Chapter
10
Ashtavakra
Abandoning
desire, the enemy, along with gain, itself
so full of loss, and the good deeds which
are the cause of the other two - practice
indifference to everything. 10.1
Look
on such things as friends, land, money,
property, wife, and bequests as nothing
but a dream or a three or five-day
conjuror's show. 10.2
Wherever
a desire occurs, see samsara in it.
Establishing yourself in firm dispassion,
be free of passion and happy. 10.3
The
essential nature of bondage is nothing
other than desire, and its elimination is
known as liberation. It is simply by not
being attached to changing things that the
everlasting joy of attainment is reached.
10.4
You
are one, conscious and pure, while all
this is just inert non-being. Ignorance
itself is nothing, so what need have you
of desire to understand? 10.5
Kingdoms,
children, wives, bodies, pleasures - these
have all been lost to you life after life,
attached to them though you were. 10.6
Enough
of wealth, sensuality and good deeds. In
the forest of samsara the mind has never
found satisfaction in these. 10.7
How
many births have you not done hard and
painful labor with body, mind and speech.
Now at last stop! 10.8
Swami Veet Chintan T'Zorba-Krsna
Jyotish
Shastracharya
& Vedic Astrologer of India
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