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    The Essence Of The Ashtavakra Gita
    The Essence Of The Ashtavakra Gita
    The Essence Of The Ashtavakra Gita
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    The Essence Of The Ashtavakra Gita

    By Ramesh S. Balsekar

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    Ashtavakra says:

    You are not the body which is composed of the five elements. You are that Consciousness which has provided the inert body with the sentience that makes the senses function I regard to their objects. It is sentience which makes the psychosomatic apparatus work as a unit.

    Anticipating the query from his intelligent disciple, the guru tells him further, “You” are not the physical organism but Consciousness which works not as someone in charge of the operations of the physical organism but merely as the witness of the operations.

    You have wrongly identified yourself as the individual, as the doer of all actions that take place through the physical organism, and thereby unnecessarily assume the responsibility for the actions which take place, and thus assume the bondage from which you are seeking liberation.

    The witness cannot be the doer, and you are therefore not the doer. With this understanding, you can detach yourself from the wrong identification with the body. And when you do this, you will automatically assume your true position as the witness and remain relaxed (because there is not the tension of responsibility for the actions) in consciousness, as consciousness.

    The state of being disidentified from the body is the state of witnessing (when the individual “me” is not present). And this state of detached witnessing is indeed the state of liberation. This is what the Self-realized guru means when he says that when you remain relaxed in Consciousness (without identification with the body), the state of liberation is sudden and immediate. The words “remain relaxed in Consciousness” form the very basis of the Ashtavakra teaching.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRamesh S. Balsekar
    Release dateApr 22, 2013
    ISBN9789382788096
    The Essence Of The Ashtavakra Gita
    Author

    Ramesh S. Balsekar

    Ramesh Balsekar, a teacher of pure Advaita, or non-duality, is an unearthly blend of the utterly human and utterly divine manifesting as a brilliant spiritual Master. His crystal-clear and profound teachings are backed by his complete understanding that “Nobody does anything” coupled with his life experience as a top executive of a major Indian bank, as a huband, father and grandfather – all lived knowing that it is all happening as God’s Will.For much of his full life Ramesh, whose Guru was Nisargadatta Maharaj, has been devoted to Ramana Maharshi, in whose spirit Ramesh welcomes seekers and asks “Who is seeking? Leave the seeking to Him who started the seeking.”

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    • 5/5
      An Advaita masterpiece! Clear descriptions of Ego, the nature of Consciousness, and Enlightenment.

    Book preview

    The Essence Of The Ashtavakra Gita - Ramesh S. Balsekar

    Preface

    Aclearly seen feature of Eastern scriptures is the recurring repetition of the basic Truth in its different aspects, detailed in different words and with different illustrations and examples. The intention is to give a reasonable chance to the disciple with the least intelligence.

    In the Ashtavakra Gita also, a considerable amount of repetition is found. One specific advantage of such repetition is that for some mysterious reason, a certain statement will have a sudden impact on a particular person at a particular moment, even though that statement may have been repeated several times earlier. And even for those who have already understood something very clearly, a particular statement made in a particular context often brings out a subtle aspect which had earlier escaped their attention. It is therefore important not to take a repetition lightly as a mere repetition. It is important to remember that when the guru makes a statement, it comes out of his lips spontaneously at that kshana or split-second. For him it is not a repetition, and therefore it has a certain special significance in regard to a particular context or circumstance. It is important to listen to every statement of the guru as a fresh lesson, and not to ignore it as a mere repetition. Even good music is listened to over and over again, and great sensual pleasure is derived from such music. How much more important it must be to listen to the Truth from the guru’s lips over and over again even though it is the same Truth!

    Indeed, life itself is a rotating repetition. Day in and day out, year in and year out, there is repetition: morning, noon, evening and night; summer, autumn, winter and spring. But each has its own aspects which are rarely similar in every respect to the earlier ones.

    CHAPTER ONE

    There is an ancient treatise in Sanskrit some scholars consider it older than the Bhagavad Gita called Ashtavakra Gita which consists of a dialogue between the sage Ashtavakra and his disciple King Janaka. This dialogue provides an extraordinary instance of the divine element in the relationship between a Self-realized guru and a superbly ripe disciple, i.e. one who is just waiting for that one quick spark of initiation into Truth that brings about sudden enlightenment. The Ashtavakra Gita at the same time provides an astonishingly direct, positive and unequivocal exegesis of the doctrine of non-duality, perhaps the best that has ever been done.

    The Ashtavakra Gita is not nearly so well known as the Bhagavad Gita for the very reason that it is so specifically clear and unambiguous that it does not lend itself to the twists and turns required by commentators to justify their own philosophical pre-possessions or spiritual leanings. It contains superbly authoritative statements and clear assertions, so obviously based on intuitive experience and conviction as to deny and utterly negate any effort at exegetic ingenuity or intellectual acrobatics. It is a comparatively small treatise, compact and well-knit, containing about 300 verses of two lines, conveying the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth.

    The sage Ashtavakra was so called because he had eight curves or deformities in his body. There are differing accounts concerning the deformities. One legend has it that when Ashtavakra was in his mother’s womb, his father used to recite the Vedas every day, and Ashtavakra used to hear them so recited. The father, though a devout and pious man, was not a very scholarly man and thus used to commit a number of mistakes in reciting the Vedas; and Ashtavakra, already highly mature spiritually, could not bear to hear the Vedas so badly recited with the result that he could not help squirming in his mother’s womb and thereby becoming deformed in eight places

    There is another legend in the Mahabharata that Ashtavakra’s father named, Kahor, used to recite the Vedas to his wife Sujata when their child was in Sujata’s womb. The child, one day, suddenly cried out "Through your grace, my dear father, I have learnt all the Vedas, but it is a pity that you commit several mistakes in your pronunciation. Kahor, a great scholar (according to this version) and renowned for his learning, could not bear this insult from his unborn child, and cursed him that he would be born with eight curves in his body, and thus was born Ashtavakra, eight-curved".

    The story continues that Ashtavakra’s father, Kahor, went to the court of King Janaka in order to obtain some favor, and was asked to debate on spiritual matters with the court scholar named Vandin who was the son of King Varuna. Kahor was defeated and as a result was banished to the netherworld as a priest at a sacrifice being performed by Varuna. When Ashtavakra was twelve years old, he heard of his father’s plight and went to the court of King Janaka in order to participate in a general debate where the most renowned scholars were invited. Ashtavakra found it difficult to get entrance into the court, but finally managed to do so. When the assembly saw Ashtavakra waddling into the court, all the assembled scholars began to laugh, even the kindly and pious King Janaka could not suppress a smile, but his amusement turned into astonishment when he saw that young Ashtavakra was laughing as loudly as anyone else. The king turned to the

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