Ashtavakra said।
Wherever you behold, there you alone shine forth as the One।
What appears apart from gold—the bracelet, the armlet, the anklet?।। 139।।
Abandon the division: “This is he, this am I, this I am not”।
Knowing with certainty “All is the Self,” free of every intention, be happy।। 140।।
By your ignorance alone the world appears; in the highest truth, you are the One।
Apart from you there is no one bound to becoming, nor anyone beyond it।। 141।।
Certain that “This world is mere illusion—nothing at all,”
free of conditioning, sheer radiance, you grow still as though nothing were।। 142।।
Alone in the ocean of becoming, you were, you are, you will be।
For you there is no bondage, nor release; fulfilled, walk in joy।। 143।।
Do not agitate the mind with thought and counter-thought, O pure awareness।
Settle and abide in happiness, embodied as the bliss of your own Self।। 144।।
Abandon meditation itself everywhere; hold nothing in the heart।
You are the Self, already free—what will pondering accomplish?।। 145।।
Maha Geeta #43
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
अष्टावक्र उवाच।
यत्त्वं पश्यसि तत्रैकस्त्वमेव प्रतिभाससे।
किं पृथक भासते स्वर्णात्कट कांगदनूपुरम्।। 139।।
अयं सोऽहमयं नाहं विभागमिति संत्यज।
सर्वमात्मेति निश्चित्य निःसंकल्पः सुखी भव।। 140।।
तवैवाज्ञानतो विश्वं त्वमेकः परमार्थतः।
त्वत्तोऽन्यो नास्ति संसारी नासंसारी च कश्चन।। 141।।
भ्रांतिमात्रमिदं विश्वं न किंचिदिति निश्चयी।
निर्वासनः स्फूर्तिमात्रो न किंचिदिवि शाम्यति।। 142।।
एक एव भवांभोधावासीदस्ति भविष्यति।
न ते बंधोऽस्ति मोक्षो वा कृतकृत्यः सुखं चर।। 143।।
मा संकल्पविकल्पाभ्यां चित्तं क्षोभय चिन्मय।
उपशाम्य सुखं तिष्ठ स्वात्मयानंदविग्रहे।। 144।।
त्यजैव ध्यानं सर्वत्र मा किंचिद्धृदि धारय।
आत्मा त्वं मुक्त एवासि किंविमृश्य करिष्यसि।। 145।।
यत्त्वं पश्यसि तत्रैकस्त्वमेव प्रतिभाससे।
किं पृथक भासते स्वर्णात्कट कांगदनूपुरम्।। 139।।
अयं सोऽहमयं नाहं विभागमिति संत्यज।
सर्वमात्मेति निश्चित्य निःसंकल्पः सुखी भव।। 140।।
तवैवाज्ञानतो विश्वं त्वमेकः परमार्थतः।
त्वत्तोऽन्यो नास्ति संसारी नासंसारी च कश्चन।। 141।।
भ्रांतिमात्रमिदं विश्वं न किंचिदिति निश्चयी।
निर्वासनः स्फूर्तिमात्रो न किंचिदिवि शाम्यति।। 142।।
एक एव भवांभोधावासीदस्ति भविष्यति।
न ते बंधोऽस्ति मोक्षो वा कृतकृत्यः सुखं चर।। 143।।
मा संकल्पविकल्पाभ्यां चित्तं क्षोभय चिन्मय।
उपशाम्य सुखं तिष्ठ स्वात्मयानंदविग्रहे।। 144।।
त्यजैव ध्यानं सर्वत्र मा किंचिद्धृदि धारय।
आत्मा त्वं मुक्त एवासि किंविमृश्य करिष्यसि।। 145।।
Transliteration:
aṣṭāvakra uvāca|
yattvaṃ paśyasi tatraikastvameva pratibhāsase|
kiṃ pṛthaka bhāsate svarṇātkaṭa kāṃgadanūpuram|| 139||
ayaṃ so'hamayaṃ nāhaṃ vibhāgamiti saṃtyaja|
sarvamātmeti niścitya niḥsaṃkalpaḥ sukhī bhava|| 140||
tavaivājñānato viśvaṃ tvamekaḥ paramārthataḥ|
tvatto'nyo nāsti saṃsārī nāsaṃsārī ca kaścana|| 141||
bhrāṃtimātramidaṃ viśvaṃ na kiṃciditi niścayī|
nirvāsanaḥ sphūrtimātro na kiṃcidivi śāmyati|| 142||
eka eva bhavāṃbhodhāvāsīdasti bhaviṣyati|
na te baṃdho'sti mokṣo vā kṛtakṛtyaḥ sukhaṃ cara|| 143||
mā saṃkalpavikalpābhyāṃ cittaṃ kṣobhaya cinmaya|
upaśāmya sukhaṃ tiṣṭha svātmayānaṃdavigrahe|| 144||
tyajaiva dhyānaṃ sarvatra mā kiṃciddhṛdi dhāraya|
ātmā tvaṃ mukta evāsi kiṃvimṛśya kariṣyasi|| 145||
aṣṭāvakra uvāca|
yattvaṃ paśyasi tatraikastvameva pratibhāsase|
kiṃ pṛthaka bhāsate svarṇātkaṭa kāṃgadanūpuram|| 139||
ayaṃ so'hamayaṃ nāhaṃ vibhāgamiti saṃtyaja|
sarvamātmeti niścitya niḥsaṃkalpaḥ sukhī bhava|| 140||
tavaivājñānato viśvaṃ tvamekaḥ paramārthataḥ|
tvatto'nyo nāsti saṃsārī nāsaṃsārī ca kaścana|| 141||
bhrāṃtimātramidaṃ viśvaṃ na kiṃciditi niścayī|
nirvāsanaḥ sphūrtimātro na kiṃcidivi śāmyati|| 142||
eka eva bhavāṃbhodhāvāsīdasti bhaviṣyati|
na te baṃdho'sti mokṣo vā kṛtakṛtyaḥ sukhaṃ cara|| 143||
mā saṃkalpavikalpābhyāṃ cittaṃ kṣobhaya cinmaya|
upaśāmya sukhaṃ tiṣṭha svātmayānaṃdavigrahe|| 144||
tyajaiva dhyānaṃ sarvatra mā kiṃciddhṛdi dhāraya|
ātmā tvaṃ mukta evāsi kiṃvimṛśya kariṣyasi|| 145||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
Someone has asked: You say, “Whatever is seen is never the seer”; and Krishnamurti says, “The observer is the observed.” These two statements seem contradictory—who is right?
They are not contradictory—they speak on two different planes. First is the initial plane: the very first ray of knowing breaks through by realizing that the seen is other than me. Try to understand. Whatever you see, by that very fact you have become other than it. Whatever you have seen, you have gone beyond it. That which is seen is no longer you; it lies at a distance, while you stand as the witness, the seer.
You see me here: by that very fact you have become other than me. You hear me: you are other than what you hear. Whatever you see, touch, hear, taste—whatever you experience—becomes separate from you. This is the first step of knowledge.
And as soon as this step is completed—when you free the seer from the seen—the second happening occurs, uncaused by you. The first you do; the second happens on its own. The second event is extraordinary: the moment you have separated the seer from the seen, the seer too ceases to be a seer, because the seer cannot be without the seen; it is bound up with it. When the seen drops, the seer drops with it. How will you define “seer” without the seen? Any definition will have to smuggle in the “seen.” And a seer that needs the seen is not really other than it—they are one. When the seen falls, the seer also falls. First let the seen fall; then the second event will happen by itself. You pull the seen away and suddenly you discover: the seer is gone too. Now Krishnamurti’s statement reveals itself: “The observer is the observed.”
And that is what Ashtavakra is saying today. This is a later, subtler aphorism, so Ashtavakra proceeds to it in order: first free yourself from the seen; then you will be free of the seer as well—for the seen and the seer are two faces of the same coin.
yattvam paśyasi tatraikā tvaṁ eva pratibhāsase.
“Whatever you see, there you alone appear.”
Then a full-moon night rises: a single moon in the sky, and a thousand reflections form—on a lake, on the salty sea, in ponds and brooks, in a brass plate filled with water. Will you say the reflection of the moon in dirty water is a different moon from the reflection in clean water? Is the reflection “dirty” because the water is dirty? The reflection cannot be soiled.
Tagore remembered: returning to India after the Nobel, he was celebrated everywhere. Back home, a neighbor—whose eyes were like sharp blades—came to see him. Looking straight into Tagore’s eyes, the man shook him by the shoulders: “Have you truly realized God?” Tagore felt offended, yet those eyes were like knives that wouldn’t allow a lie. The man laughed, wounding even deeper: “Do you see God in me or not?” That was harder still. Tagore could see the divine in those garlanding and praising him, because they were pleasant mirrors. But in this man? The man left, laughing.
Tagore wrote: that night I could not sleep. Even my own songs felt false. In the morning, after rain had filled filthy roadside puddles, I walked by the sea at sunrise. Coming back, I saw the sun reflected in those foul puddles—where buffaloes wallowed and people had defecated. Suddenly, my eyes opened: has the sun’s reflection become dirty in dirty water? Is the ocean’s reflection “vast” and the puddle’s “petty”? The reflections are of the one sun. Like one awakened from sleep, like lightning in darkness, I danced to that neighbor’s house and embraced him; I saw the Lord in him as well. The reflection is His alone—whether as a sharp blade or a soft flower.
And Ashtavakra says: “Do bangles, armlets, and anklets appear other than gold?”
How many ornaments from one gold! Likewise, how many forms of the Divine—Ram and Ravan, Krishna and Kansa, Jesus and Judas; pleasing and displeasing; flower and thorn. The thorn too is His form; when it pricks, remember Him. Slowly you become even-toned; one who sees the One becomes of one taste. In that one-taste, the One appears.
A poem:
Who is this that has come to me from beyond the mute dark?
Who has awakened a world asleep in death?
Who has touched the veena-strings of my heart—
Listen, the veena speaks again.
Clay cups crack; small lives are brittle.
Yet in the tavern there are jars of wine:
The intoxicated loot the wine,
But the raw drinker clings to cups and jars.
One aflame with true wine never cries or complains.
What is gone is gone—
Who touched my heart-strings? The veena speaks!
The raw drinker clings to cups—forms and shapes. He misses the formless. He sees God in Ram but not in Ravan—partial, blind. The seeing eye has no partisanship; it sees Him everywhere.
In the 1857 uprising, a naked ascetic—vowed to silence for fifteen years—was mistakenly skewered by a British soldier. Speaking only at death, he said, “You cannot deceive me. I still see you. Tat tvam asi—Thou art That.” And he died. He saw his killer as the Divine and was liberated that instant. The spear did not kill him; it woke him to the deathless.
kim pṛthak bhāsate svarṇāt kaṭakāṅgada-nūpuram?
“If golden ornaments appear separate from gold, you are blind. In all forms the same gold.”
Thus two points in today’s sutra:
1) Whatever you perceive is yourself; the world and all relationships are mirrors. You peep at yourself in countless forms.
2) Beneath the many forms, one alone pervades. The many are only waves upon the one ocean.
Learn to pass beyond form, to seek the formless. Look less at the face and more at what looks through it. Attend less to body, more to what dwells within. Listen less to words, more to the silence that hums inside them. As the One is seen, agitation fades—agitation is the shadow of multiplicity. Where there is only One, where all around it is only you—who else is there to fear? Birth is you, death is you; pleasure and pain, you. Then acceptance blossoms; and in that acceptance, peace flowers—an immaculate, deathless blossom of the thousand-petaled lotus. It opens in the event of oneness: first the split of “I” and “thou” dissolves, then the outer differences of form.
Consider: if two “zero” persons sit in one room, how many are there? Not two; in truth, not even one. Hence we call it “advaita”—not-two.
In Buddha’s time, Ajatashatru, who had imprisoned his father (a devotee of Buddha), was urged to make a formal visit to Buddha’s camp with ten thousand monks present. Afraid and suspicious, he went with drawn sword. Seeing the vast gathering sitting silent, he asked Buddha, “How is there no noise?” Buddha replied: “Whether one zero or ten thousand—no difference. Zeros do not add; they dissolve. They are meditating; they are not.” When you are not, neither seer nor seen remains; the knower and the known both fall. What remains is pure seeing—chinmātra-rūpam. That is knowledge—iti jñānam. What remains is freedom; knowledge liberates.
Next sutra:
“Abandon the division: ‘This am I, this I am not.’ Knowing ‘all is the Self,’ be free of intention, be happy.”
ayaṁ so’ham ayaṁ nāhaṁ vibhāgam iti santyaja.
sarvam ātmeti niścitya niḥsaṅkalpaḥ sukhī bhava.
We spend life drawing divisions, craving a definition—“Who am I?” We cling to labels: Hindu, Muslim, Christian—none of which we were born with. Beauty too is only others’ notions. The world’s standards differ; what matters is our own direct seeing. Parents praise their children; the world is indifferent. Certificates, society, opinions—we patch together an identity, yet none of it reaches our being. We are like boundless sky.
“Abandon the division… Be one.”
Note the word santyaj—“abandon rightly.” Not a renunciation from obstinacy or ego. People often renounce for fame or reward. That is bargaining, not samyak-tyāga (right leaving). True leaving happens by insight: you saw the stone isn’t a diamond, and it drops by itself.
A parable: a jeweler dies, leaving “gems” in a safe. His friend, also a jeweler, delays selling while training the son for three years. When they open the safe at last, the son laughs and tosses the bundle into the garbage: “These are stones.” Only then could they be rightly discarded. That is samyak-tyāga.
Thus, repeating “I am not the body” while feeling you are the body is useless. When it is seen, repetition ends.
The mind fragments—philosophy, science, then physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, endless specializations. The whole person is lost. Religion moves the opposite way: from leaves to branches to trunk—toward the One. Science reaches the particle; religion reaches the Vast.
Therefore:
vibhāgam iti santyaja…
Abandon dividing. See the indivisible, the One behind all forms. Whenever you say, “I am this,” you draw a small circle and break the whole. Why not say: I am life? Better: I am Existence. “Aham brahmāsmi” means exactly that. One who lets divisions fall knows the ocean’s depth; waves are on the surface, the One abides below.
A rustic wisdom: in villages people greet even strangers with “Jai Ramji”—victory to Rama. It hints: though you are a stranger, the Rama in you is not. Light a lamp and hands fold; where there is light, there is the Divine—so near. But in truth, neither “near” nor “far” applies: He alone is—inside and out, here and there, now and always.
Sunrise!
A handful of flowers,
From drop to ocean—so lovely.
Words half-pronounced as mere medium,
Life is blessed:
Gratitude, and again gratitude.
In the boundless,
An unbounded peace is felt,
A hint of inexhaustible love.
Do not surrender to skin;
Let your touch go deeper.
Beyond even that, a higher joy—
Somewhere above all watery fetters,
And somewhere deep, a resting ground,
Root and foundation.
Each new day nears life,
The soul expands.
Sunrise!
A handful of flowers,
From drop to ocean—so lovely.
See the One and gratitude floods. Multiplicity breeds restlessness. Let this be your test: the religious heart overflows with thankfulness, not complaint. Prayer, in truth, is gratitude: “So much, and for no reason!”
Einstein spoke of an expanding universe; “Brahman” means the ever-expanding. No boundary, no end.
“Knowing all is the Self, be free of intention and be happy.” When only you are, where is the enemy, where death? With nothing else to gain, the future dissolves, the past dissolves; you can be happy. Joy is the name of the moment you are one with all; sorrow is the moment you feel separate. Every small union gives a taste of joy—meeting a friend; every separation brings pain. But beyond all alternate unions and separations is the Great Union—our word for meeting God. When all is the Self, separation cannot be.
“By your ignorance the world appears; in truth you are One. Other than you, there is none—neither worldly nor unworldly.”
tavaivājñānato viśvaṁ tvam ekaḥ paramārthataḥ.
Ignorance means division; knowledge means non-division. We are one; hence union gives joy—because it aligns with our nature. Suffering signals you are moving against nature; joy signals harmony. Sometimes, without effort, the harmony descends—a morning walk, birds singing, the fresh breeze, and suddenly a window opens. Then it closes, because it wasn’t conscious. The wise one stabilizes in this.
A Japanese toy teaches this: the Daruma doll (from Bodhidharma). However you push it, it sits upright again. Make your life like that—steady in your inner rhythm (svacchandata—not license, but alignment with your own nature and the Whole). Then whatever happens—success, failure, day, night—your inner music flows.
So do not draw a division between householder and monk. Essentially the same life-energy moves both; the difference is only posture: the worldly stands on his head (asleep), the monk stands on his feet (awake).
We meet often only at the skin; the doors of the heart remain closed. Life passes and the bud is un-opened. Sannyas is not running away; it is waking from falsehood—becoming authentic. Truth has a deep fragrance; it makes one dance. The religious person is not a dull ascetic, but vibrant, smiling—feeling God in his very bones.
Now a delicate method: “This world is mere appearance.” Not as a philosophical dogma, but as meditation. Shankara’s logic led many into argument; but this cannot be proved by logic. It is to be tested.
For one week, live as if everything is a dream. Do everything you ordinarily do—go to the office, work on files—only know inwardly: it is a dream. At home, meet your wife and play with the children—knowing it is a dream. Let no one notice a difference. Inside you will see a revolution: you will be free of weight, agitation will cease; action continues, but the doer falls away. Desire slackens. You become a mere instrument, a witness. Night dreams are not “done,” they are “seen.” So too, this waking dream: when you take it as dream, you remain consciousness-only.
bhānti-mātram idaṁ viśvaṁ na kiñcid iti niścayī.
nirvāsaṇaḥ sphūrti-mātro na kiñcid iva śāmyati.
“This world is mere appearance—nothing else—thus certain, one becomes desireless, only consciousness, and abides in a peace as if nothing is.”
All dreams are rehearsals
for that Unseen Dream
which comes only once,
begging truth
at the gate of your eyes.
Become a viewer of the world; then one day, the Supreme will stand at your door. This whole world is a school to learn seeing. When the art of seeing ripens, He is already at the threshold.
“On the ocean of becoming, One alone was, is, and will be. You have neither bondage nor liberation. Having nothing left to do, wander happily!”
eka eva bhavāmbhodhau āsīd asti bhaviṣyati.
na te bandho’sti mokṣo vā kṛtakṛtyaḥ sukhaṁ cara.
If you see thus, there is neither bondage nor moksha; freedom is your nature. “Kṛtakṛtya”—all-done—arrives not by doing, but by dropping the doer. Then Existence does what must be done through you.
“O consciousness, do not agitate your mind with resolutions and alternatives. Settle, and abide blissfully in your own nature.”
mā saṅkalpa-vikalpābhyāṁ cittaṁ kṣobhaya cinmaya.
upaśāmya sukhaṁ tiṣṭha svātma-ānanda-vigrahe.
What to do, what not to do—this agitation breeds only more disturbance. Many become restless even in the name of peace: “I must be peaceful!” The very insistence is unrest. See this: nothing really happens by your doing. What has ever come of all your doing? Resolve drops; watching remains. Then peace arrives.
A story: an old shopkeeper, paralyzed in his legs, still dragged himself to the shop out of old habits, hindering his sons. I urged him: “Now be a witness; let go of doing.” He agreed to try for twenty-four hours. At first restlessness, then a subtle ease; by evening, as the sun set, something within him set too. For his last years he never went back. Dying, he sent me thanks: “I died in witnessing; what life never gave me, came in death.”
“Everywhere, abandon attention; hold nothing in the heart. You are the Self, already free—what will thinking achieve?”
tyajaiva dhyānaṁ sarvatra mā kiñcid hṛdi dhāraya.
ātmā tvaṁ mukta evāsi kiṁ vimṛśya kariṣyasi.
This goes even beyond Krishna’s “Sarva-dharmān parityajya, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja.” There, attention may cling to Krishna’s feet. Here, drop attention from everywhere. When awareness shines without object—like a lamp in an empty room—you are free. Ordinarily attention is like a torch—narrow, object-bound. Let it become like a lamp—objectless, all-directional. Even if nothing is there, the light remains. When your consciousness is such—pure light in emptiness—you are free.
Not past, not future, not coming or going,
He whose attainment is measureless
is the Tathāgata.
And when that happens, others will sense it too—a new freshness, a subtle fragrance, as if you have washed your face in the waters at the Beloved’s feet. Every breath reveals: He alone comes in, He alone goes out. He—is, He was, He will be. Only One.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
You see me here: by that very fact you have become other than me. You hear me: you are other than what you hear. Whatever you see, touch, hear, taste—whatever you experience—becomes separate from you. This is the first step of knowledge.
And as soon as this step is completed—when you free the seer from the seen—the second happening occurs, uncaused by you. The first you do; the second happens on its own. The second event is extraordinary: the moment you have separated the seer from the seen, the seer too ceases to be a seer, because the seer cannot be without the seen; it is bound up with it. When the seen drops, the seer drops with it. How will you define “seer” without the seen? Any definition will have to smuggle in the “seen.” And a seer that needs the seen is not really other than it—they are one. When the seen falls, the seer also falls. First let the seen fall; then the second event will happen by itself. You pull the seen away and suddenly you discover: the seer is gone too. Now Krishnamurti’s statement reveals itself: “The observer is the observed.”
And that is what Ashtavakra is saying today. This is a later, subtler aphorism, so Ashtavakra proceeds to it in order: first free yourself from the seen; then you will be free of the seer as well—for the seen and the seer are two faces of the same coin.
yattvam paśyasi tatraikā tvaṁ eva pratibhāsase.
“Whatever you see, there you alone appear.”
Then a full-moon night rises: a single moon in the sky, and a thousand reflections form—on a lake, on the salty sea, in ponds and brooks, in a brass plate filled with water. Will you say the reflection of the moon in dirty water is a different moon from the reflection in clean water? Is the reflection “dirty” because the water is dirty? The reflection cannot be soiled.
Tagore remembered: returning to India after the Nobel, he was celebrated everywhere. Back home, a neighbor—whose eyes were like sharp blades—came to see him. Looking straight into Tagore’s eyes, the man shook him by the shoulders: “Have you truly realized God?” Tagore felt offended, yet those eyes were like knives that wouldn’t allow a lie. The man laughed, wounding even deeper: “Do you see God in me or not?” That was harder still. Tagore could see the divine in those garlanding and praising him, because they were pleasant mirrors. But in this man? The man left, laughing.
Tagore wrote: that night I could not sleep. Even my own songs felt false. In the morning, after rain had filled filthy roadside puddles, I walked by the sea at sunrise. Coming back, I saw the sun reflected in those foul puddles—where buffaloes wallowed and people had defecated. Suddenly, my eyes opened: has the sun’s reflection become dirty in dirty water? Is the ocean’s reflection “vast” and the puddle’s “petty”? The reflections are of the one sun. Like one awakened from sleep, like lightning in darkness, I danced to that neighbor’s house and embraced him; I saw the Lord in him as well. The reflection is His alone—whether as a sharp blade or a soft flower.
And Ashtavakra says: “Do bangles, armlets, and anklets appear other than gold?”
How many ornaments from one gold! Likewise, how many forms of the Divine—Ram and Ravan, Krishna and Kansa, Jesus and Judas; pleasing and displeasing; flower and thorn. The thorn too is His form; when it pricks, remember Him. Slowly you become even-toned; one who sees the One becomes of one taste. In that one-taste, the One appears.
A poem:
Who is this that has come to me from beyond the mute dark?
Who has awakened a world asleep in death?
Who has touched the veena-strings of my heart—
Listen, the veena speaks again.
Clay cups crack; small lives are brittle.
Yet in the tavern there are jars of wine:
The intoxicated loot the wine,
But the raw drinker clings to cups and jars.
One aflame with true wine never cries or complains.
What is gone is gone—
Who touched my heart-strings? The veena speaks!
The raw drinker clings to cups—forms and shapes. He misses the formless. He sees God in Ram but not in Ravan—partial, blind. The seeing eye has no partisanship; it sees Him everywhere.
In the 1857 uprising, a naked ascetic—vowed to silence for fifteen years—was mistakenly skewered by a British soldier. Speaking only at death, he said, “You cannot deceive me. I still see you. Tat tvam asi—Thou art That.” And he died. He saw his killer as the Divine and was liberated that instant. The spear did not kill him; it woke him to the deathless.
kim pṛthak bhāsate svarṇāt kaṭakāṅgada-nūpuram?
“If golden ornaments appear separate from gold, you are blind. In all forms the same gold.”
Thus two points in today’s sutra:
1) Whatever you perceive is yourself; the world and all relationships are mirrors. You peep at yourself in countless forms.
2) Beneath the many forms, one alone pervades. The many are only waves upon the one ocean.
Learn to pass beyond form, to seek the formless. Look less at the face and more at what looks through it. Attend less to body, more to what dwells within. Listen less to words, more to the silence that hums inside them. As the One is seen, agitation fades—agitation is the shadow of multiplicity. Where there is only One, where all around it is only you—who else is there to fear? Birth is you, death is you; pleasure and pain, you. Then acceptance blossoms; and in that acceptance, peace flowers—an immaculate, deathless blossom of the thousand-petaled lotus. It opens in the event of oneness: first the split of “I” and “thou” dissolves, then the outer differences of form.
Consider: if two “zero” persons sit in one room, how many are there? Not two; in truth, not even one. Hence we call it “advaita”—not-two.
In Buddha’s time, Ajatashatru, who had imprisoned his father (a devotee of Buddha), was urged to make a formal visit to Buddha’s camp with ten thousand monks present. Afraid and suspicious, he went with drawn sword. Seeing the vast gathering sitting silent, he asked Buddha, “How is there no noise?” Buddha replied: “Whether one zero or ten thousand—no difference. Zeros do not add; they dissolve. They are meditating; they are not.” When you are not, neither seer nor seen remains; the knower and the known both fall. What remains is pure seeing—chinmātra-rūpam. That is knowledge—iti jñānam. What remains is freedom; knowledge liberates.
Next sutra:
“Abandon the division: ‘This am I, this I am not.’ Knowing ‘all is the Self,’ be free of intention, be happy.”
ayaṁ so’ham ayaṁ nāhaṁ vibhāgam iti santyaja.
sarvam ātmeti niścitya niḥsaṅkalpaḥ sukhī bhava.
We spend life drawing divisions, craving a definition—“Who am I?” We cling to labels: Hindu, Muslim, Christian—none of which we were born with. Beauty too is only others’ notions. The world’s standards differ; what matters is our own direct seeing. Parents praise their children; the world is indifferent. Certificates, society, opinions—we patch together an identity, yet none of it reaches our being. We are like boundless sky.
“Abandon the division… Be one.”
Note the word santyaj—“abandon rightly.” Not a renunciation from obstinacy or ego. People often renounce for fame or reward. That is bargaining, not samyak-tyāga (right leaving). True leaving happens by insight: you saw the stone isn’t a diamond, and it drops by itself.
A parable: a jeweler dies, leaving “gems” in a safe. His friend, also a jeweler, delays selling while training the son for three years. When they open the safe at last, the son laughs and tosses the bundle into the garbage: “These are stones.” Only then could they be rightly discarded. That is samyak-tyāga.
Thus, repeating “I am not the body” while feeling you are the body is useless. When it is seen, repetition ends.
The mind fragments—philosophy, science, then physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, endless specializations. The whole person is lost. Religion moves the opposite way: from leaves to branches to trunk—toward the One. Science reaches the particle; religion reaches the Vast.
Therefore:
vibhāgam iti santyaja…
Abandon dividing. See the indivisible, the One behind all forms. Whenever you say, “I am this,” you draw a small circle and break the whole. Why not say: I am life? Better: I am Existence. “Aham brahmāsmi” means exactly that. One who lets divisions fall knows the ocean’s depth; waves are on the surface, the One abides below.
A rustic wisdom: in villages people greet even strangers with “Jai Ramji”—victory to Rama. It hints: though you are a stranger, the Rama in you is not. Light a lamp and hands fold; where there is light, there is the Divine—so near. But in truth, neither “near” nor “far” applies: He alone is—inside and out, here and there, now and always.
Sunrise!
A handful of flowers,
From drop to ocean—so lovely.
Words half-pronounced as mere medium,
Life is blessed:
Gratitude, and again gratitude.
In the boundless,
An unbounded peace is felt,
A hint of inexhaustible love.
Do not surrender to skin;
Let your touch go deeper.
Beyond even that, a higher joy—
Somewhere above all watery fetters,
And somewhere deep, a resting ground,
Root and foundation.
Each new day nears life,
The soul expands.
Sunrise!
A handful of flowers,
From drop to ocean—so lovely.
See the One and gratitude floods. Multiplicity breeds restlessness. Let this be your test: the religious heart overflows with thankfulness, not complaint. Prayer, in truth, is gratitude: “So much, and for no reason!”
Einstein spoke of an expanding universe; “Brahman” means the ever-expanding. No boundary, no end.
“Knowing all is the Self, be free of intention and be happy.” When only you are, where is the enemy, where death? With nothing else to gain, the future dissolves, the past dissolves; you can be happy. Joy is the name of the moment you are one with all; sorrow is the moment you feel separate. Every small union gives a taste of joy—meeting a friend; every separation brings pain. But beyond all alternate unions and separations is the Great Union—our word for meeting God. When all is the Self, separation cannot be.
“By your ignorance the world appears; in truth you are One. Other than you, there is none—neither worldly nor unworldly.”
tavaivājñānato viśvaṁ tvam ekaḥ paramārthataḥ.
Ignorance means division; knowledge means non-division. We are one; hence union gives joy—because it aligns with our nature. Suffering signals you are moving against nature; joy signals harmony. Sometimes, without effort, the harmony descends—a morning walk, birds singing, the fresh breeze, and suddenly a window opens. Then it closes, because it wasn’t conscious. The wise one stabilizes in this.
A Japanese toy teaches this: the Daruma doll (from Bodhidharma). However you push it, it sits upright again. Make your life like that—steady in your inner rhythm (svacchandata—not license, but alignment with your own nature and the Whole). Then whatever happens—success, failure, day, night—your inner music flows.
So do not draw a division between householder and monk. Essentially the same life-energy moves both; the difference is only posture: the worldly stands on his head (asleep), the monk stands on his feet (awake).
We meet often only at the skin; the doors of the heart remain closed. Life passes and the bud is un-opened. Sannyas is not running away; it is waking from falsehood—becoming authentic. Truth has a deep fragrance; it makes one dance. The religious person is not a dull ascetic, but vibrant, smiling—feeling God in his very bones.
Now a delicate method: “This world is mere appearance.” Not as a philosophical dogma, but as meditation. Shankara’s logic led many into argument; but this cannot be proved by logic. It is to be tested.
For one week, live as if everything is a dream. Do everything you ordinarily do—go to the office, work on files—only know inwardly: it is a dream. At home, meet your wife and play with the children—knowing it is a dream. Let no one notice a difference. Inside you will see a revolution: you will be free of weight, agitation will cease; action continues, but the doer falls away. Desire slackens. You become a mere instrument, a witness. Night dreams are not “done,” they are “seen.” So too, this waking dream: when you take it as dream, you remain consciousness-only.
bhānti-mātram idaṁ viśvaṁ na kiñcid iti niścayī.
nirvāsaṇaḥ sphūrti-mātro na kiñcid iva śāmyati.
“This world is mere appearance—nothing else—thus certain, one becomes desireless, only consciousness, and abides in a peace as if nothing is.”
All dreams are rehearsals
for that Unseen Dream
which comes only once,
begging truth
at the gate of your eyes.
Become a viewer of the world; then one day, the Supreme will stand at your door. This whole world is a school to learn seeing. When the art of seeing ripens, He is already at the threshold.
“On the ocean of becoming, One alone was, is, and will be. You have neither bondage nor liberation. Having nothing left to do, wander happily!”
eka eva bhavāmbhodhau āsīd asti bhaviṣyati.
na te bandho’sti mokṣo vā kṛtakṛtyaḥ sukhaṁ cara.
If you see thus, there is neither bondage nor moksha; freedom is your nature. “Kṛtakṛtya”—all-done—arrives not by doing, but by dropping the doer. Then Existence does what must be done through you.
“O consciousness, do not agitate your mind with resolutions and alternatives. Settle, and abide blissfully in your own nature.”
mā saṅkalpa-vikalpābhyāṁ cittaṁ kṣobhaya cinmaya.
upaśāmya sukhaṁ tiṣṭha svātma-ānanda-vigrahe.
What to do, what not to do—this agitation breeds only more disturbance. Many become restless even in the name of peace: “I must be peaceful!” The very insistence is unrest. See this: nothing really happens by your doing. What has ever come of all your doing? Resolve drops; watching remains. Then peace arrives.
A story: an old shopkeeper, paralyzed in his legs, still dragged himself to the shop out of old habits, hindering his sons. I urged him: “Now be a witness; let go of doing.” He agreed to try for twenty-four hours. At first restlessness, then a subtle ease; by evening, as the sun set, something within him set too. For his last years he never went back. Dying, he sent me thanks: “I died in witnessing; what life never gave me, came in death.”
“Everywhere, abandon attention; hold nothing in the heart. You are the Self, already free—what will thinking achieve?”
tyajaiva dhyānaṁ sarvatra mā kiñcid hṛdi dhāraya.
ātmā tvaṁ mukta evāsi kiṁ vimṛśya kariṣyasi.
This goes even beyond Krishna’s “Sarva-dharmān parityajya, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja.” There, attention may cling to Krishna’s feet. Here, drop attention from everywhere. When awareness shines without object—like a lamp in an empty room—you are free. Ordinarily attention is like a torch—narrow, object-bound. Let it become like a lamp—objectless, all-directional. Even if nothing is there, the light remains. When your consciousness is such—pure light in emptiness—you are free.
Not past, not future, not coming or going,
He whose attainment is measureless
is the Tathāgata.
And when that happens, others will sense it too—a new freshness, a subtle fragrance, as if you have washed your face in the waters at the Beloved’s feet. Every breath reveals: He alone comes in, He alone goes out. He—is, He was, He will be. Only One.
Hari Om Tat Sat.
Osho's Commentary
Ashtavakra said, "In whatever you see, it is only you that shines forth. Do bangle, armlet and anklet appear different from the gold?"
"Whatever you behold—there too it is only you that appears."
The world is like a mirror; again and again we end up seeing ourselves; again and again we hunt for our own reflection. What we are—that is what comes into view for us. Ordinarily we think that what appears to us is outside. Beauty shows itself in a flower and we think, the flower must be beautiful. No—the beauty is in your eyes. The same flower may not be beautiful to another. A third may find in that flower neither beauty nor ugliness—someone may remain neutral. A fourth may feel indifference. What is within you, that is what glimmers forth. In some thing you taste rasa—yet it is you who pour the rasa into it. There is no necessity that another will taste the same. You are moved by a song, and in another being the veena does not sound even a little.
Manasvid, tattvavid, philosophers have for centuries tried to define—beauty, Shivam, Satyam. Yet definition does not happen. A great Western thinker, G. E. Moore, wrote a book, Principia Ethica. A unique book; written with great labor. Once in centuries such a book may be written. He tried to define the good—what is good? What is Good! Across some two hundred and fifty pages he employs a sharp intellect. And the final conclusion is that the good is indefinable. The Good is indefinable. A fine conclusion indeed!
Aestheticians have, for centuries, tried to define beauty—what is beauty? For if there is no definition, how are shastras to be made! But till now no definition has been achieved. Try to understand the Eastern vision. The East says: a definition cannot be. Because each person’s sense of beauty is different. And each person’s good is different. A person can only see that for which he has the capacity to see. A person sees only himself.
"In whatever you see, it is only you that shines forth."
Krishnamurti’s fundamental insight is: "The observer is the observed." That which is seen—the seer himself it is. Earlier, in Ashtavakra’s sutras, we tried to understand that the seen is never the seer. Now it is a step further. A contradiction will seem to appear.