When we hear the word Gita, there is only one Bhagavad Gita that comes to our mind. The Vedantic literature is replete with many types of Gita, all conveying the same truth and one of them is the Ashtavakra Gita, taught by the sage Ashtavakra—the Rishi who had eight deformities in his person—to Raja Janaka, the king of Mithila. This king is unique in the sense that he is the example quoted in the Bhagavad Gita too by Sri Krishna about how people should live in the world, with a vision of the truth. Unlike the Bhagavad Gita and more like the Avadhoota Gita, the Ashtavakra Gita talks directly about the supreme truth.
The Ashtavakra Gita begins with Janaka’s question, “How will I attain that knowledge? How does liberation of mind happen? How do I get the dispassion towards all objects with name and form that is an important prerequisite for this knowledge of the Brahman? Kindly instruct me, my Master.”
For a master to give the truth of the Brahman, such a sincere question is very essential. Ask and it shall be given unto you is the credo of the Upanishadic teachers. Only when the right question comes, it is the right time to receive the knowledge.
Rishi Ashtavakra says in the event of your seeking liberation, shun all limiting objects in space and time with a name as if it was poison. Worship and acquire the qualities such as patience, straightforwardness, compassion, contentment and truthfulness as if they were the nectar of immortality. Even when the right question is there, the student who seeks the truth about the eternal self in all needs certain qualities. There are people who argue in a busy office environment at lunch time, “Come on now show me God!” Well, if the seeking is true, then we need the right qualifications to know that knowledge beyond which there is nothing to be known. Even to join a medical or an engineering college, an entrance test needs to be taken!
These qualities are like an entrance prerequisite for Brahma Jnana—without which it is not possible even if the Guru is willing and the student wants.
Having just mentioned this, Rishi Ashtavakra goes straight into the crux of the truth—you are not the earth, water, fire, air or space.
You are that consciousness that is the witness of all these elements and the play of it in this world. You are the form of consciousness.
Know this and be free.
How do you attain a freedom of mind in an instant? Right this moment, know that you are not this body and rest in your conscious self. This “I am not the body” thought is quoted often in the Upanishads and by all the knowers of truth. If you reflect for a while on that word ‘I’ and see for yourself, the understanding is so simple. I have a car. It means I am different from the car. I have a house. I am different from the house. I have a body. I am different from this body. The one who says ‘I’, if you observe, has nothing to do with the body which is more like a cave in which that sound of ‘I’ and other sounds are produced. ‘I’ is hence just a name which is only an indicator to the owner of the name!
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