You are not a thing | Ashtavakra Gita

Ashtavakra Gita. Wisdom.

Ashtavakra said:

"Existence, non-existence, change — this is the nature of things. Realizing this, stillness, serenity and bliss naturally follow.

One who knows for certain that 'Self creates All and is alone' becomes still, desireless, unattached. One who knows for certain that adversity and success come and go in obedience to destiny becomes content. He neither desires nor grieves. One who knows for certain that birth and death, happiness and misery, come and go in obedience to destiny sees nothing to accomplish.

He engages in non-action and in action remains unattached. One who has realized that only by caring is misery caused in the world becomes free, happy, serene, desireless. 'I am not the body, nor is the body my possession — I am Awareness itself.' One who realizes this for certain has no memory of things done or left undone.

There is only the Absolute. 'From Brahma to the last blade of grass — I alone exist.' One who knows this for certain becomes immaculate, serene, unconflicted. Attainment has no meaning.

One who knows for certain that this manifold and wonderful universe is nothing becomes desireless Awareness and abides in the stillness of No-thing."

"Existence, non-existence, change — this is the nature of things."

And it is quite obvious that this is the nature of things. But what might be missed is that you are not such a thing.

You are not earth, water, fire, or air. You are not matter nor the mind, but That which is aware of matter as the mind. You are this Aware-ness; this Sentience.

"Realizing this, stillness, serenity and bliss naturally follow."

If it isn't immediately obvious why, you just need to go deeper into this one Realization. Consider how it feels like when you're relieved of a burden, or how you expect to feel when you've completed your responsibilities and can call it a day. How everyone expects to feel if all their troubles could be resolved and they knew for certain that all is well. This all falls naturally from realizing that you are not a thing but Awareness Itself.

Which is the same as knowing that there are no individual selves. There is the one singular Self. Reality is aware, not things. When you know that you're not among the changeful, but the changeless Basis, that your mere presence is the support for this entire subjective world, then you are done with your duties.

You cannot help but perform your duties to the utmost perfection. Because your duty; your function, is only to be aware. All the flaws you can dream of have to do with the body, the mind, and the world. Your quality of being aware is always perfect.

Flawless.

"One who knows for certain that 'Self creates All and is alone' becomes still, desireless, unattached."

Creates in what sense? Not through planning.

Not through fore-thought and intention. Not by willing the world into existence. Awareness creates all in the sense of making it possible. By being the fundamental essence of mind, the basis of every experience, every observable phenomena.

Awareness is the support for the world itself. The mind that arrives at this conclusion that the Self is not a thing, that there is no individual person that is its master, realizes the Self as this very Awareness that knows it. Such a mind becomes still, overcoming its many desires and misguided pursuits. Because it detaches from the very idea of "me" and "mine" that it used to slave for.

Such a mind realizes its true master. My "Lord" and "God" is Awareness. The Heart of Reality without which nothing would exist. Without which existence itself would not exist.

And This is what I have always meant when I said, "I am." This is I — truly I.

"One who knows for certain that adversity and success come and go in obedience to destiny becomes content. He neither desires nor grieves."

Could you have changed a single thing that happened in this life? Without fore-knowledge, in the moment, can you prevent an event from taking place? Can you even have this body and mind act differently? Awareness is unconditional, absolute, ever in the now, encompassing the fullness of every spontaneous moment of creation.

Whatever arises, it comes to be known in Awareness, by Awareness. What is taken for control is only just familiarity. An intimate knowledge of what is going on in this body and its environment. That is the mind.

But can you control what comes next? Can you even just stop the thinking by wanting it to stop? You can't. Just as you can't stop the breath or slow down the heart any more than the body allows. Knowing your true identity, your true function, your only duty is to remain aware.

You cannot help but do that because that is your true nature. Your "true nature" must be truest to you, most effortless. So, just bear witness to these events. Witness the joy and the suffering, the living and the dying, whilst knowing that no separate self was ever born or can die.

"One who knows for certain that birth and death, happiness and misery come and go in obedience to destiny sees nothing to accomplish. He engages in non-action and in action remains unattached."

Destiny is just an ancient name for the laws of physics. And it is humanity's great delusion to believe that in each body there is an individual self that has control over these laws of physics, each within that one little body.

It's absurd and hilarious really when you see it. How can an entity have such godlike powers, and yet only within a tiny bit of space, for a few moments in time? The same applies to consciousness. Consciousness is not a quality that can be possessed by something, a "person", and then projected only within a few meters of space.

There's no magical entity to control such a universal power. The idea of such a separate self is the illusion. What is real must be universal, unattached to any particular thing, not possessed by any changing entity that comes into existence and then dissipates. Not possessed by any entity that is only known through this consciousness.

The only real "I" is this ever-present Awareness. Awareness is not an entity, nor is it possessed by any entity. Awareness does not do anything. But even in non-action, This is what makes everything possible.

Knowing the Self in this way, the mind and body can engage in action while simultaneously remaining unattached from that mistaken identity of being a separate sentient entity; a 'person'.

"One who has realized that only by caring is misery caused in the world becomes free, happy, serene, desireless."

There's one particular thread in the mind caring for which causes more misery than anything else. Caring enough for this thread can turn any mind into a monster, can turn love to hate, drive a parent into a fit of rage against their own child.

This is the thread of my opinions, my beliefs, my desires and wants, my righteous knowledge of what is right and just. Caring for this thread, being driven by it, has led to much exploitation, violence, bloodshed. What if you could watch this mental thread from afar as you do when you're just watching someone else go ape? In this way, by not caring, by detaching from what you took to be your own cherished opinions and beliefs, you put a bit of distance, a bit of gap in that usual thinking.

Your lack of interest itself sets a new directive for the mind, And that releases all the energy being expended on the personal drama, setting the mind free. And in that relief comes the calm in the storm. Simply by not caring, you arrive at serenity and contentment; satisfaction.

"I am not the body, nor is the body my possession — I am Awareness itself.

One who realizes this for certain has no memory of things done or left undone. There is only the Absolute."

Once the mind truly changes its perspective, its understanding of what the Self is, it has the power to rewrite all of history. All the memories of you doing this and that, your role in all those events, it's all written off.

The body was never you. Nor were you ever inside it. Nor did it ever come into your possession. You have always been Awareness itself.

There's no longer the concept of 'having' a body or mind, in fact. There are sensations, sights, sounds, but those are all experiential phenomena, inseparable from Awareness. What all these experiences and all of science are describing is the Absolute — The one Reality which has bloomed into this universe. And it is this Reality itself that is aware.

Cutting through all the misconceptions of an individual "I", this is the only answer left. It is not me; the body or person, that is aware of a greater reality. It is the Greater Reality that is aware of this body, and all bodies. Each as a subjective Self-contained world.

"From Brahma to the last blade of grass, I alone exist. One who knows this for certain becomes immaculate, serene, unconflicted. Attainment has no meaning."

Realizing that it is not the body, mind, or an individual person that is sentient, the meaning of "I" is indelibly rewritten for the rest of this life.

In all that is knowable, what is real is just the Awareness, rather than the particular thing that is being known. From a blade of grass to the vast night sky, to some grand vision of God, all phenomena are the expression of this Awareness. And from the most basic experience to the most intricate, what can be called "I" is that which is aware. This very same Awareness.

That is I. The only I that can be found. The only I that exists. I, you, we, us, the ants, the plants, even the stones, the sun, the moon, and the stars. All is One.

All is this Awareness, this basic Reality. All the multiplicity is only at the surface level; a magic trick, an illusion. Underlying all this is the Singularity that renders mute any idea of any individual person existing as a separate self, attaining enlightenment and all that.

"One who knows for certain that this manifold and wonderful universe is nothing becomes desireless Awareness and abides in the stillness of No-thing."

The universe is neither sentient nor does it have any intrinsic existence of its own. It is a dependent arising, a blossoming forth, an outpouring of Nothing into something. Simply a demonstration that Nothing is not "nothing" but rather No-thing. No conceivable thing.

No thing that can fit into a mind. No thing that can be perceived as an object. That No-thing is the Reality underlying the idea of a subject; the basis of subjectivity itself; the substance of the universe and all observable phenomena — the Absolute. Knowing this, attainment has no meaning.

No one exists to become perfect, when Perfection alone exists.