सर्वमात्ममयः
Chapter 4
Sarvam ātmamayaḥ · 6 verses
Six short verses, and Janaka speaks. After Aṣṭāvakra's diagnostic chapter 3, the king answers. Janaka does not argue. He simply describes what it is to live as the Self, and the description ripples out across all six verses without raising its voice. The state he names is sovereign in the original sense of that word: untouched, ungrasped, free of the weight of doing or not-doing, owning everything because owning nothing. The gods themselves long for the seat in which the yogi rests without elation. Sin and merit do not stain the knower the way smoke does not stain the sky. And what would anyone forbid in one who has known the world to be the Self? Chapter 4 is the bright counterweight to chapter 3. Where Aṣṭāvakra named the leftover, Janaka shows what is left when the leftover is gone: a brightness with no edges, a play with no anxiety, a fearlessness whose only ground is recognition.
Aṣṭāvakra speaks
हन्तात्मज्ञानस्य धीरस्य खेलतो भोगलीलया। न हि संसारवाहीकैर्मूढैः सह समानता
hantātmajñānasya dhīrasya khelato bhogalīlayā na hi saṃsāravāhīkairmūḍhaiḥ saha samānatā
Ah, the dhīra who knows the Self plays in the play of experience. There is no comparison between him and the deluded ones being dragged along by saṃsāra.
यत् पदं प्रेप्सवो दीनाः शक्राद्याः सर्वदेवताः। अहो तत्र स्थितो योगी न हर्षमुपगच्छति
yat padaṃ prepsavo dīnāḥ śakrādyāḥ sarvadevatāḥ aho tatra sthito yogī na harṣamupagacchati
The state Indra and the other gods pursue like beggars: the yogi seated right there does not even feel elation about it.
तज्ज्ञस्य पुण्यपापाभ्यां स्पर्शो ह्यन्तर्न जायते। न ह्याकाशस्य धूमेन दृश्यमानापि सङ्गतिः
tajjñasya puṇyapāpābhyāṃ sparśo hyantarna jāyate na hyākāśasya dhūmena dṛśyamānāpi saṅgatiḥ
In the one who knows that Self, no inner contact arises with merit or sin: as space, even though smoke is plainly seen in it, makes no contact with the smoke.
आत्मैवेदं जगत्सर्वं ज्ञातं येन महात्मना। यदृच्छया वर्तमानं तं निषेद्धुं क्षमेत कः
ātmaivedaṃ jagatsarvaṃ jñātaṃ yena mahātmanā yadṛcchayā vartamānaṃ taṃ niṣeddhuṃ kṣameta kaḥ
By the great-souled one who has known this whole world to be the Self alone, the world moves as it spontaneously moves. Who is qualified to forbid him?
आब्रह्मस्तंबपर्यन्ते भूतग्रामे चतुर्विधे। विज्ञस्यैव हि सामर्थ्यमिच्छानिच्छाविवर्जने
ābrahmastaṃbaparyante bhūtagrāme caturvidhe vijñasyaiva hi sāmarthyamicchānicchāvivarjane
Across the fourfold field of beings, from Brahmā down to the blade of grass, only the knower has the capacity to drop both wanting and not-wanting.
आत्मानमद्वयं कश्चिज्जानाति जगदीश्वरं। यद् वेत्ति तत्स कुरुते न भयं तस्य कुत्रचित्
ātmānamadvayaṃ kaścijjānāti jagadīśvaraṃ yad vetti tatsa kurute na bhayaṃ tasya kutracit
Rare is the one who knows the Self as the nondual Lord of the worlds. He does what he knows. There is no fear for him anywhere.
Hanta. The chapter opens with an interjection of wonder. Aṣṭāvakra used āścaryam in chapter 3. Janaka now uses hanta, lighter, more astonished, a sound a child might make. Hantātmajñānasya dhīrasya khelato bhogalīlayā: the dhīra who knows the Self, playing in the play of experience. Bhogalīlā: the play of experience. Not avoidance, not endurance. Play. Na hi saṃsāravāhīkair mūḍhaiḥ saha samānatā: there can be no comparison between him and the ones being dragged along by saṃsāra. The same actions can look the same from the outside. They are not the same.
Verse 4.2 names what the gods themselves long for. Yat padaṃ prepsavo dīnāḥ śakrādyāḥ sarvadevatāḥ: the state Indra and the other gods chase, looking like beggars. Dīnāḥ. The gods are dīna. Tatra sthitaḥ yogī na harṣam upagacchati: the yogi seated in that very state does not even feel elation. The contrast is everything. The longed-for becomes the ordinary. The throne nobody can grasp is the seat the jñānī sits in without noticing.
Verse 4.3 gives the chapter's central image. Tajjñasya puṇyapāpābhyāṃ sparśo hyantar na jāyate: in the one who knows that, no inner contact arises with merit or sin. Na hy ākāśasya dhūmena dṛśyamānāpi saṅgatiḥ: just as space, even when smoke is clearly seen in it, has no contact with the smoke. Saṅgati. Contact, association, attachment. The smoke is visible. The space is not stained. The verse rests on this image and lets it carry the entire teaching.
Verse 4.4 turns to action. Ātmaiva idaṃ jagat sarvaṃ jñātaṃ yena mahātmanā: by whom this entire world is known to be the Self alone. Yadṛcchayā vartamānaṃ taṃ niṣeddhuṃ kṣameta kaḥ: who is qualified to forbid him from acting as the spontaneity of life carries him? Niṣeddhuṃ kṣameta kaḥ. Who is competent to prohibit? Kaḥ. The interrogative is final. No one. There is no external authority, no rule, no scripture that has standing over the one whose action arises from the Self that is the world.
Verse 4.5 widens the field. Ābrahmastambaparyante bhūtagrāme caturvidhe: among all four kinds of beings, from Brahmā down to the blade of grass. Vijñasyaiva hi sāmarthyam icchānicchāvivarjane: only the knower has the capacity to renounce both wanting and not-wanting. The phrasing is exact. Not only renouncing desires. Renouncing the opposition between wanting and not-wanting. Icchā and anicchā. The whole pair is laid down. The wise one does not become a wanter of non-wanting. He drops the entire axis.
Verse 4.6 closes the chapter. Ātmānam advayaṃ kaścit jānāti jagadīśvaraṃ: rare is the one who knows the Self as the nondual Lord of all worlds. Yad vetti tat sa kurute: he does what he knows. Na bhayaṃ tasya kutracit: there is no fear for him anywhere. Three short clauses, ascending. Knowledge. Action. Fearlessness. The chapter ends on the word bhayam, fear, and on its negation. Kutracit: nowhere. In no place, in no situation, in no relation. Na bhayam tasya kutracit. The state Janaka has been describing in six verses is finally named by what is absent: not fear of this, not fear of that, not fear anywhere.
Janaka in chapter 4 is doing something unusual. He is not asking. He is not seeking. He is describing.
When a student describes their state to a teacher, the description is usually hedged. There is hope, hesitation, the wish for validation. Janaka has none of that here. He simply lays out what is. The dhīra plays. The dhīra is not in any way comparable to the unawakened, although the actions can look identical. The gods envy the seat the dhīra is sitting in. The dhīra does not even register elation about that seat. Sin does not stick. Merit does not stick. The world goes its way and there is no one with the standing to forbid it.
This is the bright twin of chapter 3.
In chapter 3, Aṣṭāvakra showed the seeker his leftover. In chapter 4, Janaka shows what remains when the leftover is gone. And what remains is not a higher version of the seeker. What remains is the world itself, recognized as the Self, with no inside to it that could be stained.
The central image is in verse 4.3. Smoke is visible in space. The seeing is not denied. The smoke is there. And yet space is not stained. Na hy ākāśasya dhūmena dṛśyamānāpi saṅgatiḥ. Even when seen, there is no contact. The Sanskrit puts pressure on dṛśyamānā api. Even being seen. Even being witnessed in space, the smoke does not contaminate the medium in which it appears.
This is the whole teaching of chapter 4, in a single image. Your experiences arise. Joy. Anger. The taste of mango. The grief at the loss of someone you loved. The actions you perform, the actions performed by your body that you did not consciously choose. All of it arises in you the way smoke arises in space. It is seen. And it does not soil the seeing.
Now notice what this does to the question of ethics. Most spiritual paths spend an enormous amount of energy worrying about whether the awakened one becomes lawless. If sin does not stick, does that mean the jñānī can do anything? Chapter 4 anticipates this question and answers it differently than the worry expects. Janaka says: yadṛcchayā vartamānam taṃ niṣeddhuṃ kṣameta kaḥ. The wise one acts as spontaneity moves him. Who is qualified to forbid? The implication is not that he does what he likes. The implication is that the source of his action has shifted. The action no longer comes from the calculating self trying to advance its interests. The action comes from the Self that is the world. And action from that source does not need policing because it does not generate the kind of disturbance that ethics exists to prevent.
Look at how verse 4.5 reinforces this. The knower alone has the capacity to renounce both desire and the rejection of desire. Icchā and anicchā together. The unawakened seeker tries to use anicchā, non-wanting, as a tool against icchā, wanting. Janaka says: that whole framework belongs to the unawakened. The knower drops the axis. He does not become a saint who refuses pleasure. He becomes someone for whom the taking and refusing are equally absent. He acts. The action is not pulled by craving or pushed by aversion. Yadṛcchayā. As it comes.
The chapter culminates in na bhayam tasya kutracit. No fear, anywhere. Fear is the heartbeat of the separate self. Fear of loss, fear of death, fear of failure, fear of being found out. Every fear, when traced, lands on the same hidden assumption: I am this body, separate from the world, fragile, capable of being subtracted. Janaka has spent five verses describing the state in which that assumption has dissolved. He ends by naming what dissolves with it. The fear. Kutracit. Anywhere. In no place is the dhīra afraid. Not because he has overcome fear by force, but because the substrate of fear is no longer there.
What does this chapter ask of you?
It asks for the dropping of comparison. Verse 4.1 is blunt. There is no comparison between the dhīra and the mūḍha. The actions can be identical. The cooking is the same. The earning of livelihood is the same. The raising of children is the same. The dying is the same. Do not look for outward signs. The difference is interior and total.
It asks you to notice the smoke in the sky of you. Right now, in this body, there are experiences. They are appearing in something that has not been touched. The space in this room contains the smoke of your sensations and your thoughts. The space is not the smoke. Look for the space.
It asks you to take seriously what na bhayam kutracit means. Not less fear. Not manageable fear. No fear anywhere. This is the destination Aṣṭāvakra and Janaka are pointing at. It is not motivational. It is descriptive. The dhīra, when he is the dhīra, has no fear because the one who would be afraid has dissolved into the world that nobody can take from him. The fear was the misperception that the world could be taken away.
Chapter 4 is short. It does not need to be long. Janaka is not arguing. He is showing what is the case. Read the verses slowly. Let them arrive the way they were spoken: as the description of a state that is already true, and that is closer to you than you have allowed it to be.
Janaka himself is the first saint. It is rare in the scriptures for the same figure to be the speaker and the saint who walked the chapter. Chapter 4 has both. Janaka, the king of Mithilā, householder, ruler of a realm, was the unmistakable example in the Indian tradition that liberation does not require renunciation of office or family. The Bhagavad Gītā cites him by name. Krishna tells Arjuna that Janaka and others like him attained perfection through action alone. The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha returns to him repeatedly as the model of the jīvanmukta who continues to rule, judge, and conduct sacrifices. The text we are reading is itself the record of his awakening dialogue with Aṣṭāvakra. So chapter 4 is the testimony of the saint who walked it. Janaka rules. Janaka eats. Janaka laughs at the spectacle of the kingdom. And his actions do not stain because the assumption that there is a separate Janaka has dissolved into the Self he names in 4.6.
Yājñavalkya. Before Aṣṭāvakra, before Krishna, Yājñavalkya in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad demonstrated the same state to his wife Maitreyī. He had two wives. He was preparing to leave householder life. He was about to divide his wealth. Maitreyī asked the famous question: will this wealth make me immortal? Yājñavalkya said no. And then he gave her the teaching: it is for the sake of the Self that everything is dear. Not for the sake of the wife, the husband, the children, the wealth. It is the Self alone that is dear, and what is loved is loved because it is the Self. Janaka's verse 4.6, ātmānam advayaṃ kaścit jānāti jagadīśvaraṃ, is the conclusion Yājñavalkya was leading Maitreyī toward. The Self alone is the Lord, and the loving and the acting that follow are not bound because they do not arise from separation.
Sadāśiva Brahmendra. In the early eighteenth century, a wandering Avadhūta moved through the Tamil country, often naked, often silent for years. He composed exquisite Sanskrit songs that the lineage still sings. Pibare rāma-rasam. Drink the taste of Rāma. His life was the visible commentary on chapter 4. Stories say he walked through a field without seeing the workers there and the workers' sickles cut his arm off. He did not respond. A king found him later and asked what had happened. He gave a casual reply and a new arm grew back. The stories themselves are less important than the disposition they record. Bhogalīlā. The body is being played with by the world. The body is responding the way bodies respond. The one who would be wounded is not in the wound. Bhayam kutracit: not anywhere.
Avadhūta Datta. In the Avadhūta Gītā, attributed to Dattātreya, the same chapter 4 register sings through every line. The Avadhūta has no fear, no shame, no purpose, no role. He acts because action is what bodies do. He sleeps in cremation grounds and palaces with equal indifference. He owns nothing and has lost the capacity to be impoverished. The Avadhūta Gītā is essentially chapter 4 of Aṣṭāvakra extended into 244 verses. When you read 4.4 about the spontaneity of action that no one can prohibit, the Avadhūta is the figure who walks that verse. He is not lawless. He is law-less in the sense that the anicchā, the rejecting of desire, has dropped along with the desire. There is no policy. There is only the unmediated arising.
These figures share a tone you can hear in the chapter itself. The tone of the one who is no longer trying. Not because he has given up. Because the trier has gone home.
Smoke is visible in space; the space is not stained.
Scriptural References
The yogi united with the Self sees the Self in all beings and all beings in the Self, looking everywhere with the same eye.
सर्वभूतस्थमात्मानं सर्वभूतानि चात्मनि। ईक्षते योगयुक्तात्मा सर्वत्र समदर्शनः॥
sarva-bhūta-stham ātmānaṃ sarva-bhūtāni cātmani īkṣate yoga-yuktātmā sarvatra sama-darśanaḥ
The Self in all beings and all beings in the Self: the yogi united with the Self sees this, looking everywhere with the same eye.
Janaka's verse 4.4, ātmaiva idaṃ jagat sarvaṃ, is the Self-in-all teaching that the Gītā gives Arjuna in this verse. Janaka is showing the action that follows when this seeing has taken hold.
The Self, beginningless and without qualities, though seated in the body, neither acts nor is stained.
अनादित्वान्निर्गुणत्वात्परमात्मायमव्ययः। शरीरस्थोऽपि कौन्तेय न करोति न लिप्यते॥
anāditvān nirguṇatvāt paramātmāyam avyayaḥ śarīra-stho 'pi kaunteya na karoti na lipyate
Beginningless, without qualities, this imperishable Supreme Self, though seated in the body, neither acts nor is stained.
The exact metaphysical ground of Janaka's verse 4.3. The Self in the body does not contact the actions of the body, the way space does not contact smoke.
Acting with attachment renounced, the karma touches one no more than water touches the lotus leaf.
ब्रह्मण्याधाय कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा करोति यः। लिप्यते न स पापेन पद्मपत्रमिवाम्भसा॥
brahmaṇy ādhāya karmāṇi saṅgaṃ tyaktvā karoti yaḥ lipyate na sa pāpena padma-patram ivāmbhasā
Whoever offers actions to Brahman, attachment let go, is not touched by sin: as the lotus leaf is not touched by water.
Krishna's lotus image and Janaka's smoke-in-space image are doing the same work. Sin and merit do not adhere to the medium in which the action appears.
Content with what comes spontaneously, beyond the pairs, free of envy, the same in success and failure: such a one is not bound even when acting.
यदृच्छालाभसन्तुष्टो द्वन्द्वातीतो विमत्सरः। समः सिद्धावसिद्धौ च कृत्वापि न निबध्यते॥
yadṛcchā-lābha-santuṣṭo dvandvātīto vimatsaraḥ samaḥ siddhāv asiddhau ca kṛtvāpi na nibadhyate
Satisfied with whatever comes by itself, beyond the pairs, without rivalry, the same in success and failure: even acting, he is not bound.
Krishna's yadṛcchā-lābha is the verbatim Sanskrit Janaka picks up in 4.4 with yadṛcchayā vartamānam. The action that arises spontaneously cannot bind, because it is not generated by the separate self that bondage requires.
The Self is the innermost and dearer than all else; for the sake of the Self everything is dear.
न वा अरे सर्वस्य कामाय सर्वं प्रियं भवति, आत्मनस्तु कामाय सर्वं प्रियं भवति।
na vā are sarvasya kāmāya sarvaṃ priyaṃ bhavati, ātmanas tu kāmāya sarvaṃ priyaṃ bhavati
Not for the sake of everything is everything dear; it is for the sake of the Self that everything is dear.
Yājñavalkya's teaching to Maitreyī is the Upaniṣadic ground for Janaka's 4.6, ātmānam advayaṃ kaścit jānāti jagadīśvaraṃ. The Self is what is loved in everything; the knower of the Self has nothing left to fear because nothing other than the Self is finally at stake.