Chapter-2, Verse 22

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 2.22

नाहं देहो न मे देहो जीवो नाहमहं हि चित्। अयमेव हि मे बन्ध आसीद् या जीविते स्पृहा॥२२॥

22. I am not the body. Nor have I a body. I am not a being (ego). I am Pure Consciousness. That I had desired to live – this indeed was my bondage. 

Once having reached the state of God-Consciousness, the daring Man of Wisdom in Janaka is, as it were, in this verse, examining himself as he is and comparing himself with what he was. As he is in the state of his Selfhood, he realises, ‘I am not this body’. The term ‘body’ stands for all the three equipments of experiences. 

As all-pervading, infinite, unlimited Consciousness, there cannot be any material adjuncts in the Self. Nor have I a body – As the Self, Janaka cannot now feel any sense of attachment with anything. All bodies are in Him, but no bodies are His. 

A similar idea has been beautifully expressed in the eloquent idiom of the Bhagavad Gītā: ‘I am not in them, they are in Me’. Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa repeats the same idea in the Bhagavad Gītā: ‘This entire world is pervaded by Me in My unmanifested form; all beings exist in Me, but I do not dwell in them’. 

Since, Janaka feels that he is not the body, nor has he a body – meaning he is not aware of his equipments of experiences and, therefore, he cannot identify with them and develop any sense of ego (jīva) in himself and feels, ‘I am Pure Consciousness (aham hi cit).’ If thus, I was the Pure infinite Consciousness and I have now rediscovered my Real Nature, what was then my sense of bondage that I suffered in between? Thus enquires the royal saint and he himself answers that his only bondage was that while living in his delusion, as an ego, he had a thirst for life; as an ego he desired to live the joys of the sense gratifications. This alone was the bondage. When thus, the misconception ended, the ego has dissolved and disappeared into the vision of the Self.