*Glimpses of Self-Realization* ************************ *POINTS TO PONDER* ******************* The *Heart of Awareness* A translation of *The Ashtavakra Gita* ******************************* by Thomas Byrom ----------------------- Table of contents Introduction ---------------- 1. The Self 2. Awareness 3. Wisdom 4. The True Seeker 5. Dissolving 6. Knowledge 7. The Boundless Ocean 8. The Mind 9. Dispassion 10. Desire 11. Stillness 12. Fulfillment 13. Happiness 14. The Fool 15. The Clear Space of Awareness 16. Forget Everything 17. Beyond All 18. The Master 19. My Own Splendor 20. I Am Shiva Translators Introduction: The Mystery of Awareness I remember the moment clearly. I had escaped from my sisters, over the rocks and around the point. I was barely seven. Above me, a rough escarpment of boulders singing in the midday heat, at my feet a rock pool of perfect, inviolable stillness, and beyond, the blue vastness of the South Pacific. There was no other living creature. I was by myself, barefooted, between the cliff and the ocean. As I squatted there, watching the reflection of the wind in the unrippled pool, hearing its exhilaration high above me in the bright emptiness of the sky, I became aware for the first time of awareness itself. I had no name for it, but I could almost feel it, as if it had substance, like the water in the rock pool, or breath, like the shouting wind. I saw that I was entirely by myself in a boundless ocean of awareness. In the same instant I understood that awareness is the single mystery of life, that it enfolds all other mysteries, even the secret of the separate self. From that moment I was indelibly astonished, and I knew that all my life I would be pinching myself and asking, What is awareness? Nothing else would ever command my attention so completely. How could it? For nothing else mattered next to the constant pressure, the single compulsion of this mystery. A quarter of a century went by, and one day my teacher placed in my hands a copy of Mukerjees edition of the Ashtavakra Gita. I had by then, in the ordinary course of my seeking, read a great deal of scripture, enough to know the truth of Ashtavakras admonition, halfway through his own Song: My child, you can talk about holy books all you like. But until you forget everything, you will never find yourself. Understanding the vanity of scripture, I hardly expected Ashtavakra to solve in a single epiphany the mystery of awareness. And yet, as I read his spare and simple verses, I felt that here at last were words which in some measure consumed my astonishment. They spoke so directly, and so modestly. They seemed so austere, and yet so generous. I found myself once more a child of seven, tipped between the sea and the sky, but hearing now in the winds exuberance a clearer music, touching the heart of the mystery. What is the rising or the vanishing of thought? What is the visible world, or the invisible? What is the little soul, or God Himself? Awareness. Pure awareness. The clear space, the sky, the heart of awareness. Ashtavakras words begin after almost everything else has been said. They barely touch the page. They are often on the point of vanishing. They are the first melting of the snow, high in the mountains, a clear stream flowing over smooth and shining pebbles. Theirs is the radiance of the winter sky above Trishul, Kailash, Annapurna. My satguru, Neem Karoli Baba, called the Ashtavakra Gita the purest of scriptures. All its beauty is in the transparency, its enraptured and flawless purity. It is written as a dialogue between King Janaka, the father of Sita, and his guru, Ashtavakra. But this is just a literary device, unsupported by any internal drama, and I have done away with it in my version. The Gita has only one voice, Ashtavakras, a voice of singular compassion and uncompromised clarity. He is not concerned to argue. This is not speculative philosophy. It is a kind of knowledge. Ashtavakra speaks as a man who has already found his way and now wishes to share it. His song is a direct and practical transcript of experience, a radical account of ineffable truths. He speaks, moreover, in a language that is for all its modesty physical and direct. He is not abstract, though some translations, laboring to render his special terms faithfully, make him sound difficult, even abstruse. On the contrary, Ashtavakra is very simple. We are all one Self. The Self is pure awareness. This Self, this flawless awareness is God. There is only God. Everything else is an illusion: the little self, the world, the universe. All these things arise with the thought I, that is, with the idea of separate identity. The little I invents the material world, which in our ignorance we strive hard to sustain. Forgetting our original oneness, bound tightly in our imaginary separateness, we spend our lives mastered by a specious sense of purpose and value. Endlessly constrained by our habit of individuation, the creature of preference and desire, we continually set one thing against another, until the mischief and misery of choice consume us. But our true nature is pure and choiceless awareness. We are already and always fulfilled. It is easy, says Ashtavakra. You are the clear space of awareness (cidakasa), pure and still, in whom there is no birth, no striving, no I. Then how do we recover our original awareness? How do we dispel the illusion of separation? Some commentators suppose that Ashtavakra is really not concerned to answer these questions. For them, this Gita is a transcendent confession too pure to be useful. Others see it as earnestly didactic, a manual of conduct. Both are right. Ashtavakra is indeed wild, playful, utterly absorbed in the Self. Since words are of the mind, which arises only to obscure awareness, words are indeed folly. And who would teach folly? Ashtavakra would. His is an eminently compassionate and practical madness. Even while cutting the ground from under our feet, he shows us at every turn what to do. With a crazy solicitude, he tells us how to end our Self-estrangement. Be happy. Love yourself. Dont judge others. Forgive. Always be simple. Dont make distinctions. Give up the habit of choice. Let the mind dissolve. Give up preferring and desiring. Desire only your own awareness. Give up identifying with the body and the senses. Give up your attachment to meditation and service. Give up your attachment to detachment. Give up giving up! Reject nothing, accept nothing. Be still. But above all, be happy. In the end, you will find yourself just by knowing how things are. It would be perverse and humorless to suppose that just because Ashtavakra, with his irreducible nondualism, considers meditation merely a distracting habit, he means us to abandon our practice. Of course, from the perspective of unconditional freedom, where nothing makes any difference, meditation seems a comically self-important waste of time. But Ashtavakra makes it plain. The moment a fool gives up his spiritual practices, he falls prey to fancies and desires. God help the seeker who presumes that since he is already and always fulfilled, he can give up trying. It is all a matter of knowing. We are all indeed already perfect, but until we know it, we had better deal with our ignorance, and that cant be done just by listening to words. It requires sadhana, trying, doing what we do not wish to do. It means long, hard self-effacing work. The heart of Ashtavakras advice is not to give up our practice, but to abandon our strenuous indolence. Striving is the root of sorrow, he says. But who understands this? Look at the master, he says. Who is lazier? He has trouble even blinking! He certainly does not run around puffing himself up looking for God or liberation, busily making excuses for not finding himself. Dealing with our ignorance also means, for almost all of us, finding someone like Ashtavakra to help us. We cannot easily break the spell ourselves. Here again, Ashtavakra is very practical. At least half of the book describes the nature of the master, the man who has found his way. It is an austere and enchanting portrait. The master is a child, a fool, a man asleep, a leaf tumbling in the wind. Inside, he is utterly free. He does exactly as he pleases. Rules mean nothing to him. He doesnt care who makes fun of him, because he is always playing and having a wonderful time. He lives as if he had no body. He seems to walk on air. He is unsmudged, like the clear sky or the smooth and shining surface of a vast lake. Because we are subject to the dualities which he has transcended, we glimpse his nature only through paradox. He sees but he sees nothing. He sees what cannot be seen. He knows but he knows nothing. He sleeps soundly without sleeping. He dreams without dreaming. He is busy, but he does nothing. He is not alive, nor is he dead. His secret, and the ultimate paradox, is that he stands on his own. He is completely by himself (svasthya). Only by an absolute indepence (svatantrya) has he discovered his absolute oneness with all things. Who was this Ashtavakra, this uncompromising poet and saint? Since Ashtavakras whole point is that individual identity is an illusion, it is perfect irony that the only certain thing we can say about him is that he was not Ashtavakra. He was an anonymous master who adopted Ashtavakras character as he found it represented in a number of tales in classical Indian literature, and used it as a suitably faceless mask through which to deliver his gospel of self-effacement. The best known tale, in the Mahabharata, explains how he got his name, which means eight twists. When still in his mothers womb, Ashtavakra overheard his father Kahoda reciting the Vedas. Though still an unborn he already knew the scriptures, and hearing his fathers mistakes, he called out to correct him. Kahoda was insulted and cursed him, and in due course he was born with deformed limbs. Some years later, at the court of Janaka, Kahoda engaged in a debate with the great scholar Bandin, son of King Varuna. He was defeated, and Bandin had him drowned. When Ashtavakra was twelve he discovered what had happened. He went at once to Janakas court where he beat Bandin in a debate. Bandin then explained that his father had not been drowned, but had been banished to the bottom of the sea to serve King Varuna. He released Kahoda, who wished at once to lift the curse from his son. He told Ashtavakra to bathe in the river Samanga. When he came out of the water, his body was straight. There is another story about him in the Vishnu Purana. As Ashtavakra was performing penances under water, celestial nymphs gathered and sang for him. He was so delighted, he gave them a boon: they would all marry Krishna. But when he came out of the water, the nymphs saw his deformities and made fun of him. Ashtavakra added a curse to the boon: after their marriage they would all fall into the hands of robbers. And so it happened. They all married Krishna, but after his death, despite the efforts of Arjuna, they were all carried off by robbers. The moral of both stories is, of course, that even the ugliest form is filled with Gods radiance. The body is nothing, the Self is everything. There may be, as well, some notion of the sacrificial value of deformity, of the kind we find in Saint Augustine when he remarks of the breaking of Christs body on the cross his deformity forms you. So the Ashtavakra Gita was written by an unknown master who took his inspiration from the contest between Ashtavakra and Bandin, which Ashtavakra wins by demonstrating the absolute oneness of God (brahmadavaitam). Though he casts his verses as a debate, there is, as I have said, no real dialogue. Only one voice is heard, speaking through the assumed character and with the borrowed yet potent authority and special facelessness of Ashtavakra. And it is entirely appropriate that the real master of the Gita remain forever unknown since, as he has Ashtavakra say of himself, for what he has become there is no name. We not only know next to nothing about him, we cannot even be sure when he lived. Sanskrit was so static, especially after Paninis account of it became prescriptive, a little before Christ, that its literature is hard to date on linguistic evidence alone. Since we have only the slimmest literary, historical, or philosophical evidence besides, it is very hard to date the Ashtavakra Gita with any accuracy. Indian editors usually argue, with some sentimentality, that it was written in the same age as or just before the Bhagavad Gita, which they date to the fifth of fourth century B.C.E., but they generally agree that the Ashtavakra Gita comes a good deal later still. Without rehearsing the arguments, we may safely guess that it was written either in the eighth century by a follower of Shankara, or in the fourteenth century during a resurgence of Shankaras teaching. As a distillation of monastic Vedanta, it certainly has all the marks of Shankaras purification of ancient Shaivism. Ashtavakra ends his Gita with a litany of self-dismissive questions, all of them utterly rhetorical. What is good or evil? Life or death? Freedom or bondage? Illusion or the world? Creation or dissolution? The Self or the not-Self? The Sanskrit literally asks where? rather than what? Where is the little soul, or God Himself? Within the ever-fulfilled and ubiquitous Self there is no place for these or any distinctions. There is no place even for spiritual enquiry. Who is the seeker? Ashtavakra asks. What has he found? What is seeking and the end of seeking? These final questions dissolve even the voice which asks them. Who is the disciple, and who the master? With this last gesture of self-erasure, the nameless master is finally free to declare his real identity, which he shares unconditionally with all beings. For I have no bounds. I am Shiva. Nothing arises in me, In whom nothing is single, Nothing is double. Nothing is, Nothing is not. What more is there to say? Some years ago, when we first settled in our ashram in Florida, we used to go out riding in the very early morning. My teacher always insisted that we take with us a much-thumbed, broken-backed but well-loved copy of the Ashtavakra Gita. We would saddle our horses before dawn and ride out along the banks of the Sebastian River. I remember the frost glazing the water, the ghostly breath of the horses, and on the western horizon the thin crescent of a Shiva moon. Once, looking back when the horses shied, I saw a panther standing in our tracks, silent and unafraid, smelling our voices. Just before the sun came up we would dismount and, gathering frosted palm fans and handfuls of oak duff, make a fire. And as the sun rose above the bright water we read aloud from the Gita. It is easy. God made all things. There is only God. When you know this Desire melts away. Clinging to nothing, You become still. . . . Thomas Byrom Kashi Foundation July 1989 1 The Self ----------------------- O Master, 1 Tell me how to find Detachment, wisdom, and freedom! Child, 2 If you wish to be free, Shun the poison of the senses. Seek the nectar of truth, Of love and forgiveness, Simplicity and happiness. Earth, fire and water, 3 The wind and the sky - You are none of these. If you wish to be free, Know you are the Self, The witness of all these, The heart of awareness. Set your body aside. 4 Sit in your own awareness. You will at once be happy, Forever still, Forever free. You have no caste. 5 No duties bind you. Formless and free, Beyond the reach of the senses, The witness of all things. So be happy! Right or wrong, Joy and sorrow, 6 These are of the mind only. They are not yours. It is not really you Who acts or enjoys. You are everywhere, Forever free. Forever and truly free, 7 The single witness of all things. But if you see yourself as separate, Then you are bound. I do this. I do that. 8 The big black snake of selfishness Has bitten you! I do nothing. This is the nectar of faith, So drink and be happy! Know you are one, 9 Pure awareness. With the fire of this conviction, Burn down the forest of ignorance. Free yourself from sorrow, And be happy. Be happy! 10 For you are joy, unbounded joy. You are awareness itself. Just as a coil of rope Is mistaken for a snake, So you are mistaken for the world. If you think you are free, 11 You are free. If you think you are bound, You are bound. For the saying is true: You are what you think. The Self looks like the world. 12 But this is just an illusion. The Self is everywhere. One. Still. Free. Perfect. The witness of all things, Awareness Without action, clinging or desire. Meditate on the Self. 13 One without two, Exalted awareness. Give up the illusion Of the separate self. Give up the feeling, Within or without, That you are this or that. My child, 14 Because you think you are the body, For a long time you have been bound. Know you are pure awareness. With this knowledge as your sword Cut through your chains. And be happy! For you are already free, 15 Without action or flaw, Luminous and bright. You are bound Only by the habit of meditation. Your nature is pure awareness. 16 You are flowing in all things, And all things are flowing in you. But beware The narrowness of the mind! You are always the same, 17 Unfathomable awareness, Limitless and free, Serene and unperturbed. Desire only your own awareness. Whatever takes form is false. 18 Only the formless endures. When you understand The truth of this teaching, You will not be born again. For God is infinite, 19 Within the body and without, Like a mirror, And the image in a mirror. As the air is everywhere, 20 Flowing around a pot And filling it, So God is everywhere, Filling all things And flowing through them forever. 2 Awareness -------------------------------- Yesterday 1 I lived bewildered, In illusion. But now I am awake, Flawless and serene, Beyond the world. From my light The body and the world arise. So all things are mine, Or nothing is. Now I have given up 3 The body and the world, I have a special gift. I see the infinite Self. As a wave, 4 Seething and foaming, Is only water So all creation, Streaming out of the Self, Is only the Self. Consider a piece of cloth. 5 It is only threads! So all creation, When you look closely, Is only the Self. Like the sugar 6 In the juice of the sugarcane, I am the sweetness In everything I have made. When the Self is unknown 7 The world arises, Not when it is known. But you mistake The rope for the snake. When you see the rope, The snake vanishes. My nature is light, 8 Nothing but light. When the world arises I alone am shining. When the world arises in me, 9 It is just an illusion: Water shimmering in the sun, A vein of silver in mother-of-pearl, A serpent in a strand of rope. From me the world streams out 10 And in me it dissolves, As a bracelet melts into gold, A pot crumbles into clay, A wave subsides into water. I adore myself. 11 How wonderful I am! I can never die. The whole world may perish, From Brahma to a blade of grass, But I am still here. Indeed how wonderful! 12 I adore myself. For I have taken form But I am still one. Neither coming or going, Yet I am still everywhere. How wonderful, 13 And how great my powers! For I am without form, Yet till the end of time I uphold the universe. Wonderful! 14 For nothing is mine, Yet it is all mine, Whatever is thought or spoken. I am not the knower, 15 Nor the known, Nor the knowing. These three are not real. They only seem to be When I am not known. For I am flawless. Two from one! 16 This is the root of suffering. Only perceive That I am one without two, Pure awareness, pure joy, And all the world is false. There is no other remedy! Through ignorance 17 I once imagined I was bound. But I am pure awareness. I live beyond all distinctions, In unbroken meditation. Indeed, 18 I am neither bound nor free. An end to illusion! It is all groundless. For the whole of creation, Though it rests in me, Is without foundation. The body is nothing. 19 The world is nothing. When you understand this fully, How can they be invented? For the Self is pure awareness, Nothing less. The body is false, 20 And so are its fears, Heaven and hell, freedom and bondage. It is all invention. What can they matter to me? I am awareness itself. I see only one. 21 Many men, One wilderness. Then to what may I cling? I am not the body. 22 Nor is the body mine. I am not separate. I am awareness itself, Bound only by my thirst for life. I am the infinite ocean. 23 When thoughts spring up, The wind freshens, and like waves A thousand worlds arise. But when the wind falls, 24 The trader sinks with his ship. On the boundless ocean of my being He founders, And all the worlds with him. But O how wonderful! 25 I am the unbounded deep In whom all living things Naturally arise, Rush against each other playfully, And then subside. 3 Wisdom -------------------------- You know the Self, 1 By nature one Without end. You know the Self, And you are serene. How can you still desire riches? When from ignorance 2 You see silver in mother-of-pearl, Greed arises. From ignorance of the Self Desire arises For the world where the senses whirl. Knowing yourself as That 3 In which the worlds rise and fall Like waves in the ocean, Why do you run about so wretchedly? For have you not heard? 4 You are pure awareness, And your beauty is infinite! So why let lust mislead you? The man who is wise 5 Knows himself in all things And all things in himself. Yet how strange! He still says, This is mine. Determined to be free, 6 He abides in the oneness Beyond all things. Yet how strange! Indulging in passion, he weakens, And lust overwhelms him. Feeble with age, 7 Still he is filled with desire, When without doubt he knows That lust is the enemy of awareness. Indeed how strange! He longs to be free. . . 8 He has no care for this world Or the next, And he knows what is passing Or forever. And yet how strange! He is still afraid of freedom. But he who is truly wise 9 Always sees the absolute Self. Celebrated, he is not delighted. Spurned, he is not angry. Pure of heart, 10 He watches his own actions As if they were anothers. How can praise or blame disturb him? With clear and steady insight 11 He sees this world is a mirage, And he no longer wonders about it. How can he fear the approach of death? Pure of heart, 12 He desires nothing, Even in despair. He is content In the knowledge of the Self. With whom may I compare him? With clear and steady insight 13 He knows that whatever he sees Is by its very nature nothing. How can he prefer one thing to another? He is beyond all duality. 14 Free from desire, He has driven from his mind All longing for the world. Come what may, Joy or sorrow, Nothing moves him. 4 The True Seeker -------------------------- The wise man knows the Self, 1 And he plays the game of life. But the fool lives in the world Like a beast of burden. The true seeker feels no elation 2 Even in that exalted state Which Indra and all the gods Unhappily long for. He understands the nature of things. 3 His heart is not smudged By right or wrong, As the sky is not smudged by smoke. He is pure of heart, 4 He knows the whole world is only the Self. So who can stop him From doing as he wishes? Of the four kinds of being, 5 From Brahma to a blade of grass, Only the wise man is strong enough To give up desire and aversion. How rare he is! 6 Knowing he is the Self, He acts accordingly And is never fearful. For he knows he is the Self, One without two, The Lord of all creation. 5 Dissolving You are pure. 1 Nothing touches you. What is there to renounce? Let it all go, The body and the mind. Let yourself dissolve. Like bubbles in the sea, 2 All the worlds arise in you. Know you are the Self. Know you are one. Let yourself dissolve. You see the world. 3 But like the snake in the rope, It is not really there. You are pure. Let yourself dissolve. You are one and the same 4 In joy and sorrow, Hope and despair, Life and death. You are already fulfilled. Let yourself dissolve. 6 Knowledge ----------------------- I am boundless space. 1 The world is a clay pot. This is the truth. There is nothing to accept, Nothing to reject, Nothing to dissolve. I am the ocean. 2 All the worlds are like waves. This is the truth. Nothing to hold on to, Nothing to let go of, Nothing to dissolve. I am the mother-of-pearl. 3 The world is a vein of silver, An illusion! This is the truth. Nothing to grasp, Nothing to spurn, Nothing to dissolve. I am in all beings. 4 All beings are in me. This is the whole truth. Nothing to embrace, Nothing to relinquish, Nothing to dissolve. 7 The Boundless Ocean --------------------------------- I am the boundless ocean. 1 This way and that, The wind, blowing where it will, Drives the ship of the world. But I am not shaken. I am the unbounded deep 2 In whom the waves of all the worlds Naturally rise and fall. But I do not rise or fall. I am the infinite deep 3 In whom all the worlds Appear to rise. Beyond all form, Forever still. Even so am I. I am not in the world. 4 The world is not in me. I am pure. I am unbounded. Free from attachment, Free from desire, Still. Even so am I. O how wonderful! 5 I am awareness itself, No less. The world is a magic show! But in me There is nothing to embrace, And nothing to turn away. 8 The Mind ----------------- The mind desires this, 1 And grieves for that. It embraces one thing, And spurns another. Now it feels anger, Now happiness. In this way you are bound. But when the mind desires nothing 2 And grieves for nothing, When it is without joy or anger And, grasping nothing, Turns nothing away. . . Then you are free. When the mind is attracted 3 To anything it senses, You are bound. When there is no attraction, You are free. Where there is no I, You are free. Where there is I, 4 You are bound. Consider this. It is easy. Embrace nothing, Turn nothing away. 9 Dispassion ------------------ Seeing to this, 1 Neglecting that, Setting one thing against another. . . Who is free of such cares? When will they ever end? Consider. Without passion, With dispassion, Let go. My child, 2 Rare is he, and blessed, Who observes the ways of men And gives up the desire For pleasure and knowledge, For life itself. Nothing lasts. 3 Nothing is real. It is all suffering, Threefold affliction! It is all beneath contempt. Know this. Give it up. Be still. When will men ever stop 4 Setting one thing against another? Let go of all contraries. Whatever comes, be happy And so fulfill yourself. Masters, saints, seekers: 5 They all say different things. Whoever knows this, With dispassion becomes quiet. The true master considers well. 6 With dispassion He sees all things are the same. He comes to understand The nature of things, The essence of awareness. He will not be born again. In the shifting elements 7 See only their pure form. Rest in your own nature. Set yourself free. The world is just a set of false impressions. 8 Give them up. Give up the illusion. Give up the world. And live freely. 10 Desire ---------------- Striving and craving, 1 For pleasure or prosperity, These are your enemies, Springing up to destroy you From the presumptions of virtue. Let them all go. Hold on to nothing. Every good fortune, 2 Wives, friends, houses, lands, All these gifts and riches. . . They are a dream, A juggling act, A traveling show! A few days, and they are gone. Consider. 3 Wherever there is desire, There is the world. With resolute dispassion Free yourself from desire, And find happiness. Desire binds you, 4 Nothing else. Destroy it, and you are free. Turn from the world. Fulfill yourself, And find lasting happiness. You are one. 5 You are pure awareness. The world is not real. It is cold and lifeless. Nor is ignorance real. So what can you wish to know? Life after life you indulged 6 In different forms, Different pleasures, Sons and kingdoms and wives. Only to lose them all. . . Enough of the pursuit of pleasure, 7 Enough of wealth and righteous deeds! In the dark forest of the world What peace of mind can they bring you? How you have toiled, 8 Life after life, Pressing into painful labor Your body and your mind and your words. It is time to stop. Now! ************************************************************************************************************ To be continued.................
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 18:45:04 +0000
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