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.