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!