The Ego Does Not Actually Exist (Ashtavakra Gita 1.10) - 8th October 2016

Verse number ten: 'You are unbounded awareness, bliss, supreme bliss.' Okay, where is Vijay? Don't focus on that part at all, yeah. 'You are unbounded awareness—bliss, supreme bliss—in which the universe appears like the mirage of a snake in a rope. Be happy.' Now he is talking about the creation of the universe within this unbounded awareness. We found no limitation, no boundary. We cannot find the location itself for this awareness. To say that it is bounded in some way would be then false, isn't it?

So, this unbounded awareness in which the universe appears like a mirage of a snake in a rope. So, the appearance of being comes along with the appearance of this phenomenal realm called the universe. But from the perspective of awareness, did something really happen just because the waking state came? From the perspective of awareness itself, did something change for it between the waking state and the sleep state or the dream state? No, isn't it?

So, you find that these mirages are appearing, this world of appearances, this universe. But from my utmost, my truest perspective, all of this is nothing. It's just a mirage. It is a coming and going. This state is here now, that which we call the waking state; it will go. We never know whether this waking, this kind of realm in this waking state, will ever come back. So, this world of appearances just arises as if a mirage, you see?

And then to say that I am within this realm of appearances is to presume that there is a snake there when actually there is just a rope, you see? So, the realm of appearances is there, but I am not an object within this realm of appearances. I continue to be the awareness itself, which is the one witness of this entire realm. So, the ego does not actually exist; it is just a belief.

So, if there was a rope here, you see, and if someone with credibility comes and tells you that's a snake, you see, then you will believe that that's a snake. So, seeing the person, the ego, has been just like this. There's never been a person, but we have taken the phenomenal appearance of this... what he called a rope to be just a rope as an object. There is no person, no snake living inside this rope, you see? It is just a belief, an idea, a mirage.