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
“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.
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.”
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