Chapter-1, Verse 14

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.14

देहाभिमानपाशेन चिरं बद्धोऽसि पुत्रक। बोधोऽहं ज्ञानखड्गेन तन्निष्कृत्य सुखी भव॥१४॥ 

14. My dear son, you have been bound by the rope of your body consciousness. Rend it asunder with the sword of the Knowledge ‘I am Consciousness’ and be happy. 

You have been for thousands of years moving along the path of your biological evolution, from the unicellular existence, steadily progressing on to gain this noble human birth and to learn to assert the human intelligence. In all these long periods of evolution we have been living the delusion of our ‘body consciousness’. Naturally, the idea ‘I am the body’ is very strong in us. The deep paternal anxiety and concern of the Teacher for the student is indicated here when he addresses the student as ‘dear son’ (putraka). 

Having explained to the student the nature of the Reality and having indicated the path of realising It, now the Teacher can do nothing more. The delusion is in the student’s mind and none can help him save himself. He must awake himself to his own real nature. Therefore, the Teacher with anxious urgency insists, ‘Rend asunder’ the noose of your body consciousness, in which you are at this moment caught unaware, by your own spiritual ‘ignorance’. This can be done only with the sharp sword of one’s own direct realisation ‘I am Consciousness’.

Thus redeem yourself from your own delusion of body and mind. Get away from the illusory sorrows of life and ‘be happy’. Intuitive illumination occurs the very instant when ‘ignorance’ is dispelled. Realising ‘I am the Consciousness’, abide in the Self and ‘be happy’.

Chapter-1, Verse 13

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.13

कूटस्थं बोधमद्वैतमात्मानं परिभावय। आभासोऽहं भ्रमं मुक्त्वा भावं बाह्यमथान्तरम्॥१३॥ 

13. Having given up all external and internal fluctuations, and the illusion that ‘I am the reflected Self (ego)’, meditate upon the Self, as immutable non-dual Consciousness. 

Having given ten suggestive arrow marks to indicate the nature of the Self in the meditator, here, in this verse, Aṣṭāvakra insists that the student with an undisturbed calm mind should try to give up his egocentric sense of limitations and meditate upon the already indicated spiritual ‘centre’ in him as the immutable, non-dual Consciousness. 

This is the only verse in the entire song of Aṣṭāvakra, where the Ᾱcārya prescribes meditation for the student. Later on, the Teacher transcends even this position and thunders that  meditation is a declaration of one's own sense of imperfection – and no longer needed once the Self is truly Realized.

A mechanical mental repetition of the qualities of the Self is not meditation. An intellect that has been soaked with its reflections upon these suggestive terms must come to a point where it has no more any doubts to disturb it. And so it halts. 

When the intellect has thus reached a state of supreme serenity, if the seeker can hold his mind in a sense of breathless expectation, alert and vigilant, ready to experience a spontaneous ‘awakening’, then the individual is at the highest state of meditative equipoise. This state of utter balance within and total oblivion of the outer happenings, is indicated here by the term ‘meditate’ (paribhāvaya).

The term ‘kūṭastha’ employed in the verse is a very suggestive term, rich in its meanings. The Sanskrit term ‘kūṭa’ has three distinct meanings: (a) mountain top, (b) mystery, (c) anvil; all these three meanings are suggested in this term. The Brahman, the Self is (a) the highest Reality, (b) the mystery behind all the play of māyā and (c) the one that changes not while everything in the universe gets changed in contact with It and thus serves like an anvil. The Self, viewed as the substratum for the whole universe, is termed in Vedānta śāstras as the 'Brahman' and as expressed through an individual mind and intellect, it is called as ‘reflection’ (ābhāsaḥ) meaning the ego (jīva).

Chapter-1, Verse 12

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.12

आत्मा साक्षी विभुः पूर्ण एको मुक्तश्चिदक्रियः। असङ्गो निस्पृहः शान्तो भ्रमात् संसारवानिव॥१२॥ 

12. The Self is witness, all-pervading, perfect, non-dual, free, Consciousness, action-less, unattached, desireless and quiet. Through illusion, It appears as if It is absorbed in the world. 

This verse is a peroration as it were of what has been so far declared by the transcendental Sage Aṣṭāvakra. You are not the body, nor the mind; in your spiritual essence you are the Pure infinite Consciousness.

The Ultimate Reality, being infinite and eternal, cannot be defined directly by the finite words. However, the Masters had evolved a secret technique of expressing this inexpressible Truth. They succeeded in defining the Truth by indicating the Supreme through rich suggestive terms deftly employed. The words, as such, with their direct meaning do not define the Truth, but they can lift a reflective mind to the realms of direct experiences. Such illuminating terms are employed here summarising the great dictum, ‘That thou art’ (tat tvam asi), which have been so elaborately discussed in all the previous eleven verses. 

The Self is the ‘witness’ (sākṣī) indicating that the Consciousness, which is the illuminator, is not in any way involved in what it illumines. This ‘witness’ is ‘all-pervasive’ (vibhuḥ). Just as the rope is all-pervasive in the illusion of the snake, so too the world of plurality is pervaded by its substratum, the Reality. The immanence of the Self in all beings is declared here. It is ‘perfect’ (pūrṇaḥ) nothing can be added to It, nor can we substract anything from It; It is ever just as It is. Nothing is added to the post when the ‘ghost’ is seen; nor do we take anything away from the post when the ghost vision disappears. 

The Self is the substratum for all the illusory names and forms. This Self is ‘non-dual’ (ekaḥ) and, therefore, ‘ever free’ (muktaḥ). As ‘Consciousness’ (Cit) It is by Itself ‘actionless’ (akriyaḥ) although all actions in the cosmos are taking place in It. All movements in the world can take place only in space, but space by itself has no movement. 

Like space, which allows everything to remain in it, but itself is not involved with any one of the objects, so too the Self, as Consciousness, is ‘unattached’ (asaṅgaḥ). In its infinite Perfection, It has ‘no desires’ (nispṛhaḥ). Desires are the expressions of vāsanās; the Self as the Consciousness illumines the very vāsanās. In Its Supreme Perfection It has nothing to desire for, other than Itself. Since there are no desires, there cannot be any thought agitations, nor any restless activities of the body. Therefore, this great Reality is indicated by the suggestive term ‘ever quiet’ (śāntaḥ).

A mind that is capable of reflecting upon each one of these ten suggestive terms, indicating the Self, can, in its totality, get itself spontaneously pushed into the experience of a voiceless dynamic void, wherein the Self is directly experienced. This immutable Self through our illusion appears as if suffering as an ego (jīva) in the world. 

As the perceiver-feeler-thinker entity, the individualised ego, in everyone of us, gets entrapped in the world of enchantments, within and without. Thereafter bound to the wheel of karma in order to exhaust the gathered debris of vāsanās, the ego is driven from body to body, in an unending circle of birth and death. This is the involvement in the world (saṁsāravān). 

In fact, the Self does not become the ego (jīva). The rope is not becoming the serpent, the post cannot change itself to be the ghost. It only appears, (iva) as though, the infinite Consciousness, I, has become the limited ego, a victim of circumstances and a helpless flotsam upon the waves of the daily happenings around me.

Chapter-1, Verse 11

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.11

मुक्ताभिमानी मुक्तो हि बद्धो बद्धाभिमान्यपि। किंवदन्तीह सत्येयं या मतिः सा गतिर्भ वेत्॥११॥

11. He who considers himself free becomes free indeed, and he who considers himself bound remains bound. ‘As one thinks, so one becomes’, is a proverbial saying in this world and it is indeed quite true.

yā matiḥ sā gatiḥ - ‘As we think, so we become’ is a famous saying. If you assert yourself that you are a helpless, weak and desperate creature of passions and impulses, you cannot grow into the higher heights of beauty and strength of your personality. On the other hand to assert our own divine nature constantly and to try to live without compromising this godly status, is to a seeker the royal path for gaining Self unfoldment.

The Bhagavad-Gītā also uphold this thought:
mana eva manuṣyāṇām kāraṇaṁ bandhamokṣayoḥ. (“Bondage and liberation are decided by the state of the mind.” - Bhagavad-Gītā 12.8)

In the Yogavāsiṣṭha also we find a very similar statement most emphatically put.
yat cittaṁ tanmayo bhavati puruṣaḥ – Yogavāsiṣṭha ("That which one's mind is absorbed in, one becomes")

This is equally true in the spiritual life also, because our apparent illusion of snake has not brought about any change in the rope, which is the only reality therein. Similarly, the pure, infinite Consciousness has never modified Itself, ever into the experiencing ego, nor into the experienced world of plurality. From the delusion created vāsanās in us, desires gurgle forth, which express as thoughts and the thoughts in the mind project the world of experiences, just as in a dream. Awaker never becomes the dreamer, but during the delusion apparently he suffers the tragedies of his dream. At the non apprehension of the Self, the misapprehensions of the world and its sorrows rise. By asserting our nature as the pure, infinite Consciousness, we can come to awake to this new dimension of Experience Divine.

This thought that "our thoughts create our life" is an original tenet of Indian spiritual philosophy. The same principle created THE SECRET. Those who have read The Secret can now figure out the Source of that Secret!

Chapter-1, Verse 10

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.10

यत्र विश्वमिदं भाति कल्पितं रज्जुसर्पवत्। आनन्दपरमानन्दः स बोधस्त्वं सुखं चर॥१०॥ 

10. You are that Consciousness, Supreme Bliss, upon which this universe appears superimposed, like a snake on a rope. Live happily as that blissful Consciousness. 

In the previous verse, the Teacher has asserted that the student, in the final essence, is nothing but Pure Consciousness. In our empirical experience, we live every moment of our life, perceiving a world of objects outside. Subjectively, what about our mind and its feelings and our intellect and its thoughts? Where did all these come from? If the Pure Consciousness alone is the one Reality, these vehicles of experiences and their perceptions should be unreal. From where did the unreal spring from? Can the Real create the unreal? 

In order to explain this illusory world of plurality, the seers of Vedānta have been giving us  eloquent analogies. In the dim light of the dusk a rope may be misunderstood as a serpent. The moment we have the ‘knowledge’ of the rope, the illusion of the serpent disappears totally. The non-apprehension of the rope gives us the misapprehension as the serpent, and subsequent fears and sorrows are all provided by the misapprehensions. 

Similarly, the non-apprehensions of our spiritual nature as the pure Self, occasions the misapprehensions of a subjective and objective world of experiences. On ‘apprehending’ the Self, the illusory super-impositions, shall immediately disappear, as the delusion of the snake ends in the ‘Knowledge’ of the rope.

You are this Consciousness of the nature of ‘Supreme Bliss’, confirms Aṣṭāvakra, ‘upon which the world is super-imposed, like a snake on a rope’. Abiding in this blissful Consciousness, ‘be happy’. 

Ashtavakra here comes back to the famous rope and snake allegory. With knowledge we know it as a rope, with lack of knowledge, it appears as a snake. In real life, with Real Knowledge (Vidya) only the Self is perceived as real. Yet mostly the mind perceives the illusory knowledge (Avidya) to be real and thinks that this manifested world is the real thing! 

Chapter-1, Verse 9

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.9

एको विशुद्धबोधोऽहमिति निश्चयवह्निना। प्रज्वाल्याज्ञानगहनं वीतशोकः सुखी भव॥९॥ 

9. Having thus burnt down the forest of ignorance with the fire of certitude ‘I am the one Pure Consciousness’, and discarding all grief, be happy. 

The non-apprehension of our spiritual nature, indicated in Vedānta as ‘ignorance’ (ajñāna), is considered here as a ‘forest’ inasmuch as having gone into a dense forest one is sure to lose one's way therein and keep wandering within it, until hunger and thirst, exhaustion and fatigue, reach to destroy him. Just as in the forest, there are merciless wild beasts of prey, in the dense forest of ignorance, ego and its passions can pounce upon the wayfarer. This is an efficient and vivid metaphorical phrase often used in our śāstras. 

At this moment the knowledge we gather, through our restless intellect, is of the world of time and space, and of the various modifications happening in a web of the cause-effect relationship. When through sādhanā, the intellect becomes calmer and quieter, it automatically turns inward to experience therein the dynamic silence of a spiritual peace.

Such a serene intellect, contemplating subjectively upon the Self within, is considered by the Vedānta śāstra as the purified intellect. A clean intellect alone can come to apprehend in meditation, the infinite Self. 

The ‘knowledge’ of the world outside is gathered, for each one of us, by our sense organs, mind and intellect, only when the Consciousness in us comes to illumine them. Where Consciousness is not, as in a block of stone, or a piece of wood, there is no ‘knowledge’; where Consciousness is, ‘knowledge’ also is. Therefore, Consciousness is often equated with ‘knowledge’. At this moment our Consciousness is always sullied by the presence of the objects of our experiences. 

Consciousness of objects is the ‘Knowledge’ of objects. Consciousness of objects devoid of all objects would be pure Consciousness – Pure Knowledge (viśuddha bodhaḥ).

On transcending the body-mind equipment, the seeker in meditation comes to experience ‘I am the one pure Consciousness.’  When a seeker gets himself established in this experience of Pure Consciousness, the ‘fire of the certitude’, declares Aṣṭāvakra, ‘shall burn down the forest of ignorance’ within the meditator. 

Grief is the mental condition when a dear object possessed by it comes to decay. Joy and grief, happiness and sorrow are all emotions and sentiments, experienced by the mind. In Pure Consciousness we have transcended the mind and, therefore, we automatically go beyond all grief. Attaining to this state of the Self, ‘be happy’.

Chapter-1, Verse 8

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.8

अहं कर्तेत्यहंमानमहाकृष्णाहिदंशितः। नाहं कर्ते ति विश्वासामृतं पीत्वा सुखी भव॥८॥

8. You, who have been bitten by the great black serpent of egoism ‘I am the doer’, please drink the nectar of faith, ‘I am not the doer’, and be happy. 

The sense of ‘doership’ is the arrogant ego expressing in all our perceptions, feelings and thoughts as ‘I see’, ‘I hear’, ‘I feel’, ‘I think’, and so on. These false attitudes arise out of our identifications with our eyes, ears, mind and intellect. Seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking are really the functions of the eyes, ears, mind or intellect. As the Self, you are but the illuminator of these functions, which really belong to the different equipments. To arrogate ‘I am the doer’ is the essence of the ego. Here Ashtavakra once again expands on the philosophy of Doership of the ego. 

Once this ego starts functioning, we become smitten by the sense objects, and become polluted by the poison of sensuality. We become agitated with our passionate urgency to acquire, possess and enjoy the sense objects. These would bring about our spiritual annihilation. Hence Aṣṭāvakra compares the ego here with the black serpent and its poisonous bite. 

The only remedy is to de-hypnotise ourselves by consciously maintaining the wisdom ‘I am not the doer’. This is to be constantly maintained with ardent faith. This mental assertion is a specific cure for the poison of ego, and, therefore, it is compared here with nectar, the life-giving ambrosia.

Chapter-1, Verse 7

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.7

एको द्रष्टासि सर्वस्य मुक्तप्रायोऽसि सर्वदा। अयमेव हि ते बन्धो द्रष्टारं पश्यसीतरम्॥७॥

7. You are the one seer of all, and are surely ever free. Indeed, this alone is your bondage that you see yourself not as the seer but as something different.

The Consciousness in me is the light in which my sense organs, mind and intellect are able to function. These are equipments through which the seer, the Consciousness, perceives the world of objects, emotions and thoughts. 

This Self is the one Consciousness in all bosoms and, therefore, through all sense organs, mind and intellect in the Universe. This one Consciousness is the sole seer of all perceptions, all emotions and all thoughts in the universe. This Consciousness you are, ‘That thou art’ (tat tvam asi). Therefore, you are necessarily ever free. The only apparent illusion of a bondage under which you are now suffering is that you recognise yourself not as this Universal Seer, but as something different, as the limited ego, conditioned by your given equipment of experiences.

Self is the only one subject. Everything else belongs to the world of objects. You are the subject; the world of objects are illusory, superimposed upon the infinite Self, the subject. 

Chapter-1, Verse 6

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.6

धर्माधर्मौ सुखं दुःखं मानसानि न ते विभो। न कर्ताऽसि न भोक्ताऽसि मुक्त एवासि सर्वदा॥६॥ 

6. Virtue and vice, happiness and sorrow are all attributes of the mind, not of yourself, O all-pervading one! you are neither the ‘doer’ nor the ‘enjoyer’. Indeed, you are ever free.

So long as the ego exists, it asserts in two ways – in the sense of ‘doership’, and in the sense of ‘enjoyership’. The ego in its relationship with the outer world maintains a vanity, ‘I am the doer’. The same ego functioning within the bosom constantly maintains a vanity, ‘I am the enjoyer’. Both these assertions together constitute the illusory sense of ego.

Now, this ego, while functioning in the world of objects, pursues virtues and indulges in vices. As a doer, one cannot but get oneself involved in actions, both good and bad. Again, the same ego, as an enjoyer, must necessarily get tossed about in its experiences of ‘happiness and sorrow’. In short, the ego cannot escape the conflicts created by the pairs of opposites.

Ashtavakra advises that the conflicts of good and bad and the struggles for pleasure and against pain, are all in fact in your mind and therefore, they belong to the mind only, never are they yours. You are nothing but the all-pervading Consciousness. As the pure Self you are ever free from the conflicts and confusions of your own ego.

Virtue and vice are the evaluations of the intellect, identifying with which the sense of ‘doership’ is maintained. Happiness and sorrow are the values of the mind, identifying with which the sense of ‘enjoyership’ is sustained. Thus, identifying with the intellect and the mind respectively, the sense of ‘doership’ and ‘enjoyership’ gush forth from us and they, in their confluence, become the ego in us. When once all its identifications with the intellect and the mind are ended, the ego disappears to become the blissful Self.

Chapter-1, Verse 5

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.5

न त्वं विप्रादिको वर्णोनाश्रमी नाक्षगोचरः। असङ्गोऽसि निराकारो विश्वसाक्षी सुखी भव॥५॥ 

5. You do not belong to the Brāhmaṇa or any such other caste. Nor do you belong to any station in life (āśrama). You are not perceivable by the senses. Unattached, formless and ‘witness’ of all you are, be happy.

Humans are divided into four categories called ‘castes’. These divisions are essentially based upon the inherent qualities of the predominant vāsanās in each individual. Since the pure Self is beyond the vāsanās, it is not conditioned by any of these categories. Similarly men living in the society are considered as belonging to and functioning in different stations in life. These are called āśramas - student life (brahmacarya), house-holders’ life (gṛhastha), life of retirement (vāna-prastha) and life of renunciation (sannyāsa). It is vividly clear that these āśramas are classifications of the different attitudes of the growing mind and depend upon mind’s different relationships with the world around it. In the infinite Self, which is one without a second, there cannot be any attitudes and relationships and, therefore, the obligations of the different stations in life cannot bind the Self.

Neither caste and its duties, nor the different status of social life and their obligations can ever be predicated of the Self. These are extremely helpful in the early stages of self-discipline for spiritual growth, as long as a seeker is still identifying with his mind and body. As pure Consciousness you are not even perceivable by either the sense organs or conceivable by the mind or the intellect.

Pure Consciousness, as the illuminator, is completely detached from the entire world of objects, as the sunlight is unattached with the world of things and beings, which it daily illumines. Self is without any form (nirākāra), as It is unconditioned by anything other than Itself; the Consciousness in us is the ‘witness of the universe’ (viśva-sākṣī). The idea that the Self is a ‘witness’ is repeated some four times in this very chapter. The concept of sarvasākṣī and viśvasākṣī is found in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad also, where the Lord is described as the all encompassing witness indicating that the Self is a disinterested onlooker upon all the pranks of the mind and the intellect.

Contemplating thus, that you are the Self, the formless ‘Witness’ of the universe, be happy. The sorrows, the tensions, and the stresses of the world and its problems, our passions and our lusts, all end at once and naturally, there is a growing sense of peace and happiness flooding the bosom of the seeker as he moves towards the sanctum of the Self.

Chapter-1, Verse 4

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.4

यदि देहं पृथक्कृत्य चिति विश्राम्य तिष्ठसि। अधुनैव सुखी शान्तः बन्धमुक्तो भविष्यसि॥४॥ 

4. If you detach yourself from the body and abide in Consciousness, you will at once become happy, peaceful and free from bondage.

Here the student is assured of the final result of utter fulfilment, if he pursues and accomplishes the path of negation and assertion prescribed in the previous stanza. Merely withdrawing the body consciousness is not sufficient. In deep sleep, none of us have consciousness of our body; yet we have no spiritual experience therein. Meditation is an attempt to consciously withdraw our identification with the body, and ‘abide ourselves in Consciousness’.

All spiritual practices are to help us accomplish this steady equipoise for meditation. The moment one awakes to this state of Selfhood, the limited ego ends, and naturally, therefore, all happiness, peace and freedom become his. Unhappiness, restlessness and bondages are the destinies of the delusory ego.

In Vedānta there are two schools. One believes that freedom from bondages is possible only after death, when the body falls off. They believe in Videhamukti. The other school, headed by Aṣṭāvakra and others, declares that the Realisation of the Self is possible even while the saint lives in his body and functions apparently as any other mortal. This is called Jīvanmukti. Liberation right now and here, even while living in this body. This Jīvanmukti state, is being indicated in this verse. The essential import of this stanza goes through a verse in Yogavāsiṣṭha.

In fact, Aṣṭāvakra-gītā has laid the foundations and indicated the path for Māṇḍūkya-kārikā, Yogavāsiṣṭha and such other brilliant books, that expound the infinite oneness and the ‘Theory of non-creation’ of the universe (ajātavāda). 

There is no harm if we possess things of the world, but it would be a tragedy if the things of the world possess us. For example, if we possess wealth, we are free to be rich, but when the wealth possesses us, we become a slave to our own wealth! It is indeed perfectly natural that we eat food, but should never allow the food to eat us!!

Applying the same logic to our spiritual life, there is no harm if we possess, handle, drive and function through our equipment of body, mind and intellect. These will be the expressions of the freedom of the wise. But in our ignorance we allow the equipments of experiences to entrap us and then we are employed to serve them as their slaves – lo! we are caught up thus to become the miserable ‘ego’ in each one of us!! The Vedānta sādhanā consists in the ego in each seeker, revolting against its own thraldom. To assert the clear understanding that one is not one’s own body, mind and intellect and to come to experience the nature of the pure Self, is the entire programme to be accomplished through meditation. This entire scheme is precisely indicated in this verse.

Chapter-1, Verse 3

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.3

न पृथ्वी न जलं नाग्निर्न वायुर्द्यौर्न वा भवान्। एषां साक्षिणमात्मानं चिद्रूपं विद्धि मुक्तये॥३॥ 

3. You are neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor air, nor space. In order to attain freedom know the Self as the ‘witness’ of all these – the embodiment of pure Consciousness itself.

The five great elements are the ‘material cause’ with which the gross physical structure is constructed. The subtle aspects of these five great elements constitute the mind-intellect equipment in man, considered in Vedānta as the subtle body. The gross body is the vehicle through which the subtle body functions in expressing itself and discovering its whimsical gratifications. The residual vāsanās in each one of us swell upto express and exhaust themselves. A vāsanā sprouts first as a desire disturbance in the intellect, which in the mental zone produces thought disturbances and they, in their turn, precipitate, at the body level, as the exhausting activities of the individual in society. The gross and the subtle equipments precisely needed by an individual, for the expression of his existing vāsanās, are fabricated by nature out of these five great elements. Here the Teacher declares the ultimate Truth that at the exhaustion of the vāsanās, the subtle and gross bodies have no more any function and the individualised ego sense awakes itself to rediscover its nature as the pure infinite Consciousness, the Self.

Aṣṭāvakra thus points to the student what is to be negated in the first line of the verse. ‘You are not the five elements.’ A mere negation by itself can take us only into an empty dark pit of non-existence (śūnya). And yet, the negation process is unavoidable as the individual-ego in the seeker had lived through millenniums and had repeated the misconceptions that he was the body and the mind. To complete the process, a positive assertion of our spiritual nature, as the Self, is necessary. This is being accomplished with the second line of this verse.

The Teacher advises the student that in order to liberate himself from the delusory sorrows of the body and the mind, he should come to experience the Self within. The principle of Consciousness in everyone of us is the illumining factor that brings into our awareness all our physical and mental experiences. We are constantly conscious of our experiences within and without us. In the light of Consciousness all happenings are brought into our knowledge or our awareness. 

Just as in the light of the sun, the objects of the room become illuminated for us, in the light of Consciousness our experiences become vivid to us. Just as the sunlight does not ever get involved in, or conditioned by, the objects that it illumines, the Consciousness in us also is ever apart from and unattached to the illusory dance of the objects outside and to the delusory sport of the rollicking thought disturbances inside. 

This relation-less relationship of the light of Consciousness with the world of objects and thoughts is particularly emphasised here to help the students of meditation. When the Teacher says that we must ‘realise’ the Self as the ‘witness’ of all the play of the elements, it provides a technique of meditation for the sincere seekers. Objectless Consciousness is the nature of the Self; when objects are not there for the Consciousness to illumine, it cannot be even indicated by the term ‘Consciousness’. The Ultimate Reality is indeed ever beyond the powers of finite words to express!

At this moment, identifying with the five elements and their fabrications, we suffer in a world of delusions and imperfections. Through meditation when we withdraw our identifications with our gross and subtle bodies, in the inward stillness, the existing vāsanās get all burnt up, uplifting the meditator into the plain of the Pure Consciousness itself.

A ‘witness’ is one who stands on the footpath, uninvolved in the happenings on the road, say in an accident. The Consciousness is a ‘witness’ in all the life’s experiences, in every individual living creature. In our ignorance we become so totally involved with the happenings and get wholly committed to the joys and sorrows of our body and mind. The moment a seeker rediscovers the realm of the Self in him, he understands that, as the Self, he is ever as far removed from the pluralistic world of change and sorrow as the sunlight is from the daily drama of the world. The illuminator is always different from the illumined: ‘I am the Self, the Illuminator and not the illumined.’ To stand as a ‘witness’, detached from all that is happening within and without us, is one of the most effective early exercises in meditation.

Chapter-1, Verse 2

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.2

“Teach me this, O Lord! how can Knowledge be acquired? How can Liberation come? How is renunciation achieved?”

This was the question asked by Janak to Ashtavakra in the opening Verse of this chapter. When the student has expressed himself, the Teacher elaborately answers each one of the questions raised by Janaka and that constitutes this entire chapter.

अष्टावक्र उवाच

मुक्तिमिच्छसि चेत्तात विषयान् विषवत्त्यज। क्षमार्जवदयातोषसत्यं पीयूषवद्भज॥२॥

Aṣṭāvakra said:
2. “If you aspire for Liberation, my child, reject the objects of the senses as poison and seek forgiveness, straightforwardness, kindness, cheerfulness and truth as nectar.”

In this pithy statement, the Teacher of the transcendental Reality, Aṣṭāvakra, provides us with two unfailing ways by which our spiritual pilgrimage can always be smooth and ever assured of success. We are also shown what all we must give up* and positively we are told *what are the values of life that we must cultivate.

The mind is a ‘thought flow’. The more the flood of the thoughts gushes through us, the more uncontrollable the mind becomes. So all factors that contribute to the quietening of the mind are to be cultivated and all sources from which the mind gets disturbed are to be rejected and eliminated.

The Teacher advises that we must reject the objects of the senses as poison. The sense objects attract the sense organs and bring stormy agitations into the mind. It is an incontrovertible fact that around us sense objects are constantly present. There is no space in the universe that we can escape into where the sense objects are not present. Hence the beauty of the simile implied here. There are many poisonous weeds and various kinds of poisons all around us in life and we cannot run away from them; but we have the liberty to reject them with our better understanding and to handle them, whenever necessary, with all careful precautions. Similarly, the sense objects are to be considered as dangerous poison to the mental tranquillity and accordingly handle them with great caution.

This process of rejecting the sense objects and not allowing them to enter us and disturb our mind is technically called in Vedānta as ‘dama’ – sense control. This by itself is not sufficient. Mind, even from a solitary cave in the Himalayas, can, by its own imagination, get agitated, all by itself! The mind is to be constantly guarded and carefully protected from its own inherent sensuality, by inculcating into it the healthier values of life and thus re-educating the wayward mind.

These noble qualities within, which are enumerated as the healthy values of life are, ‘forgiveness, straight-forwardnes, kindness, cheerfulness and truthfulness’. These are to be regularly lived and enjoyed as ‘nectar’.

It is easy to convince us how these values can bring calm and serenity in any boisterous mind. The sense of angry revengefulness can bring endless disturbances into us, but the moment we Forgive those who have done harm to us, mental calm prevails. So too, crookedness in our relationship with others can bring unending tensions to the mind; therefore, Straightforwardness is recommended here as a healthier value of life. So, too, Kindness and a sense of cheerfulness can always bring the mind to poise and grandeur. Truthfulness meaning intellectual honesty, is an unavoidable requisite in every spiritual seeker. To think one way and to feel differently and ultimately to act belying one’s own convictions is to live a dishonest life which brings disintegration of one’s inner personality.

Spiritual development and higher meditation are possible only for a totally integrated inner personality. These five values of life are the essential nurture and nourishment for the inner spiritual seeker on his hazardous path to the peaks of his realisation of the infinite Self.

This, however, is the only occasion, when Aṣṭāvakra, throughout his song, talks of moral values. From a transcendental standpoint, the Master is pointing out to the student a state of Perfection, experienced beyond the mind. All values of life and moral injunctions regulate the mental reactions and physical relationships in the world of plurality. When the mind is transcended, these values, valid in the relative planes, can have no more meaning in the realm of the Universal Oneness. It is the Master’s infinite kindness that he condescends to climb down, from his unapproachable heights of Realisation, to the lower realms, where his disciple now stands, eagerly questioning the goal and the way.

Let us remember again the guru-mantra given by Ashtavakra to Janak: “If you aspire for Liberation, my child, then reject the objects of the senses (DESIRES) as poison and seek forgiveness, straightforwardness, kindness, cheerfulness and truth as Nectar.”

Chapter-1, Verse 1

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.1

Chapter-1: Self-Witness in All

Introduction

In this opening stanza of the Aṣṭāvakra-gītā, the brilliant disciple, the royal-seer, Janaka, expresses his problems and the Teacher, totally established as he is in the experience of the transcendental Truth, answers the questions raised by the student. The pure effulgent Self is ever the unattached and the peaceful, the all-knowing seer and the witness of everything that is happening in all creatures. It is the one supreme and eternal God, the Brahman or the ultimate Reality. The perceived world of names and forms outside, and the experienced worlds of emotions and thoughts within, all exist and sport only in the all-pervading immutable Self.

This one universal Consciousness Supreme, which is the substratum for the changing world of phenomena should be realised through practice of meditation till we rise above the misconception that we are the limited ego – the Self, reflected in our thoughts.

When I, the Supreme Self, become conscious of and get utterly identified with my body, mind and intellect, I become the limited ego, the perceiver feeler thinker entity. This ego through its own illusions misconceived the infinite Self as the sorrow ridden calamitous world of birth and death. This individualised ego gets itself completely bound to the wheel of happenings and appears to get crushed by the world that it has imagined itself through its own delusions. When true knowledge dawns, the misconceptions end and the little ego in the meditator rediscovers itself to be the infinite Brahman.

जनक उवाच
कथं ज्ञानमवाप्नोति कथं मुक्तिर्भ विष्यति। वैराग्यं च कथं प्राप्तमेतद् ब्रूहि मम प्रभो॥१॥


1.1 “Teach me this, O Lord! how can Knowledge be acquired? How can Liberation come? How is renunciation achieved?”

When a student reaches a spiritual Master, it is the duty of the seeker to express his difficulties and from the doubts so expressed by the student, the Teacher can evaluate the psychological and spiritual problems in the student. Here we find the Aṣṭāvakra-gītā opens with the questions raised by Janaka, the disciple. The royal-seer asks three pertinent questions.

The ignorance of the post, in the dim light of the dusk, can produce the illusion of a ghost. This misapprehension of the ghost, sprung from the non apprehension of the post, frightens the deluded observer and brings to him all his sorrows. From the ‘ignorance’ of the post is born the ghost. This ‘ignorance’ is constituted of both these factors – the non-apprehension of Reality and the misapprehension of the Self. This ‘ignorance’ can be removed only by ‘Knowledge’.

With the apprehension of the post, the non apprehension ends and when the non-apprehension of the post has ended, the misapprehension of the ghost cannot remain. This ‘Knowledge’ alone is the antidote for ‘ignorance’. The ‘ignorance’ of the spiritual essence, as the blissful immutable Self, gives us misapprehensions of a world of plurality around us and of a suffering miserable perceiver, the ego. These misapprehensions of a subject object world can be ended only when the non apprehension of the Self is ended.

To apprehend the Self is to have the ‘Knowledge’ of it. Hence, the student very aptly asks the question, 'How can ‘Knowledge’ be acquired?’ A seeker, so long as he is recognising a world of objects, emotions and thoughts, through his body, mind and intellect, cannot escape his sense of limitations and his experiences of suffocating sorrows. The world of joys and sorrows will buffet him mercilessly amidst the roaring waves of the world’s tumultuous happenings. A sensitive student cannot but feel himself bound and gagged everywhere, at all times. Naturally, Janaka asks here in his second question, ‘How can Liberation come?’ To liberate ourselves from our identification with our own body, mind and intellect equipment is to liberate ourselves from the thraldom of our ego and make us realise our infinite Stature Divine. In order to attain this sense of complete Liberation, we must learn to detach from our own equipment of perceptions, feelings and thoughts. Naturally, the subtle thinker in the disciple asks the third question, ‘How is renunciation achieved?’ Each one will have to discover in himself the capacity to renounce. Renunciation is not a mere giving up of possession or a sudden cutting away from all relationships of the world.

Without mental detachment, outer renunciation amounts to only an unproductive calamitous escapism. To run away from life and its duties is not to run into the spiritual dimensions. Sense of attachment springs in us when the ego feels incomplete and when, in its illusion, it hopes to become full and complete by the acquisition, possession and enjoyment of objects which it perceives outside itself. Thus, where plurality is experienced, there is a subject-ego perceiving world of objects.

The ego, thereafter, gets itself attached to the things it likes and comes to feel extremely disturbed and, therefore, impatient with the things that it dislikes. As long as an individual lives in this sense of duality, he cannot avoid his sense of attachment. The ego is that aspect of our personality that perceives the plurality, and the ego arises in our identifications with our body, mind and intellect. Therefore, true renunciation or detachment is in withdrawing ourselves from our equipment. How are we to withdraw our consciousness from our equipment through meditation and come to experience the infinitude of the Self as our own real nature is the deep significance of this small looking question: ‘How is renunciation achieved?’ Attachment gurgles forth from ‘ignorance’ and renunciation or unattachment flows out from ‘Knowledge’.

The Ashtavakra Gita: An Introduction

Ashtavakra Gita: an Introduction

The Ashtavakra Gita is an ancient spiritual document of great purity and power. Pure, because it is relentlessly one pointed. Every word is aimed at triggering Self-realization, no suggestions for self-improvement, no rules for moral behavior, no practical wisdom for daily life. Powerful, because the mere reading or repeated reading of it can be enough to send a ripe mind reeling into Truth.

Unlike other Vedic texts that tell us mostly How to reach Realization, Ashtavakra tells us what we will feel on attaining Realization. It is not the way to the Goal, it is the Description of The Goal itself! 

Little is known about the Ashtavakra Gita. Ashtavakra is a name that appears in Indian lore, but almost certainly he did not write it. The author, likely an anonymous sage, merely uses the characters of Ashtavakra and King Janaka to set up a classic dialogue between guru and disciple. It quickly becomes a Guru-Guru dialogue, however, because after the first salvo of wisdom from Ashtavakra, Janaka realizes his True-Self, and from then on they get into an advaitic jam session of the highest sort.

Because of this, some translators have done away with the dialogue format and attributed everything to Ashtavakra.

Indeed, since all the verses of the Ashtavakra Gita exist at the highest possible level of spoken wisdom, it would appear meaningless to attribute some to the teacher and some to his newly enlightened disciple. There is nevertheless a story line set up in the Ashtavakra Gita, and it goes something like this:

Chapter 1: (Janak & Ashtavakra)

It all starts when King Janaka asks Sage Ashtavakra how he can attain Knowledge, detachment, and Realization. Ashtavakra tells him and starts to describe the Realized State and the Supreme Self. 

Chapter 2: (Janak)

It works! Upon hearing Ashtavakra’s words Janaka realizes his True Nature. Enraptured, he describes the Joy and Wonder of his newly Realized State.

Chapter 3: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra is delighted for Janaka but sees some deficiencies of ego and attachment. He fires off a series of confrontational verses about this attachment to worldly pleasure.

Chapter 4: (Janak)

Janaka now asserts that (as the) Lord of the Universe (in the Realized State), he can do as he pleases. 

Chapter 5: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra does not disagree, but in terse four verses points out the next step on the journey - Dissolution.

Chapter 6: (Janak)

Janaka respinds “I know that already,” matching him in style in the same number of four verses.

Chapter 7: (Janak)

Unable to leave it at that, Janaka goes on to further describe his Enlightened State to Ashtavakra. 

Chapter 8: (Ashtavakra)

Still hearing too much “I” in Janaka’s language, Ashtavakra once again

instructs him in the subtleties of attachment and bondage.

Chapter 9: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra continues to describe the way of true detachment.

Chapter 10: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra continues, and hammers away at the folly of desire - no matter how elevated or subtle.

Chapter 11: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra further describes the state of desirelessness in some details.

Chapter 12: (Janak)

Janaka replies by describing the state of timeless stillness in which he now finds himself.

Chapter 13: (Janak)

Janaka, having been instructed by Ashtavakra in Chapter One to “be happy,” reports that he indeed is.

Chapter 14: (Janak)

Janaka then goes on to summarize his exalted state with calm indifference.

Chapter 15: (Ashtavakra)

Impressed but not through teaching, Ashtavakra relentlessly points to the vast emptiness of Self.

Chapter 16: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra attacks the futility of effort and knowing and don't of running after unreal knowledge. 

Chapter 17: (Ashtavakra)

Ashtavakra describes the nature of one who has experienced True Freedom. 

Chapter 18: (Ashtavakra)

Finally, Ashtavakra hits Janak with everything he’s got in100 verses of pure non-duality and detailed description of the Realized State.

Chapter 19: (Janak)

Janaka no longer describes his enlightened state, but can speak only in questions revealing Absence.

Chapter 20: (Janak & Ashtavakra)

In a final flurry of questions pointing only at their own meaninglessness, Janaka burns off the last vestiges of personhood and enters dissolution. He ends with: “No more can be said.” Ashtavakra smiles, nods approvingly, and says no more.