ASTAVAKRA GITA - 18

XVIII

Ashtavakra said:

1. Praise be to that by the awareness of which delusion itself becomes dream-like, to that which is pure happiness, peace and light.

2. One may get all sorts of pleasure by the acquisition of various objects of enjoyment, but one cannot be happy except by the renunciation of everything.

3. How can there be happiness, for one who has been burnt inside by the blistering sun of the pain of things that need doing, without the rain of the nectar of peace?

4. This existence is just imagination. It is nothing in reality, but there is no non-being for natures that know how to distinguish being from not being.

5. The realm of one’s self is not far away, and nor can it be achieved by the addition of limitations to its nature. It is unimaginable, effortless, unchanging and spotless.

6. By the simple elimination of delusion and the recognition of one’s true nature, those whose vision is unclouded live, free from sorrow.

7. Knowing everything as just imagination, and oneself as eternally free, how should the wise person behave like a fool?

8. Knowing oneself to be God and being and non-being just imagination, what should the person free from desire learn, say or do?

9. Considerations like ‘I am this’ or ‘I am not this’ are finished for the mystic who has gone silent realising ‘Everything is myself’.

10. For the mystic who has found peace, there is no distraction or one-pointedness, no higher knowledge or ignorance, no pleasure and no pain.

11. The dominion of heaven or beggary, gain or loss, life in society or in the forest, these make no difference to a mystic whose nature is free from distinctions.

12. There is no religion, wealth, sensuality or discrimination for a mystic free from the pairs of opposites such as ‘I have done this’ and ‘I have not done that.’

13. There is nothing needing to be done, or any attachment in one’s heart for the mystic liberated while still alive. Things are so for the life-time.

14. There is no delusion, world, meditation on That, or liberation for the pacified great soul. All these things are just the realm of imagination.

15. Whoever sees all this may well make out it doesn’t exist, but what is the desireless one to do, eh? Even in seeing, one does not see it.

16. He by whom the Supreme Brahman is seen may think ‘Ah I am Brahma,’ but what is he to think who is without thought, and who sees no duality.

17. He by whom inner distraction is seen may put an end to it, but the noble one is not distracted. When there is nothing to achieve what is he to do?

18. The wise man, unlike the worldly man, does not see inner stillness, distraction or fault, even when living like a worldly man.

19. Nothing is done by one who is free from being and non-being, who is contented, desireless and wise, even if in the world’s eyes personal action occurs .

20. The wise person who just goes on doing what presents itself for one to do, encounters no difficulty in either activity or inactivity.

21. One who is desireless, self-reliant, independent and free of bonds functions like a dead leaf blown about by the wind of causality.

22. There is neither joy nor sorrow for one who has transcended samsara. With a peaceful mind one lives as if without a body.

23. One whose joy is in oneself, and who is peaceful and pure within has no desire for renunciation or sense of loss in anything.

24. For the person with a naturally empty mind, doing just as one pleases, there is no such thing as pride or false humility, as there is for the natural man.

25. ‘This action was done by the body but not by me.’ The pure-natured person thinking like this, is not acting even when acting.

26. One acts without being able to say why, yett is not thereby a fool, rather is one liberated while still alive, happy and blessed. Such a one thrives even in samsara.

27. One who has had enough of endless considerations and has attained to peace, does not think, know, hear or see.

28. One who is beyond mental stillness and distraction does not desire either liberation or its opposite nor their compliments. Recognising that things are just constructions of the imagination, that great soul lives as God here and now.

29. One who feels responsibility within, acts even when not acting, but there is no sense of done or undone for the wise person free from the sense of responsibility.

30. The mind of the liberated person is not upset or pleased. It shines, unmoving, desireless, and free from doubt.

31. One whose mind does not set out to meditate or act, meditates and acts without an object.

32. A stupid person is bewildered even when hearing the truth, while even a clever person is humbled by it, just like the fool.

33. The ignorant make a great effort to practise one-pointedness and the stopping of thought, while the wise see nothing to be done and remain in themselves like those asleep.

34. The stupid does not attain cessation whether he acts or abandons action, while the wise person finds peace within simply by knowing the truth.

35. People cannot come to know themselves by practices - pure awareness, clear, complete, beyond multiplicity and faultless though they are.

36. The stupid does not achieve liberation even through regular practice, but the fortunate one remains free and actionless simply by discrimination.

37. The stupid does not attain Godhead because he wants to be it, while the wise person enjoys the Supreme Godhead without even wanting it.

38. Even when living without any support and eager for achievement, the stupid are still nourishing Samsara, while the wise have cut at the very root of unhappiness.

39. The stupid does not find peace because he is wanting it, while the wise discriminates the truth and so is always peaceful-minded.

40. How can there be self-knowledge for one whose knowledge depends on what he sees? The wise do not see this and that, but see themselves as unending.

41. How can there be cessation of thought for the misguided who is striving for it? Yet it is there always naturally for the wise person delighted in oneself.

42. Some think that something exists, and others that nothing does. Rare is the person who does not think either, and is thereby free from distraction.

43. Those of weak intelligence think of themselves as pure nonduality, but because of their delusion they do not know this, and remain unfulfilled all their lives.

44. The mind of the person seeking liberation can find no resting place within, but the mind of the liberated person is always free from desire by the very fact of being without a resting place.

45. Seeing the tigers of the senses, the frightened refuge-seekers at once enter the cave in search of cessation of thought and one-pointedness.

46. Seeing the desireless lion, the elephants of the senses silently run away, or, if they cannot flee, stay to serve that king like flatterers.

47. The person who is free from doubts and whose mind is free from longing and repulsion does not bother about means of liberation. Whether seeing, hearing, feeling smelling or tasting, such a
one lives at ease.

48. One whose mind is pure and undistracted from the simple hearing of the Truth sees neither something to do nor something to avoid nor a cause for indifference.

49. The straightforward person does whatever arrives to be done, good or bad, for such a one’s actions are like those of a child.

50. By inner freedom one attains happiness, by inner freedom one reaches the Supreme, by inner freedom one comes to absence of thought, by inner freedom to the Ultimate State.

51. When one sees oneself as neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences, then all mind waves come to an end.

52. The spontaneous unassumed behaviour of the wise is noteworthy, but not the deliberate purposeful stillness of the fool.

53. The wise who are rid of imagination, unbound and with unfettered awareness may enjoy themselves in the midst of many goods, or alternatively go off to mountain caves.

54. There is no attachment in the heart of a wise person whether he sees or pays homage to a learned sage, a celestial being, a holy place, a mate, a king or a friend.

55. A mystic is not in the least put out even when humiliated by the ridicule of servants, sons, wives, grandchildren or other relatives.

56. Even when pleased one is not pleased , not suffering even when in pain. Only those alike can know the wonderful state of such a person.

57. It is the sense of responsibility which is Samsara. The wise who are of the form of emptiness, formless, unchanging and spotless see no such thing.

58. Even when doing nothing the fool is agitated by restlessness, while a skilful person remains undisturbed even when doing what there is to do.

59. Happy one stands, happy one sits, happy sleeps and happy one comes and goes. Happy one speaks and is silent, and happy one eats and yet fasts. This is the life of a person at peace.

60. One at home in one’s very nature feels no unhappiness in one’s daily life like worldly people, remains undisturbed like a great lake, now finds all sorrow gone.

61. Even abstention from action leads to action in a fool, while even the action of the wise person brings the fruits of inaction.

62. A fool often shows aversion towards belongings, but for one whose attachment to the body has dropped away, there is neither attachment nor aversion.

63. The mind of the fool is always caught in thinking or not thinking, but the wise person’s is of the nature of no-thought because that one spontaneously thinks what should be thought.

64. For the seer who behaves like a child, without desire in all actions, for such a pure one there is no attachment even in the work being done.

65. Blessed is one who knows oneself and is the same in all states, with a mind free from craving whether one is seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling or tasting.

66. There is no person subject to Samsara, sense of individuality, goal or means to the goal for the wise person who is always free from imagination, and unchanging as space.

67. Glorious is one who has abandoned all goals and is the incarnation of satisfaction; such a one’s nature and inner focus on the Unconditioned is quite spontaneous.

68. In brief, the great-souled person who has come to know the Truth is without desire for either pleasure or liberation, and is always and everywhere free from attachment.

69. What remains to be done by the person who is pure awareness and has abandoned everything that can be expressed in words from the highest heaven to the earth itself?

70. The pure person who has experienced the Indescribable attains peace by one’s own nature, realising that all this is nothing but illusion, and that nothing is.

71. There are no rules, dispassion, renunciation or meditation for one who is pure receptivity by nature, and who admits no knowable form of being.

72. For one who shines with the radiance of Infinity and is not subject to natural causality there is neither bondage, liberation, pleasure nor pain.

73. Pure illusion reigns in Samsara which continues until self realisation. The enlightened person lives in the beauty of freedom from me and mine, from the sense of responsibility and from any
attachment.

74. For the seer who knows oneself as imperishable and beyond pain there is neither knowledge, a world nor the sense that ‘I am the body’ or ‘the body is mine.’

75. No sooner does a person of low intelligence give up activities like the elimination of thought than he falls into mental chariot-racing and babble.

76. A fool does not get rid of stupidity even on hearing the truth. He may appear outwardly free from imaginations, but inside he is hankering after the senses still.

77. Though in the eyes of the world he is active, the person who has shed action through knowledge finds no means of doing or speaking anything.

78. For the wise person who is always unchanging and fearless there is neither darkness nor light nor destruction, nor anything.

79. There is neither fortitude, prudence nor courage for the mystic whose nature is beyond description and free of individuality.

80. There is neither heaven nor hell nor even liberation during life. In a word, in the sight of the seer nothing exists at all.

81. One neither longs for possessions nor grieves at their absence. The calm mind of the sage is full of the nectar of immortality.

82. The dispassionate does not praise the good or blame the wicked. Content and equal in pain and pleasure, one sees nothing that needs doing.

83. The wise person does not dislike samsara or seek to know oneself. Free from pleasure and impatience, one is not dead and one is not alive.

84. The wise person stands out by being free from anticipation, without attachment to such things as children or mates, free from desire for the senses, and not even concerned about one’s
own body.

85. Peace is everywhere for the wise person who lives on whatever happens to come, going to wherever one feels like, and sleeping wherever the sun happens to set.

86. Let one’s body rise or fall. The great-souled one gives it no thought, having forgotten all about samsara in coming to rest on the ground of one’s true nature.

87. The wise person has the joy of being complete in oneself and without possessions, acting as one pleases, free from duality and rid of doubts, and without attachment to any creature.

88. The wise person excels in being without the sense of “me”. Earth, a stone or gold are the same to such a one. The knots of the heart have been rent asunder, and one is freed from greed and blindness.

89. Who can compare with that contented, liberated soul who pays no regard to anything and has no desire left in one’s heart?

90. Who but the upright person without desire knows without knowing, sees without seeing and speaks without speaking?

91. Beggar or king, one excels who is without desire, and whose opinion of things is rid of “good” and “bad”.

92. There is neither dissolute behaviour nor virtue, nor even discrimination of the truth for the sage who has reached the goal and is the very embodiment of guileless sincerity.

93. That which is experienced within by one desireless and free from pain, and content to rest in himself - how could it be described, and of whom?

94. The wise person who is contented in all circumstances is not asleep even in deep sleep, not sleeping in a dream, nor waking when he is awake.

95. The seer is without thoughts even when thinking, without senses among the senses, without understanding even in understanding and without a sense of responsibility even in the ego.

96. Neither happy nor unhappy, neither detached nor attached, neither seeking liberation nor liberated, one is neither something nor nothing.

97. Not distracted in distraction, in mental stillness not poised, in stupidity not stupid, that blessed one is not even wise in one’s wisdom.

98. The liberated person is self-possessed in all circumstances and free from the idea of “done” and “still to do.” Such a one is the same wherever and whenever, without greed. Such a one does
not dwell on what has been done or has not been done.

99. Such a one is not pleased when praised nor upset when blamed. One is not afraid of death nor attached to life.

100. A person at peace does not run off to popular places or to the forest. Whatever and wherever, one remains the same.