AVG 1.6

Chapter 1 (Guidance on self-realization): Verse 6

धर्माधर्मौ सुखं दुःखं मानसानि न ते विभो ।
न कर्तासि न भोक्तासि मुक्त एवासि सर्वदा ॥१-६॥

Transliteration:

धर्मा आधर्मौ सुखम् दुःखम् मानसानि न ते विभो ।
dharmā ādharmau sukham duḥkham mānasāni na te vibho ।
न कर्ता असि न भोक्ता असि मुक्तः एव असि सर्वदा ॥१-६॥
na kartā asi na bhoktā asi muktaḥ eva asi sarvadā ॥1-6॥

Meaning:

धर्मा (virtue/right action) आधर्मौ (vice/wrongful action) सुखम् (happiness/pleasure) दुःखम् (sorrow/pain) मानसानि (conceived and presented within the mind) न (no/not) ते (for you) विभो (O!, awakened one!) ।
न (not) कर्ता (doer)असि (is) न (not) भोक्ता (the possessor of experiences/the one who experiences) असि (is) मुक्तः (free/emancipated/immune) एव (indeed) असि (is) सर्वदा (always/at all times)॥१-६॥

Purport:

Integrity and deceit, pleasure and suffering
are of the mind; not of you.
You are neither the builder nor the experiencer,
invariably and truly, you are forever free.

Comments: The polarities of right and wrong, virtue and vice, bliss and melancholy are stations created by society to pigeonhole our thinking. Once thinking has been stratified, expression of thought and actions become correspondingly stultified. The slow calcification as a result hardens outlook, attitude and our response to nature around us. Understand that our natural state innately within us does not know of such polarities, but, our natural states are clouded over by our interactions, learning and conditioning within society and we tend to alloy ourselves with the prevailing mores to reduce conflicts. Once you start to understand that the societal conditioning only exists within your mind, your cultural antipodes start to atrophy and fall by the wayside. The intricate stories and walls that are built up to support the castle that forms our egos also fall. As the castle walls fall, you start to understand that you are neither the much vaunted 'doer of things' nor the proclaimed 'experiencer of objects'. These were fabrications built up within your mind that singularly lacked any inherent existence. Once you start to understand the lack of inherent essence that underlies such fabrications, one invariably starts on the path to be free.