Ashtavakra Gita Chapter 14 Commentary and Contemplation - 24th August 2017

'When desire has melted, how can there be wealth or friends or the seduction of senses? What use is scripture and knowledge?' So Janaka is saying now, because Ashtavakra was prodding him, 'Why do you still have wealth? Why do you have all of these things?' So he is saying that they are there, but I have no attachment. I am not desirous of them. Desire is gone. The world is functioning. There is a palace? It's okay. There is a hut? It's okay. 'How can there be wealth or friends or the seduction of senses?' Because Janaka is still prodding, saying with the Rishis, 'Why is all of this? How can you be a king if you are free?' He tests his disciple. So he is saying that all of this is dependent on whether there is attachment. If there is no attachment, then how the world looks outwardly is completely fine.

Now Janaka is the excellent role model and a bit of trouble. A bit of trouble why? Because as Guruji says, everybody wants Janaka style. I'm like, no, you want to be the king also and you want... so you have an expectation then, 'Oh God, if it happens for me, or if it happens for me, please make sure that I have the Janaka style. Oh man, my comforts, my palace.' You see, all this is not taken away, but truly this expectation drops away. And then you come to this: 'I just want you, my Lord. I just want the Self.' The rest in respect to how this body is kept after that, and then the palace is remaining or not, truly this one is... so some have remained kings like Janaka and some have given up their kingdoms in one way. But nobody has come and said, 'Yes, please, Father, take back this freedom, let me have my money.' Nobody has said that after getting the true taste of this. Nobody wants to exchange this which is eternal, unchanging, for some momentary coins and glass. Like Guruji says, nobody comes to the realization of the Self and regrets, 'I want my old life back.'

Also he said, 'What use is scripture and knowledge?' Oh, pretty ironical because it is part of the scripture itself. Does this mean that all the scriptural knowledge, all the mental concepts that we might have picked up about spirituality—here we are empty even of that. That's why they say it's said, 'Janaka now said, empty the including.' Because many, many, even in satsang, for many, what they know of spirituality prevents them from becoming open and naked. Give all concepts. These are the babes which will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. So nobody is asking you to memorize Ashtavakra Gita. He is saying, 'Find the clues which are available to you, apply them, empty, use them to empty yourself of conditions.' And everything can be kept. The second point of the concepts of satsang, the point of the pointing in satsang, is to remove, is to empty out your basket of concepts, your basket of conditions. But once we said that these are thorns that we are using to remove other thorns, then these also will be thrown away. One of the best examples of the thorn being the question 'Who am I?' which removes everything else, and at the end even that is kept the same. He also said that you use a stick to light the funeral pyre, but we don't keep the stick after that on the pyre; even the stick is thrown away into the fire. So when Janaka is saying now that 'I'm untouched by any of this, whatever might come and go, I remain just the solitary witness. Do I need a scripture? Do I need some knowledge?' No, everything is allowed to come and go.

'I have realized the supreme Self, the witness, the one. I am indifferent to bondage and freedom. I have no need for liberation.' When the Self is discovered, you realize that the Self never needed anything. We don't mind bondage; those are not concepts that applied to the truth of what you are, but only that applied to that which you consider yourself to be. Both then saying is it, once you climb the mountain, can you say that there is no mountain? Janaka is now speaking from that position. He is able to see that bondage and freedom never applied to the reality of what I am. Because I considered myself to be limited, did I consider that I could ever be bound? If you have no shape or size, if you cannot be found as a localized object, what can tie you? What can bind you? If you are more spacious than this space in this room, if you are that space in which this space is there, what can bind you? Nothing can even bind this space; nothing can even bind time. Both of these are the beautiful products of consciousness—time and space. They cannot be bound. So that in which they arise, can it bind them? Therefore, first there must be the misunderstanding that 'I am limited' and in some way within this objective time and space. Then I can consider myself bound and then I can presume that I need freedom.

So he's saying, 'I have realized I am the supreme Self, the witness.' Again, choose exclusively to look to the witness. What is it that witnesses everything, all phenomena? This is the one we move to. 'I am indifferent to bondage and freedom.' And indifference not as a mental attitude. The movie is playing; I know it is not hurt, it is not touched in reality. 'I realize the supreme Self, the witness, the one. I am indifferent to bondage and freedom. I have no need for liberation.' So this time after the break I took and I started in satsang, I said: 'Can we stand in this perspective, or do you all first again want to pick up the perspective that you are bound and then start the journey again?' How can we be true to the present right now and see in reality if there is any bondage? Can we take that little bit of insight right now and see whether the mask of being an individual entity who is bound and needs freedom is still so attractive for you that you have to pick it up? 'Have to' only happens when you consider yourselves to be less than the Supreme Lord, the supreme Self. To consciousness, there is no 'have to.' That's why so often I describe it as a play, as a Leela. The consciousness is playing with itself. But because it has to, because it is the will of consciousness, it wants... the best news is that you only experience reality, but you interpret it as bondage. There is never the experience of bondage. True experience of bondage, suffering, bondage—all of this belongs to that one which you never can truly become: the ego, the identity. It is a minor aspect of your existence which plays out as consciousness. Pain might be getting some... must be getting some juice from them, some enjoyment in watching this movie, relating to the character as if it is that. Now as it is out of that play, coming out of this individualized play, discovering its true nature, what is its true nature?

'I have realized the supreme Self, the witness, the one.' The last verses of this chapter: 'The inner condition of one who is devoid of doubt, yet moves among creatures of illusion, can only be known by those like him. The inner condition of one who is devoid of doubt, yet moves among creatures of illusion, can only be known by those like him.' Because mostly when it is said like that, that you are free right now, what is the most common doubt that comes from the mind? 'It can't be that simple.' That is although it seems like... but that doubt basically is saying that it can't be this obvious. But this reminds me of Papaji. And the second time what came, and I shared this video with someone... someone came to Papaji and said, 'How could you help me because I don't see God?' Obviously he said...

Among creatures of illusion, you can only move by those legs. Because mostly when it is said like that—that you are free right now—what is the most common doubt that comes from the mind? 'It can't be that simple.' That is although it seems like it, but the mind is basically saying that it can't be this obvious. This reminded me of Papaji. The second time what came, and I shared this video with someone, someone came to Papaji and said, 'How could you help me? Because I don't see God.' Papaji said, 'What is seen by those who don't doubt?' 'I don't know.' 'God.' 'But I don't see God.' 'What did I just say? Put this down. Drop it. What do you see?' 'I see God.' And it was not this world which shifted in him, but where he saw that all that he could see is only God and he's been labeling it as object, a thing. Beautiful. Such a simple satsang.

He said, 'I don't see God,' and he must have had some outcome he sought. Papaji says, 'Doubt is down. Drop doubt. Now what do you see?' For one moment it came back, the ego, like 'What did I see? Who is down?' 'What do you see?' 'I see God.' It's that simple. It's that simple. It's all there is to it. We have been misinterpreting all that is. All there is, is Ram. We have been interpreting it as creation. So this is what I meant earlier when I said Jesus said only the children, only the babes, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Exactly what it means. The mind will come and tell you, 'You know, I know better.' And if you buy the story from the mind that 'I know better,' then why call anyone your guru in the first place when the mind is the guru still?

To trust the master means that... what is the master? The master is just the voice of your own divine presence, which is the heart itself. That's why in many, many forms of spirituality, the spiritual journey is known as the journey from the head to the heart. We move from allegiance to the mind to this divine presence, to the voice, to the stillness. This is the second one where he said if you are looking for God, then why give into the possibility that anything else exists? I'm paraphrasing a bit, but if God is what you want, why do you give the possibility that there is something else? The possibility that there is something else is actually against your most innocent insight right now. It's doubt. And we have nurtured this doubt every time we have believed the concept of an individual. We have played the prodigal son every time we have bought the story of the mind.

And if you play the prodigal son, then it can feel like when we come back home, there's bound to be some fear. 'How will my father accept me?' We live it vaguely. So, killing this fear and then the hope that 'Maybe I can make it as a person.' You think this is the story, isn't it? 'I can still make it.' So he tries and tries and tries. Nobody has ever made it to this eternal peace, no contentment, by claiming the idea of separation, of separateness. It is only on discovery of the truth. Truth is valuable only because of this. If it could happen that in living a lie you could have an eternally content life, then what is the value of truth? It must be that something at some point or the other starts to poke you when you're believing something which is not true.

So the chapter is called tranquility. If you don't doubt, it is impossible to not be at peace. So many things over the years we have heard, but can you hear something like: the universe knows the recipe. It is not making a mistake by putting too much salt in your life. God knows what it is. Do without doubt. 'Why me?' Does it always happen to me? I've said this before, that 'Why?' is the favorite question of the mind, and 'Who?' is the least favorite. Just one alphabet change. 'Why?' is the favorite question of the mind. I mean, especially this 'Why me?' including himself. 'My father, I still suffer.' This one screamed yesterday. He would claim he's freed from all suffering, just in one day, three years. But as he thought about it, if we change that question from 'Why me?' to 'Who am I?' Father, nothing is happening to awareness. This 'Why me?' has to do with the me-ness.

The voice of the Buddha said something, or Mooji, which all of us should watch, and I mentioned this recently. He was sitting with someone and he says, 'If I stick out my finger and I tell you, "Suck my finger," and you come like a child and you do it...' But the one question you ask is, 'Did he wash his hands?' You know, all this kind of thing. And you have that kind of innocence of a child, but doubt is this one. Really, we must tell him that he can share such and such. This kind of nonsense we play with. This one is on the way. Just as we have been told, some teachers recognize that is your reality, which is so far beyond this. It will take you to only eternal contentment. That is your will as consciousness, immortal. Thank you. You will not feel like your existence is threatened by the play of the world. This is the projector's ingenuity.