Chapter-1, Verse 4

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.4

यदि देहं पृथक्कृत्य चिति विश्राम्य तिष्ठसि। अधुनैव सुखी शान्तः बन्धमुक्तो भविष्यसि॥४॥ 

4. If you detach yourself from the body and abide in Consciousness, you will at once become happy, peaceful and free from bondage.

Here the student is assured of the final result of utter fulfilment, if he pursues and accomplishes the path of negation and assertion prescribed in the previous stanza. Merely withdrawing the body consciousness is not sufficient. In deep sleep, none of us have consciousness of our body; yet we have no spiritual experience therein. Meditation is an attempt to consciously withdraw our identification with the body, and ‘abide ourselves in Consciousness’.

All spiritual practices are to help us accomplish this steady equipoise for meditation. The moment one awakes to this state of Selfhood, the limited ego ends, and naturally, therefore, all happiness, peace and freedom become his. Unhappiness, restlessness and bondages are the destinies of the delusory ego.

In Vedānta there are two schools. One believes that freedom from bondages is possible only after death, when the body falls off. They believe in Videhamukti. The other school, headed by Aṣṭāvakra and others, declares that the Realisation of the Self is possible even while the saint lives in his body and functions apparently as any other mortal. This is called Jīvanmukti. Liberation right now and here, even while living in this body. This Jīvanmukti state, is being indicated in this verse. The essential import of this stanza goes through a verse in Yogavāsiṣṭha.

In fact, Aṣṭāvakra-gītā has laid the foundations and indicated the path for Māṇḍūkya-kārikā, Yogavāsiṣṭha and such other brilliant books, that expound the infinite oneness and the ‘Theory of non-creation’ of the universe (ajātavāda). 

There is no harm if we possess things of the world, but it would be a tragedy if the things of the world possess us. For example, if we possess wealth, we are free to be rich, but when the wealth possesses us, we become a slave to our own wealth! It is indeed perfectly natural that we eat food, but should never allow the food to eat us!!

Applying the same logic to our spiritual life, there is no harm if we possess, handle, drive and function through our equipment of body, mind and intellect. These will be the expressions of the freedom of the wise. But in our ignorance we allow the equipments of experiences to entrap us and then we are employed to serve them as their slaves – lo! we are caught up thus to become the miserable ‘ego’ in each one of us!! The Vedānta sādhanā consists in the ego in each seeker, revolting against its own thraldom. To assert the clear understanding that one is not one’s own body, mind and intellect and to come to experience the nature of the pure Self, is the entire programme to be accomplished through meditation. This entire scheme is precisely indicated in this verse.