Knowing This, I Remain Here (Ashtavakra Gita 12.3-12.4) - 23th November 2016

Effort is required to concentrate a distracted mind superimposed with illusion. Knowing this, I remain here. So this is what we said, isn't it? The chapter is called 'In the Self.' Now the sage is saying that if I allow myself to fall into this distracted mind, to give my belief to this distracted mind, then I know that effort will be needed for me to come back from there, you see. So because effort is required to concentrate a distracted mind which is superimposed with illusion—appearance of this illusion—knowing this, I remain here. I don't venture into this mind at all.

Just like you said earlier, the mind is complex. He is just reiterating the same point that he's seen from experience: that if he goes into that, you see, quicksand effort will seemingly be required to get pulled out of that. So I'll stay at that top of the flowchart which is 'I am the Atma,' you see. The minute we fall into these ideas, then effort will be required to concentrate this distracted mind back to the truth of who I am, because it is superimposed with Maya. Everything is called the illusion: the sensations in the body, experiences, contractions, display of people, relationships, people saying this and that, the outer Master—full, full drama goes on, isn't it?

So this illusion being superimposed in our experience, and if I've fallen into the quicksand of the mind, then I know that some effort will be needed. I will need to inquire. I will need to bring myself to a point of stillness. I don't venture into that quicksand at all. Knowing this, I remain here. See? Nothing to reject, nothing to accept, no joy, no sorrow. Lord God, I am here. These words can be said from this perspective of abiding in the Self.

Reiterated over and over in the past: it is not that I have to do something to abide in the Self. The Self is my natural state. It is the not allowing the false to be mixed as a pretense as the only way to stop the pretense. Okay.