Ashtavakra Gita Ch. 2 Vs. 9 & 10 Commentary and Contemplation - 8th August 2017
Saar (Essence)
Ananta explores the Ashtavakra Gita, guiding listeners to recognize that the universe appears within consciousness rather than a limited body. He encourages shifting from the conditioned sense of individual doership to the reality of being the unchanging Self.
The universe appears within me, but I do not touch it.
Without the mind's interpretation, everything is just happening on its own as the will of consciousness.
As a pot returns to clay, so will the universe return to me.
contemplative
Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated and may contain errors.
The Ashtavakra Gita Chapter 2, Verse 9 says: 'The mirage of the universe appears in me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon. As a pot returns to clay, wave to water, bracelet to gold, so will the universe return to me. I am wonderful indeed, I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I cannot decay nor even die, although the universe should perish from the last blade of grass. I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. Even with the body, I am one. I neither come nor go, I am everywhere at once. I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I am astounded at my power. The universe appears within me, but I do not touch it. I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I am everything thought of as spoken and have nothing. Reality, knowledge, the knower, and the known do not exist. I am the stainless itself in which they appear.'
The seeker continues after he comes to the recognition of the theology initiating from there with that the universe, the mirage universe, appears in me. As silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon. So this is 'me,' not the universe appearing in 'you.' This often is also misunderstood. If you feel like everything is appearing within me, that I have a limited boundary, all of this is happening within my body or within my mind, it's not that. What is the 'me' within which everything is appearing? What is this space? And everything that this sage is saying must be verifiable. You must be able to check that as your reality right now.
So this 'everything is appearing within me' can be very much a struggle for many because it can feel like I am here and you are there, I am here and the world is there. But suppose you do not have this boundary. This is where I am. Suppose the boundary was just made up. Suppose as we are contemplating this, you see that there is a sensation that before the body was not really a boundary to anyone. It was another set of occurrences within the one ocean of consciousness. Then where does all of this appear anyway? When does the world appear to you? We can say when we wake up. When we wake up, what wakes up? With that wake-up sense that 'I exist,' 'I am,' this 'I wake up,' 'I am wake up' with 'I am' is consciousness.
You don't need to make a distinction between any spheres. If there is phenomena occurring, then 'I am' must exist. Our existence is there. Have you ever had a phenomenal experience without your existence, without you existing? So this sense 'I am' puts on a multitude of sensations, energies; they also start to appear now. Then there is this weird energy. There are two sets of energies. One has these energy constructs that we call the body, which is what? A set of energetic sensations. If we experience that, feel that, they are so intimate. And the other is the visual sensation, the visual perception that we see as the body, which we call the body. Then there is another energy construct which is like a voice which is speaking, which we call the mind.
Now, without listening to what this voice is saying, even the distinction that 'I am this body' is not there. It's just a set of sensations which I experienced. There is no distinction between inner and outer. Then as the voice of the mind comes and it is telling you that you are something, and then what will it define that you are? Something. You are this body and I am your voice. Oh, wait a second. So within this, there's a temptation. The mind takes a picture and then tries to define you. Not to feel this voice which seems to come from here, but also jiggles around there in circles. You identify that this is a boundary defining that this is you.
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Then with this conditioning, what happens? We are all so conditioned to believe that a movement is happening through some volition. So are we going too far if we say there is also a temptation as you take it and you move this way yourself? Now, that's how what is moving? We are blinking, your head might be nodding, or I'm moving, but we are conditioned to believe that this is something that I am doing individually. You are limited to this and you want to control these movements. Not every movement is limited. Again, you are the doer of these movements alone. And as you identify, you become a limited entity and you are responsible for all the individual movements of this. Like a clear appearance, all the bodies, without conditioning you will see that we don't have this interpretation. We don't have this judgment. Everything is just happening. In form, we call it happening on its own or happening at the will of consciousness, of God eventually.
Which is the mirage of the universe appearing in me. As silver appears in mother-of-pearl, as a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon. So we talked about this over here in great detail, where it is just an apparent separation which exists, an apparent distance. Nothing really happened. This does, but there is not enough light. It can seem like there is a snake; actually, there was just a rope. Before, it can seem like the world, but it can be just consciousness. This is what the sages say. And again, you don't have to stress about these if these insights are not sinking in. You stay in the inquiry about who you are and let it become apparent to you. Because through conceptualizing and through reasoning, you will not come to this. At best, it can point you. We are only pointing and then it will become your own report, your own testimony, just like we became conditioned to proven technical systems.
So we said, 'As a pot returns to clay, wave to water, a bracelet to gold, so will the universe return to me.' So where does the universe go when the deep sleep state comes? There is no phenomenal experience, no phenomenal appearance, yet you are still there. So therefore, there must be something about your reality which is not phenomenal. Something about you which is not phenomenal. Now, does that one go away? That which sees that there is nothing in sleep and there is a world or your universe in waking? But does that one change in any way? If you are carrying the monkey of 'what's in it for me' on your back, you cannot perceive this. In fact, you cannot experience the world as pointing to yourself. Even the most beautiful picture might be there, but the mind might still be doing 'what's in it for me? What's in it for me? What's happening to me?' This 'me' which is on our back, the voice of the mind, it sounds like... let's double that to take them from another space.
The Thread Continues
These satsangs touch the same silence.
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