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A Man of Perfection has a highly developed and a completely disciplined outer and inner equipments as any other normal man, yet Aṣṭāvakra despairs here that we cannot describe him in terms of his activities by the equipments in him.
Just as when we enter a mirrored hall, everywhere and at all points we see but ourselves reflected, the spiritually awakened one sees nothing but the Self, inherent in all names and forms everywhere and at all times.
‘Knower of the Brahman becomes the Brahman’
The Self-realised, lives awakened to the ‘fourth plane of Consciousness’ (turīya), in a state of unbroken ‘ecstasy’. He has identified himself with the pure Consciousness here, which is the very Consciousness that illumines all the experiences in the three lesser states of awareness
The Man of Wisdom is devoid of thoughts even when he thinks. He is devoid of sense organs even though he possesses them. He is devoid of intelligence even though endowed with an intellect. He is devoid of egoism even though he possesses an ego.
From an ordinary observer’s standpoint, a sage is apparently making use of all his equipments and living a normal life just as anyone else. The only distinction that lifts him to be a unique divine creature in the community of men is in that, he has no sense of ‘doership’ or ‘enjoyership’ in his pulsating vigorous equipments.
The ‘non-apprehension of Reality’ (tamas) has no sorrows in it (deep sleep). The ‘misapprehensions that are projected by the mind’ (dream and waking) have really no sorrows in themselves. But having projected, when the mind identifies with its own imaginations, in this unholy wedlock between the mind and its projections, is born the ego and it is this ego, as the subject, that experiences the joys and sorrows of its delusory world.
‘I saw’ is an experience; ‘I see’ is a spontaneous flare of Consciousness!
The Man of Perfection lives in the immediate experiences. He refuses to drag the past to muddy the present.
A Man of Perfection is neither Liberated nor is he an aspirant for Liberation, because he has ‘awakened’ to the Supreme and from his new heights of wisdom, he looks back to realise, that never was he ever in bondage and, so has never been liberated!!
‘When the mind leaves perceptions and delusions, ignorance and illusions, it comes immediately to rest in some inexplicable and unique state’
All Masters have to employ ‘the language of contradictions’ when they come to explain the inexplicable! This is the only way in which an attempt can be made to ‘describe the indescribable’. This can read as confusions, only to those who are trying to understand it with their intellect. This is not a thing that is to be understood by the intellect. All confusions will end when the seeker transcends his body consciousness. Experience alone can reveal the Truth.
The storms and clouds, the thunders and lightnings of the passionate world of matter can play only at the feet of his gigantic Divine Colossus. He dwells on the peaks, which is lost to our vision among the heavens.
The praise and insults, honour and dishonour of the pygmies of the world are all of no concern to him. He neither feels elevated by our appreciations nor is he dejected and despaired at our insults. He needs no compliments of his age. He is self-sufficient unto himself. He lives in this world to give and not to take. He accepts nothing, desires nothing.
100. The serene minded Master seeks neither the crowded place nor the solitude of the forest. He remains the same under any condition, in any place.
The reflection of the sun in the waters may dance, may break up but the sun in the heaven is not affected by the conditions of the reflected sun. Similarly, the pure infinite Consciousness, which is now the nature of the Man of Perfection, is not affected by the experiences of the ‘ego’ in him – the light of Consciousness playing in his mind! Master is egoless, hence he is unaffected by the outer environments.
‘Those who have purified their minds and cultivated the alertness necessary to comprehend the Self, they alone apprehend the pure Brahman, not others who merely prattle the dialects and quote the letter, of the śāstras.’1
Ᾱcārya Śaṅkara has warned the students against this hazard on the path of study, in his Vivekacūḍāmaṇi: ‘Commentaries on philosophies constitute a thick jungle in which a roaming mind may easily get lost in its own delusion. Therefore, true seekers of Brahman should through right efforts come to experience the real nature of the Self.’3
‘This Ᾱtman cannot be attained by study of Veda, nor by intelligence, nor by much hearing’4.
In ‘time’ the mind again entertains the illusory ideas of the past, present and future. In the Self these illusions can have no valid existence. For one, who has thus transcended the concepts of both ‘time and space’ the very idea of ‘eternity’ has no meaning, because the very concepts of eternity is ‘non-stop time’.
Just as on awakening from the dream, the dreamer and his dreamworld merge into the waker, so too, on reaching this fourth plane, we transcend the earlier three states of delusion and, therefore, the experience of the pure Self cannot be called as the fourth plane. This is the transcendental experience of the absolute Self.
All these distinctions are recognised by the ego as it looks out upon the illusory world of plurality, when the Truth is mis-interpreted by the mind in agitation.
The tamoguṇa dims the powers of discrimination in the human intellect and it comes to ‘ignore’ the Truth. To ignore ‘the Reality’ is the condition of ‘ignorance’. When the intellect is thus veiled, the mind projects, in fanciful imaginations, a world of multiplicity and it gets itself restless in the play of ‘rajas’. Thereafter, it distinguishes ‘far and near’, ‘outside and inside’, ‘gross and subtle’ and such other endless varieties of delusions.
The three ‘goals of life’ (dharma, artha, kāma), yoga and direct experience in samādhi, are all means for the realisation of the Self. To one who has already realised, the means are no more of any significance.
Should one who has crossed river, carry the boat on his head?
All the means of realisation are to smuggle the ego out of its illusions into the effulgent light of the supreme Reality.
No doubt, sense of logic and alertness of reason distinguish man from the animal kingdom. They are his glory and his beauty. Yet, on the path of the spiritual rediscovery, having made use of these faculties of logic and reason to their maximum, the student must learn the art of discarding them – even the intellect is to be transcended – after they had fulfilled their functions.
Transcending the intellect, stretches the dimensionless infinitude of peace and beatitude; Aṣṭāvakra’s technique stands justified and entirely fulfilled in Janaka, the Liberated in life.
This ‘void’ (śūnya) has been conceived by a certain school of Buddhists as the highest state. Janaka, contradicts this fallacious conclusions, when he asks, ‘Where is despair?’ To be in the ‘void’ is to feel utter despair.
Here three sets of examples are given to represent all ‘cause-effect relationships’ comprehended at all levels of our personality. The five elements and body includes all ‘cause-effect relationships’ experienced at the body level; the sense organs and mind embraces all such relationships that are at mental level; and the ‘consequent despair’ can be considered to represent, in itself, all ‘cause-effect’ perceptions at the intellectual level.
So long as we are functioning at the mental level as an ego, we cannot avoid perceiving the world of plurality and experiencing the pairs of opposites. One who has transcended the mind, has eliminated his ego and, therefore, in him there is no sense of 'enjoyership' to experience the pairs of opposites.
All the scriptural textbooks are addressed to the ego, which is suffering from its sense of ‘doership’ and ‘enjoyership’.
In order to realise this seat of Consciousness, the scriptures advise the students to detach their minds from sense objects, since without arresting the outgoing tendencies of the mind, it cannot be persuaded to have a steady inward gaze.
The knowledge of the Self lies not in the texts of even the Vedas. It awaits for your direct experience in your own Self.
I am never born neither do I die. In me there is no activity, either good or bad. I am all pure Brahman without any attributes. How then should there be in me anything like bondage and Liberation?1
Now Janaka, the Liberated, from his state of Selfhood, is denying even any prārabdha for himself.
actions are undertaken by the ego; the reactions are experienced by the same ego. One in whom the ego has been transcended, the law of action and reaction must cease for him.
Mind, through sense organs, flows out to the place where the object is and there the mind gets itself moulded into the shape of the object. The ripple of disturbance so created in the mind, gets illuminated in the light of Consciousness and then the individual considers that he has seen and understood the object.
‘There is neither dissolution, nor birth; neither anyone in bondage nor any aspirant for wisdom; neither can there be any seeker for Liberation, nor any Liberated as such. This alone is the supreme Truth.’4
Beyond ‘happiness and misery’, unaffected by any of delusory storms of the mind, created by its illusions of the world of objects, shines the effulgent Self, which is the very essence and substance of the Man of Realisation.
In ‘Vivekacūḍāmaṇi’ Śaṅkarācārya elaborately proves and asserts, there is no māyā nor ‘ignorance’ other than our own mind; the mind is nothing but a grosser and, therefore, a more perceptible expression of avidyā: ‘Apart from the mind there is no ignorance (avidyā). The mind itself is the ‘ignorance’ which is the cause for the bondage of rebirth.
When the mind is destroyed, everything else is destroyed. When mind manifests, everything else manifests’7.
The macrocosmic expression of ‘ignorance’ (avidyā) is the concept of māyā, which maintains the ill...
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The reflected sun in the bucket disappears when the water is thrown out
Similarly, when the waters of thoughts are dried up, the mind is ended
‘When all thought disturbances have ended, the purified mind enters the state of one’s own pure Nature Divine and there, like a drop that has entered the ocean, with all its desires gone, becomes one with the Self’8.
‘The knower of the Self becomes the Self. He who knows that supreme Brahman becomes Brahman.’9
The Consciousness is neither active, nor inactive. It being merely the Knowing Principle that illumines these two conditions into our awareness.
The concepts of bondage and Liberation are different experiences of the ego,
Established in the Self, the royal sage has no identity other than the Self. He has no impulsion to act as there is no ego or desire in him. In the absence of the egocentric individuality in him he has no duties from which he must, with exertion and suffering, learn to withdraw!
