The Inward Path: 4

Voice 1 (with some hesitation): Then are the external fire, the oblation, the mantras—all of it meaningless?
(Voice 2): When you know—when you are the radiance of consciousness itself, then you need not kindle fire in outer ritual... You become the fire itself—that which burns away the division of 'I' and 'you'.
(Voice 1): Does this awareness flow everywhere? What exists, and who does not?
(Voice 2): I am emptiness, I am fullness, I am without name, without form. I am that silent, invisible oblation-bearer—whose fire is no Vedic flame, but the radiance of one's own soul.

Both voices together (in unified resonance, as though waves of consciousness): I am Brahman, I am everywhere, and nowhere at all. I am the sacrifice, I am the priest, I am the offering, I am the receiver. In this radiance of consciousness all sacrifice finds completion. I am neither the stream of clarified butter, nor the sound of mantras. I am fire itself—in me all things are made whole, the luminous companion. "I am Brahman"—this is the oblation, this is the sacred remembrance of sacrifice. Where I am not, there too flows the song of all consciousness.

Voice 1 (wavering with curiosity): Who is that one—who dwells in the body yet is not of the body? Whose eyes hold the world, but whose mind holds it not—what is their nature?
Voice 2 (steady, in a voice turned inward): They are—the living-liberated. Established in consciousness, spreading silently, wise yet free from all knowing.
Voice 1 (in wonder): Then do they not feel joy or sorrow? Fear, pride, or love?
(Voice 2): No. Joy and sorrow—for them are equal. They have no 'I', not even the thought 'I am without self'.
Voice 1 (slowly drowning in rapture): Then are they empty?
Voice 2 (in a faint smile that veils infinity): No, they are full... yet they do not consider themselves full. They dwell—nameless, without volition, untouched.
(Voice 1): Then what do they do? Do they meditate? Chant? Keep vows?
(Voice 2): No, they do nothing at all. Their very being is meditation; their silence itself is worship.

Both voices together (in blended tones, awakening the depths of silence): They are neither teacher nor disciple. They are neither waking nor sleep. They flow through all things, yet remain beyond all things.

Voice 2 (the final line, as if a vanishing note—in a rhythm of stillness and breath, as though understanding floating upon pure air): They are living-liberated—one who dwells, yet is not. No self within them, no thirst, no delusion. They move through the world yet flow unbound, a compass-needle true. "I am Brahman"—this is not their chant, for the truth of Brahman is the hymn of their own breath. They are not—because they are all. They are living-liberated—the still praise of the infinite.