Continued from Verse Twenty-Three
24. This inert body does not say 'I'. Reality-Consciousness does not emerge. Between the two, and limited to the measure of the body, something emerges as 'I'. It is this that is known as Chit-jada-granthi (the knot between the Conscious and the inert), and also as bondage, soul, subtle-body, ego, samsara, mind, and so forth.
Commentary: The body, being insentient, cannot call itself the I any more than the words on a page can speak themselves. And the Self, being beyond thought, does not change or act, and cannot and does not call itself by any name. The light of the Self, then, is said to reflect upon the body (or the body-mind), and in the reflection of that body in the light of the Self — is said to be the ego which arises.
This is much like the imaginary character that is created when a reader (analogous to the Self) reads a book (analogous to the body). In the interaction between reader and book arises an imaginary person who is called the character. This character does not actually do, feel, or think anything, but is only imagined to do so.
This is called the knot that ties consciousness and matter, or the ego. This imaginary character is the one who seems to seek spiritual truth, and at the end of its quest, will be dissolved away by the the knowledge of its own imaginary nature against the background of Self.
At any time, see all the forty verses posts that I have published so far here.