Astavakra Samhita (Advaita Vedanta) Intro

[Guest guest]

Dear List,

 

I have just found a small booklet on the Astavakra Samhita or Astavakra Gita

buried amongst my books. Translation by Swami Nityaswarupananda, published

by Swami Budhananda, Advaita Ashram, Mayavati. The preface states that this

ancient classic played an important part in the early life of Swami

Vivekanada. At the time the Swami was resisting reading anything so his

teacher, Sri Ramakrishna had him read this to him saying that he was not

asking him to accept this teaching but just read it aloud to him.

Eventually Swami Vivekananda came to declare that Advaita would become the

future religion of mankind. I thought I would post this for awhile. It is

proported to be a conversation between Astavakra and his disciple Janaka and

seems to be the product of the same age as the Bhagavad-Gita.

 

I'll start with some bits lifted from the introduction written by Dr.

Satkari Mookerjee, from U of Calcutta, written in 1940.

 

"The tremendous hold of Vedanta upon the intellectuals of India is due to

this secret of the reconcilliation of reason with suprarational intuition.

Undisciplined reason has its idiosyncracies which lead to clash and

conflict, and so stands in need of being checked by a corrective, and this

is supplied by the suprarational power of intuition in man.

 

So, the aim of the Astavakra Samhita is realization of the Truth, and not a

rational defense of it. The Self alone is real and all not-Self is

appearance. The false identification of the Self with the not-self is the

cause of bondage. Bondage is thus due to ignorance of the real nature of

the Self, and freedom is attained as soon as the igorance disappears on the

dawn of Self-realization. The disappearance of ignorance automatically

entails the disappearance of the not-Self, which is its product. The

existence of the "other' is the cause of all our worry and unhappiness.

When the Self is realized as the only reality, the difference and

distinction vanish like most before the sun, and freedom is attained. In

point of fact freedom is the very essence of self and loss of freedom is

only a case of forgetting. This truth is illustrated by the example of a

gold chain around the neck. A man wears a gold chain round his neck but

forgets its presence, feels miserable and casts about for its recovery.

Someone reminds him of the presence of the gold chain on his own person and

he discovers it and then feels happy. Such is the case for us all. We feel

miserable because we do not reaize that freedom that is ours, and through

ignorance feel that we are in bondage.

 

To the question of Janaka as to how freedom can be achieved, the answer

given by Astavakra is simple; "Know the Self as Pure Consciousness, the

uneffected witness of the phenomenal world and you will be free."

 

In reality the Self is always free; freedom is not attained but simply

realized and discovered. The impediment to self realization and freedom is

our preoccupation with the objective world, which inevitably leads to a

conflict of interests and consquently to feud, jealously, revenge, etc. The

result is the fictious barriers between man and man. To get rid of these

barriers of separation and the obsessions fostered by the possessive

instinct it is necessary to cultivate an attitude of detachment and to

cultivate the moral virtues of charity, forgiveness, sincerety and love of

truth.

 

This moral discipline liberates the mind from the octopus of sense objects

and diverts it inwards. The inward diversion of the mind will enable the

aspirant to realize his independence and detachment from the network of

relations which constitutes the phenomenal world. So long as the mind sees

another self, there is bondage. Freedom consists in seeing nothing but the

Self as and in everything. The Self is the Brahman, the undivided and

undifferentiated Consciousness-Existence-Bliss and is not to be confounded

with ego. The ego is consciousness limited and distorted by mind as light

is distorted by a prism, As soon as a person effects his liberation from

the snares of ego, he becomes Supreme Bliss, to which there is no limit.

 

The teaching of the Astavakra Samhita is simple, direct and unhesitating in

its delivery. It goes straight to the heart of the matter and the very

contemplation of it gives even a matter-fed mind a foretaste of the bliss of

freedom. Freedom and bondage or purely the creations of ideation. "He who

considers himself free is free indeed, and he who considers himself bound

remains 'bound'.

 

May all sentience be free...

 

Joyce

[Guest guest]

> Hi,

> May I forward your postings on Astavakra Samhita to

> another group ?

> vicki

>

Hi Vicki - post away

 

Joyce