Chapter-13, Verse 1

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 13.1

जनक उवाच 

अकिञ्चनभवं स्वास्थ्यं कौपीनत्वेऽपि दुर्लभम्। त्यागादाने विहायास्मादहमासे यथासुखम्॥१॥

Janaka said: 

1. The tranquillity, which is born of the Awareness that there is nothing else but the Self, is rare even for one who wears just a loin cloth. Therefore, by giving up the ideas of renunciation and acceptance, I live in true happiness. 

We have already mentioned in the introduction to this section that mere external relinquishment of our possessions is not the true dispassion that can lead us near to the state of spiritual tranquillity. Even for one who has thus renounced everything and has only the barest minimum of his essential requirements of life, such as food , clothing and shelter, even to such an individual the experience that ‘there is nothing but the Self (akiñcana–bhavam) and, therefore, nothing else has ever been born as the universe’ is indeed rare. 

To renounce or to accept, there must be the still lingering shades of one’s individualised ego. Where the ego has completely ended, there is none in the individual either to accept anything or to renounce anything and that is the state of Supreme Bliss. Therefore says Janaka, ‘By giving up the ideas of renunciation and acceptance, I live in true happiness.’ 

Although in almost all the Upaniṣads there is a different theory of creation expounded by the different Riṣis, any deep student of the Upaniṣads can very easily detect that the ultimate anxiety of the scriptures is to lead the student to a state, beyond mind and intellect, to recognise and experience therein the infinitude of the divine substratum. 

Viewed from this state of Pure Consciousness there is no illusory world, nor are there the delusions of the body, mind and intellect. In all Its aloneness the glory of the Self pervades everywhere, immutable, eternal and tranquil.

Thus from the transcendental viewpoint, gained from the Self, never was there a universe ever projected! This theory of ‘non-origination’ (ajāta-vāda) is the doctrine that is inherent in the Upaniṣads and it is only very subtly suggested therein. Aṣṭāvakra emphasises it to explain it. Gauḍapāda later on took it up for an exhaustive treatment and gave a total philosophical exposition of it in his Kārikā to Māṇḍūkya-Upaniṣad (Advaita Prakaraṇa): ‘From which nothing is, in reality, born; though it appears to have manifested in endless forms.’ (yathā na jāyate kiñcit jāyamānaṁ samantataḥ. – Māṇḍūkya-Upaniṣad ~3.2)

Again, Gauḍapāda clarifies in his Kārikā and concludes his chapter on non-dualism (Advaita Prakaraṇa) with the following unambiguous and eloquent verse: ‘No jīva, the egocentric separative creature, is ever born. There does not exist any cause which can produce them as its effect. This is the highest Truth where nothing is ever born.’ (na kaścijjāyate jīvaḥ sambhavo'sya na vidyate, etattaduttamaṁ satyaṁ yatra kiñcinna jāyate.  ~Māṇḍūkya-Upaniṣad-3.48)