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The Ashtavakra Gita or the Song of Ashtavakra,
also known as The Song of the Eightfold Cripple,
the Ashtavakra Gita or the Ashtavakra Samhita
scripture which documents a dialogue between the
Perfect Master Ashtavakra and Janaka, the King of
Mithila.
There are 298 stanzas of the Gita dwelling on
various aspects of liberation, have no reference to
God. Ashtavakra’s discourse is divided into 20
chapters, which deal with detachment, quietude,
wisdom, happiness, tranquillity, self-knowledge,
peace, self-repose and liberation.
Ashavakra Gita
Part I –
Part II –
Part
III
5.1 All this arises out of you, like a bubble
out of the sea. Knowing yourself like this to be
but one, you can go to your rest.
5.2 In spite of being in front of your eyes, all
this, being insubstantial, does not exist in you,
spotless as you are. It is an appearance like the
snake in a rope, so you can go to your rest.
5.3 Equal in pain and in pleasure, equal in hope
and in disappointment, equal in life and in death,
and complete as you are, you can go to your
rest.
5.4 Ashtavakra said I am infinite like space,
and the natural world is like a jar. To know this
is knowledge, and then there is neither
renunciation, acceptance or cessation of it.
6.1 I am like the ocean, and the multiplicity of
objects is comparable to a wave. To know this is
knowledge, and here there is neither renunciation,
acceptance or cessation of it.
6.2 I am like the mother of pearl, and the
imagined world is like the silver. To know this is
knowledge, and here there is neither renunciation,
acceptance or cessation of it.
6.3 Alternatively, I am in all beings, and all
beings are in me. To know this is knowledge, and
here there is neither renunciation, acceptance or
cessation of it. Janaka said It is in the infinite
ocean of myself that the world ark wanders here and
there, driven by its own wind. I am not upset by
that.
7.1 Let the world wave of its own nature rise or
vanish in the infinite ocean of myself. There is no
increase or diminution to me from it.
7.2 It is in the infinite ocean of myself that
the imagination called the world takes place. I am
supremely peaceful and formless, and as such I
remain.
7.3 My true nature is not contained in objects,
nor does any object exist in it, for it is infinite
and spotless. So it is unattached, desireless and
at peace, and as such I remain.
7.4 Truly I am but pure consciousness, and the
world is like a conjuror’s show, so how could I
imagine there is anything here to take up or reject
?
7.5 Ashtavakra said Bondage is when the mind
longs for something, grieves about something,
rejects something, holds on to something, is
pleased about something or displeased about
something.
8.1 Liberation is when the mind does not long
for anything, grieve about anything, reject
anything, or hold on to anything, and is not
pleased about anything or displeased about
anything.
8.2 Bondage is when the mind is tangled in one
of the senses, and liberation is when the mind is
not tangled in any of the senses.
8.3 When there is no `me’, that is liberation,
and when there is me there is bondage. Considering
this earnestly, I do not hold on and do not
reject.
8.4 Ashtavakra said Knowing when the dualism of
things done and undone has been put to rest, or the
person for whom they occur has been cognised, then
you can here and now go beyond renunciation and
obligations by indifference to such things.
9.1 Rare indeed, my dearest, is the lucky person
whose observation of the world’s behaviour has led
to the extinction of the thirst for living, for
pleasure and for knowledge.
9.2 All this is impermanent and spoilt by the
three sorts of pain. Recognising it to be
insubstantial, contemptible and only fit for
indifference, one attains peace.
9.3 When was that age or time of life when the
dualism of extremes did not exist for people?
Abandoning them, a person happy to take whatever
comes suddenly realises perfection.
9.4 Who does not end up with indifference to
such things and attain peace when he has seen the
differences of opinions among the great sages,
saints and yogis?
9.5 Is he not a guru who, endowed with
dispassion and equanimity, achieves full knowledge
of the nature of consciousness, and so leads others
out of samsara?
9.6 If you would just see the transformations of
the elements as nothing more than the elements,
then 18 you would immediately be freed from
all bonds and established in your own nature.
9.7 One’s inclinations are samsara. Knowing
this, abandon them. The renunciation of them is the
renunciation of it. Now you can remain as you
are.
9.8 Ashtavakra said Abandoning desire, the
enemy, along with gain, itself so full of loss, and
the good deeds which are the cause of the other two
– I practice indifference to everything.
10.1 I look on such things as friends, land,
money, property, wife, and bequests as nothing but
as a dream or a three or five-day conjuror’s
show.
10.2 Wherever a desire occurs, I see samsara in
it. Establishing myself in firm dispassion, I be
free of passion and happy.
10.3 The essential nature of bondage is nothing
other than desire, and its elimination is known as
liberation. It is simply by not being attached to
changing things that the everlasting joy of
attainment is reached.
10.4 You are one, conscious and pure, while all
this is just inert non-being. Ignorance itself is
nothing, so what need have you of desire to
understand?
10.5 Kingdoms, children, wives, bodies,
pleasures – these have all been lost to you life
after life, attached to them though you were.
10.6 Enough of wealth, sensuality and good
deeds. In the forest of samsara the mind has never
found satisfaction in these.
10.7 How many births have you not done hard and
painful labour with body, mind and speech. Now at
last stop!
10.8 Ashtavakra said Unmoved and undistressed,
realising now that being, non-being and
transformation are of the very nature of things,
one easily finds peace.
11.1 At peace, having shed all desires within,
and realising that nothing exists here but the
Lord, the Creator of all things, one is no longer
attached to anything.
11.2 Realising that misfortune and fortune come
in their turn from fate, one is contented, one’s
senses under control, and one does not like or
dislike.
11.3 Realising that pleasure and pain, birth and
death are from fate, and that one’s desires cannot
be achieved, one remains inactive, and even when
acting does not get attached.
11.4 Realising that suffering arises from
nothing other than thinking, dropping all desires
one rids oneself of it, and is happy and at peace
everywhere.
11.5 Realising `I am not the body, nor is the
body mine; I am awareness,’ one attains the supreme
state and no longer fritters over things done or
undone.
11.6 Realising, `It is just me, from Brahma down
to the last blade of grass,’ one becomes free from
uncertainty, pure, at peace and unconcerned about
what has been attained or not.
11.7 Realising that all this varied and
wonderful world is nothing, one becomes pure
receptivity, free 22 from inclinations, and
as if nothing existed, one finds peace.
11.8 Janaka said First of all I was averse to
physical activity, then to lengthy speech, and
finally to thinking itself, which is why I am now
established.
12.1 In the absence of delight in sound and the
other senses, and by the fact that I myself am not
an object of the senses, my mind is focused and
free from distraction – which is why I am now
established.
12.2 Owing to the distraction of such things as
wrong identification, one is driven to strive for
mental stillness. Recognising this pattern I am now
established.
12.3 By relinquishing the sense of rejection and
acceptance, and with pleasure and disappointment
ceasing today, so Brahmin, I am now
established.
12.4 Life in a community, then going beyond such
a state, meditation and the elimination of
mind-made objects – by means of these I have seen
my error, and I am now established.
12.5 Just as the performance of actions is due
to ignorance, so their abandonment is too. By fully
recognising this truth, I am now established.
12.6 Trying to think the unthinkable is
unnatural to thought. Abandoning such a practice
therefore, I am now established.
12.7 He who has achieved this has achieved the
goal of life. He who is of such a nature has done
what has to be done.
12.8 Janaka said 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.
13.1 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.
13.2 Recognising that in reality no action is
ever committed, I live as I please, just attending
what presents itself to be done.
13.3 Mystics who identify themselves with bodies
are insistent on fulfilling and avoiding certain
actions, but I live as I please abandoning
attachment and rejection.
13.4 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.
13.5 I lose nothing by sleeping and gain nothing
by effort, so consequently I live as I please,
abandoning loss and success.
13.6 Frequently observing the drawbacks of such
things as pleasant objects, I live as I please,
abandoning the pleasant and unpleasant.
13.7 Janaka said 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.
14.1 As my desire has been eliminated, I have no
wealth, friends, robbers, senses, scriptures or
knowledge.
14.2 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.
14.3 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.
14.4 Ashtavakra said 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.
15.1 Liberation is indifference to the objects
of the senses. Bondage is love of the senses. This
is knowledge. Now do as you please.
15.2 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.
15.3 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.
15.4 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.
15.5 Recognising oneself in all beings, and all
beings in oneself, be happy, free from the sense of
responsibility and free from preoccupation with
me.
15.6 Your nature is the consciousness, in which
the whole world wells up, like waves in the sea.
That is 28 what you are, without any doubt,
so be free of disturbance.
15.7 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.
15.8 The body invested with the senses stands
still and comes and goes. You yourself neither come
nor go, so why bother about them?
15.9 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?
15.10 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.
15.11 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?
15.12 How can there be either birth, karma or
responsibility in that one unchanging, peaceful,
unblemished and infinite consciousness which is
you?
15.13 Whatever you see, it is you alone manifest
in it. How could bracelets, armlets and anklets be
different from the gold?
15.14 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.
15.15 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.
15.16 Knowing that all this is an illusion, one
becomes free of desire, pure receptivity and at
peace, as if nothing existed.
15.17 Only one thing has existed, exists and
will exist in the ocean of being. You have no
bondage or liberation. Live happily and
fulfilled.
15.18 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.
15.19 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?
15.20 30 Ashtavakra said My dearest, you
may recite or listen to countless scriptures, but
you will not be established within until you can
forget everything.
16.1 You may, as a learned man, indulge in
wealth, activity and meditation, but your mind will
still long for that which is the cessation of
desire, beyond all goals.
16.2 Everyone is in pain because of their own
effort, but no one realises it. By just this very
instruction, the lucky one attains
tranquillity.
16.3 Happiness belongs to no one but that
supremely lazy person for whom even opening and
closing one’s eyes is a bother.
16.4 When the mind is freed from such pairs of
opposites as `I have done this,’ and `I have not
done that,’ it becomes indifferent to merit,
wealth, sensuality and liberation.
16.5 One person is abstemious and is averse to
the senses, another is greedy and attached to them,
but he who is free from both taking and rejecting
is neither abstemious nor greedy.
16.6 So long as desire, which is the state of
lacking discrimination, remains, the sense of
revulsion and attraction will remain; that is the
root and branch of samsara.
16.7 Desire springs from usage, and aversion
from abstention, but the wise person is free from
the pairs 31 of opposites like a child, and
becomes established.
16.8 The passionate person wants to be rid of
samsara so as to avoid pain, but the dispassionate
person is without pain and feels no distress even
in it.
16.9 One who is proud about even liberation or
one’s own body, and feels them one’s own, is
neither a seer or a mystic. Such a person is still
just a sufferer.
16.10 If even Shiva, Vishnu or the lotus-born
Brahma were your instructor, until you have
forgotten everything you cannot be established
within.
16.11 Ashtavakra said He who is content, with
purified senses, and always enjoys solitude, has
gained the fruit of knowledge and the fruit of the
practice of union too.
17.1 The knower of truth is never distressed in
this world, for the whole round world is full of
himself alone.
17.2 None of the senses please a person who has
found satisfaction within, just as grape leaves do
not please the elephant that likes mango
leaves.
17.3 The person who is not attached to the
things he has enjoyed, and does not hanker after
the things he has not enjoyed, such a person is
hard to find.
17.4 Those who desire pleasure and those who
desire liberation are both bound in samsara; the
greatsouled person who desires neither pleasure nor
liberation is rare indeed.
17.5 It is only the noble minded who is free
from attraction or repulsion to religion, wealth,
sensuality, and life and death too.
17.6 Such a one feels no desire for the
elimination of all this, nor anger at its
continuing, so the lucky person lives happily with
whatever sustenance presents itself.
17.7 Thus fulfilled through this knowledge,
contented, the thinking-mind emptied, one lives
happily just seeing when seeing, just hearing when
hearing, just feeling when feeling, just smelling
when smelling and just tasting when tasting.
17.8 In one for whom the ocean of samsara has
dried up, there is neither attachment or aversion.
Such a one’s gaze is vacant, behaviour purposeless,
and senses never grappling.
17.9 Surely the supreme state is everywhere for
the liberated mind. Such a one is neither awake or
asleep, and neither opens or closes the eyes.
17.10 The liberated one is resplendent
everywhere, free from all desires. Everywhere such
a one appears self-possessed and pure of heart.
17.11 Seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling,
tasting, speaking and walking about, the
great-souled person who is freed from trying to
achieve or avoid anything is free indeed.
17.12 The liberated person is free from desires
everywhere. Such a one neither blames, praises,
rejoices, is disappointed, gives nor takes.
17.13 When a great souled one is unperturbed in
mind and self-possessed at either the sight of a
mate eager with desire, or at fast-approaching
death, that one is truly liberated.
17.14 There is no distinction between pleasure
and pain, man and woman, success and failure for
the wise person who looks on everything as
equal.
17.15 There is no aggression or compassion, no
pride or humility, no wonder or confusion for the
person whose days of running about are over.
17.16 The liberated person is not averse to the
senses and nor is he attached to them. He enjoys
himself 34 continually with an unattached
mind in both achievement and non-achievement.
17.17 One established in the absolute state with
an empty mind does not know the alternatives of
inner stillness and lack of inner stillness, and of
good and evil.
17.18 Free of me and mine and of a sense of
responsibility, aware that nothing exists, with all
desires extinguished within, a person does not act
even in acting.
17.19 One whose thinking mind is dissolved
achieves the indescribable state and is free from
the mental display of delusion, dream and
ignorance.
17.20 Ashtavakra said Praise be to that by the
awareness of which delusion itself becomes
dream-like, to that which is pure happiness, peace
and light.
18.1 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.
18.2 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?
18.3 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.
18.4 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.
18.5 By the simple elimination of delusion and
the recognition of one’s true nature, those whose
vision is unclouded live, free from sorrow.
18.6 Knowing everything as just imagination, and
oneself as eternally free, how should the wise
person behave like a fool?
18.7 Knowing oneself to be God and being and
nonbeing just imagination, what should the person
free from desire learn, say or do?
18.8 Considerations like `I am this’ or `I am
not this’ are finished for the mystic who has gone
silent realising `Everything is myself’.
18.9 For the mystic who has found peace, there
is no distraction or one-pointedness, no higher
knowledge or ignorance, no pleasure and no
pain.
18.10 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.
18.11 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.’
18.12 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.
18.13 There is no delusion, world, meditation on
That, or liberation for the pacified great soul.
All these things are just the realm of
imagination.
18.14 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.
18.15 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.
18.16 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?
18.17 37 The wise man, unlike the worldly
man, does not see inner stillness, distraction or
fault, even when living like a worldly man.
18.18 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 .
18.19 The wise person who just goes on doing
what presents itself for one to do, encounters no
difficulty in either activity or inactivity.
18.20 One who is desireless, self-reliant,
independent and free of bonds functions like a dead
leaf blown about by the wind of causality.
18.21 There is neither joy nor sorrow for one
who has transcended samsara. With a peaceful mind
one lives as if without a body.
18.22 One whose joy is in oneself, and who is
peaceful and pure within has no desire for
renunciation or sense of loss in anything.
18.23 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.
18.24 `This action was done by the body but not
by me.’ The pure-natured person thinking like this,
is not acting even when acting.
18.25 One acts without being able to say why,
yet is not thereby a fool, rather is one liberated
while still alive, happy and blessed. Such a one
thrives even in samsara.
18.26 One who has had enough of endless
considerations and has attained to peace, does not
think, know, hear or see.
18.27 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.
18.28 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.
18.29 The mind of the liberated person is not
upset or pleased. It shines, unmoving, desireless,
and free from doubt.
18.30 One whose mind does not set out to
meditate or act, meditates and acts without an
object.
18.31 A stupid person is bewildered even when
hearing the truth, while even a clever person is
humbled by it, just like the fool.
18.32 The ignorant make a great effort to
practise onepointedness and the stopping of
thought, while the wise see nothing to be done and
remain in themselves like those asleep.
18.33 The stupid does not attain cessation
whether he acts or abandons action, while the wise
person finds peace within simply by knowing the
truth.
18.34 People cannot come to know themselves by
practices – pure awareness, clear, complete, beyond
multiplicity and faultless though they are.
18.35 39 The stupid does not achieve
liberation even through regular practice, but the
fortunate one remains free and actionless simply by
discrimination.
18.36 The stupid does not attain Godhead because
he wants to be it, while the wise person enjoys the
Supreme Godhead without even wanting it.
18.37 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.
18.38 The stupid does not find peace because he
is wanting it, while the wise discriminates the
truth and so is always peaceful-minded.
18.39 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.
18.40 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.
18.41 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.
18.42 Those of weak intelligence think of
themselves as pure non-duality, but because of
their delusion they do not know this, and remain
unfulfilled all their lives.
18.43 The mind of the person seeking liberation
can find no resting place within, but the mind of
the 40 liberated person is always free from
desire by the very fact of being without a resting
place.
18.44 Seeing the tigers of the senses, the
frightened refuge-seekers at once enter the cave in
search of cessation of thought and
one-pointedness.
18.45 Seeing the desireless lion, the elephants
of the senses silently run away, or, if they cannot
flee, stay to serve that king like flatterers.
18.46 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.
18.47 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.
18.48 The straightforward person does whatever
arrives to be done, good or bad, for such a one’s
actions are like those of a child.
18.49 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.
18.50 When one sees oneself as neither the doer
nor the reaper of the consequences, then all mind
waves come to an end.
18.51 The spontaneous unassumed behaviour of the
wise is noteworthy, but not the deliberate
purposeful stillness of the fool.
18.52 41 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.
18.53 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.
18.54 A mystic is not in the least put out even
when humiliated by the ridicule of servants, sons,
wives, grandchildren or other relatives.
18.55 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.
18.56 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.
18.57 Even when doing nothing the fool is
agitated by restlessness, while a skilful person
remains undisturbed even when doing what there is
to do.
18.58 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.
18.59 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.
18.60 Even abstention from action leads to
action in a fool, while even the action of the wise
person brings the fruits of inaction.
18.61 A fool often shows aversion towards
belongings, but for one whose attachment to the
body has dropped away, there is neither attachment
nor aversion.
18.62 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.
18.63 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.
18.64 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.
18.65 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.
18.66 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.
18.67 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.
18.68 43 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?
18.69 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.
18.70 There are no rules, dispassion,
renunciation or meditation for one who is pure
receptivity by nature, and who admits no knowable
form of being.
18.71 For one who shines with the radiance of
Infinity and is not subject to natural causality
there is neither bondage, liberation, pleasure nor
pain.
18.72 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.
18.73 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.’
18.74 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.
18.75 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.
18.76 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.
18.77 For the wise person who is always
unchanging and fearless there is neither darkness
nor light nor destruction, nor anything.
18.78 There is neither fortitude, prudence nor
courage for the mystic whose nature is beyond
description and free of individuality.
18.79 There is neither heaven nor hell nor even
liberation during life. In a word, in the sight of
the seer nothing exists at all.
18.80 One neither longs for possessions nor
grieves at their absence. The calm mind of the sage
is full of the nectar of immortality.
18.81 The dispassionate does not praise the good
or blame the wicked. Content and equal in pain and
pleasure, one sees nothing that needs doing.
18.82 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.
18.83 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.
18.84 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.
18.85 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.
18.86 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.
18.87 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.
18.88 Who can compare with that contented,
liberated soul who pays no regard to anything and
has no desire left in one’s heart?
18.89 Who but the upright person without desire
knows without knowing, sees without seeing and
speaks without speaking?
18.90 Beggar or king, one excels who is without
desire, and whose opinion of things is rid of
“good” and “bad”.
18.91 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.
18.92 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?
18.93 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.
18.94 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.
18.95 Neither happy nor unhappy, neither
detached nor attached, neither seeking liberation
nor liberated, one is neither something nor
nothing.
18.96 Not distracted in distraction, in mental
stillness not poised, in stupidity not stupid, that
blessed one is not even wise in one’s wisdom.
18.97 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.
18.98 Such a one is not pleased when praised nor
upset when blamed. One is not afraid of death nor
attached to life.
18.99 A person at peace does not run off to
popular places or to the forest. Whatever and
wherever, one remains the same.
18.100 Janaka said Using the tweezers of the
knowledge of the truth I have managed to extract
the painful thorn of endless opinions from the
recesses of my heart.
19.1 For me, established in my own glory, there
is no religion, sensuality, possessions,
philosophy, duality or even non-duality.
19.2 For me established in my own glory, there
is no past, future or present. There is no space or
even eternity. 19.3 For me established in my own
glory, there is no self or non-self, no good or
evil, no thought or even absence of thought.
19.4 For me established in my own glory, there
is no dreaming or deep sleep, no waking nor other
state beyond them, and certainly no fear. 19.5 For
me established in my own glory, there is nothing
far away and nothing near, nothing within or
without, nothing large and nothing small.
19.6 For me established in my own glory, there
is no life or death, no worlds or things of this
world, no distraction and no stillness of mind.
19.7 For me remaining in myself, there is no
need for talk of the three goals of life, of union
or of knowledge.
19.8 Janaka said In my unblemished nature there
are no elements, no body, no faculties no mind.
There is no void and no despair.
20.1 For me, free from the sense of dualism,
there are no scriptures, no self-knowledge, no mind
free from an object, no satisfaction and no freedom
from desire.
20.2 There is no knowledge or ignorance, no
“me”, “this” or “mine”, no bondage, no liberation,
and no property of self-nature.
20.3 For one who is always free from individual
characteristics there is no antecedent causal
action, no liberation during life, and no
fulfilment at death.
20.4 For me, free from individuality, there is
no doer and no reaper of the consequences, no
cessation of action, no arising of thought, no
immediate object, and no idea of results.
20.5 There is no world, no seeker for
liberation, no mystic, no seer, no-one bound and
no-one liberated. I remain in my own non-dual
nature.
20.6 There is no emanation or return, no goal,
means, seeker or achievement. I remain in my own
nondual nature.
20.7 For me who am forever unblemished, there is
no assessor, no standard, nothing to assess, or
assessment.
20.8 For me who am forever actionless, there is
no distraction or one-pointedness of mind, no lack
of understanding, no stupidity, no joy and no
sorrow.
20.9 For me who am always free from
deliberations there is neither conventional truth
nor absolute truth, no happiness and no
suffering.
20.10 For me who am forever pure there is no
illusion, no samsara, no attachment or detachment,
no living being and no God.
20.11 For me who am forever unmovable and
indivisible, established in myself, there is no
activity or inactivity, no liberation and no
bondage.
20.12 For me who am blessed and without
limitation, there is no initiation or scripture, no
disciple or teacher, and no goal of human life.
20.13 There is no being or non-being, no unity
or dualism. What more is there to say? Nothing
emanates from me.
Ashavakra Gita
Part I –
Part II –
Part
III
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