Ashtavakra Gita Verse 9.8
वासना एव संसार इति सर्वा विमुञ्च ताः। तत्त्यागो वासनात्यागात् स्थितिरद्य यथा तथा॥८॥
8. Desires alone constitute the world; therefore, you please renounce them all. The giving up of desires is the renunciation of the world. Now you may live anywhere you like.
Vāsanās are the subtle impulses and tendencies deep in our personality that determine the emotional and the intellectual profile in us. Its subtle expression is our ‘desire’ in our intellect. Therefore, vāsanā is often found translated as ‘desire’, although vāsanā is essentially the very seed from which a ‘desire’ springs forth.
All the vāsanās put together in an individual, constitute his ‘causal body’ (kāraṇaśarīra – sarvāḥ śarīrābhimānī (ni) samaṣṭikāraṇaśarīrābhimāni paramātmā īśvaraḥ) – that which determines the nature and quality of that individual's subtle and gross bodies. The ‘total vāsanās’ of all living creatures together becomes māyā, and Supreme Self expressed through māyā is God (Īśvara) – who is the very power behind creation, sustenance and destruction in the cosmos.
These vāsanās experienced as desires, thoughts and actions at the intellectual, mental and body levels, shackle the ego in a cage of selfishness and chain him to the wheel of birth and death. These vāsanās alone constitute the world (vāsanā eva saṁsāraḥ). Therefore, give up all ‘desires’. Giving up of ‘desires’ is giving up of saṁsāra. Now (adya), meaning ‘having renounced all desires, having sublimated all your vāsanās’, the individual is free to live anywhere he likes. The outer world can no longer bind him. He is free.
Says Yogavāsiṣṭha: ‘The bondage is the bondage of vāsanās; freedom is the freedom from vāsanās; you renounce completely the vāsanās and then renounce the very vāsanā for freedom. You have reached the goal.’ (baddho hi vāsanābaddho mokṣaḥ syādvāsanākṣayaḥ | vāsanāstvaṃ parityajya mokṣārthitvamapi tyaja || 4.57.19 || The man bound to his desires is a bondsman, and one freed from them is said to be set free from his slavery; do you but cast away your desires, and you will have no cause to seek for your freedom)
End of Chapter-9
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