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.