Chapter-2, Verse 15

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 2.15

ज्ञानं ज्ञेयं तथा ज्ञाता त्रितयं नास्ति वास्तवम्। अज्ञानाद्भाति यत्रेदं सोऽहमस्मि निरञ्जनः॥१५॥

15. The ‘knowledge,’ the ‘knowable’ and the ‘knower’ – these triple categories do not in fact exist. I am that taintless Self in which, through 'ignorance,' this triad appears to exist. 

In the relative field of multiplicity, every experience rises up due to the play of three factors – the experiencer, the experienced, and the experiencing. Without these three entities ‘I, the knower’ the ‘thing known’ and the ‘knowledge of the thing’ no perception is possible at any of the equipments of experience. 

When the ego, the ‘experiencer’ is transcended to become the Pure Self, in the infinite expanse of the Pure Consciousness, there is no more the play of this triad. In the taintless Self these triple categories appear to exist due to the ‘ignorance’ of the nature of the Self. They are the illusions of the mind when the true Knowledge does not illumine it. 

When the seeker realises ‘I am the stainless Self’, the misconceptions roll away. When we are dreaming, the dream is sustained by the play of the dreamer, the dreamworld of objects and the dream experiences. When the dreamer wakes up, the triple factors that maintained the dream, all merge back to become the one mind of the waker. The waking mind projects itself as the dreamer, as his world of objects and as the knowledge of his own experiences, joyful or sad, pleasant or terrible, horrible or peaceful. So long as these triple factors were maintained, the illusion of the dream was sustained. On waking up, the dream merges into the waking mind, from which it had apparently got projected. 

From the plane of ego consciousness, when the seeker wakes up to the plane of God-Consciousness, in the vivid and direct Realization that ‘I am the Self’, the ego, its world and its sorrows merge back to become the one, pure, infinite Consciousness. In Yogavāsiṣṭha we read, ‘Mind dead, desires gone, freed from the cage of delusion, released from all ego sense, the enlightened one wakes up into It.’ This is the Supreme State of Oneness, where the vision is not clouded by any disturbing factor. Same is said by Śrī Avadhūta Dattātreya in his Avadhūta Gītā: 

In the supreme infinitude of the Self, That I am – The blissful immortal Self, Evenness of feeling – ever, Like unto the sky – Untouched, unbound!!’ 

Such mystic realms of experiences are beyond the comprehension of finite intellect. Hence the best commentary upon them is to be discovered through one’s own deep meditation.