Janaka's Joy of Self-Realization (Ashtavakra Gita 2.1 - 2.7) - 11th October 2016

So we're on Chapter 2 of the Ashtavakra Gita, which is the joy of self-realization. Let me just run through the first few verses that we covered yesterday. Janaka now realized through the pointings of the master what his reality is, and now Janaka is speaking from that space and he is expressing the joy of self-realization. He says, 'I am now spotless and at peace, awareness beyond consciousness. All this time I have been duped by illusion. By this light alone the body and the universe appear. I am everything or nothing. Seeing there is no universe or body, by grace the Self is revealed. As waves, foam, and others are not different from water, so the universe emanating from Self is not different from Self. Look closely at cloth, you see only threads. Look closely at creation, you see only Self.' Then verse number 6 says, 'As sweetness pervades sugarcane juice, I am the essence of creation.' I am the essence of creation.

So this 'I am' is a fundamental basis of existence. It is existence itself. We cannot say something exists before I exist. You cannot say something is before this I am. So we can say that this entire manifest world relies on this existence—one existence, one consciousness, you see. Don't try to visualize this; confirm that this is true. That which exists only when I am, another seems to appear only when I am. So this I am-ness is the source and it cannot be removed from the world. Just like the same sense, you cannot remove sweetness from sugarcane juice because it is all-pervasive. In the same way, the one Being, this Atma, this one is all-cohesive. The light of consciousness and all appearances upon the screen of consciousness, you see.

So the idea of 'me' and 'another' starts to fade away, you see. The idea of separation starts to fade away because we check: where is all of this? Where is all of this? Is it not inside me? All that is being experienced now, where is it being experienced? Is there any other space besides this one space of experiencing? Both the outer and inner are experienced in this one space of Being. So, 'I am the essence of creation.' Verse 7: 'Not seeing Self, the world is materialized. Seeing Self, the world is vanished.' A rope is not a snake, but it can appear to be so. What does it mean, 'not seeing the Self, the world is materialized'? As long as Being doesn't come to the recognition of the Self, it can seem like the world has a fundamental reality. It can seem like this realm is real or it is substantive as long as we are not recognizing who we really are.

And once the Self is seen, it is recognized, then the world is vanished. What does it mean? Does it mean that the world appearance will stop coming? No, the appearance will continue, because even Janaka is speaking these words in the phenomenal realm, isn't it? So the phenomenal appearance continues to appear, but the sense of dependence on it, the sense of reality about it... and what do we mean by unreal? We mean that it is not the truth because it is changing. And we saw in the last few days that the truth is unchanging. Maya is that which is changing. And if you rely on that which is changing to be the truth, what happens to us? We suffer. Every time you have suffered, we have misunderstood something which was changing to be unchanging.

Look at our relationships. We feel like you get into a relationship and it will be the best thing, and we feel like now nothing should change, I should just have it as it is. And then when things are changing, because change is the way of this realm, then we start to suffer. Or sometimes it is also the other way; we want things to change faster than they are, is it? Yeah, you want a partner to change according to who we are. Just the same things as I say this sometimes—just the same things which attracted us to that one, then when we seem to own that one, we want that one to conform to our image. So to expect the unchanging not to change, and to expect this false one will be able to change something in this realm, you see, both are the cause of suffering. The need for this is the resistance to what is. Either we don't want it to change, or we want to change it in a different way or faster than it is changing. This is a resistance to what is, and it is this resistance to what is that is the ego.