Ashtavakra Gita Chapter 10 Commentary and Contemplation - 18th & 21st Aug. & 12th Sept. 2017

So, this is the first: desire creates the world. The second is the desire which is part of the three Ds. The three Ds of babyhood. What is it? Duality, desire, and doership—actions which make up our so-called individual representation, our ego, our sense of identity. So only when this D is there... what is the basis of this desire? It means that there must be something which is already not me; only then can I desire it. If it is already me, how can I desire it? Or if I am everything already, is it possible for me to desire? So desire must come as a result of a belief that there is a separate me which is apart from some other object or some other creation, and I must have that, I want that.

So then, this 'me' and the world is what I asked you, isn't it? Is there ever disappearance without this duality of me and other? Me and the world is inherently of duality. This existence seems to care always. So, the creation of the world... if you have no desire, and even greater, if you have no sense that there is no separation, there is not a world which is apart from myself. Always my own consciousness, only my own existence. And there are no battles to fight, there is nothing to win or lose, there is no lack, there is no bondage. One or two.

So then, working from this perspective, then we can look at what he said about: look upon friends, lands, wealth, houses, wives, and all apparent 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, you see. That's why we're taking so much time over every verse, so that you can make it clear. Otherwise, there can be this idea that 'I must now be unattached.' You have to smell a little carefully and make sure that the personal identity, the individual identity, is not sneaking into this. Whose resolution would this be?

And so I say that many times in the highest of spiritual pointings and the highest of Advaita pointings also, there can be a great defense system for the ego itself, which can then make a conclusion that 'I, Ananta, have to be unattached. I, as something personally, have to become unattached.' What is your true position? Come to your true position. You are that awareness which is aware of its existence. How can that awareness be attached? So to become unattached actually is a clue to seeing that you already are unattached.

If you hold back to the blue cat... for the blue cat, there's a... the blue cat should not be attached to the milk. And if you believed 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 will completely pull me, but I will not be attached to the bowl of milk.' I'm not referring to the blue cat at all. I'm referring to you, which is beyond attachment and detachment.

So basically, everything is pointing us back to the two main things in Satsang. The two main things in Satsang: recognize what your reality is, match what your reality is; and secondly, don't buy into any story which does not conform to your recognition of what you really are. Buy into any story which is not true. Simply put, more true means not true about your reality. All the pointings of Satsang, all the scriptures are about this true Self-recognition and dropping of the false condition. Both ultimately the same as well. Be firm in non-attachment, be free of desire.

I made it simple, okay? You just don't believe your next thought. All this happens on its own. Bondage and desire are the same. This fire, desire. And we feel only by detaching from the world does one joyfully realize the Self. Now, there's a beautiful human... this... I added the word 'joyfully' 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, then it can seem like my existence will become robotic, you become so clean. And so the sage said, very strategically put the word 'joyfully' there, because no sage has ever reported that 'my experience has become so insipid and robotic.' In fact, you come to the presence of a sage, you find yourself inexplicably, I mean, so much joy. How can you come from that which is itself so joyless and insipid?

So it is not the giving of the renunciation which is usually understood by the mind, almost like we're depriving ourselves of something. It is not that kind of renunciation. It is only the dropping of the false beliefs, the false identity that you have picked up about yourselves. And then it is not that you contract into this measly object; it is truly an expansion which is beyond means, out of visible expansion, beyond any expansion that the mind can understand. A thing is outside of you, and yet you are not contained within the whole of everything. How do I explain these things? Outside of you, and yet even though everything which is appearing does not contain who it is you, but which is not a container for you, it cannot hold you. That much magnificence is there, discovery about yourself.

You are wonderful and deliver. Can you handle this wonder about yourself? Only if you don't try to contain me, if you don't try to make a limitation about what Ananta was able to say. And wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. Was it egoistic? Was he speaking personally? Because he was talking about who I am always, only talking about you. You are talking about yourself at all. The clues are requisites for this discovery. Magnificent you are, magnificent discovery of the Self. Has there be a halo for it to be magnificent? Was there meaning some great sugary, blissful feeling for it to be magnificent? No, just in the naturalness of what is already. You are wonderful.

You are one awareness itself. The universe is neither aware nor does it exist. Even ignorance is under you. What is left to know? You are one awareness itself. The universe is neither aware nor does it exist. Even ignorance is under you. What is left to know? The first part, 'You are one awareness itself,' is this the recognition from all the inquiry, from being in Satsang, from the contemplation on finding out who is that which witnesses even my existence? This one awareness, this is your discovery 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, smell, taste. All the preceding sight, smell, taste—all of this is not aware of me. You are aware of what dynamic aspect... is what you are. You are what you are, who are aware of the world. Since my birth, does it exist? Why? Because he means now neither is it real, meaning what we according to his own definition, which is that it must be unchanging. What is your experience of the world? Sometimes the world is like this, sometimes the world is like that. This world, sometimes I'm doing, ever-changing. So what is it which is unchanging? This is awareness. Is awareness changing? Is this witnessing change? This is the one constant.

So when he says it does not exist, it is only from that perspective. We have to be careful not to be within the world itself, come to just a verbal denial of the world. I have to clarify the definition of existence for this reason, otherwise many might come to this point and saying, 'But there is no consciousness, there is no being.' Oh, you see that, don't you? Exist for us to say that, to say even anything, to even say the world does not exist or to say that there is no being can only be spoken from this perspective. But it is not the ultimate reality because even being is ultimately for the Absolute Self, isn't it? Coming in here, right, and playing as 'I am' and 'I am' dissolving back into its own unique neurons is unreal, which means that even this, from this definition, of course, is coming and going.

And so how many times we say that even if you identify as if you are something personal, who identify as an ego for millions of lifetimes, doesn't ultimately matter because the truth is unaffected, untouched by this. Never really happened, can never really happen that the gold became dirty. The ego never was bad, just a play of consciousness. But this guise of consciousness, our mask of consciousness, all that you believe about ourselves, all that needs a belief to exist is a mask, is not the real here. It's an ambition which relies on your ideas about yourself.

Suppose you lost the functioning of this ability to understand what the mind is saying. There should be... somebody should make a movie like that. Somebody wakes up one day and they wake up in Bangalore and suddenly their mind starts speaking Aramaic or some other big question or something. Would you not exist? Of course, your outward appearance might seem very strange to most others who come across you. It's not about the outward appearances; it's what is fundamentally changed for your reality if suddenly something changed the switch in your mind and it became a different language?

Attached as you have been to kingdoms, sons, wives, bodies, pleasures life after life, still they are now lost forever. Attached as you have been to kingdoms, sons, wives, bodies, pleasures life after life, still they are now lost forever. So simple one, where you see that I am beyond all limitation means I am beyond all qualities. And I see that it is I that I considered myself to be this limited entity, the name and form that had relationships, that had attachment to money, that had attachment to body, has attachment to everything. So once I see that I am the object, and the appearance of all of this doesn't make a dent on the reality of what I am, appear...

Two kingdoms, sons, wives, bodies, pleasures, life after life, still they are now lost forever. So simple. One where you see that I am beyond all limitation means I am beyond all qualities, and I see that it is I that I considered myself to be this limited entity—the name and form that had relationships, that had attachment to money, that attachment to body, has attachment to everything. So once I see that I am the object and the appearance of all of this doesn't make a dent on the reality of what I am. Appearance of the phenomenal world doesn't change the reality of what I am. Now see that I have not removed, I have not removed these attachments, and I have transcended. I see that they are now lost forever, not in the way that they do not appear anymore. I have still appearance within the one that is attached. That one, if I was to look for that, I see the playful and continuity of consciousness playing as an umbrella to the rule of an unpatented, but that one is not there. What is realness? I said that from which my being emerges, and into which my being dissolves. All of this, these are aspects of my mode of being. So they are a mission that we, because the owner of these relationships is not to be found, has been transcended and has been replaced with that one which is true.

Chapter ten, verse seven: 'Prosperity, pleasure, pious deeds—enough. From the dreary forest of the world, the mind finds no rest.' Prosperity, pleasure, pious deeds—enough. See, it says in the dreary world, the very forests of the world, the mind finds no rest. So we looked at this many times and again, not to cause misunderstanding, this is talking about what is the position we are operating from. As if you do more of these pious deeds and after doing something which is out of ourselves, so as if in the chasing of prosperity we will find that complete happiness, as if the chasing of pleasure you will find a well as pleasurable, and as if in the performance of pious deeds which will serve the needs is as if find yourself. It is not that. He says no, in this dreary forest of the world, the mind finds no rest. Still following this mind, which is the worries of our individuality to ego, then do as we might, then we start with this trying to see. He is not saying that any of these things by themselves are bad. So we are not to create illusions to prosperity or to pressurized deal, but if we have the idea, wind of something is getting to the surface and keep taking Mooji as example sometimes where they dutifully he said once: 'Where does the shoe have to walk to become a shoe?' We can apply that, isn't it? Does the shoe have to become more prosperous to be a shoe? Does it have to find more pleasure to be a shoe? Do you have to do some rituals, walking as a desert to be commissioned to be? So this is what self-realization, self-recognition: what is it that I am? Prior to all of this, prior to all my conditions about myself, what is it?

Verse eight: 'How many lifetimes have you done hard and painful labor with body, mind, and speech? It is time to stop.' It's quite conclusive. How many lifetimes have you done hard and painful labor with the body, mind, and speech? Whatever active spirituality these are back evolving in you. So body, mind, and speech, wherever they got us, how many lifetimes would you try to find this eternal happiness in these type of actions? Why don't you stop? And when to stop? It is time now. For this one moment. I didn't say I have to stop this for this moment; I am adding that to make it easier for you because I know otherwise the mind can come with a lot of 'you stop all this.' Can we start with at least one moment? Can we give our utmost attention to ourselves for just this one, irrespective of what the mind is or desire is? To reward ourselves, don't jump to any conclusion.