Who Is The Illumined Man?

ARJUNA:
Tell me of those
Who live always in wisdom, ever aware
Of the Self, O Krishna; how do they talk,
How sit, how move about?

SRI KRISHNA:
They live in wisdom
Who see themselves in all and all in them,
Whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed
Every selfish desire and sense craving
Tormenting the heart. Not agitated
By grief or hankering after pleasure,
They live free from lust and fear and anger.
Fettered no more by selfish attachments,
They are not elated by good fortune
Or depressed by bad. Such are the seers.

Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs,
The wise can draw in their senses at will.
Through aspirants abstain from sense pleasures,
They will still crave for them. These cravings all
Disappear when they see the Lord of Love.
For even of those who tread the path,
The stormy senses can sweep off the mind.
But they live in wisdom who subdue them,
And keep their minds ever absorbed in Me.

When you keep thinking about sense objects,
Attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire,
The lust of possession which, when thwarted,
Burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgement;
You can no longer learn from past mistakes.
Lost is the power to choose between the wise
And unwise , and your life is utter waste.
But when you move amidst the world of sense
From both attachment and aversion freed,
There comes the peace in which all sorrows end
And you live in the wisdom of the Self.

The disunited mind is far from wise;
How can it meditate? How be at peace?
When you know no peace, how can you know joy?
When you let your mind heed the Siren call
Of the senses, they will carry away
Your better judgement as storms drive a boat
Off its safe-charted course to certain doom.

Use all your power to set the senses free
From attachment and aversion alike,
And live in the full wisdom of the Self.
Such a sage awakes to light in the night
Of all creatures. That which the world calls day
Is the night of ignorance to the wise.

As the rivers flow into the ocean
But cannot make the vast ocean overflow,
So flow the magic streams of the sense-world
Into the sea of peace that is the sage.

They are forever free who break away
From the ego-cage of I, me, and mine.
To be united with the Lord of Love.
This is the supreme state. Attain to this
And pass from death to immortality.