This Shore-less Ocean of Being (Ashtavakra Gita Ch. 6) - 3rd November 2016

So yesterday, actually, in the Ashtavakra Gita, there was this term called the shoreless ocean, shoreless ocean. That shoreless ocean. Now somebody, Richa was sitting here, and she just felt like on hearing those words, something went so deep. It became so clear what we are speaking about because the mind, it works on limitations. It cannot fathom that which has no limit. It works on boundaries; it works on definitions. So as we allow our attention free, if you allow it to go as wide as it wants, you find that you have no limits because your attention is only moving within you. Wherever it might seem to be going in the so-called outside world, it is only reporting the things, bringing content which is all within you. There is no such thing as attention outside you, you see.

So see if this, which is your own presence, has any limit. And all limitations you will find are defined within this space. All that has limits appears within this infinite, boundless space, this shoreless ocean that is your own being. That is why Janaka said, 'What is there for me to renounce or even to accept or to destroy?' All of this is one consciousness, one being, my own presence. Just like the appearance of silver in mother of pearl, these appearances are illusory and changing. What is here which is apart from these appearances? If we could keep aside all that is subject to change, what is here that remains?

The mind can speak about that which is changeful. What can the mind report on? It can report on phenomena and say the objects in this world, the people in this world, this changeful body. It can report even on itself, its thoughts, you see, emotions which are changing. All of this changeful world, if you were to keep aside, then what remains here? Is there something which is unchanging, not coming in and going? There must be, because even those who are not spiritual, who have never really contemplated who they are, even they can tell you that everything in this phenomenal world is constantly changing. Yet what are they looking for? They are looking for a constant peace, a constant joy, a constant happiness.

Where did the idea of constancy come from if all that we had experienced was only the changing? Then how would this notion of constancy even have come? If all that we had experienced was only the finite, then where would this notion of the infinite have come from? So there must be a deeper knowing which is pointing us to this truth of the eternal and the constant, the unborn, the infinite. Observe this slowly: that only that which we have had some experience of, even the experience in our imagination, but at least some experience of, only those notions we really seem to pick up.

So if we never had the notion, we never had the experience of the infinite, then how did this notion of infinity come? If there never has been an experience, even conceptually, of the unchanging, then how would this notion have come? So these notions themselves are beautiful pointers pointing you back to the reality of what you are. Infinity is boundless. Our imagination cannot keep up with this notion; our concepts cannot keep up with this notion. It is only our recognition of who we are that comes close to this concept of infinity.