3. He (God) is not far from nor too near us, nor is he obtainable by what he is not (as the adoration of images and ceremonial acts). He is the image of light and felicity, and is perceivable in ourselves.
4. Here austerities and charities, religious vows and observances, are of no good whatever. It is the calm quietude of one’s own nature only that is serviceable to him in his services to God.
5. Fondness for the society of the righteous and devotedness to the study of good books, are the best means of divine knowledge; while ritual services and practices, serve only to strengthen the snare of our in-born delusions, which true knowledge alone can sever.
6. No sooner one has known this inward light of his as the very God, than he gets rid of his miseries, and becomes liberated in this his living state.
7. Ráma said:—Having known the Self in himself, one is no more exposed to the evils of life and even to death itself.
8. But say how is this great God of gods to be attained from such great distance (as we are placed from him), and what rigorous austerities and amount of pains are necessary for it.
9. Vasishtha replied:—He is to be known by means of your manly exertions (in knowledge and faith), and by the aid of a clear understanding and right reasoning, and never by the practice of austerities and ablutions, nor by acts attended with bodily pain of any kind. (Hence the mistake of Hatha yoga).
10. For know, O Ráma! all your austerities and charities, your painstaking and mortification are of no efficacy, unless you wholly renounce your passions and enmity, your anger and pride, your selfishness and your envy and jealousy.
11. For whoever is liberal of any money which he has earned by defrauding others, and with a heart full of vile passions, the merit of such liberality accrues to the rightful owner of the property and not to its professed donor.
12. And whoever observes any vow or rite with a mind actuated by passions, he passes for a hypocrite and reaps no benefit of his acts.