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).