the moment the ego-self tries to know itself, it changes its character; it begins to partake less and less of the jada, in which it is absorbed and more and more of the Consciousness of the real Self, the atman.