Listen, O Rama, to the wondrous unfolding of consciousness and the nature of mind, as revealed in the sacred teaching. Consciousness, that subtle vibrating power of Brahman, is like an undisturbed, limitless ocean. From this stillness, it arises and takes the form of the mind, entering into the lives of all beings. This mind is not something apart from action; indeed, mind itself is action, and mind is the very individual soul. By this alone, the body is extended and animated. Thus, action and the doer are not separate, just as oil is not separate from the sesame seed. In truth, the agent and the action are always one and the same. Only through ignorance do people imagine them as different, but this is a mistaken conception. To the wise, mind and action are not two, just as the discerning do not see a real difference between the ocean and its waves—though children may see them as separate. Understand that “mind” and “action” are merely two names for the same reality. When one sets aside the difference in words, their true nature becomes subtle and hard to discern. The mind, whose very essence is activity, first arises from the Supreme, just as a flower, whose essence is fragrance, takes on various forms from the tree. Here, mind—called both agent and action—unceasingly arises from the Supreme, just as waves arise from the ocean. The beings that we call “living” are nothing but such waves; after arising, they dissolve back into That, just as waves subside into the ocean. Whatever action is performed, it is the mind that acts and reaps the fruit; action arises only in the mind, not from the body. Thus, both the doer and the action are of the mind alone. As a mirror shines beautifully when adorned with light, so too does the sense of agency become clear in the mind touched by knowledge of Brahman. Just as the whiteness of a cloth is a quality that resides within it, so too does the sense of agency dwell in the mind, under the name “living being.” As frost is never found without coldness, so too the mind is never found without action. When activity—the vibration of the mind—ceases, the mind dissolves, just as soot fades away when its blackness is gone. The destruction of action is the destruction of the mind, and the destruction of the mind is the absence of action. This state is attained only by the liberated, never by those who remain bound. Just as heat and fire are always joined, so too are mind and action—when one is absent, both are dissolved together. The mind is always the play of vibration; action is nothing but that vibration in form. Thus, mind and action are like attribute and substance, each depending upon the other. O Brahman, the mind is merely imagination, and imagination is of the nature of vibration. Action is the form shaped by that imagination, and all beings pursue its results. Now, O Brahman, describe in detail the form of the mind, which arises from the resolve of even the inert and is shaped by the non-inert. The form of the mind is that which, accompanied by the power of resolve, belongs to the infinite, all-powerful essence of the Self. It stands poised between the inert and the conscious, touched by both. The mind is characterized by the certainty, “I am not the self-luminous consciousness; I am a miserable being.” This conceptualization, ever pervading, is known as the nature of the mind. The mind’s nature is also that unmoving state that shines forth among beings, poised between existence and non-existence, inclined toward conceptualization. Without the power of conceptualizing action, the mind does not arise in this world, just as one without qualities cannot be called qualified. As heat and fire do not exist separately, so too action and mind, and likewise self and mind, are never apart. By its own nature, through action and the law of results, with the body made of intention, the mind displays manifold variety. Whatever tendency is planted—like a creeper set in a certain place—that becomes the field for its fruit, and accordingly, that very thing is attained there. The vibration of the mind is called the seed of action, and then it is experienced; the various activities are its branches, like the diverse fruits of a tree. Whatever the mind pursues, the organs of action accomplish; therefore, action is considered to be mind. Mind, intellect, ego, thought, action, imagination, transmigration, latent impressions, ignorance, effort, memory—the senses, nature, illusion, activity, and many other varied forms of sound and beauty—these are the causes of the confusion of worldly existence. By a chance conjunction, abandoning the wonder of expansion, these various modes arise in consciousness, following the objects of awareness. O Brahman, how have these various modes of consciousness, belonging to the Supreme Awareness, come to be established, being merely imagined diverse objects? When consciousness, which is of the nature of thought, appears to have become tainted and arises as the form of a notion, that itself is called the state of mind. When, having determined, it remains fixed in the investigation of objects, it is called intellect, capable of definite grasping. When, through false identification, it assumes existence, it is called ego, the cause of bondage in becoming. When, like a child, it abandons one thing and goes to another, ceasing inquiry, it is called thought (citta). When, due to its vibratory nature, the result of vibration reveals the subtlety of action, that result is called “action.” When, by a chance conjunction, certainty about a single substance is abandoned and whatever is imagined as desirable arises, that is called imagination. When there is conviction about something seen before or unseen, or created earlier, and it is desired within, that is called “memory.” When, among the powers of objects that have been enjoyed, those that have ceased remain within, that is called “residue.” Thus, O Rama, the mind and its many forms arise, play, and dissolve within the vast ocean of consciousness, all as the wondrous play of Brahman.