Ashtavakra Gita Ch. 2 V. 11 Commentary and Contemplation - 8th August 2017

Yeah, kind of the most beautiful verse. I remember that in the retreat recently shared, this can be used again. Oh, this is what everybody kept repeating even after the retreat for many days. Janaka says, 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I cannot decay, nor even die, whatever dies. Oh God, and all the universe should perish, the last wave of God.' Who can speak like 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration'? Please know this, you cannot mean the 'I' to be an ego. Arrogance cannot speak like this. It must be something which is greater than any human analogy because we can never say 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration' and then later he said, 'Oh God, and all the universe should perish, last wave of God.' So God and the universe perishes, I still remain. So this is the impersonal 'I' that is being spoken about. So wonderful as you are, you are beyond any adoration. We only praise what is significant, it's nothing phenomenal. And when we touch your reality, it is so beyond any of this. The Atma is coming to this recognition for itself: 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration.' Even if I can decay, Janaka says the same argument using the very popular analogy: 'I remain untouched.' Now it means some sort of lack of compassion or a lack of love? No, this is speaking for the reality of the Self, which means the untouched, no matter what the content of the play is. Once you see yourself to be what is looking through the real, that I am not touched by the content of any of these things, this is your discovery, your recognition.

So thoughts can be different. We don't have to report 'I am wonderful' to the world. I like to hear it, but this is now coming to the end of the world as our daily experience. Every day we have to experience something here as I also this world, no play. Then oil a machine, the state changes and it could be then another world appears, and you can call this a dream state for that waking state, or that dream state for this waking. It doesn't really matter. So the fact is that this much we can agree on: that the experience of phenomenal appearance also is ultimately coming and going. It is not a constant. So what is the definition of reality that we describe? The first thing we said: that which remains unchanging. And there is direct experience. Does not change from form to the tag definition of you. So without getting into the debate, you see the body is there and with a beginning that is looking pretty different. Let's not get into any of that for putting a label and all that, but for to be getting into that, at least we can agree that anything phenomenal is coming and going. The entire phenomenal experience and the substratum of it will also come and go. It is like something for deep sleep, dreamlessly, which no phenomenal experience exists. Therefore, if our definition of reality is there must be something which is unchanging and it does not apply to that, let's meet at this point and then see if phenomenal next again we will not conform to this definition of reality.

If there is something that does, there is something that remains unchanging irrespective of whether there is world now. Is there something which is here, which is here? We will set people to state abilities. We came on that, but saw what happened when you woke up. Which one is that one of your things that I keep? This much there must be agreement on. But if our definition of reality is that which is unchanging, then this entire phenomenal world together also cannot be shared as reality. So if there's something from our direct experience which is going to be unchanged? And we came to this point where we were saying that it's all but something happens, such meaning I am claiming to exist as using all the waking states. After this whole time, there is never the experience of a world without existence of this sense of me. But who saw this condition? What is that constant witness to the world states and the witness of all phenomena right now? If we are able to rest in this contemplation sometimes without picking up any notion of anything at all, then we are very, very open to the direct recognition of this thing. It's amazing. You are ready for this contemplation with that witness of all phenomena. That itself is not a phenomenon. Remain in this contemplation without taking up our impressions and notions of anything. Any judgment, no past, no future, nothing at all.

What to do with the mind as it comes with interpretations, conclusions, proclamations? Just let it come and go. What which is here even then? But there might be the content of the world. What do we support? What witness is this? This witness, as Nisargadatta Maharaj says, is prior to the sense 'I Am'. And the force will be forced. Is it available even without your existence?