Chapter-9, Verse 4

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 9.4

कोऽसौ कालो वयः किं वा यत्र द्वन्द्वानि नो नृणाम्। तान्युपेक्ष्य यथाप्राप्तवर्ती सिद्धिमवाप्नुयात्॥४॥

4. What is that time or that age, in which the pairs of opposites do not exist for man? He who, abjuring these, rests contented with what comes to him unasked, reaches perfection. 

The more we revel in the relative plane of joy and sorrow, the more we will be tossed about between the pairs of opposites. We cannot say that these will not affect us when we grow old. Age cannot dull, nor time soften the harsh brutalities and sharp sorrows of the pairs of opposites. 

So long as we are living identified with the mind, the ego will have to suffer the buffeting storms of joy and sorrow, of success and failure, of likes and dislikes and thousand other such pairs of opposites. The question of Aṣṭāvakra implies in itself the answer that never is a time or an age when the pairs of opposites will not affect an ego entity. 

Detachment from the mind is the only way to detach from the merciless brutalities of the pairs of opposites. He alone can realise the Supreme Peace and perfection who has transcended the mind and, therefore, has abandoned these pairs of opposites. 

He, thereafter, lives contented and happy with whatever comes to him unasked (yathā prāpta-vartī). In such a peaceful man, the ego is dead; he ‘reaches perfection’. 

This reminds us of a similar statement expressed in Mahopaniṣad: ‘Drunk in the nectar of cheerfulness, those peaceful men, who have reached the sense of contentment, ever revelling in the Self, are the saintly ones who have already reached the great state.’  

(santoṣāmṛtapānena ye śāntāstṛptimāgatāḥ, ātmārāmā mahātmānaste mahāpadamāgatāḥ. ~ Mahopaniṣad-4.35)

There cannot be any cessation in the alternate play of joy and sorrow. The pairs of opposites represent the two poles of the same factor. As there cannot be a piece of magnet with only one south pole, so too there cannot be joy without sorrow. 

This, too, is beautifully expressed in an eloquent verse: ‘End of joy is sorrow; end of sorrow is joy; these two are for the living creatures as inescapable as day and night.’ (sukhasyānantaraṁ duḥkhaṁ duḥkhasyānantaraṁ sukham, dve etat hi jantūnāṁ alaṅghyaṁ dinarātrivat.)

In fact, we cannot run away from sorrow without stepping into joy; nor can we retreat from joy without stepping into sorrow. There cannot be the crux of a wave without its hollows. Thus, by moving horizontally, we cannot escape the pairs of opposites. However far we may go, we cannot escape the waves of the ocean, can we? 

Yet, vertically, by rising into a higher plane of Consciousness we can definitely end the restlessness and exhaustions provided by the pairs of opposites.