Ashtavakra Gita Ch. 2, Vs. 9-19 Commentary and Contemplation - 8th & 9th August 2017

Then, with this conditioning, what happens then is that you're also conditioned to believe that the movement is happening through some volition. You say, 'Are we going too far?' Just take it into your contemplation as you take it, and you notice for yourself now how the body is moving. You're blinking, your head might be nodding, but we are conditioned to believe that this is something that 'I' am doing individually. You are limited to this and you are aware of these movements—not every movement, but then again, you are the doer of these movements. And that's how duality comes. You are a limited entity and you are responsible for the movement of this particular appearance of the body.

Without conditioning, you will see that you don't have this interpretation. We don't have this judgment. Everything is just happening. Whether we call it happening on its own or happening as the will of consciousness or God doesn't really matter; it's just terminology. So, 'the mirage of the universe appears in me as silver appears in mother-of-pearl, a snake appears in a rope, as water appears on a desert horizon.' So, we've talked about this here in great detail, where it is just an apparent separation, which is just an apparent existence. Nothing really happened. Just as when there is not enough light, it can seem like there is a snake, but actually there is just a rope. Therefore, it can seem like there is a world where there is just consciousness.

This is what the sage is saying. And again, you don't have to stress about these if these insights are not seeming to stay with you. Find out who you are and let these become apparent to you, because through conceptualizing and through reasoning, you will not come to this. These, at best, can point you. We only know seeing, and then these will become your own reports, your own testimony, just like they became Janaka's. Janaka said: 'As a pot returns to clay, a wave to water, a bracelet to gold, so will the universe return to me.' So, when does the universe go away? The sleep state comes. There is no phenomenal experience, no phenomenal appearance. Yet, who is sleeping? You are. So, there must be something about you, at least, which is not phenomenal alone. Something about you which is non-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 the waking—does that one change in any way? If you're carrying the monkey of 'me' on your back, then you cannot pass through these insights. You cannot experience the words as pointings to yourself. It's the most beautiful structure. The mind might still be going, 'What's in it for me? What's in it for me? What's happening to me?' This 'me' we carry it on our backs. The words of the Ashtavakra Gita will sound like just turbulence. You have to taste them from one of those fields. Yeah, some of the most beautiful words. And I remember that in the retreat when we shared these, then this became the key for everybody. Everybody kept repeating even after the retreat for many days.

Janaka said: 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I cannot decay nor even die, whatever dies. Oh God, and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.' Who can speak like this? 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration.' Even in the height of our arrogance, we cannot speak like this. It must be something which is greater than any human arrogance, because we can never say 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration.' And then immediately he says, 'Oh God, and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.' So, God and the universe perishes; I still remain. So, this is the impersonal 'I' that has been spoken about. So wonderful. This is you. You are beyond any adoration, beyond any praise. That magnificent. Nothing in phenomena can really touch your reality. It is so beyond all of this.

Then Janaka shares this paper vision for himself: 'I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration.' Even if I perish... teachers have said... okay, my lineage is saying... it might seem too strong. Teachers even say, 'If the universe burns, everything in it, I remain untouched.' Now, is this some sort of lack of compassion? Is it a lack of love? No, it's just speaking from the reality of the Self, which remains untouched no matter what the content of the waves. Once you see yourself to be the ocean, these waves can be the victory, but the ocean is not touched by the content of any of these things. This is your discovery. This is your recognition. The report can be different. You don't have to report 'I am wonderful indeed,' although I like to hear it.

Now, coming to the end of the world, we have the experience and reason every day. We have this experience that something here tires of this phenomenal appearing, then the world vanishes. So, the state changes. And then another. Then this is a dream state for that waking state, or that dream state for this waking. So, the fact is that at least this much we cannot deny: that the experience of phenomenal appearance also is ultimately coming and going. It is not a constant. So, what is the informational reality that we described in the first meeting? We said that which remains unchanging. And this direct experience does not conform to that definition of reality.

So, without getting into a debate about sleep—seeing whether the body is still there is different, let's not get into any of that. We can do that also, but not getting into that, at least we can agree that anything phenomenal is coming and going. In fact, the entire phenomenal experience, at the substratum of it, you see, is also coming and going. There is something called deep sleep, dreamless sleep, where no phenomenal experience is there. Therefore, if our definition of reality is that it must be something which is unchanging, then it does not apply to that. So, let's meet at this point and then see: if the phenomenal experience does not conform to this definition of reality, is there something that does? Is there something that remains unchanging irrespective of whether there is phenomena or not?

Is there something which is here irrespective of the state, whether it is waking or not? That which saw what happened when you woke up—which one is that one? So, what you're saying is that it is this much. There must be agreement on that. If our definition of reality is that which is unchanging, then this entire phenomenal experience also cannot be described as reality. So, is there something from our direct experience which we have seen to be unchanging? And we came to this point where we were saying that it saw that something happened and suddenly 'I am' came into existence, that which we call the waking state. After this first 'I am,' there is never the experience of a world without the existence of this sense of my existence.

But who saw this transition? What is that constant witness which is aware of sleep, dream, and is the witness of all phenomena? Right? If you are able to rest in this contemplation for some time without picking up any notion of anything at all, then you are very, very open to the direct recognition of this. Let's all be ready for this contemplation. Who is it that witnesses all phenomena? Is that itself phenomenal? Remain in this contemplation without taking up any thought or inference, any notion of anything, any judgment. No past, no future. What to do with the mind as it comes with its interpretations, conclusions, and evaluations? Just let it come and go. What witnesses even that? But there might be the content of the world, or the thought. What witnesses this witness? As my Master says, it is a profound question. Can the perceiver be perceived? That which is aware of even your existence.

I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. Even with the body, I am one. I neither come nor go; I am everywhere at once. So, what is he talking about here? It can seem like the body has been made the villain in much of spirituality. Look in all the various traditions throughout the world; many times it is this body, the body-consciousness, which is the problem. But now the recognition is: with or without the body, even with the body, I am this one. No separation really came. It is only an apparent separation that happened, just like the snake in the rope. The appearance of the body is not equal to any separation. It is only the identification and attachment which makes it seem like there is a separate entity. That's why the sage says: 'Even with the body, I am one. I neither come nor go; I am everywhere at once.' All these are clues. All these are... so, take your story. Maybe before last night, we woke up at 1:00 a.m.

Without the body, even with the body, and this one more saturation really came: it is only there, our apparent separation that happened. Just like the snake in the rope, the appearance of the body is not unique to any separation. It is only the identification, attachment, which makes it seem like there is a separate entity. That's why the same Self, even with the body, I am one. I neither come nor go; I am everywhere at once. All these are clues; all these are so. Take your story, maybe before last night, we woke up at 1:00 a.m. because there was a beeping actually that was happening. It was every few seconds of the beep. We couldn't figure out. We went to the UPS, we checked, checked all our devices, all our fans. Who? The beep that we just can't recognize. So on one hand, everybody is up looking for this beep, and then we used totally—we went to the room, came back to the bedroom, we thought we couldn't find this. Then there were three words: let's take close attention here, the sound effect, where it's coming. The strangest thing happened. It seemed to be coming from like it was loudest when you were at the door. We couldn't tell whether it is from outside or inside. They just stood at the door and sound-waved all this. Then we said, 'Okay, what's going on?' Concentration, yes. Then we also discovered that it is happening exactly on 15 seconds. Every 15 seconds that beep is coming. Then we set a timer. Now my daughter is really very fast at a timer. Ah, next will be at something 48 seconds, 47. If we can be very equal to the sound, just ready for it, yes. And then we found in our cupboard the rolls, all sealed, and that small saved some button was being pressed by some fluids and it was beeping as a reaction to that. And it was setting like an alarm every 15 seconds it was beeping.

So what happened is that just this resilience to be pointed to: where is the sound taking us? You just have to let go of everything else and just follow them completely. Just like that, when this Gita is speaking, we have to just follow what he says. Same, just that moment he says, 'I neither come nor go; I am everywhere at once.' So what can we find? You need to say, 'I neither come nor go.' What can we find that with Ram doesn't come or go? Which is the one constant that we want? You can do like anything. If you see the world appearance, the body and so is changing, also comes and goes. Thoughts, emotions also come and go. All experience. So what is left? My existence now. One thing we can say about it, that as long as there is a world, there is a universe, this is the constant. Everything in the universe of the world also comes and goes, but as long as the world appearance is there to see, the one constant before it will be this. This is the one reality as far as our waking state is concerned. For this, consciousness, the third part, is the deity of the waking state, where the world is so much. Consciousness is there. It's the one constant where everything else is really moving and changing. This and this, actually, this spirituality comes to this: I am that I am. I am this one constant which doesn't—is it contained in location or is all location contained within it?

Many times I find that I just give the answer and that takes away from your own contemplating. So does it have a location in space? Does it have a form? Does it have a location in time, duration? All the clues are there with you. We cannot stop for being is effortless. And this feeling is the one constant in this ever-changing world. All this is to come to this consciousness, to come to get this, which is beautiful to have thought many times to follow these words just like a formal technique. Where is it pointing? The changing, what is it that is a change? All the clues are there also to do that. You cannot carry the monkey of the mind on your back as you go through a little. So he is constantly screaming in your ears. It's actually getting distracted by noise or somebody doing something. It's in this one, have to be like, 'Okay.' So just let that little represent you, you see. What is it that is unchanging? Everything else will come and go. The same said earlier, 'I cannot be harmed ever, though the pot and all the universe should perish to the last blade of grass.' So can we go resolve that reality of what I am?

I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I am astounded at my powers. The universe appears within me, but I do not touch it. So many times I say that I'm not so concerned about here at this moment itself. Apparently, there are bundles of millions of atoms which are all posing as if there are individual entities, and they all collect in this room from various parts of the world that we see. And then on the computer, when you only sit here like this, we are talking about that which is unchanging. Activation of how we do this: if the coconut is empty, then it becomes full again. It's no big deal. We can appear in this manner. Consciousness is not limited by any idea. This light of consciousness, whatever states with either—how to describe the power of that? That of which I'm speaking, I'm Jesus on earth in this representation, then aspects of that. That is not really very existence in this type of each time and squeezing foot pointing this way of light and sound. But it's entertaining this a bit of politics which became so fond of you exist an aspect of my own self. I am wonderful, if you allow me to say it. Only this is your own voice by poets, the names of sanctuaries and millions of lifetimes. There's nothing good in an eyelid. I mean space, which has no meaning except for such, except entity, that being that constitutes is an aspect of myself. It's more words than will be described, all the opposites within it.

And so basically that I'm just about that I am, I am astounded with my powers. The universe appears within me, but I do not touch it. I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration. I am everything or spoken and have nothing. Everything is me, everything is I am, yet I hold on to nothing because always one, always myself. My being, all that is hooked on him, all that is hot, even his mind is an aspect of reality. Knowledge, knower, and the knowable do not exist, and the transparent Self in which through ignorance we have you. So ignorance here means what is not the maintenance nuances, another word from Maya. So my own divine aspect, the divine hypnotizer, the divine illusion itself, this great Maya uses the light of my presence and creates this apparent inner voice as if I could become an object in something. This divine play in this divine manifestation, I cannot be bound by any of this. And that I'm this formless, trying to get to me with your mind is like looking at the moon with the arrow. Leave all your devices, you know your techniques, give all the ways. Find me that which witnesses all of this. Here we meet as one. This meeting is one sweetness. No phenomena can match this. We take communion. I am wonderful indeed, beyond adoration.

Maybe two more verses. Look at this person said: reality, knowledge, the knower, and the knowable do not exist. So this apparently starts this way of phenomena style, then all these possibilities that we know something. We talked about it, right? In the perceptual, most sensational, all of this of content is this theorem. So we can say the phenomenon straight comes reality. All of these eyes out of I, your witness itself, all right misses. So if this kind of knowledge—the knowledge, the knower, and the knowable—we applied to this phenomenal to the ultimate, the beer talking about cannot be obtained with this kind of knowledge. At best, this knowledge can only point beyond. Let's pick up our animation for Chapter 2, Verse 16, and the sister Democrats because the very same looking at one and seeing many is the cause of all misery. Looking at one and seeing many is the cause of all misery. Really cure was to realize what is seen is not this. I am one, aware, this full, immaculate, this correct, absolute. In his statement, he says looking at one and seeing many is the cause of all misery. Is it possible to have misery, to suffer, to be miserable without duality? There was not this me and another dream.

Looking at one, seeing many is the story of a life. Looking is only—we see only one appearance, but we believe that we're seeing many. What makes that distinction? Many times upon hearing this also, there can be a distinction made, which is that all of this is one. This is one; it doesn't count this. So even this body, even the seemingly inner perceptions here, are part of the one appearance. See the subtle ways in which the mind can still make some separation. Many times people hear this, 'Oh, this one,' and we can feel like, 'Oh, love everyone.' So you can feel like, 'I as somebody must now love everyone because they are one with me.' You didn't say something so beautiful as that? It can be duality: 'They are one with me.' That it is all so. We are looking at one consciousness, one will be, or if that is not clear, then at least one waking state. All objects will be the same, which is still, and seeing many the cause of all misery. And said often that the ego is a 3D—ego to the 3D, 3Ds the cat story with no the character who can say something this duality: 'I am something wing from this.' I am just now, you just are. I am. There is existence which is refugees, assistance which is effortless.

Okay, there are two aspects to this world is duality. See pain and pleasure, good and bad, feelings of one world, one universe. Is it now? If it is seen that it is one, then we step back from that world. Otherwise, we participate in that duality by our preferences: 'I prefer this, I don't prefer.' We participate with our concepts. But if we step back from this, it is something that the world is everything is learned right now. Everything is doing this design of this village, but we see that it is one world, just two aspects. Just like you might see that some of you have seen the statue of Shiva and Shakti as one star. So sometimes we can look at something and see only one aspect of it. Then it can feel like, 'Oh, this is confusion about this world is full of suffering.' My contemplation that seen that and everything relates into this manifest creation, then everything is available and it will reduces. There is nothing which is not cited. In fact, the times in which balance seems to get over it again, then you to set that you see this one. That's right, we can see that we can using that remain is not true ultimately because it's always taking a side. 'World is full of suffering,' 'This world is bliss.' Please, I think can conclusively say because it is this is the balancing of the yin and the yang is a constant. The design of it, little stressed between the opposites with the plays in this constant bound and down with this constant race.

So to see the world as a dual world, but to see that you are not participating in that, you are not an object within this. The world of you, the world appearance, I mean this one I is not subject to gravity of this world. Then that is the dropping of resistance. So what is just is. The motifs can be just what is without resistance, then people will go and that what is includes the movement of this body. Everything can be heard as if I have an individual entity and now I'm going to decide to let every as it is. That's not what I'm saying. I'm taking a step back for this position. I mean, I'm including the movements, the words, and the actions of this body which in the work is the false duality. That is what you see our scene. What is true is our interpretation, which means it seems part of this takes us away from this. I hear that I have to see that there is one, a Mayan appearance. What is your definition of appearance? This which comes and goes. So that which comes in appearance, and if I also come and go, do they still say to assume I need to not come and go? If I also came and go, who would see this? Reporting that I come and go would not be possible at all. It must be constant which is able to see the change. There is no possible good news is perception. If you mean consciousness at rest, you mean that which is not yet I am. Just I, not yet I am. It is not risen from its source. It's not appeared from the Self as a manifest exists. Deep sleep, yet there is awareness because—

In appearance, and if I also come and go, do they still say to assume I need to not come and go? If I also came and went, who would see this? Reporting that I come and go would not be possible at all. It must be constant, which is able to see the change. There is no possible good news in perception if you mean consciousness at rest. You mean that which is not yet 'I am.' Just 'I,' not yet 'I am.' It has not risen from its source; it has not appeared from the Self as a manifest existence. In deep sleep, yet there is awareness, because otherwise I would not be able to see. There is no perception. It's tricky; don't try to understand. You hear the words because you cannot understand it in that way now.

There is perception when 'I am.' The power of perception is that. Because you see, now, before I have even this perception, it is not good. There is no phenomena to perceive. And then now, there is no other object which is this consciousness, an object which is then this. Of course, you can report it on them. This phenomenal appearance is there. So the power of perception relies on this final power. One: attention. There is no perception without attention, yet there is without you. We can see perception trade in. When there is a lot of attention, usually late at night, we take this example to cool it off. And it happens that I'm leaving something, watching. The attention is depleting; it's getting withdrawn out from out of this sense that 'I am.' What arises is one consciousness, one beingness, and all this world of appearances is wrong. And you can try this for yourself. Do not create the idea of 'I' first in the mirror of perception. It must be perception with some reputation marked.

So you see, it says, 'All I see is one.' It is not that he is not able to perceive that there. I think that is this, is that all this rule of perception, the one consciousness saying. Often you do this exercise, various things begin to side. And so even in spirituality, there are two ways—many ways. Among that, modesty is one. One is that the start could be the presumption that the separation happened, there is a real person here, and how to get a better person, and then getting to the point where typically the couch is recognized: no one. Now, that is not Ashtavakra. For me, Ashtavakra is one, two, three, three works, and then hundreds of assistants from the only temporarily works. Minutes, six ways to point like this. You think you were the judge. He says you are the one solitary witness of all their lives. It's such a beautiful pointer, isn't this? Follow the trail of the witness and the recognition will be undeniable, without influence at best.

Then the mind will come to see nothing. I want those to come up to me and share with me. You follow the trail of the witness, you come to this place where it feels like nothing. I can't be much news can come up to me. Then I check. Now, follow the trail of the witness as we say. What it means to follow the trail of the witness: whatever the object might be, find out this is that, then find out who this is, this witness. Now the mind will come and say, 'But this is infinite regress.' It is not true. Don't fall into that mind, because here in obstacles is covering the acceptability. If one story can be used, this second is, or if I tell you is to review that I have only been, then there must only be awareness of awareness. There must not be a 'me.' Only perception that is understood means you're buying all just these forms of resistance. All the clues are there. What we use that it does not come at you? What is it that does not come into that? It is this.

I am unbounded awareness. Really, in imagination, do I have limits? Reflecting on this, I arrive in the Absolute. Unbounded awareness, only in imagination do I have limits. Reflecting on this, I abide absolutely. Neither free nor bound, the illusion of such things has fallen into peacefully. Though I contain creation, it has no substance. It is to be removed easily. Neither free nor bound, the illusion of such things has fallen into this vision. Like you think that the mind knows only positions, the opposites, and then I know something more. I don't know either. I have to do it. I am not the doer either, or bound or am free. The opposite concepts, every word we either have worldly or not spiritual. I do think like this. So we can come to this here, speaking this with integrity, recognition. You cannot come to this mentally, but I am neither good nor am I the non-dual, because not that which would have been the doer of the non-dual and not that.

Guruji says the one who starts the search also at the end is eaten up by the search itself. This one, this seeker, does not finish the journey; he's finished by the journey. So the seeker does not become the finder. You will not go from being the seeker into an enlightened person. There is no such thing as an enlightened person. It is the recognition that there is no person in that aspect. A consequence is that we were back; belief in individuality has fallen away. What to see? It's fallen into this position. I am neither free nor bound. The illusion of such things has fallen into the division of these waves of opposites. The illusion of having an individual position. Notice that everything with the mind is saying, it's trying to sell you a reference point to yourself, for a position about yourself. Once you start with limits, then all the needless debates, the needless arguments, the needless position-taking, which is anything which is really true that we the phenomenal—all our positions which the ego has been using and stretches. Something physically has to be done? Nothing has to happen. The mystic falls into this, being that which we falsely believed as limited. That is fallen. This we-believe-itself with the pretend belief-self is what? The power of consciousness to retain the power, the power to identify with the mind. Or with that power of the unlimited consciousness, where does it have this follow? Because the mind can compensate much easier if just this power itself were not. But it is everything, must also contain everything, including the power to believe that this is less than everything. Like I do back this way, this is a representation of just an aspect. We were available every aspect of consciousness.

Having seen for certain that this universe, having seen for certain that this universe and body is without form or substance, I am revealing as awareness alone. Imagination has no place. No place only means the same thing for this idea. There is not a position that my imagined limitation, right, my apparent appearance as a limited entity, is not applied to reality which I have discovered through the context of Satsang.