Ashtavakra Gita Ch. 15, Vs. 1-12 Commentary and Contemplation - 25th August 2017

'A man of open intuition may realize the Self upon hearing a casual instruction, while a man of cluttered intellect inquires'—be very direct—'for a lifetime.' Also, Adi Shankaracharya, at one time he met this great Sanskrit scholar, but he knew all the scriptures, the nuances, the language, and the literal translation of every word and what all it could represent. So it is for him, in that encounter, that he composed his beautiful song. You can see who I am; you can see the set of verses removing them. So he told him his instruction to this grammarian: 'Bhaja Govindam.' Grammarian, chant the name of Govinda, chant the name of Krishna, you fool! Literally, he said, 'Mudha-mate.' Chant the name of Krishna because all this grammar, all this mental baggage, is not going to get you anywhere. Empty out your intellect from all of this, come to the innocence of a child, and see how simple what is being pointed to is.

Why is it simple? Because it is here now. Not one step you have to take. You see, only this little bit of insight on what already is here. This checking is the inquiry: 'What is here?' or 'Who am I?' I know Anoop and I were speaking last, and he said, 'It's a bit complicated, this inquiry, this booklet.' And I promised him we will look together at this inquiry. So basically, what is happening is that if you remove all the complications and all the instructions, what is being checked is: what is it that is here? And you might say, 'There is the appearance of a body here, the appearance of this room here, there are these thoughts which come, emotions come.' So Bhagavan has suggested: can we find out who is the witness of these? And is that also coming and going? Whatever might be moving in front of us, what witness is that?

You might very intimately experience this body. Find out who witnesses the sensations of the body: the arm, the leg, also the head. That which witnesses it, is that also contained within this set of body sensations? So if you don't let a mental answer come in the way and you stay with your insight, even if that insight feels like it is nothing—the insight feels like it is nothing—staying with that nothing, even if the mind is getting frustrated that 'I am not coming to an answer.' You see, actually, this not coming to a mental answer is very useful because we allow ourselves to remain with our true insight without making a conclusion about it. We are not struggling to make conclusions, and this is the opposite of how we learned how to study in the past, where we must come to a conclusion. And if you come to the right conclusion, then you get full marks. Here, this is the way of emptying out every conclusion that I have carried about myself and coming to this pristine seeing: who is that which witnesses all that moves?

Aversion to the world's offerings is liberation; attraction to the world's offerings is the suffering of bondage. This is the truth; now do as you please. Well, I wouldn't have used the word 'aversion' then; I would have said something like detachment or allowing non-resistance to the world's offerings is liberation. Attraction to the world's offerings is the suffering of bondage. This is the truth; now do as you please. What does this mean, the world's offerings? The world is appearing. The mind is saying, 'I must have this' or 'I must not have this.' When something appears, it just appeared. You see something of great beauty and you say, 'This I want.' You see something which seems horrible and, 'This I want to run from.' Without the interpretation from the mind, the appearance of the world is just that.

When it becomes the sense that 'I must have this,' who is the 'I' in that? When we buy the idea that 'I must have some things,' that 'this offering is meaningful for me,' 'this desire I must fulfill,' who is the 'I' in that? Is that 'I' your insight? Is that 'I' that which you are seeing about yourself? In that case, is it the idea of the body-mind? 'I must be contained in this body-mind and therefore something outside this body is something that I must want.' And once you start to see, using the inquiry, as you surrender more and more, as you start to see, actually there is nothing outside of you. This body might be a very beautiful, very intimate, really sweet instrument, but it is not your container. You contain it.

Now, we have been taught right from childhood, and maybe many lifetimes, that actually it is the body container that contains me. Actually, this is just a condition; it's a teaching that 'I am restricted only to this part of the appearance and the rest of the appearance is not me.' This is something that we have been taught. They take this example, and often I say like this: that if you give a baby a new toy, this toy which you hang on the pram and it rotates, we buy like that for our children and we want them to play with that because we spent money on that. So you feel like they should use that. And then what would happen with our kids? They would look over there and then start playing with the handles, and this is also moving, that is also moving. They found the handle more attractive. So for them, they don't have this distinction that 'I must play with something which is this.' So this for them is an appearance.

We teach them: 'My hand, my hand, your hand.' Move this appearance of this body, this instrument. You can feel like this is mine, but in it, I'm contained. My boundary is defined by this. And yet you find in your experience that you feel that you are not contained in this. You say—let me say like this—'I will rest really after I am dead. I will get some rest after the body is gone. Rest in peace.' What is gone? But then I will find some rest. 'My body is very tired today.' So the sense that there is an owner of this body, which we consider ourselves to be, but this one we cannot find. Other ways to look at this: suppose you try and find the one who is concerned about—so concerned about money in the bank. Who is the one that is concerned about how much money is in the bank account? Does the body care about that? There is an 'I' who does. Who is the one who's concerned about the state of our relationships? The body? There is a seeming 'I' who does. What is this 'I'?

And if you had no idea about yourself, if you did not have the concept about who you are—I used to take this example very often. I used to say that if I told you you're a terrible ice skater, just a terrible ice skater, would that hurt you? 'Just terrible at ice skating, just leave it, it's not for you.' But for those of you who are—well, if I say 'terrible teacher' or somebody at work comes and tells you that, especially the boss, 'How could you say that I am...?' Immediately something gets attacked in terms of energetic content. The number of words spoken could be the same, the energy with which they are spoken also could be the same. I could be very, very gently telling you that you're terrible at ice skating; it doesn't seem to hurt. So it must be, 'You're a terrible husband, you're a terrible father, terrible mother.' In that, things fire because there is a concept that has been picked up that there is an 'I' here that must be a father, there is this one, there is this one, that one that owns the body, that owns our relationships, that owns our money, and now has transformed into the spiritual seeker, the quest for freedom. Where is that one?

So when the one asks 'Who am I?', he asks me, 'So who are you representing? Are you representing this one? Are you representing that which is your own insight, your own discovery about what you are?' You will find that there seems to be only one problem with this. There seems to be only one problem, which is that your mind doesn't agree with this. The mind is still saying, 'But what is he saying? All of this about... I've been working hard trying to make something of my life, trying to make money, trying to take care of my family. How can he say that this "I" which has been doing all of this doesn't exist at all?' It will come with this trump card of resistance. That is why Bhagavan asks: 'Who is this "I"? Is there such an entity in existence?' For the mind, this kind of thing is very, very scary, very almost destructive-sounding to the mind, which is trying to eradicate all the seeming work that it has done over I don't know how many centuries and how many lifetimes trying to...

I spent the beginning of my life trying to make money, trying to take care of my family. How can he say that this 'I' which has been doing all of this doesn't exist at all? It will come with this trump card of a resistance. That is why, go on, ask: Who is this 'I am'? Is there such an entity in existence? For the mind, this kind of thing is very, very scary, very almost destructive sounding. The mind is trying to eradicate all the seeming work that it has done over I don't know how many centuries and how many lifetimes trying to create this identity, trying to make something out of your divine presence, I am.

As I was saying the other day, this is the misunderstanding. We have misunderstood this existence and believed somewhere that this existence is something individual, something personal. 'This is mine.' As an individual entity, I exist here as if I am the person who can start exploring this existence. And you find that this existence contains all there is. Your mind will not agree with this, but you are seeing. Your direct insight will. And I'm not saying that you must go with what I am saying; what I'm saying is you must go with what you are seeing. What is it that you see about yourself? Go with that.

The knowledge of truth turns an eloquent, wise, and active man mute, empty, and inert. The knowledge of truth turns an eloquent, wise, and active man mute, empty, and inert; lovers of the world therefore shun it. It's very often put like this. I'll take some examples of them now. Notice that I'm just taking these examples as illustrations and you must not use these examples as any sort of benchmark for yourself.

So, what did we hear about Bhagavan? What happened with him? Bhagavan, one day as a teenage boy, felt like he was dying. He was in his home; he felt like he was dying. But something came within him where he said, 'If I'm dying now, I want to be there to see it.' Instead of panicking with that, he just lay down and said, 'Okay, let death come.' And he wanted to witness how it is. Now, in that, what happened is that he saw the truth about himself, which is the undying awareness, the undying Self. Then he moved to Tiruvannamalai, and for many years he did not speak. He sat quietly, sometimes being fed by villagers around him.

Then, take Kabir Ji. He came to the recognition of himself with the words of his master, and for many years he did not find the words to communicate this. So then people used to—he was very learned, like a professor—and people used to think that he's some crazy person. So what would happen then? In the beginning, people would have thrown stones at him and pushed him, and these kind of things happened. Then Guruji himself, when he came to the discovery of this, then for months he spent just sitting. He shares the story. So people would come to him saying, 'What are you doing?' 'I'm just sitting.' 'Are you meditating?' 'Just sitting.' 'Are you bored?' 'I'm just sitting.' Six months in his sister's house.

It is almost, you know, you know what happened is that I met Guruji the first time. I came back home, and for how many months... we had gone there just after I'd done a big technology conference. And spending some time with Mooji, I came back. It seemed like all this interest in everything, all this fire to work, ambition to do something, seemed to obey. And I was very happy, but that happiness was not yet visible outside. It's commonly when Ram Ji and the royal family kept wondering, 'Are you depressed? What has happened to you?' Because this movement can be there. And then after some time, of course, the energy came and still continues to some extent even today. There was this period of a few months of marinating in itself.

So that's why he is saying that this knowledge of truth turns an eloquent, wise, and active man mute, empty, and inert. It can seem like that from the outside. Lovers of the world, they shun it because if you see me like that after meeting Guruji, you wonder what happened. And I'm not expressing properly. Somebody is saying, 'Are you depressed?' 'Very happy.' 'I don't want this, whatever is on.' 'Right, for this stuff, you fool, what's going on?' So therefore, it can seem like those who are very attached to the world can seem to shun this, although at least it can bring a lot of fear for them that this should not happen.

And so Guruji also reminded us that nobody who has come to the discovery of the Self has regretted it. Nobody has said, 'Okay, take back this recognition of this undying Self. Let me not be the unlimited being. Let me go back to my limitations and my greed and my pride.' Nobody has said this. Beyond any experience that you can take, you're discovering that about yourself which is not coming and going. That which will make suffering a great difficulty for you. You have to work really hard if you want to suffer. Even phenomenally, actually, I can tell you, you've seen some of the photos of Bhagavan. There is so much joy, so much happiness there. And meeting group photos of the richest people in the world, that joy and happiness is not visible. The light of self-discovery, even in the phenomenal play, is for yourself.

That's why so many started to gather around Bhagavan even when he was not speaking. Another great Indian sage called Upasni Maharaj, he was in Pune and he met another saint, Sai Baba. He never used to speak or anything, people thought he was a buffoon. So she just touched him and he just discovered what he was. Then for many, many years he stayed in silence in a small box or something he built for himself. He just stayed in silence after meeting the Guru. This beautiful silence, this beautiful period of resting, as you would say, the switch over from running around like a frightened ghost to coming into this resolution. And then, safe, he has to come back. And very often, very, very often, it does. That is why these Zen masters were able to say that before enlightenment: chopping wood, fetching water; after enlightenment: chopping wood, fetching water.

Just to get a few more verses before we get into the questions. 'You are not the body. You do not have a body. You neither do nor enjoy. You are awareness alone, the timeless witness. You are free. Go in happiness.' So we looked at this, that most of us actually feel like, 'I am not the body,' but it feels like 'I am the owner of the body.' So neither of these are true. You are the light in which all of this is appearing. You are the screen on which all of this is appearing. You are not contained or limited just to this body in some way, although it might continue to feel like a very intimate instrument, a beautiful instrument at that.

'You neither do nor enjoy.' The same thing that in Sanskrit is said: 'tvam akarta, tvam abhokta,' which means you, consciousness, you do not do and you do not experience. Very happy that it's nice to look at both aspects of this. So I want to say that you are neither the doer nor are you the non-doer. You cannot take a position. The position is not you. So if you take the position, 'Oh, I am not the doer, so I am not going to go to work today,' that is also not valid. It is empty of these positions and allowing the movements of this body to happen on their own. So both doer and non-doer are not you as an individual entity. That which you consider yourself to be is neither of these.

Then find that you are not the experiencer. You cannot be. It is very, very common in India: 'Please God, I pray to you, but just make sure that it goes like this.' As the other day someone said like that, 'Father, I surrender this to you, but just make sure it goes well.' You can still hold on to the idea of the individual experience. 'Oh Guruji, why are you doing this to me?' The fact is, if Guruji is doing it, then Guruji is only experiencing it. There are no two there. Surrender means all is yours. Even the experience of what is to come cannot be this just this half-surrender.

This is how the path of prayer, the path of devotion, moves. Starting with this prayer: 'God, take care of me. Make everything go well for me. Make sure I have a good day.' Then it moves to: 'God, whatever is your will you bring to my day, I will experience it. You are doing everything here.' Then it might move to: 'God, who am I to make this clear? You are the doer and you are experiencing it. All of this is your play.' Then it comes to seeing that there is no separation. There is no God and me. All there is is one.

'You are awareness alone, the timeless witness. You are free. Go in happiness. Attachment and aversion are attributes of the mind. You are not the mind. You are consciousness itself, changeless, undivided. Go in happiness.' So this aspect we would realize: Self in all and all in Self. Be free of personal identity and the sense of 'mine.' Be happy. This realization must come in your own recognition. It must not just be a conceptual thing, because when it becomes just a conceptual thing, that leads to another flavor of ego. That ego which is trying, working hard to be one with everything, working hard to love everyone, working hard to be one with everyone. And then when conflict comes or somebody ends up saying something hard, then this ego can feel very attacked. The ego that is trying to be one is best dropped. Don't try to be one. Just recognize what you are. In that, the oneness will be seen on its own.

So realize Self in all and all in Self. This realization comes with your recognition, not as trying to force yourself to feel as one or be as one. Be free of personal identity and the sense of 'mine.' Well, you are free. What we believe right now, before the mind's conclusion is coming—no, no, before that you are free. During that you are free. Also after that you are free. It's only the pose that you can pick up. I have started calling it a mask. You can pick up the mask of the bound one. These are therefore that is effort. To be free is effortless. Truth is effortless. It is the lie for which we have to make effort.

You notice that I can realize in this day-to-day life also, it's a lie, it's a big struggle. Even say one lie, then you have to remember what you lied about. Then next time with you, you have to lie many times and eight lies to cover up one lie. So this basic lie of our ego, we were reinforcing this with all these other lies. 'Then I will come to my peace and happiness. If I have this, I will come to my peace. I have this.' And you are starting to realize that all of these have been lies. And what is the good news? The good news is that actually none of this you had to do. You were completely complete and full. The source of happiness itself is what you have always been.

You don't need to go helter-skelter running about here and there trying to find it. All that you needed to live was inside your own box, on top of which you were sitting with the begging bowl: 'Give me some happiness, give me some happiness.' You actually got up and saw what's there in the box. You find the source of all happiness has already been here, has always been. At least this much is very simple to check: that the happiness never comes from outside you. Even if you feel like it's coming as a result of some desire being fulfilled, you see that it can only come from within you. Nobody can give you ten grams of happiness outside. It's coming from within. The source of happiness must be within you.

In that instant where you feel like, 'My desire got fulfilled and therefore I'm happy,' we find ourselves empty of the knot of desire. We find ourselves open in that one instant, then you can feel like some happiness is emerging. So the mind will say, 'Okay, let me give you the next thing to get so that again you can feel happiness. Let me give you the next thing to go next.' And I'm saying, see that this play can go on and on. That's why here, at least the expression, it does not play like many sages have said in the past: 'I give them what they want so one day they might want what I want to give them.' Because I've seen that this desire is unlimited. The more you put into it, the more it grows. Free your personal identity and the sense of 'mine.' Be happy. You are that in which the universe appears like waves appearing in the ocean. You are consciousness itself. Do not worry. Be happy. You are awareness alone, the Self, the One.

At least the expression, it does not play like many sages have said in the past: 'I give them what they want so one day they might want what I want to give them.' Because I've seen that this desire is unlimited. The more you put into it, the more it grows. Free your personal identity and the sense of mine. Be happy. You are that in which the universe appears like waves appearing in the ocean. You are consciousness itself. No need to worry. Be happy, my son, be happy. You are awareness alone, this Self, the one. You are the lord of nature. This is one of the verses they all had found for a Sultan. Have faith, my son, have faith. You are awareness alone, your Self, the one. You are the lord of nature. Looked at this a few times, I wonder what we are going to do about these verses in the book. Maybe you'll find some explanation to the past.

The body is made of worldly stuff. It comes, it lingers, it goes. The Self neither comes nor goes; it remains. Why mourn the body? The body is made of worldly stuff. It comes, it lingers, it goes. The Self neither comes nor goes; it remains. Why mourn the body? So again, I'm saying that I am not asking you to have any sort of aversion to the body, I mean, any sort of even disrespect to them. I'm saying that notice, notice its fundamental reality. It was most likely born in a hospital and most likely the last moments will be spent in a hospital, actually. So it is going into another. It is good just to notice that as beautiful as it might be, as amazing the system of the body as it might be, it's leading to the cremation ground or the cremation pyre one day or the next.

So does it make sense that we invest all our attention, all our time, on just tending this body which one day has to go? Especially when so many beautiful beings through centuries and forever pointed us and said there is something beyond this bodily existence. Is that not worthy of some attention? Is that not worthy of some inquiry to see, 'Can I not find that which is beyond this bodily existence?' That's why the Katha Upanishad is a beautiful metaphor for this, where the Lord of Death himself comes and tells this young boy that, 'I will give you, I'll give you whatever you want,' which is pleasures, a lifetime of the best life you can have. The young boy, Nachiketa, says, 'But will this make me deathless? Will this make me immortal? Will this be beyond you?' And Death says, 'No, all that is phenomenal one way or the other has to go.' So then the young boy says, 'Okay, then tell me about that which is beyond it.' Then the true discourse starts, the true communion starts.

The body is made of worldly stuff. It comes, it lingers, it goes. The Self neither comes nor goes; it remains. Why mourn the body? And if you take away this distinction between waking state and dreams, here I can tell you that we have experienced many bodies. I often take this example. Usually, I am actually quite late at night, so sometimes we wake up late. So one day the kids were going to school and this was 7:30 a.m. So they woke me up and said, 'Bye Father, we are going.' And I said, 'Bye-bye.' They went to school, I went back to sleep. Then a dream came. In that dream, I lived a full lifetime. More and more the specifics of that came to film. A lifetime was lived and I was married to Gurumayi in that dream. I was getting late for an event that she was waiting for me for. I was later forgetting the specifics, but I remember being half an hour late after living an entire lifetime. And when I woke up—it's God's sense of humor how it works—when I woke up, what time was it in this room? 8:00 a.m. In that seeming half an hour, a whole lifetime was lived. It seemed like it. You can have these, many of us at least, morning dreams.

Well, what happens in this so-called ten minutes? So just like the space of the dream is completely malleable—I like to say you don't run in a dream and come to the edge of the dream and fall, it's continuous, it keeps going—the same way time is also malleable. Space-time continuum. Now somehow we are more in acceptance of this space which is unlimited in the dream. This consciousness can project this space. When it comes to time, it seems a bit crazy. It is not. Physics now is discovering that this is one continuum of space-time. They've got to catch up. Where did I share this? The body comes, it lingers, and it goes. So so many bodies are being experienced and they all come. Many of us were not even in satsang, maybe not even spiritual. At least in India, I often like to say, 'Okay, must have been something I did good in my last life,' or something bad, depending on the situation. We like to say, 'Must have been something bad,' because this reincarnation karma is part of our basic conditioning that parents also have.

If the body lasts until the end of time or perishes today, is there a gain or loss for you, you who are awareness? If the body lasts until the end of time or perishes today, is there a gain or loss for you, you who are awareness? So this non-phenomenal Self beyond all objects is untouched by any movement of the phenomenal. So within this, it is this body or another body, it does not really matter to the Self. This body, the next body, the previous body, all these bodies are just phenomenal occurrences which come, they linger, and they pass.

Let the waves of the universe rise and fall as they will. You have nothing to gain or lose. You are the ocean. You know, he's expanded the definition. Often I say that this universe is the body of consciousness. So he went from the body coming and going quickly to saying, 'Let the waves of the universe rise and fall, you have nothing to gain or lose, you are the ocean.' Like the masters sometimes say, that if this entire world was to burn, or to drown, or to collapse, you yourself will remain untouched. So although the Sages are always blessing the phenomenal creation and all that appears within it, it is also clear to them that the Self remains untouched no matter what the state of the phenomenal appearance might be.

Now the mind will paint a fearful picture and say that if I come to this discovery of the Self, then I will have this negativity towards the world, aversion towards all. Sages are just blessing this creation. Nobody is saying even if it does burn, I remain untouched. That's why in Sanskrit one of the verses goes that even if you are cut, you are not burned, you remain untouched. This creation, Shastra na chindanti, Agni na dahati, means that which weapons cannot cut and fire cannot burn, that Shivoham you are. You are the substance of consciousness. The world is you. Who is it that thinks he can accept or reject it, and where does he stand? You are the substance of consciousness. The world is you. Who is it that thinks he can accept or reject it, and where does he stand?

That's why I say that this openness to see that all of this is just a movement of consciousness, this referencelessness, positionlessness, is all about this. Because the clue is that the ego is another word for resistance. What is, just is. And now you take any position with it, including opposition, it's the same thing. Since I accept you, I forgive you, you are making yourself into something limited again. So that acceptance which we are talking about, that openness which is allowing, which is not the position that we're taking, it is to see the truth. You are not buying the pretense that there has to be a position with regard to anything at all. We remain empty of position and be not in resistance to what is. You are the substance of consciousness. The world is you. Who is it that thinks he can accept or reject it, and where does he stand? He's pointing out that our acceptance and rejection also, if it means in that way that sort of functioning, also comes from the ego, where we can take no position with regard to the world.