Enlightenment – Have It!!!🔗

Today's topic is Enlightenment – Have it!!! On the first day, we saw a few basic things about enlightenment based on Ashtavakra Gita: Enlightenment - It Is Possible! The next day, we understood a few things from Enlightenment – Guaranteed!! Now today, it is Enlightenment – Have it!!!

Let us enter into the sutra and see how Ashtavakra says that we can simply have it. He also shows us how to have it:

Virtue and vice, pleasure and pain are of the mind, not of you.

Oh all-pervading one, you are neither doer nor enjoyer. Verily you are ever free.

In this sutra, Ashtavakra directly addresses Janaka as the all-pervading one. Here he directly says to Janaka, ‘Oh, all-pervading one.’ Until this point he was saying, ‘You are this, you are that, you are pure consciousness.’ Now he straightaway addresses Janaka as all-pervading one.

Virtue and vice, pleasure and pain are of the mind, not of you.

Actually, Ashtavakra is answering the doubts that will come after listening to the truth of being unattached. Yesterday, I talked about how there is no shaft in our being. We are completely un-clutched. Every moment, by our nature, we renounce our thoughts. Unless we renounce one thought, we cannot have the next thought. By our very nature, we are constantly renouncing our thoughts.

Only fools try to create the same thoughts over and over again. Whether you try to visualize or verbalize the same things constantly, this can be harmful to you. Please be very clear, the Eastern consciousness is suffering because you are constantly trying to visualize or verbalize something.

Almost all the people who take up spiritual life try one exercise or another. They are constantly trying to visualize something or verbalize something through some mantra or some form of technique. Both visualizing and verbalizing can work against you. By our very nature we are unattached. By our very nature we renounce thoughts. The more we try to stay with one thought, the more we suffer.

I have seen people who try to chant some mantra or use some visualization technique for thirty or forty years. After forty years they come to me and ask me, ‘Master, how can I learn to concentrate? Please teach me how to concentrate.’ To tell you honestly, I do not know, because that situation never happened to me. I have seen thousands of seekers constantly trying to repeat a thought or to repeat the same mantra or to bring the same visualization in their minds. Unfortunately, they never succeeded with this approach. In the end, they became completely frustrated and failed in achieving the result that they were seeking.

After that failure, they tried to find other solutions. Please understand, by our very nature, we are constantly renouncing thoughts. Unless we renounce one thought, we cannot go to the next thought. The moment we renounce one thought, we go to the next thought. By our very nature we are renouncing thoughts.

If we try to keep our mind focused on a single thought, we will only be torturing ourselves. I have seen people torturing themselves through some mantra or some visualization. But whether it is mantra or visualization, both create only more and more pressure and stress in us.

By repeating words or mantras, the only thing that you can do is attempt to create a consistent shaft. These efforts to create a consistent shaft will not be successful because it is not possible to create a consistent shaft. I have tried it myself in my own life and I can tell you that it is impossible. If you are in the habit of repeating some syllable or some word or mantra, you will understand what I mean. You will be just waiting and thinking, ‘When will I finish this?’ You will be waiting to finish it. In the same way, if you are trying to avoid something, you will see it constantly surface and you will be fighting with it.

You already have enough pain and problems. Now you create one more pain of repeating some mantra or creating some visualization. Be very clear, by your very nature you cannot be with the same thought continuously. You cannot be with just one thought for a significant period of time. All you need to understand is that by your very nature, you are unattached. Just as Ashtavakra says in the sutra, ‘By your very nature you are unattached.’

There is no linear connection between one thought and another thought within us. The only relationship between thoughts is that they come from the same source.

The moment you hear this truth you are shocked because you are constantly connecting one thought and the next thought in a linear manner.

For example, you will connect the depression that you are experiencing today with the depression that you experienced yesterday. The moment you connect the independent incidents that have happened in your life, you start creating an idea that you are a depressed being. Also, if you connect all joyful incidents of your life, you come to the conclusion that you are a joyful being. You come up with some concept about yourself by connecting all your thoughts in a linear way.

Just like the bubbles in a fish tank come up from the bottom, your thoughts also rise in the same manner. When one bubble comes and reaches the surface of the water, the next bubble starts and then the third bubble starts. You start connecting all these bubbles on the surface of the water.

Because of your memory of pain or pleasure, you start connecting all the bubbles and start thinking that your mind is linear. No, your mind is not linear. In order to move from one bubble to the next you cannot move horizontally; you can go only vertically. Every bubble is coming from the atman, soul, your being.

One big problem is that you do not connect all your thoughts. Instead you choose just a few thoughts and connect them. Some people feel that their whole life is pain and some people feel that their whole life is joy.

When you connect your thoughts in a selective linear manner, you create an idea that your whole life is pain or your whole life is joy or pleasure. If you feel that your whole life is pain, you will try to break the shaft.

If you feel that your whole life is pleasure, you will try to extend that shaft. Either way, you will fail. You will be a complete and utter failure with this effort because there actually is no shaft.

Connecting and seeing your thoughts in a linear way is the original sin that you commit. Creating the shaft in your mind is the original sin.

In doing so, you are creating something inside you that does not exist - the mind.

Mind is a pure myth.

Somehow we have learned the habit of keeping files. I have seen people keeping files, not only about themselves but about others as well.

I told him, 'I only bless individuals for marriages. What made you come and ask me to bless you for a divorce?' He replied, 'No, no Master, you have to bless me, because I have suffered too much.'

I said, ‘Suffering is always give and take. It is never just taking. You must have given her enough suffering too. So please tell me the truth about what happened and then we will analyze the situation.’

I said, ‘Please do not attack me directly! Just tell me a few incidents. Then we will come to some understanding.’

In Indian villages, when a wedding takes place, the newly married couple plays games after the ceremony. For one of the games, a ring is placed inside a pot filled with water. The husband and wife put their hands inside and compete to pick up the ring. Whoever grabs it first wins. These small games were created mainly to reduce the distance between the couple, because in arranged marriages it was only during the wedding ceremony that the couple first met. They have small games to reduce the distance between the couple because they are new to each other.

This man said, ‘During that game, she scratched my hand. With her nails, she scratched my hand, Master.’ And he started a big story about everything that she supposedly had done to him since that day. For all practical purposes, he had kept a file, like a police report from the first day of his marriage.

After two or three incidents were narrated I told him, ‘Please stop! If this is the case, she should be happier than you to part ways. It is very difficult to live with someone who keeps such large and detailed files in their head!’ Any time she does something, this man will always be looking through the files.

Please understand, when I mentioned that he said, ‘Today she will pour coffee and tomorrow she will pour acid’, you all laughed. But you all are also doing the same thing in your own lives! You are constantly creating a connection which is illogical. You forget to see incidents as independent. You

forget to see thoughts as independent. By your very nature, you have only independent thoughts. All your thoughts are completely independent.

If you just learn this one simple technique of un-clutching, you will release a significant amount of the energy in your system, in your being. As a result, you will be ten times more productive and more creative. Your relationships will have much more friendliness because you will not clutch to incidents that are not related.

At this point, you don't trust the other person. You cannot believe that you or your spouse has become intelligent in the last few years. You never sincerely trust that he or she has grown and become intelligent because you never trust that you yourself could grow and become intelligent.

You will be maintaining the same idea that you had formed about him or her ten years ago. No matter what your spouse does, you will only look at him or her through the same lens. Whatever he does, she will think, 'He never listens to me.' Whatever she does, he will say, 'She tries to boss me around.' You have this preconceived idea.

That is why I tell people, you always live with the other person for six months, and in six months, you create an idea about the other person. Once you create an idea about the other person, it's over. The man will create the idea, 'I don't have to go to hell after death because the punishment is given now.' And the woman will create the idea, 'God has sent me this as punishment; I have to finish all my karmas.' Both create similar ideas. After that whatever he or she does, the other looks at their actions only through that coloured lens.

You never un-clutch from your ideas or your prejudices. You do not listen to arguments before passing judgments or reconsider a judgment that you have made. You only collect arguments to support your own judgments. The judgment is already there and you are just waiting for arguments in support of it. Whenever you find a solid argument, you catch hold of it and support your judgment.

You will understand how every thought is completely illogical, irresponsible and unconnected, how you are completely un-clutched. For example you are sitting here and suddenly you will get thoughts such as, ‘Why don’t I take a month’s vacation? No, why don’t I go home and do some work? I think I should go to this Swami’s ashram and see what he does. Can I go tomorrow?

He is still not finished and I am hungry. What is happening?'

You can see how everything is flowing in your mind. Actually if you do this exercise just once, you will understand how unconnected, illogical, independent and un-clutched those thoughts are. This understanding can be so transforming. This very understanding transforms the way that you think about yourself and your way of conducting yourself with others and with yourself. It just transforms your whole life.

When you read what you have written, you will understand what I meant when I said that you are nothing but unconnected, illogical, independent, un-clutched thoughts. For example, if you see a dog on the street, you will immediately remember the dog that made you afraid when you were young or one that you used to play with when you were young. The next thought would be about your childhood; the third, the teacher and the room you used to sit in school, and fourth, the place where your teacher used to stay.

You can see the thoughts flowing. There is no logical connection between the dog that you saw on the street and the teacher who taught you in school. But in a few seconds, you would have just drifted in that direction. There is no logical connection between the two; but your thoughts are moving, drifting from one thing to another.

Both Lead to Suffering

By your very nature you are unconnected, independent, illogical thoughts. Many things are happening within you. For the sake of your convenience, you pick up a few thoughts randomly, clutch them, create a shaft, and start believing that the shaft is you. You also believe that it is an accurate representation of your past and that it is your identity.

It is like when there are ten thousand flowers in different colors, you pick just a few flowers randomly and create a garland. You start thinking that the garland is the representation of the ten thousand flowers. The garland cannot be a representation of the ten thousand flowers.

Mostly, you create the shaft that your life is painful. Sometimes by mistake you even create a shaft with the idea that your life is joyful, but this is very rare and usually happens by mistake! Whatever shaft you create, whether it be ‘life is pain’ or ‘life is joy’, that shaft is not the representation of your past. It is not the totality of you.

Understand, you pick up thoughts in a very random way and connect them, clutch them and create a shaft.

Let me give you a diagram to help you understand how you clutch and create the shaft. It is a simple diagram to understand how thoughts flow in your being and how you connect them.

Each thought is a square or rectangle, different shape and different size. Thoughts are flowing in you, moving. One may be related to pain or a painful experience. Another one may be related to joy or a joyful experience. The next one maybe related to joy but you think of it as pain. It is referred to as JP (joyful experience, painful impression) on the chart. Similarly you may have a thought that is related to a painful experience but you may think of it as joy. We will refer to this as PJ (painful experience, joyful impression). Many times you may label pain

Joy Shaft

Independent Thoughts

Pain Shaft

as joy and joy as pain. Something continuously goes on in you. This is how thoughts are flowing in you. Understand they are all completely unconnected, independent and illogical.

Each thought may be related to some experience which you had in the past or which you want to have in the future. All your thoughts are related to something about the past or something about the future. You cannot have thoughts about the present. In the present moment you can have only consciousness, not thoughts. The thoughts are either related to some joyful experiences which you had in the past and want to have in the future, or painful experiences which you had in the past which you don't want to have again.

Of course, sometimes you want to have pain because it boosts your ego. It satisfies your ego quite a bit. You can tell others, ‘See how much I have struggled, how much I have suffered for you.’ This is what you tell your children to create guilt in them, so that they listen to you.

Sometimes we go through suffering or we invite suffering because it gives us ego satisfaction. It can give us an identity and a feeling of fulfillment. This is why we allow suffering to happen. Many times we have vested interest in our suffering.

Sometimes, when you suffer you get attention from others. A small sickness like headache, fever, body pain are sometimes ailments which are nothing but ways to get the family’s attention. The mind knows that with a little sickness, the whole family will you give attention; at a minimum they will listen to you. Nowadays, who listens to others? No one has time for that. So at least through ailments, we can get attention!

Actually, if you look inside yourself a little bit, you will understand that you create these small diseases just to get attention or to avoid tasks that you do not want to do. If you are asked or forced to do something that you don’t want to do, you just say, ‘I have knee pain,’ ‘I have this pain,’ and ‘I have that pain.’ Once or twice you will say that as an excuse, and the third time you will see that really happening. Your mind is very powerful to create whatever you want. So beware.

Anyhow, some thoughts are related to some joyful experiences that you had in the past or that you want to have in the future. Some thoughts are related to pains that you previously had or which you don’t want to have again.

There are so many thoughts, so many experiences moving like a conveyor belt inside your inner space, your inner consciousness. Some are related to joy and some are related to pain; some are related to the past and some to the future. Thoughts are constantly happening.

Each thought is completely independent, completely unconnected to the other thought. Understand, this is one of the important steps. No thought is logically connected. No thought holds responsibility for the other thought. They are all randomly appearing, independently appearing, illogically happening.

For archival purposes, you collect all the painful thoughts and create an idea that your life was depressing, that your life was pain, and you create a pain shaft. The moment you create a pain shaft, your life becomes hell. After the pain shaft is created, you will only pick up the painful incidents to confirm again and again what you believed in the first place.

They are all independent pain experiences, in no way connected to each other. But in your memory, you want to keep them all in one file for archival purpose, for reference. You put all your depression experiences in one file so that you can refer to that archive file.

Storing them all in one file for archival purposes alone is acceptable, but by and by you start believing that they are all connected to each other. This is where the problems start. Please understand that you do not evaluate arguments for the purpose of developing judgments. You develop opinions and subsequently collect only those arguments that support your pre-existing opinions. You have made ready the judgments in your life and you just collect arguments to support them.

So if you have already decided and are attached to the opinion that your life is painful, depressing, and full of suffering, then you will be just waiting to get more and more arguments to strengthen the judgments which you have already made about your life.

Rarely, you may create a joy shaft connecting all the joyful thoughts. You may start believing life is joy. Even if you do create a shaft that life is joy, you will also create the idea that there is an object which gives you joy, which is the reason for your joy. You will try to hang on to that object or person or incident or space. You may identify your joy with an object which may also be a person, place or an incident. Now you will try repeatedly to bring that object back in your life.

Any object that you are able to bring into your life again and again will not give you the same excitement as it gave you the first time.

The first time that you enjoy a sweet, the excitement is totally different. The first experience of the sweet is totally different from all the subsequent times you eat the sweet. It is the same with a person also. The first time that you meet, the experience is totally different; the excitement is totally different. In future meetings, the excitement will not be the same; the experience will not be the same.

That is why we say 'honeymoons' and not 'honeysuns'. Have you heard of the term 'honeysun'? No! What is the life of a moon? Sixteen days. A honeymoon is the excitement that will last for only sixteen days!

When you try to bring the same person, the same object, the same place again and again into your life, suddenly you will realize that the same excitement is not there. Please understand, the same person, the same object, the same place cannot bring the same excitement again and again. So whether you have created a pain shaft or a joy shaft, eitherway you have created hell for yourself.

By connecting our thoughts in a linear way, we create the thought, 'I have pain,' 'I have suffering,' 'I have this,' 'I have that,' 'I am this type of person,' 'I am this type of being.' If we are blissful or joyful, we will try to extend this idea. We will try to stay in the same mood for some more time. If the idea is painful, we will try to break it. Neither

breaking nor extending is possible because the shaft does not exist in reality.

After a discourse, one of the devotees came up to me and said, 'Master, it is such a blissful experience for me. I am so clear about everything, I am afraid that I may lose this. Please tell me, how I can retain this.'

I told him, 'Do not try to retain the feeling. You felt the bliss because you understood that nothing could be retained. You felt the deep joy because you were choiceless. You felt the deep joy because you felt completely disconnected. You felt such a big relief because by your very nature you are un-clutched. The bliss was not because of the discourse itself. The discourse was a tool that made you experience your inherent un-clutched state, that's all. So now don't try to clutch again!'

If somebody comes and tells you, 'I am in ecstasy because I played tennis and I enjoyed it,' you think, 'Playing tennis brings ecstasy.' You create an equation. Now continuously you will be hitting the ball, playing tennis. But nothing will be happening in you, no ecstasy. Then you will think that the person who shared their tennis experience cheated you. Be very clear, he was not concerned about joy; he was completely relaxed while he was playing. Because of this, joy simply happened. But somehow he associated it with tennis, that's all.

Choicelessness is bliss. If you choose it, bliss will not happen because you have made a choice and thereby have eliminated it as a possibility.

When you are choiceless, when you are completely relaxed, bliss simply happens in you. When you are concerned about bliss, your very concern will ensure that you will not experience it.

Someone who is playing just hoping to achieve joy can play his best, but nothing will happen because you cannot do anything directly to get joy. When you decide that a certain person, object, or place may bring joy to your life and if you try to reproduce the feeling, you will see very clearly it will not bring the same experience of joy.

Knowing that the same object will not bring the same level of excitement in your life, but not being able to give up the hope or the pursuit of this excitement is ‘addiction’.

You know that it is not and will not give you the same experience but you are not able to give it up. It is because you think that you have at least some excitement now and if you give this up, you are afraid what might happen. You are afraid you will be alone, and what you might do. That is what I call addiction.

Whether you create pain shaft or joy shaft, you end up in hell. Creating shafts will result in hell. If you create pain shaft then you will be creating pain. If you create joy shaft then you will be creating addictions. All addictions lead to hell. Whether you create a pain shaft or joy shaft, you are creating hell for yourself.

Understand that they are all independent experiences and in no way connected to each other.

The moment you try to retain an un-clutched experience, you clutch yourself. The clutching starts. The moment you clutch yourself, you create a shaft. Then you will be fighting to extend the shaft or destroy the shaft.

The moment you start trying to extend the shaft, you will start suffering because you will not be able to extend it. The moment you try to break the shaft, you will suffer because you will not able to break the shaft. Either way you will be a complete failure.

Understand only one thing - there is no shaft. Do not try to renounce your depression, because by your very nature it will be flowing, it will be going away. By your very nature just as joy disappears from your mind, depression also disappears from your mind. The moment you try to eliminate the depression, you will extend it and give it more life.

Thoughts are purely independent just like water bubbles coming from the bottom of a fish tank. Just as independent water bubbles come up in a fish tank, independent thoughts come up in us. When the gap between them is too small, we think all the bubbles are connected to each other. But they are not connected. Each bubble is an individual, unconnected, illogical, independent, and un-clutched bubble. It is because the gap is so small that you think all the bubbles are connected.

It is the same way in our minds. By our very nature every thought is independent, illogical, unconnected and un-clutched. As with the bubbles, we experience a neutral space in between two thoughts. As the gap or the neutral space between the two thoughts is too small, we think all the thoughts are connected and that it is in the form of a shaft, but it is not.

When we change gears while driving a car, whether we change from neutral to first gear, first to second or second to third - whatever gears we may change, every time we have to pass through the neutral state. Only then we can go to the next gear, is it not? In the same way, we experience a neutral space in between any two thoughts. That neutral space, that silence is what I call peace, bliss. The peace that exists in us in between two thoughts is bliss. The gap between the thoughts, that neutral space is peace. This is bliss.

When you understand that you are unconnected, independent, illogical and un-clutched by your very nature, you will start experiencing the neutral space in you. With the knowledge of this neutral space in you, you will start living from moment to moment with spontaneity.

The moment that I utter the words that there is no linear connection between thoughts, people are completely shaken and frightened. Their first fear is, ‘If that is the case, if I start living without connecting my thoughts, who will pay my bills? I may lose all my wealth, I may not remember where I kept all my money. I may not live in the society successfully.’ Then you may start asking, ‘How will I do my job? How will I take care of my things? Will I not just lie down in my bed without doing anything?’

The moment I say these things, the first question people ask, ‘If I am un-clutched, why should I go to my office?’ I ask, ‘Why should you not go to your office?’ The moment you ask that, it means that you have a little hatred or a little vengeance against the job. This is why the moment you find some excuse you want to escape from your work. You are expressing your anger, your violence against your routine, nothing else.

I always tell people, ‘Alright, if you don’t do anything and just be un-clutched, how many days will you be lying in your bed? Probably ten days at the most, until your tamas, your lethargy gets exhausted.’ You have a certain amount of tamas in you. In Sanskrit, keeping quiet is tamas, doing hard work or restlessness is rajas, and doing smart work is sattva or pure intelligence.

Be very clear, if you just un-clutch, you will not work hard, you will work smart. Until your tamas gets exhausted you will lie there. But after that what will you do? Naturally you will start working; you will start moving! Do not be afraid that if you become un-clutched, you will not be able to do your daily routine.

I tell you, what you think of as you is not necessary to run your day-to-day life. This is the basic truth. This truth hurts us. If somebody is happy, independent of us, we can’t tolerate it; it is too much. We want to feel that we are needed. That is why we project our suffering to the outer world. It makes us feel important.

You know that in your profession, the first thing you have to do is to convince your boss that the workload that you have is too much for any one person to handle. Second, if it can be done by one person, it can be done only by you. Third, it can only be done if you give your whole life to it. Only when you are able to convince your boss or your client of these three things, will you get a high compensation.

First, anybody who wants to exploit you has to instill a thought in you that you cannot live without him. Even your employee can exploit you if he can manage to instill a thought in you that without him your business cannot run. If he instills that thought in you, he can easily take advantage of you including cheating you.

In the same way your mind and your ego have created a churning thought, a fear in you that you cannot live, you cannot survive in a balanced way without it. The moment you accept this fear, the game is over. Your mind will completely exploit you. Your ego will completely cheat you. Please be very clear that all these things are only fears.

See, in the story of the blind man, he is not able to understand that he can walk without the stick after he gets his eyesight. Only when the man opens his eyes, only when he gets his eyesight, will he understand that he can walk without the stick. In the same way, only when you relax and understand that by your very nature you are unattached, suddenly you will realize you can live without a mind.

The walking stick is just an extra tool for the blind man. In the same way, the mind is an extra tool for you because by your very nature you don't need the mind to live. Because you have gone to such an extreme of relying on your mind, you cannot understand that you can live without the mind. You are afraid that you might go to the other extreme of being a mindless person with no morality in your life.

But let me tell you, a person who understands that by his very nature he is unattached, can never go beyond basic morality. It is only in his life that you will see a strong, deep sense of morality and it is only in his life you will see an extraordinary discipline. It will be a discipline which can never be shaken and a morality which can never be taken away. It will be morality which does not come out of fear or greed. Only in him, morality happens out of understanding. In all other beings, it happens out of fear or greed.

Morality based on fear or greed cannot take you beyond the body; it will constantly bind you to the body. Only when you understand that by your very nature you are unattached, a new beautiful morality starts happening in you and you start tasting and experiencing your being.

There are so many fears constantly happening within you. You might wonder that if you start living like this with no linear connection between one thought and another thought, how you can live your life. Do not get stuck with hypothetical questions. Just drop the mind and start living. You will see that you are able to do so quite effectively.

A small story:

The Master just said, ‘Stand up,’ ignored him and walked on. This was too much for the disciple to handle. He shouted out, ‘Please help me, I am drowning.’

You are always asking for help because you think you are drowning. Just stand up, the water is only up to your waist.

In this sutra Ashtavakra says, 'Virtue and vice, pleasure and pain are of the mind, not of you.' They belong just to the shaft that does not really exist. They are not from your being. Only an enlightened master can boldly declare, you are ever free. Only he can say, there is no virtue and vice, there is no pleasure and pain. It is the people who want to keep you under their control who will never declare truths such as these to you.

Complex - A Means to Exploit You

In almost all the fields, a person who wants to keep you in the position of a slave constantly tells you that you are weak in some way. People who want to keep you under their control socially will consistently beat into you the idea that you are weak.

In the film industry, where so much importance is given to appearance, a person who wants to keep you under his control will give you an impression that you are ugly. They project the movie stars in an extraordinarily beautiful way to make you feel that you are not beautiful enough. You would also find that it is normally the cosmetic industry that conduct the beauty contests to promote the idea of beauty which makes you believe that you are not enough unto yourself. You will not opt for cosmetics unless you feel that you are not enough unto yourself.

There is no need to constantly compare your body with some other body. God is not an engineer; He is an artist. If He were an engineer, then He would have made a mould and placed an order for one million Ms. Universe models and one million Mr. Universe models to be made and sent to Earth! But He is an artist who paints each one of us and carves each one of us. That is why each one of us is unique.

The very moment the thought enters your head that someone is more beautiful or more handsome than you, that very moment you create a gap between you and your body.

We can see in our own lives that many of us would like to look like someone else. The more you try, the more you feel that you are not looking like them. The moment you crave to look like someone else, a gap is created between you and your body. Then you start using cosmetic products and start trying all artificial methods to project yourself in a different way than you are. Unless you are given the idea that you are not enough unto yourself, you will not buy these artificial things. You will not help the cosmetic industry sell their products. So those who want to exploit you and sell their products give you the idea that you are not enough unto yourself.

Those who want to enslave us socially, give us the idea that we are weak and that they are necessary to protect us. A person who wants to sell his products teaches you that you are not enough unto yourself by putting these kinds of ideas in your mind. We forget that we have been created by the Divine. We start chiseling ourselves to further develop God’s work and give it a final touch. We are trying to touch up and improve on His work; but it cannot be developed any further. It is perfect as it is.

Even in the spiritual field, people who want to keep you under their hold, consistently instill the idea in you that you are not enough and you need to perform various meditations,

mantras, pujas etc. so that you will go back to them again and again. In all three areas – socially, physically and spiritually, people try to exploit you by putting the idea in you that you are not enough unto yourself.

Only an enlightened master like Ashtavakra can liberate us from all these bondages. He gives us the truth straightaway with incredible honesty because he does not have a vested interest in controlling us. Honestly, I have never found direct truths such as the ones in Ashtavakra Gita.

Even when Krishna gives his teachings in the Bhagavad Gita, it is because of an ulterior motive to convince Arjuna to fight. Actually the entire gist of the Bhagavad Gita is narrated in just the two verses in the beginning in the second chapter when Krishna begins to talk. But the entire Gita consists of seven hundred verses delivered by Krishna to Arjuna in order to explain the supreme truth. In one of the chapters, Arjuna declares that he is more confused at the end than he was before asking Krishna to talk. Krishna talks continuously in seventeen chapters until Arjuna becomes completely tired and frustrated and surrenders to Krishna.

Sometimes when you torture people with your talk, they go out and praise you to others, so that others can also experience the torture and suffering!

Let me tell you an experience that happened to me:

They had secured me to the seat with a belt and I had no means of escape until the ride was over, just like the belt around one's neck in a marriage. In many parts of India, instead of a wedding ring, a necklace is given to the bride as a token of marriage. In both the cases, whether it is marriage or roller-coaster, the belt is secure and one cannot even jump out!

When I came out, the other devotees standing by asked me, 'How was the ride, Master?' I said, 'It is really good! Go, go, don't miss the ride.' I thought, 'Why should I be the only one that suffers! Let these guys also go and have the same experience!'

In the same way, if you were tortured in a discourse, you may repeat to others, 'You can't see another swami like this. He is so

intelligent. Please come tomorrow and listen to his lectures.’ You make every effort for others to experience the same torture that you experienced.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna is completely tortured. If somebody recites seven hundred verses continuously in front of you, what will happen? But Krishna goes on reciting one after the other, what is one to do? Finally Arjuna tells Krishna, ‘I do not know anything; I have given up. Please do whatever you want to.’

Then finally Krishna recites the sloka about surrender:

sarva dharmaan parityajya maamekam sharanam vraja

aham tvaam sarva papebhyo mokshayishyami ma shuchaha

‘Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.’

Now what else can Arjuna do? Naturally he has to surrender. It is actually a technique. It is a method to make the other person surrender. Krishna had to employ this technique to tire Arjuna’s logic out and make his surrender to the truth.

But here Ashtavakra has no other ulterior motive. He has only one motive: Janaka has to experience the truth that he has experienced. He has no other reason to speak. All he wanted to do was to transmit the experience, just to share the experience which happened in him.

He is creating the technology through which Janaka can experience the same thing which happened in him. That is why I say that Ashtavakra Gita is pure, honest truth. There is nothing in Ashtavakra Gita that can be removed, that can be edited out.

Ashtavakra is pure energy and pure truth. That is the reason he is so courageous to declare: Verily you are ever free.

He is not playing with words such as your atman is free, you have to do this or that, etc. He says:

Verily you are ever free You are the one seer of all and really ever free. Verily this alone is your bondage that you see the seer as other than such.

When the seer (the one who is looking) is affected by the scene, the bondage starts.

Please understand, when the seer is affected by the scene, the problem in the form of bondage starts.

Your very being is pure. But the moment you start associating yourself as one other than the seer, the problem starts. This is the only bondage which you have. There is no other bondage.

I was telling you in the last discourse, Enlightenment-Guaranteed, how the bird is afraid and tries to hold on to the stick, thinking that if he lets go of the stick, he may drop and die. He does not realize that if he lets go, he will only fly. In the same way let me tell you: let go, you will only fly. You will never drop and die.

In Vedanta they say, srishti-drishti and drishti- srishti. It is not that the world is there and you see it. No! Because you see, the world is there! You need to understand that. But the next question that you will immediately ask will be, 'How can you say that Master? I am not the only one who sees it. The person next to me also sees the same thing. So how can you say that the world exists only because of the fact that I am seeing it?' Be very clear, the world exists just because you are seeing it.

Even the modern day psychologists say that you see only what you want to see. Your mind records only two percent of what is happening around you. You do not see what is happening; you only see what you want to see. You choose the two percent and see what you want to see.

Drishti-srishti means that you project in the way that you want to, you connect in the way that you want to and you understand in the way you want to. You don’t see things as they happen or hear things as they are said.

Many times people ask me questions starting with, ‘Master, you said this’ and misquote me. I tell them, never say, ‘You said’; always say, ‘I heard.’ Please be very clear, in the gap of time the word travels from one place to the other, the meaning becomes totally different.

Understand, you hear only what you want to hear and not what is actually spoken. In the same way, you only see what you want to see; you do not see what is actually in front of you.

When the seer is affected by the scene, the scene can never reflect reality. When the seer is affected by the scene, reality can never be seen. That is what Ashtavakra emphasizes here. When you start seeing yourself as anyone other than the seer, you are affected.

Sutra:

You who have been bitten by the great black serpent of egoism ‘I am the doer’ Drink the nectar of the faith, ‘I am not the doer’ and be happy.

I think Janaka missed. Janaka missed what Ashtavakra was saying. That is why, now Ashtavakra has to compromise. In this sutra Ashtavakra also gives a technique.