Ashtavakra Gita Verse 3.10
चेष्टमानं शरीरं स्वं पश्यत्यन्यशरीरवत्। संस्तवे चापि निन्दायां कथं क्षुभ्येत् महाशयः॥१०॥
10. A great souled person watches his own body acting as if it were another's. As such, how should he be perturbed by praise or blame?
As the Pure Self, he is the Awareness, not only behind perceptions, emotions and thoughts but also of the very equipments of the body, mind and intellect. He stands ever as a ‘Witness’ of himself, the subject and its world of experiences.
This attitude can be only demonstrated, if the student can imagine a unique condition wherein while his dream is continuing, he happens to maintain his waking Consciousness! As a waker he knows that he is dreaming and from this higher state of Consciousness he could ‘Witness’ the dreamer in him dreaming his own dreamworld, projected by his own imaginations!!
If the above unique condition could even be intellectually comprehended, students of Vedānta can gain at least a dim concept of the vision of the world as perceived by a Man of Wisdom from his fully awakened inner state of absolute Bliss. To such a wise man how can the worldly praise or the clamorous criticism of the blabbering crowd ever bring any restlessness to disturb his serene bosom? In these verses Aṣṭāvakra is enumerating the attitudes and behaviours of a Man of Perfection. In fact, the theme in the song of Aṣṭāvakra is the glory of the Man of Perfection – a hymn to the God-man – playing in the finite world, amidst its crowds of miserable mortal entities.
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