Chapter-1, Verse 18

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 1.18

साकारमनृतं विद्धि निराकारं तु निश्चलम्। एतत्तत्त्वोपदेशेन न पुनर्भवसम्भवः॥१८॥

18. Know that which has form to be false and the formless to be changeless. Through this spiritual instruction you shall escape the possibility of rebirth. 

When a sincere seeker tries to practise what has been suggested in the previous verse, the meditator may meet with a persistent obstacle at almost every moment of his meditation. He has been advised in the previous verse that the Self is ‘profound intelligence, serene and unperturbed’. Yet, in the meditator, thought waves do rise up continuously to disturb and distract his attention. How is he to dry up this continuous eruption of mental pictures, drawn from the past memories or fancied by his faculty of imagination? Here Aṣṭāvakra very subtly suggests, to the seekers, a technique on how to hush up the mind and silence the intellect. 

The student must have a clear idea of what he is seeking. In meditation, the student is seeking the Real, in and through his own mental web, woven by the erratic play of the illusory names and forms that constitute the unreal. In the mystic literature, ‘that which remains changeless in the past, present and future’ is the Real, and ‘that which was not and will not be, but apparently seems to exist in the present’ is the unreal. Thus, the post is ‘real’; the ghost is ‘unreal’. The waking is ‘real’; the dream is ‘unreal’. The ocean is real, the waves are unreal. The changing world of plurality is the unreal; the permanent substratum is the Real. 

The body, the mind, the intellect and their perceptions, emotions and thoughts are all constantly changing and therefore, they are unreal. The Consciousness that illumines their rise, their existence and their disappearance is permanent and, therefore, is Real. Having thus a clear notion of what is Real and what is unreal, the meditator can very easily reject the false, the unreal and aspire to apprehend the true, the Real. ‘Know that which has form’, meaning every object of experience, ‘to be false’ and ‘the formless to be the changeless’, meaning true (Real).

Naturally, therefore, the attention of the meditator is directed, away from his equipments of experiences, into the pure seat of all Consciousness. When the Knowledge of this True Nature of the Self reaches the meditator, his illusory ego and its misapprehension of the universe shall roll away.