Shloka 50
अव्यक्त-गुण-पुरुषविवेकः | Avyakta, Guṇas, and Discrimination of Puruṣa
अहमेतानि वै सर्व मय्येतानीन्द्रियाणि ह । निरिन्द्रियो हि मनन््येत व्रणवानस्मि निर्व्रण:
aham etāni vai sarvaṃ mayy etānīndriyāṇi ha | nirindriyo hi manyeta vraṇavān asmi nirvraṇaḥ ||
Vasiṣṭha berkata: “Walaupun Diri (Ātman) pada hakikatnya tanpa indera, ia membayangkan, ‘Akulah pelaku segala perbuatan ini; segala indera ini ada dalam diriku.’ Maka, meskipun tanpa sebarang ‘lubang’ atau cela, ia tersalah sangka seolah-olah memilikinya—menganggap Diri yang tidak berindera sebagai agen yang berjasad.”
वसिष्ठ उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse teaches that the true Self is sense-less and not the real doer, yet through ignorance it identifies with the senses and actions, imagining ‘I act’ and ‘the senses are mine.’ This mistaken identification makes the flawless Self appear as the embodied, limited agent.
Vasiṣṭha is instructing about inner freedom: he points out how the jīva, though in essence beyond the senses, superimposes bodily and sensory attributes upon itself—like calling oneself ‘wounded/with openings’ despite being ‘unwounded/without openings’—to expose the mechanism of bondage and the need for discernment.