That which is beyond experience | Ashtavakra Gita

The Ashtavakra Gita. Special Instruction.

Ashtavakra said:

"You can recite and discuss scripture all you want, but until you drop everything, you will never know Truth.

You can enjoy and work and meditate, but you will still yearn for That which is beyond all experience, and in which all desires are extinguished.

Everyone is miserable because they exert constant effort. But no one understands this. A ripe mind can become unshackled upon hearing this one instruction. The master idler, to whom even blinking is a bother, is happy.

But he is the only one. When the mind is free of opposites like, 'This is done,' and 'This is yet undone,' one becomes indifferent to merit, wealth, pleasure and liberation. One who abhors sense objects avoids them. One who desires them becomes ensnared.

One who neither abhors nor desires is neither detached nor attached. As long as there is desire – which is the absence of discrimination – there will be attachment and nonattachment. This is the cause of the world. Indulgence creates attachment. Aversion creates abstinence.

Like a child, the sage is free of both and thus lives on as a child. One who is attached to the world thinks renouncing it will relieve his misery. One who is attached to nothing is free and does not feel miserable even in the world. He who claims liberation as his own, as an attainment of a person is neither enlightened nor a seeker.

He suffers his own misery. Though Hara, Hari or the lotus-born Brahma himself instruct you, until you know nothing you will never know Self."

"You can recite and discuss scripture all you want, but until you drop everything, you will never know Truth."

Until you drop everything.

Any idea or thought of self, any desire to know or experience yourself, any past experience or an experience yet to come. And this experience right now, let it drop. Not you, not yours. What remains standing?

"You can enjoy and work and meditate, but you will still yearn for That which is beyond all experience, and in which all desires are extinguished."

Awakening, forgetting, in bliss, in sorrow, calm or disturbed, can you see what remains standing? That is what is beyond the eb and flow of experience. This basic factor – the fact of being aware.

If you return to this self-evident knowledge of being aware, but without trying to take it any further, without trying to deepen or comprehend or expand or experience, where do You stand?

"Everyone is miserable because they exert constant effort. But no one understands this. A ripe mind can become unshackled upon hearing this one instruction."

So pay attention to this one instruction. This misery is not natural but comes from constant effort. The effort to be this or that, to attain or to be detached, to achieve or to let go. Can you drop the effort for a moment?

Does it take effort to drop effort for a moment? No. It is natural if you but drop everything and return to the Truth. Just this obvious Truth of being aware.

This fact of not changing, of standing still, of being beyond experience. See in this Truth the fact that you are not a thing, not an entity in the world, but just That which is beyond experience. This is the Truth in which all desires are extinguished, naturally, without effort.

"The master idler, to whom even blinking is a bother, is happy.

But he is the only one."

Consider the Self-realized sage. What is the reason for that gentle smile? What is the basis of that immovable certainty?

Can it be anything that requires thought or memory or effort? When the mind becomes inactive for a moment, like when sleep approaches and the thoughts drop off, then experience may be present, but you are empty of desire and free of needs. In that effortless moment, that "state", is it not worthy of being called "happiness"? That is the bliss of sleep seeping into this world of experience.

It comes naturally from within You. The only requirement is that the effort is forgotten.

"When the mind is free of opposites like, 'This is done,' and 'This is yet undone,' one becomes indifferent to merit, wealth, pleasure and liberation."

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

From this point of stillness, from the view of Truth, there's nothing to be done, or anything that can be done. There's only The Way. The path laying itself out; Now flowing into Now. Reality being expressed in every experience.

There is no criteria for merit or success or a final enlightenment or liberation.

"One who abhors sense objects avoids them. One who desires them becomes ensnared. One who neither abhors nor desires is neither detached nor attached."

Can you see the way forward now? Neither accepting nor rejecting, without trying to let go or overcome, without trying to be indifferent or calm, simply recognizing this basic Truth. Just this obvious Truth of being aware. This fact of not changing, of standing still, of being beyond experience – Being That which is beyond experience.

This Aware-ness, which is You.

"As long as there is desire, which is the absence of discrimination, there will be attachment and non-attachment. This is the cause of the world."

When the mind is ruled by likes and dislikes, then there is the world of events; of a past and a future, and the sense objects of the present.

Then there is a world. Then you are cast as a subject in the world. Then the effort begins and with it the misery. This is the cause of the sense of being a separate self.

The cause of ignorance and suffering.

"Indulgence creates attachment. Aversion creates abstinence. Like a child, the sage is free of both and thus lives on as a child."

If you can cut through both likes and dislikes with the sword of Truth, you are free. A child unbound from the burden of time, of memory, personality, mindless habits and conditioning. Then you can remain steadfast and live from the right view, from this enlightened view where there is no separate world and no separate you.

"One who is attached to the world thinks renouncing it will relieve his misery.

One who is attached to nothing is free and does not feel miserable even in the world."

Renouncing the world was only in order to recognize Reality. Giving up experience was only necessary to know the Self. Dropping everything was only so the mind may arrive at this obvious Truth.

The truth of You – of what You are. This ever-present Aware-ness. Changeless, perfect, timeless, fundamental. Can this State which underlies all states require the renunciation of any state?

"He who claims liberation as his own, as an attainment of a person, is neither enlightened nor a seeker. He suffers his own misery."

As long as there is the idea that liberation is attained by individuals, that there are people who seek and those that become enlightened, then the Truth is being ignored. Whatever can be attained can also be lost and is not the Eternal Truth.

No one can claim to be enlightened because enlightenment is the direct recognition that you are not a person; that there are no individual selves, and that there is no one to liberate or be enlightened. You have to know that you are nothing. You are this Absolute No-thing. What the mind cannot describe, cannot render into a concept.

That which is beyond experience. Just this Aware...ness.

"Though Hara, Hari or the lotus-born Brahma himself instruct you, until you know nothing, you will never know Self."