The Self Alone Exists, All Else False and Unreal 

By Pranav Khullar

The concept of an adept teacher lies at the heart of Upanishadic dialogue in which the guru clarifies the doubts of his pupils and inspires them to think deeply on matters of consciousness.

Since experience is the only true touchstone, the ancients focussed first on the evolved state of a guru, who could awaken others to a higher consciousness.

This focus characterises the Ashtavakra Samhita, the discourse-dialogue centred on Self-realisation, between the young sage Ashtavakra and the elderly king of Mithila, Janaka, who discussed knowledge as being ever-conscious of the eternality of oneself, and understanding it as inextricably linked to the question of what constitutes bondage and liberation.

‘‘Non-attachment for sense-objects is liberation: love for sense-objects is bondage.” Ashtavakra describes the nature of knowledge thus, going directly to the central focus that the Self alone exists and all else, within the mind-senses matrix, is false and unreal.

He draws his disciple’s attention to his own restlessness, despite being a satisfied king Ashtavakra talks of the eternal yearning of the mind for its true nature, beyond all objects, beyond all desire. The seeker has only got preoccupied in this world till now to quench this restlessness, not fully comprehending what he seeks.

The seeker remains unfulfilled as a result of this material preoccupation because one can actually only feel satiated in therealisation of one’s true nature. Ashtavakra continues with his exposition of the illusory nature of the world by exhorting Janaka to renounce desire in all forms, be it the desire for enjoyment and learning or even of pious deeds, for “bondage consists only of desire, and the destruction of desire is liberation’’. He asks him to wake up to the transitory nature of all things, to cultivate dispassion by seeing loss and suffering all around, to understand that the root of this cycle of suffering is attachment born of desire.

The Ashtavakra Samhita so completely focusses on the nature of Atmanubhuti, defined within the contours of the bondage-liberation paradigm that one can see in this exploration the germ of what was laterformalised as the Ajatavada or Advaita school of thought by Gaudapada and Shankara. Ashtavakra goes on to annihilate the false sense of identification of the Self with the mind, saying that "it is bondage when the mind desires or grieves at anything, rejects or accepts anything, feels happy or angry at anything."

He sums up a free and fearless soul as one who has renounced desire, for “the renunciation of desire alone is the renunciation of the world.” Ashtavakra then attempts to describe the state of bliss of the Self, in which all notions of plurality fall away, in which even intellectual or aesthetic or ethical pursuits seem secondary, where ‘‘there is no heaven or hell or liberation nothing but the Self in this expanded cosmic consciousness’’. The fire of knowledge ignited by the guru burns away the desires of the disciple, and the last two chapters allude to the experientialrealisation of the disciple himself. and www.speakingtree.in(This article was first published on being reproduced with the consent of the writer.)  

(The writer is a senior IAS officer in the Govt. of India)