According to Maitreya, "the Lord is within the heart of each person, he is the witness of the reason's dance, and the object of the utmost love". The best renunciation is one, states Maitreya, where one abandons pride, wealth, delusion and lust; when delusion dies in a person, enlightenment is born. In chapters 2 and 3 of the Upanishad, Lord Shiva preaches sage Maitreya the secret of highest reality (Brahman). The text states that Atman (soul, self), Brahman and Shiva are the same, one must understand one's true essence that is soul, and one must worship with the thought, "I am he". The word "Maitreya" means "benevolent" or "friendly". The text is also known as Maitreyopanishad. The Upanishad is structured in three chapters. The first chapter has four sections, the first three of which are prose, and the last section has a prose prologue and fourteen verses, all structured as a dialogue between ascetic king Brhadratha and Sakayanya. The second chapter starts with a prose prologue, has three sections with a total of thirty verses, structured as knowledge from god Shiva to Maitreya. Chapter three has no separated sections and consists of 24 verses, further elaborating Shiva's wisdom on the Brahman, Atman and unity of the two. King Brihadratha renounces his kingdom, and retires into wilderness. He performs Tapas for a thousand days to Surya (sun god), after which he is visited by sage Sakayanya, the one who knows the Self. Pleased with Brihadratha, the sage asks him to seek a boon. The sannyasi Brihadratha asks the sage for the knowledge of soul. Initially the sage says that the subject of Brahman or Atma was difficult to explain, old fashioned knowledge, and the ascetic king should ask for something else. The ascetic king states that everything is transient, lofty peaks crumble down, pole star swerves with seasons, oceans dry up and gods fall with time. Just like everything in universe, states the renunciant king, desires and joy are transitory, rebirth a part of existence. He seeks deliverance from the cycle of life. Sakayanya then expounds the nature of human life, starting with the statement that "Artha is Anartha", or "objects of senses are in truth worthless", that a soul that craves and attaches to hedonistic pleasures never reaches its highest potential. By Tapas a man reaches goodness, through goodness he takes hold of the mind. Through the mind he reaches the self, reaching the self he comes to rest. — Maitreya Upanishad, 1.4.2 The Maitreya Upanishad, in verse 1.4.4 states that the pursuit of rituals and rites are false, that it is the mind that travels the path of truth which self-liberates and attains freedom. A man with tranquil mind is serene, it is he who abides in his soul and enjoys undecaying bliss, states the Upanishad. One must set one's mind on Brahman, as one does for sensory object, and those who do so are on their path to release. For the mind alone is samsara! Let a man purify it with zeal. The mind a man possesses shapes his future course: that is the eternal mystery. — Maitreya Upanishad, 1.4. The second chapter of the Upanishad opens with Maitreya meeting god Shiva in mount Kailash, and asking him about the knowledge of highest reality. He requests Him to enlighten him on the secrets of Tattva. Shiva explains to him stating that the human body is a shrine with Jiva imbibed in it representing Him alone. The body is said to be a temple, and the soul is truly Shiva. Discard the faded flower offerings of ignorance, Worship with the thought: "I am he". — Maitreya Upanishad, 2.1.1 The human body, states the text, is a "filthy house of joy and grief", one that is built with humors, is born, suffers from diseases over its life, and ultimately dies. The section 2 of chapter 2 states that the one who seeks liberation must seek, states the Upanishad, the "internal or spiritual bath that consists of cleansing the mind". The true purification is achieved by "washing with the soil of knowledge and the water of detachment", bringing purity to mind. A man who seeks liberation, asserts the Upanishad, should renounce everything and leave his native land. He should abandon pride, abandon wealth, abandon delusion and abandon lust. When delusion dies, states verse 2.3.4, enlightenment is born. In section 3 of chapter 2, the text questions the value of rituals to spiritual enlightenment, as well as the need for a cloister and life in a forest. These verses, states Patrick Olivelle, summarize the reasons why Advaita Vedanta tradition abandoned Vedic rituals, and redefined what solitude and path to self-knowledge means: The sun of consciousness always shines brightly, in the sky of our hearts, It does not set and it does not rise, how can we perform the twilight worship. There is one alone without a second: this conviction arrived at through these teacher's words, they say, this is true solitude, not a cloister nor a forest's depth. — Maitreya Upanishad, 2.3.5 – 2.3.6 Worship of idols made of stone, metal, clay or precious stones, causes a man who seeks after freedom to undergo repeated births. A recluse, therefore, shall worship only within his heart, to avoid rebirth let him shun outward worship. — Maitreya Upanishad, 2.3.17 I am I, but also the other; I am Brahman, I am the source, I am the teacher of the whole world, I am the whole world, I am he! I am only I, I am perfect, I am pure, I am supreme, I am spotless and eternal, I am I, I am always he! From honor and dishonor and from qualities I am free, I am Shiva, From oneness and duality and from opposites I am free, I am he! From coming into being and ceasing to be, and from light I am free, I am both ugly and beautiful, I am free from the equal and unequal, I am free from the All and the Non-all, I have the nature of goodness, I always am, I have no refuge, I am no refuge, I am pure, I am Brahman, I am he! — Maitreya Upanishad, 3.1.1 – 3.1.9