अष्टावक्र गीता
Janaka and Aṣṭāvakra in Dialogue
Twenty Chapters · 298 Verses · About Three Hours
There is nothing here to do, only to recognize. What is recognized has been here all along.
Janaka, king of Mithilā, asks his teacher Aṣṭāvakra a single question. How is wisdom attained? How is liberation reached? How does dispassion arise? Tell me, my Lord.
Aṣṭāvakra, the sage with eight bends in his body, answers without preliminaries. You are not the body. You are not the senses. You are not the mind. You are the witness consciousness alone. Recognize this, and you are free, this very moment. Janaka hears the words and is liberated on the spot. For nineteen more chapters the conversation continues, deepening, refining, returning, until there is nothing left to say.
Janaka's question. Aṣṭāvakra's answer. The moment of release.
1.1 · Janaka asks
कथं ज्ञानमवाप्नोति कथं मुक्तिर्भविष्यति। वैराग्यं च कथं प्राप्तमेतद्ब्रूहि मम प्रभो॥
kathaṁ jñānam avāpnoti kathaṁ muktir bhaviṣyati vairāgyaṁ ca kathaṁ prāptam etad brūhi mama prabho
How is wisdom obtained, my Lord? How does liberation come about? How does dispassion arise? Tell me this.
1.3 · Aṣṭāvakra answers
न पृथ्वी न जलं नाग्निर्न वायुर्द्यौर्न वा भवान्। एषां साक्षिणमात्मानं चिद्रूपं विद्धि मुक्तये॥
na pṛthvī na jalaṁ nāgnir na vāyur dyaur na vā bhavān eṣāṁ sākṣiṇam ātmānaṁ cidrūpaṁ viddhi muktaye
You are not earth, water, fire, air, or space. You are the witness of all of these. To be free, know yourself as awareness.
1.4 · The moment of release
यदि देहं पृथक्कृत्य चिति विश्राम्य तिष्ठसि। अधुनैव सुखी शान्तो बन्धमुक्तो भविष्यसि॥
yadi dehaṁ pṛthak kṛtya citi viśrāmya tiṣṭhasi adhunaiva sukhī śānto bandha-mukto bhaviṣyasi
Step out of the body, rest in awareness, and you are at once happy, at peace, free.
The text alternates between Aṣṭāvakra’s instruction and Janaka’s response. Aṣṭāvakra points. Janaka receives, describes, refines. The pointing and the receiving fold into each other.
Janaka asks how liberation comes. Aṣṭāvakra answers without preliminaries, and Janaka, hearing, is already free.
Janaka asks how liberation comes. The answer arrives without preliminaries: you are not the body or the senses, you are the witness alone.
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Janaka's first response. Aho, what a wonder. The whole world appears in me, and I have always been the spotless awareness.
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Marks of the still-clinging, the four ways the world dissolves, and the slow letting go of even the last desire.
Knowing the truth, why does the seeker still cling? A diagnosis of the marks of the not-yet-released.
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Janaka's terse summary. The liberated act in the world without acting, owning everything because they own nothing.
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Four ways the apparent world dissolves. It is not, it never was, it is illusory, it is the Self alone.
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The world is in me as in space, as in the mirror, as in the dream. There is nothing to do.
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In me the limitless ocean. World-waves rise and fall by themselves. I neither delight in them nor reject them.
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Bondage is when the mind clings to anything. Liberation is when the mind clings to nothing.
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Nothing the world offers is worth the time it takes to acquire. The comedy of seeking, named in eight verses.
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Even the desire for liberation is a desire. Drop everything, including this last desire.
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Wisdom, abiding, happiness, tranquility, the nature of the Self, and the unmistakable marks of the truly liberated.
Knowing that everything is ever-changing, the wise neither hope nor despair. The equipoise of the still mind.
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I have stopped wanting anything. I have stopped resisting anything. I have stopped doing anything. I am at rest.
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Things come easily, they go easily. Neither arrival nor loss is a problem. Happiness no longer depends on circumstance.
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Where is the desire to live, where is the fear of death? Both have dissolved in the same recognition.
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A single hint, sincerely received, is enough. The thousands of teachings exist for those who have not yet received the hint.
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The rest you seek through everything you do is already here. Standing in oneself is what the doing was always reaching for.
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The marks of the truly liberated. They neither perform nor abstain. They neither reach nor fall.
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Aṣṭāvakra's longest discourse. A hundred verses on the one who has found nothing left to seek.
Janaka stops asking. Then he stops speaking the way one speaks. The dialogue closes because there is nothing left to say.
Where are the questions now? Where is the seeker? Both dissolve into the one who never moved.
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There is no I. There is no other. There is no bondage. There is no liberation. The dialogue ends because there is nothing left to say.
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Read one chapter at a time, slowly. Most are short. Chapter 18 is long; do not try to swallow it in one sitting. Read a few verses, set the book aside, see what stays.
The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā declares its position at verse 1.3 and then describes it in twenty different ways. You can open the book anywhere, read three verses, close it, and have read the whole thing. The recognition does not need an order. Each verse is a small cleaning. The mirror was always clean.
If you come from the bhakti traditions, the Aṣṭāvakra Gītā may at first feel cold. It does not mention the Lord by name, does not invoke a deity. But the awareness it points at is the same awareness in which Rāma walks through Ayodhya, in which Krishna plays the flute by the Yamuna. Bhakti and jñāna meet at this awareness. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā describes the meeting place from one side; the Bhāgavata from the other.
By chapter twenty Janaka no longer speaks like a man asking questions. He says: there is no I, there is no other, there is no bondage, there is no liberation. The dialogue ends because there is nothing left to say. Aṣṭāvakra does not respond. The text closes in that silence.
For two and a half thousand years, seekers have read these verses, recognized them, and fallen silent. That silence is open to you now.
तत्त्वमसि
tat tvam asi · that thou art