Scriptures prohibit voluntary instructions or any information or advice unless specifically requested for. The first chapter starts with Janaka questioning Ashtavakra as to how to get Self-knowledge, liberation (Mukti) and dispassion (Vairagya). By liberation is meant the dissolution of our relationship with the phenomenal world resulting in the cessation of all miseries and being established in our natural state of Existence, Consciousness and Absolute Bliss (Satchidananda). Ashtavakra gives such a forceful and direct instruction in barely twenty stanzas that King Janaka immediately becomes spiritually illuminated and starts describing his own experience.
According to Ashtavakra, one could get instant liberation and bliss if only one were to separate oneself from the body and remain effortlessly resting in pure Consciousness.
A basic conviction or knowledge that I am not the body but the pure consciousness is an essential sine qua non in most of the spiritual paths including "Self Enquiry' as propounded by Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi. Lord Krishna also starts his sermon in the Bhagavad Gita more or less in the same strain explaining how the body is different from the Self, the former being subject to birth and death while the Self remains eternal and immortal. The very first step on this path is to understand clearly that the Self is all consciousness, always liberated, an uninvolved witness of all events and happenings, all pervasive and perfect like a "Super Conductor' and it has nothing to do with the body at all.2 It is only due to an inexplicable delusion that the world is superimposed on it and it looks as if it is bound and subject to all miseries including that of birth and death. One should abandon the idea of identification with this body-mindcomplex and remain as a sheer witness to all events and goings-on, divorcing oneself from the mental imaginations of joy and sorrow and without judging them as good or bad, right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant etc. It will be a choiceless perception.
The relationship between the body and the Self is as between an electric bulb and electricity. Electricity is different from the bulb and both have opposite characteristics. The bulb has a date of manufacture and may fuse or get broken one day while the electric energy is neither born nor can be destroyed. As the main attachment to the body is due to the attraction of the senses to various worldly objects, Ashtavakra exhorts Janaka to avoid all objects of senses as if they are deadly poison. (1-2) The second process after separating oneself is to rest in Consciousness. Consciousness is the capacity to know that "I am' or "I Exist'. This knowledge of "I am' is a direct knowledge which comes to us directly without passing through the medium of our senses like the eye, ear etc. It is an intuitive knowledge while the knowledge of the presence of other objects and persons in the world is a conditioned knowledge filtered and modified through the senses, mind and memory. The senses are unreliable instruments as proved by the sighting of a mirage in a desert. The fact that "I AM' is an incontrovertible direct Knowledge which requires no other proof. Remaining quietly in that ""am-ness'' or ""is-ness'', remaining as pure existence without any further qualification, is remaining in pure Consciouness ({M{V {dlmå` {Vð{g). Do not entertain any projected ideas that I am a woman, I am seventy years old, I am an Engineer, I am a father, I am an Englishman etc. Remain as "I AM' and do not repeat in the mind like a Mantra "I AM'. Simply "BE'.
Nisarga Datt Maharaj of ""I AM THAT'' fame has claimed that he got his enlightenment in less than three years through the only sadhana of remaining in "I AM'. Ashtavakra claims that enlightenment can be instantaneous (AYwZ¡d). This is the quantum flight from body consciousness to the eternal Existence. There are no processes, stages, auxiliary means or anything else involved. One should be careful not to meditate or think as "I AM' but to simply remain in that fact of one's Existence. One should not also associate himself with any extensions of existence, for instance "I am a Brahmin, I am a monk' etc.3 A newly born child, say an hour old, has no vocabulary or knowledge of the external world. Its only instinctive understanding in which it rests will be ""Ah, I am''. Be like that child. A new born child having no vocabulary cannot think. It is only aware that it is alive ("IT IS'). It just remains in that feeling of "I AM' and is happy. In the same way one should not have any thought including "I AM', but remain in that awareness of "AM-NESS' (Being). All miseries, stress, anxiety, tension etc., stem from our identification with the body. Delinking oneself from the body-sense and remaining in pure existence is a relaxed, peaceful and an effortless state. If we start remaining in such a state even for 3 to 4 hours a day, we shall certainly have self-realisation.
The second explosive Moksha-capsule which is far more potent than the previous one is ""You just remain in the conviction that you are liberated and free and you will be liberated. On the contrary if you consider yourself as a bound and limited being, you will continue to be bound.'' It is as simple as that. ""As you think, so you become.'' You have been conditioned and hypnotised into thinking that you are the body subject to various limitations including that of birth, death, old age and bodily afflictions. The process of de-hypnotising lies in considering oneself as consciousness and thus remain ever-liberated. This is logical and scientific. It is not enough to have an intellectual conviction that ""I am the ATMAN and ever liberated.'' The conviction should come from inside, from the entire being, with every cell in the body being, permeated with the knowledge ""I AM EVER LIBERATED.''
It is not a question of externally affirming that I am liberated but continuing to be involved in the world, choosing the pleasant and favourable and rejecting the unpleasant, favouring some and hating some others etc. We have to behave in actual life as the liberated self, free, unconcerned and uninvolved, choiceless and desireless. Those, who dare not go all the way, may try it even for half a day once a month or so. When you try to remain in that state, you will be bereft of all result-oriented actions, still, calm and subject to no reaction even if the heavens were to fall. You will not react to any news, good or bad, will not advise or instruct any body in connection with any worldly affairs, nor attend to or make any telephone calls however emergent they may be and will not keep a cell-phone by your side. You will not bother even if the President or Prime Minister of a country were to visit you.
Even if we may not rank with Janaka, by repeatedly hearing the Ashtavakra Gita, understanding would dawn one day. There cannot be an easier technique than Ashtavakra's.
The third method is elimination of "I'. The ego is the "I' sense which identifies itself with the body-mind-complex. This impostor of an "I' is sustained solely because we always consider ourselves as the doers of various actions and as the ones who experience the fruits of such good or bad actions resulting in joy or sorrow. Righteousness and sin, pleasure and pain are all imaginations of the mind and are not real5. Actually, there is no individual personality at all as all actions including breathing, thinking, eating, talking, walking, etc. are done by the Totality (i.e. the allpervasive cosmic Consciousness using each human body as an instrument). So we are not the doers at all. The Consciousness, after assuming a body, has forgotten its integral link with the Totality and instead indentifies itself with the body with all its limitations. So a false "I' is created which thinks I am breathing, I think, I eat, I talk, I walk, etc. The moment you cease to consider yourself to be the doer or enjoyer, you will recognise yourself to be ever liberated.
A story from Yoga Vasishta (another classic) is very relevent here. A demon called Sambara was causing a lot of misery to the gods of Swarga (heaven) and the latter also equally reciprocated it. Ultimately, Sambara created three robots-like demons programmed to go fearlessly and demolish the army of the gods. As these robots were not afraid of death, the gods became panicky and approached Brahma, the creator. Brahma told them ""These robots, newly created, have no conditioning of fear. They have no ego of their own and simply follow the programme. For some time, you fight with them and run away. By going on doing like this, this experience will begin to leave impressions and when they see that they are able to strike terror among you and make you flee, slowly their ego will begin to grow and impressions of fear will be built up. Then, when once the ego and fear are built up, even a child can knock them down''. The gods followed this advice and became victorious.
So long as one considers onself as the doer, the actions being motivated by vasanas/ desires bind one by forging a chain of birth and death in order to reap the fruits of actions good or bad as the case may be. When once one gets out of the notion of doership, being impervious to desires and by considering any action done by one as emanating from the Totality and as being done by the respective senses, oneself remaining as the witness consciousness, one will no longer be bound by one's actions.
Asthavakra, however, stresses as an elaboration of the first technique that by simply remaining in the firm conviction that ""I am the Pure conciousness'', you become freed from all miseries and established in happiness. Instead of remaining as the one immutable consciousness, unattached, actionless and pure, when one tries to meditate on it as ""I am the Brahman'' etc. it constitutes the main bondage6. (I-15)
According to a story current in some spiritual circles, King Janaka was once sitting all alone on the banks of the Ganges and loudly chanting ""Ah§ ~«÷mpñ_'' (I am the Brahman). The sage Ashtavakra who happened to come to that place began shouting repeatedly standing before Janaka ""This staff is mine, This Kamandalu (a vessel containing water) is mine''. King Janaka, who was irritated, left the place and went to another corner for his Japa. Ashtavakra followed the king and continued shouting as before. Janaka could not tolerate this any longer. He called Ashtavakra and told him ""Oh! great sage, nobody is disputing the fact that the staff and Kamandalu are yours. They are yours. Where is the need for you to shout and proclaim it?'' Ashtavakra laughingly countered - ""My dear Janaka, will this not apply to you also? you are Brahman and nobody can dispute it. Why then are you shouting ""I am Brahman?'' Just BE.
Notes on Three methods
- Effortless resting in pure Consciousness like a new born child.
- Conviction that you are ever liberated and free. Let the mind do its monkey business.
- Elimination of clinging to the ego self, doer ship and enjoyer ship. Everything is done by gunas, not the ego. You are the eternal witness.
Janaka gives three methods for remaining established in the Self, appropriate respectively to
(1) those who believe in duality (Dvaita) that the Self or God is absolutely different from the world, both of which are real
In this case one should remain unaffected considering oneself as a vast and infinite ocean on which the ship of the universe wanders hither and thither driven by the winds of the mind.
(2) those who believe in qualified non-dualism (Visishtadvaita) that though God and the world are both real, both are made of the same substance as reality i.e., the world is an Amsa (part) of God
In this case one should consider oneself as the infinite ocean on which the waves of the world arise and disappear without causing any loss or gain to the ocean itself.
(3) those who believe in Non-dualism (Advaita) that Self or God is the only reality and the world is but a false superimposition on the former due to ignorance.
In this case one should consider oneself as the infinite rippleless ocean where the world has been superimposed by imagination (just like the delusion of a serpent superimposed on a rope at dark).
The essence of all spiritual practice or Sadhana is ""DO NOT REACT'' to dualities like pleasure or pain, praise or censure, life or death, like or dislike, heat or cold, success or failure, good or bad, love or hate etc. Here Janaka has given some tips as to how to reach this stage, in respect of three different types of Sadhakas. (Chapter VIII-1,2 & 3)
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