Verse 1

[After] forgetting oneself, considering a body alone to be oneself, and taking innumerable births, finally knowing oneself and being oneself is just [like] waking up from a dream of wandering about the world. See.  

Verse 2

Declare a drunkard who mutters [in confusion] ‘Who am I? What place am I?’ to be equal to one who oneself asks oneself ‘Who am I?’ [or] ‘What is the place in which I am?’, even though oneself exists as oneself [that is, even though one always exists clearly as one actually is, namely as sat-cit, one’s fundamental awareness of one’s own existence, ‘I am’].  

Verse 3

When the body is [actually] within oneself, anyone who thinks that oneself is only within that insentient body is [like] someone who thinks that the cloth [of the screen], which is the ādhāra [support, foundation, basis or container] of the [cinema] picture, exists within that picture.  

Verse 4

Does an ornament exist as different to [or other than] gold? [Likewise] without oneself, where is the body? One who considers oneself to be a body is an ajñāni. One who takes [oneself] to be oneself is a jñāni, who knows oneself. Stop [be firm or bear in mind].  

Verse 5

What always exists is only that ēkātma-vastu [oneself, that one substance]. If at that time the ādi-guru [the original guru, Dakshinamurti] made that vastu known [only by] speaking without speaking, say, who can make it known [by] speaking?