Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
Nondual Highlights Issue #2433, Wednesday, March 29, 2006, Editor: Mark
Ashtavakra Samhita
These sutras from Ashtavakra are amongst the most potent
spiritual words ever uttered; they point to the nondual truth
that all enlightened ones experience. When taken as an invitation
to penetrate to the source of consciousness, these sutras are an
invaluable help for your growth. When they are believed without
experiential verification, they can be a beautiful and seductive
trap for your spiritual ego. Ashtavakra, the deformed sage, is
giving instruction to King Janak.
Janak asked: Lord, how does one attain to wisdom? How does
liberation happen? And how is non-attachment attained? Please
tell me this.
Ashtavakra replied: You are neither earth, nor air, nor fire, nor
water, nor ether. To attain liberation know yourself as the
witnessing consciousness of all these. If you can separate
yourself from the physical body and rest in consciousness, then
this very moment you will be happy and at peace and free of
bondage. Unattached and without form you are the witness of the
whole universe. Know this and be happy. You are not the doer nor
the enjoyer, you have always been liberated.
Janaka's question is authentic, and his sincerity provokes
Ashtavakra's eloquent response. To know yourself as the
witnessing consciousness of all and everything is real freedom.
The key word here is "know". Real spiritual knowledge
is experiential, not intellectual. To know oneself as the
transcendental witness is the purpose of meditation; to rest in
silent consciousness is the ultimate human endeavour. If
consciousness separates from the body, you are free in that
moment. The key word here is "if". This liberation of
consciousness is most likely to occur in deep meditation.
The next statement: You have always been liberated, is open to
misinterpretation and unverified belief. It is true only in the
sense that ultimately you are God-the-beyond. But all you can
know empirically is what you can witness and experience. You
exist as embodied consciousness. No one has any memory of being
God-the-beyond. No buddha can remember how to create a universe.
Believing that you have always been liberated is a very common
advaita misunderstanding. It seduces seekers into thinking that
freedom is a change of perception. This belief applies only to
the Absolute realm of God; it lacks empirical support and fails
when it is applied to the human reality of
body-mind-soul-witness.
Absolute beliefs are a common trap for advaita people; avoid them
by being authentic and by sticking to direct experience. This
point requires repetition as it is the foundation for many
advaita proponents who are reluctant to give up their absolute
beliefs because ultimately these beliefs are true. But the truth
believed without empirical verification is just a dream; it does
not transform you.
When the witness is experienced through a human, it is limited by
the nervous system. No awakened one can ever know the full power
of the witness; it is many times stronger than any enlightened
nervous system can accommodate. Buddhas have a good taste of the
witness, but a drop of the ocean is not the ocean. When a soul is
created, it retains no memory of its source. Every soul is made
of divine consciousness. This consciousness does pervade and
animate all existence. But experientially you exist as a
body-mind-energy, and the witness of all you observe.
Ashtavakra said: You are the one observer of all and in reality
always free. Your bondage is this: you see the other - not
yourself - as the observer.
This is a great insight. When the gestalt shifts and you are
centred as the observer of everything, you are free.
"I am the doer" - thus has the black serpent of ego
bitten you. "I am not the doer" - drink this divine
nectar of trust and be happy.
This is Ashtavakra's keenest insight; it is the essence of
transformative spiritual understanding. It is vital to realize
that God is the only power, and that your belief in free will is
a divine hypnosis. Drink this divine nectar of trust and be happy
and free.
The soul is the witness, all-pervading, perfect, one, free from
doing, absolutely alone, non-attached, conscious, free,
desireless, peaceful. Because of illusion, it looks like the
world.
The witness is transcendental to the soul. Your soul is an
individual creation that lives for up to 10,000 years; it is
destined to dissolve finally in its source. Clarity helps to gird
you for the journey of evolution of your soul.
Awaken in the thought that you are the unchanging, conscious,
nondual soul.
No one has ever awakened by thinking, and never will. Only
immersion in consciousness can awaken you. The soul evolves as it
grows in consciousness. This is the meaning of spiritual growth.
If your soul were already perfect you would not be suffering.
Understanding needs to be grounded in meditation, to prepare your
soul for merger with higher consciousness. Just changing to
nondual beliefs does not help that much.
You are alone, void of action, innocent, self-illuminated. Your
bondage is this: that you practise samadhi.
When the values of the Absolute are grafted onto the human
reality of embodied consciousness the result is a split. Stay
with your direct experience. Your bondage is your separation from
Source through the body-mind. This is not a mistake; it is God's
creation to allow His play of division and reunion to have true
meaning and depth. Samadhi cannot be practised; it is beyond
technique - a gift from Source that is provoked by your immersion
in silent awareness. This sutra has fuelled an anti-meditation
sentiment in some advaita teachers. They have missed the point
that meditation is meeting, merging and dissolving with each
moment of life in the divine sacrament of Now - not a
goal-oriented concentration exercise.
Janak said: I alone illumine this body, and I illumine the
universe too. Either this whole universe is mine or nothing at
all. Amazingly, having renounced the body and the world, now
through the skill of your teaching I see only the divine.
Janak has had a satori. His mind has opened and he is in ecstasy.
To see God everywhere is freedom.
Janak said: Light is my self nature. I am not other than that.
When the universe is illuminated, it is illuminated by my light.
The universe that has emanated from me will dissolve in me.
Amazing I am, I bow down to myself. Although embodied, I am the
nondual. I just exist, I pervade the universe.
Now Janak is projecting beyond the experience of his satori.
Logically he is right, but experientially he has lost
authenticity. Enlightened ones are illuminated by divine
consciousness. The beauty of this nondual divine light is truly
awesome, but no human has full access to the power and
intelligence whence the universe emanates.
Avoid unverified beliefs and remain true to experience. Take
these sutras and all concepts as a hypothesis to be verified in
the laboratory of your inner world. Resist any temptation to
parrot the absolute truth and to deny the human reality of being
embodied consciousness. The absolute truth is not your
experiential truth; it is a sweet dream that lures unaware
seekers into believing they are already free. Once you have
decorated your ego with absolute concepts, it is challenging to
admit that you do not know who you are. Take the challenge and
discover your true nature by dissolving in silent awareness.
Authentic enlightenment requires total transformation; your
individual body-mind-soul must be impregnated with universal
consciousness. Unverified belief in absolute concepts does not
help you to engage in the essential work of spiritual
transformation. Enlightened teachers face the challenge of
translating their direct non-conceptual knowing of absolute truth
into concepts that will be helpful to seekers. Seekers need to be
reminded to avoid the trap of believing in the poetic words of
awakened ones without experiential verification. Remain true to
experience; bring your total energy and awareness to a peak. Only
then can these potent sutras of Ashtavakra help you to grow into
a jnani - one who knows truth directly, from the silent power of
no-mind.
- excerpt from UNITY -The Dawn of Conscious Civilization
by Maitreya Ishwara, posted to ConsciousOneness
What I Have Learned So Far
Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I
not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,
looking into the shining world? Because, properly
attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of
light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone.
- Mary Oliver, posted to AdvaitaToZen
The mind turned inwards is the Self; turned outwards,
it becomes the ego and all the world.
Cotton made into various clothes we call by various names.
Gold made into various ornaments,
we call by various names.
But all the clothes are cotton and all the ornaments gold.
The one is real, the many are mere names and forms.
- Sri Ramana Maharshi, posted to MillionPaths
When you plant a tree
every leaf that grows will tell you,
what you sow will bear fruit.
So if you have any sense, my friend
don't plant anything but love,
you show your worth by what you seek.
Water flows to those who want purity
wash your hands of all desires and
come to the table of Love.
Do you want me to tell you a secret?
The flowers attract the most beautiful lover
with their sweet smile and scent.
If you let God weave the verse in your poem
people will read it forever.
- from: 'Rumi - Hidden Music' Translated by Maryam Mafi