ASTAVAKRA GITA - 13, 14, 15

XIII

Janaka said:

1. The inner freedom of having nothing is hard to achieve, even with just a loin-cloth, but I live as I please abandoning both renunciation and acquisition.

2. Sometimes one experiences distress because of one’s body, sometimes because of one’s tongue, and sometimes because of one’s mind. Abandoning all of these in the goal of being human I live as I please.

3. Recognising that in reality no action is ever committed, I live as I please, just attending what presents itself to be done.

4. Mystics who identify themselves with bodies are insistent on fulfilling and avoiding certain actions, but I live as I please abandoning attachment and rejection.

5. No benefit or loss comes to me by standing, walking or lying down, so consequently I live as I please whether standing, walking or sleeping.

6. I lose nothing by sleeping and gain nothing by effort, so consequently I live as I please, abandoning loss and success.

7. Frequently observing the drawbacks of such things as pleasant objects, I live as I please, abandoning the pleasant and unpleasant.


XIV

Janaka said:

1. He who by nature is empty-minded, and who thinks of things only unintentionally, is freed from deliberate remembering, like one awakened from a dream.

2. As my desire has been eliminated, I have no wealth, friends, robbers, senses, scriptures or knowledge.

3. Realising my supreme self-nature in the Person of the Witness, the Lord, and the state of desirelessness in bondage or liberation, I feel no inclination for liberation.

4. The various states of one who is empty of uncertainty within, and who outwardly wanders about as he pleases, like a madman, can only be known by someone in the same condition.


XV

Ashtavakra said:

1. While a person of pure intelligence may achieve the goal by the most casual of instructions, another may seek knowledge all one’s life and still remain bewildered.

2. Liberation is indifference to the objects of the senses. Bondage is love of the senses. This is knowledge. Now do as you please.

3. This awareness of the truth makes an eloquent, clever and energetic person dumb, stupid and lazy, so it is avoided by those whose aim is enjoyment or praise.

4. You are not the body, nor is the body yours, nor are you the doer of actions nor the reaper of their consequences. You are eternally pure consciousness the witness, in need of nothing - so live happily.

5. Desire and anger are objects of the mind, but the mind is not yours, nor ever has been. You are choiceless awareness itself, unchanging - so live happily.

6. Recognising oneself in all beings, and all beings in oneself, be happy, free from the sense of responsibility and free from preoccupation with me.

7. Your nature is the consciousness, in which the whole world wells up, like waves in the sea. That is what you are, without any doubt, so be free of disturbance.

8. Have faith, my dearest, have faith. Don’t let yourself be deluded in this. You are yourself the Lord, whose property is knowledge- you are beyond natural causation.

9. The body invested with the senses stands still and comes and goes. You yourself neither come nor go, so why bother about them?

10. Let the body last to the end of the Age, or let it come to an end right now. What have you, who consist of pure consciousness, gained or lost?

11. Let the world-wave rise or subside according to its own nature in you, the great ocean. It is no gain or loss to you.

12. My dearest, you consist of pure consciousness, and the world is not separate from you. So who is to accept or reject it, and how, and why?

13. How can there be either birth, karma or responsibility in that one unchanging, peaceful, unblemished and infinite consciousness which is you?

14. Whatever you see, it is you alone manifest in it. How could bracelets, armlets and anklets be different from the gold?

15. Giving up such distinctions as ‘That is what I am,’ and ‘I am not That’, recognise that Everything is Self, and be, without distinction, and be happy.

16. It is through your ignorance that all this exists. In reality you alone exist. Apart from you there is no one within or beyond samsara.

17. Knowing that all this is an illusion, one becomes free of desire, pure receptivity and at peace, as if nothing existed.

18. Only one thing has existed, exists and will exist in the ocean of being. You have no bondage or liberation. Live happily and fulfilled.

19. Being pure consciousness, do not disturb your mind with thoughts of for/against. Be at peace and remain happily in yourself, the essence of joy.

20. Give up meditation completely and cling to nothing in your mind. You are free in your very nature, so what will you achieve by conceiving?