Chapter-2, Verse 21

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 2.21

अहो जनसमूहेऽपि न द्वैतं पश्यतो मम। अरण्यमिव संवृत्तं क्व रतिं करवाण्यहम्॥२१॥

21. O Marvellous! I do not find any duality even in the midst of human crowds. I feel like I am in a forest. Towards what then should I feel attachment? 

In the previous verses Janaka had explained how the universe of names and forms had rolled away from his perception and he was established in the experience of the infinite Self. All concepts of the body, feelings of the mind and judgements of the intellect have now no place in ‘I, who am the Pure Consciousness’. 

Naturally, one may wonder what would be the reaction of the Man of Wisdom in the social living, while he is moving amidst the jostling crowd of other members of his community. Here is the question answered by Janaka himself. 

The plurality is perceived only through the mind and intellect. When they are transcended, there is no perceiver to experience the plurality. Janaka living his own Real Nature exclaims here: ‘O Marvellous! I find no duality anywhere’. Even in the midst of the crowds of other human beings, viewed from the seat of Pure Consciousness, he recognises but the one Self that revels everywhere. 

The majestic aloneness felt by a wanderer in a forest is the example Janaka is forced to employ here. Even in a crowd, at some busy marketplace, he feels undisturbed as though he is in a deep forest, all alone. Since he is thus experiencing only the vision of the Self everywhere, how can attachments to the worldly things ever spring forth in the bosom of such a Man of Realisation? How can he come to sport with sense objects? He is ever identified with the divine Self and all his movements and relationships are his spontaneous play.