Chapter
16
Ashtavakra
My
son, you may recite or listen to countless
scriptures, but you will not be
established within until you can forget
everything. 16.1
You
may, as a learned man, indulge in wealth,
activity and meditation, but your mind
will still long for that which is the
cessation of desire, and beyond all goals.
16.2
It
is because of effort that everyone is in
pain, but no-one realises it. By just this
simple instruction, the lucky one attains
tranquillity. 16.3
Happiness
belongs to no-one but that supremely lazy
man for whom even opening and closing his
eyes is a bother. 16.4
When
the mind is freed from such pairs of
opposites as, I have done this, and 'I
have not done that', it becomes
indifferent to merit, wealth, sensuality
and liberation. 16.5
One
man is abstemious and averse to the
senses, another is greedy and attached to
them, but he who is free from both taking
and rejecting is neither abstemious nor
greedy. 16.6
So
long as desire, which is the state of lack
of discrimination, remains, the sense of
revulsion and attraction will remain,
which is the root and branch of samsara.
16.7
Desire
springs from usage, and aversion from
abstension, but the wise man is free from
the pairs of opposites like a child, and
becomes established. 16.8
The
passionate man wants to be rid of samsara
so as to avoid pain, but the dispassionate
man is without pain and feels no distress
even in it. 16.9
He
who is proud about even liberation or his
own body, and feels them his own, is
neither a seer or a yogi. He is still just
a sufferer. 16.10
If
even Shiva, Vishnu or the lotus-born
Brahma were your instructor, until you
have forgotten everything you cannot be
established within. 16.11
Swami Veet Chintan T'Zorba-Krsna
Jyotish
Shastracharya
& Vedic Astrologer of India
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