Chapter-9, Verse 1

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 9.1

अष्टावक्र उवाच 

कृताकृते च द्वन्द्वानि कदा शान्तानि कस्य वा। एवं ज्ञात्वेह निर्वेदाद्भव त्यागपरोऽव्रती॥१॥

Aṣṭāvakra said: 

1. To whom do the conflicts of duties performed and not performed and of the pairs of opposites belong? When do they cease? End for whom? Having thus fully enquired, through complete indifference to the world, become passionless and be devoted to renunciation.

The line of enquiry is exhaustively indicated here. The duties performed and not performed can bring disturbances only to the ego in us that arrogates to itself the ‘doership’. It is the ego’s sense of ‘enjoyership’ that experiences the tyranny of the pairs of opposites. 

They can cease only when the ego is no more and these illusory concepts belong to the equally illusory and unreal ego. The ego is itself a projection upon the Self and so its conflicts, anxieties, sorrows and so on, cannot affect me, the Self, who is the substratum for all the superimposition. 

What should then be my attitude towards the world of objects? If you see a pair of horns and a tail in me, what should be my relationship with my non-existent horns and tail? Will it not be an expression of my sympathy to you and your illusions, if I keep an attitude of indifference to my horns and tail? And supposing you in your friendship, would like to oil and massage my horns! Certainly, I should allow you to do so, because the oil cannot soil me and you, my friend, shall gain a great satisfaction! 

If this attitude can be understood, then you have understood the attitude of all Men of Perfection towards the world of objects and beings. He is passionless and lives ever devoted to the spirit of renunciation and negation of all illusory imaginations in the Self. Here the term ‘avratī’ is translated as ‘passionless’. Literally the word means ‘one who is no more observing the religious vows’ (vrataḥ). These observances are generally undertaken for the fulfilment of some or other worldly desire. Hence the term in the mouth of Aṣṭāvakra gathers a significant meaning, as ‘completely passionless’. 

Declares Mahopaniṣad: ‘Indifference to duties performed and not performed, as laid out in the sacred texts, he remains in his pure Self, as an ocean stilled.’