Ashtavakra Gita Ch. 10, Vs. 1-5 Commentary and Contemplation - 21st August 2017

So the creation of the world... if you have no desire, and even greater, if we have no sense that there is separation, there is not a world which is apart from myself. All is my own consciousness, my own being, our own existence. And there are no battles to fight, nothing to win or lose. We move naturally. There is no bondage or freedom. So then, looking from this perspective, then we can look at what he said above: look upon friends, lands, wealth, houses, wives, gifts, and all of that in good fortune as a passing show, as a dream lasting three to five days. Where there is desire, there is the world. Be firm in non-attachment, be free of desire, be happy.

How to be firm in non-attachment? Be clear about what you are. All of these can be a bit tricky with either side. We're taking so much time over every word so that you can make it clear. Otherwise, there can be this idea that 'I must now be unattached.' We have to look a little carefully and make sure that the personalized, individualized 'me' is not sneaking into this revolution. Because as I say many times, in the highest of spiritual pointing, the highest of Advaita pointing, this can be a great defense system for the ego itself. This can then lead to the conclusion that 'I, Ananta, have to be unattached. I, as something personal, have to become unattached.' Okay, what is your true position? Come to your true position. What atman is, which is aware of its existence? How can that awareness be attached? To become unattached is actually the fruit of seeing that you already are unattached.

If you hold back to the blue cat... the blue cat should not be attached to the milk. And if you believe yourself to be the blue cat all this time, then you will take that instruction from the perspective of the blue cat: 'Ah, I will not... it's completely me, but I will not be attached to the milk.' I'm not referring to the blue cat at all. I'm referring to that which is beyond attachment and detachment. So basically, everything is pointing us back to the two main things. In fact, the two main things in satsang: recognize what your reality is, see what your reality is; and secondly, don't buy into any stories that don't conform to your recognition of what you really are. Don't buy into any story which is not true, specifically what you mean by true about your reality. All the pointing of satsang, all the scriptures, are about this: self-recognition, dropping of the false conditioning. Both are ultimately the same as well.

Be firm in non-attachment, be free of desire. I made it simple for you. This world belief, you can explore all this. It happens on a form. Bondage and desire are the same. This quiet desire and these things... we by detaching from the world... that one quality we like to tell a little beautifully in this writing is to add the word 'joyful.' Because the usual objection to not being attached to the world is that it can feel like 'I will have a very insipid, robotic life if I give up my attachment to the world.' When it can seem like my existence will become robotic, you become so clear. I can say that very strategically: hope or joy appears. Because no sage has ever reported that 'my experience has become so insipid or robotic.' In fact, if you come to the presence of the sage, you find yourself inexplicably in so much joy, so much peace. It tells you: how can you come from that which is itself so joyless and insipid?

It is not the giving up, the renunciation which is usually understood by the mind, almost like you're depriving yourself of something. It is not that kind of renunciation. It is only the dropping of the false beliefs, the false identity that you picked up about yourself. And then it is not that you contract into this measly object; it is really an expansion which is... well, it's not even an expansion. You want any expansion that the mind can understand? A thing is outside of you, and yet you are not contained within the whole of everything. All right? In useless hope, things are outside of you, and yet even though everything which is appearing does not contain you, it is you which is not a container for you. It cannot hold you. That's what magnificence is. There's no doubt about yourself. You are wonderful indeed.

Can you handle this wonder about yourself? Only if you don't try to contain you, if you don't try to make a limitation about yourself. Janaka is able to say, 'I am wonderful.' In the one adoration... hope it's not egoistic. I am never speaking personally. If he was talking about truth, I am always only talking about you. You are talking about yourself, and all the tools are like this. It's perfect. It probably is magnificent. One magnificent discovery of the size of a halo for it to be... no, maybe some great sugary just fulfilling for it to be lined up front more, just in the natural. And so what is already? You are one, two, three. You are one awareness itself. The universe is neither aware nor does it exist. Even ignorance is unreal. What is left to know?

You are one awareness itself. The universe is neither aware nor does it exist. Even ignorance is unreal. What is left to know? The first part, 'you are one awareness itself,' is this the excitation from all the inquiries on being in satsang, from the contemplation on finding out who is that which is even my existence? This one. When you go to subject now, 'the universe is neither aware nor does it exist,' this is like saying that I am aware of the world. I am aware of sight. In all the succeeding sight, smell, it is all of this—it is not aware of me. You are aware. The dynamic aspect is what you are. This is what you want. You are awareness. Then, 'neither does it exist.' Why? Because he means now, neither is it here. Hearing what we according to his own definition, which is that it must be unchanging.

What is your experience of the world? Sometimes the world exists, and sometimes the world is like that. And from this world and time, some bring word... okay, changing. So what is it which is unchanging? Because while everything is changing, this is the one constant. So when this does not exist, then we from that perspective... we have to be careful not to mess with the world itself, some just a verbal denial. Okay, I have to clarify the definition of existence for this reason. Otherwise, many might come to this point: 'Okay, there is no consciousness, there is no being.' All you favor, don't you like this verse to say that? To be free, even anything to even say the world does not exist, or the favor there is no being, can only be spoken from this perspective. But it will not... ultimate reality to be even being system is key for the absolute self is all coming in. God, I am saying as I am, and I am dissolving back into its own source.

Ignorance is unreal. The country... which means that even this, from the definition of course, is coming and going. And so many times we say that even if you identify as if you are something personal, who identify as an ego for millions of lifetimes, it doesn't ultimately matter. The truth is unaffected, untouched by what never really happened. It can never really happen that this girl became real. The ego never was born. It's just a player function. If these guys are pencils or a mask, I'm sorry. All that you believe about ourselves, all that needs the beliefs we exist, is among... if not this yearly, it's a condition. This relies on your ideas about yourself.

Suppose you lost the functioning of this ability to understand what the mind is saying. So if somebody should make a movie like that—somebody wakes up one day and they wake up on time ago and forget a mind, and it starts speaking Aramaic or some other way... procession. Would you not exist? Of course, your outward appearance might seem very strange to most others who've come for sale. What about the half-word of papers? What is fundamentally changed for your reality? Has something changed? The switch in your mind, and it became a different language.