Chapter-6, Verse 3

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 6.3

अहं स शुक्तिसङ्काशो रूप्यवद्विश्वकल्पना। इति ज्ञानं तथैतस्य न त्यागो न ग्रहो लयः॥३॥

3. I am like the seashell and the illusion of the universe is like the silveriness, this is ‘True Knowledge.’ There is nothing then to be renounced nor to be accepted nor to be destroyed. 

This famous example hinted at here is only to disabuse the mind of the student who suspects that the Infinite Self has undergone a temporary modification in Itself to play as the finite world of names and forms. The silveriness is not a modification of the shell; the shell remains as it is. The substratum is not affected by the illusory projections that are apprehended upon it. 

True Knowledge is when I realise that I am Pure Consciousness and the ego and its fields of experiences are all illusory imaginations of the ego. From such a perfect state of universal oneness, no doubt, the laya-yoga cannot be practised.