Quotes from Ashtavakra Gita

[Guest guest]

Dear group,

 

The following is some quotes from "Ashtavakra Gita" , a copy I got long ago

(1997) from internet, it's a little different from the popular translations of

John Richards and Thomas Byrom but I am sorry I lost the original copy and I

don't remember the name of the translator. They are from my notebook and are

my most favorite daily readings, I am happy to share it with all the seekers "en

route" here.

 

 

Quotes from Ashtavakra Gita

 

 

If one thinks one is free, one is free; and if one thinks of oneself as bound,

one is bound. Here this saying "Thinking makes it so" is true.

 

You are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already.

The cause of your bondage is that you are resorting to stilling the mind.

 

I am not the body, nor is the body mine. I am not a living being, I am

consciousness. It was my thirst for living that was my bondage.

 

Who is to be compared to the great-souled person whose mind is free of desire,

free of expectation and disappointment, and who has found satisfaction in

self-knowledge?

 

How should a strong-souled person who knows that whatever is seen is by its very

nature nothing, how then consider one thing to be grasped and another to be

rejected?

 

For one who has eliminated attachment, who is free from dualism and from desire

and from repulsion, for such a one an object that comes of itself is neither

painful nor pleasurable.

 

You are not bound by anything. What does a pure person like you need to

renounce? Equal in pain and in pleasure, equal in hope and in disappointment,

equal in life and in death, and complete as you are, you can go to your rest.

 

Bondage is when the mind longs for something, grieves about something, rejects

something, holds on to something, is pleased about something, or displeased

about something.

 

Liberation is when the mind does not long for anything, grieve about anything,

reject anything, or hold on to anything, and is not pleased about anything or

displeased about anything.

 

Bondage is when the mind is tangled in one of the senses, and liberation is when

the mind is not tangled in any of the sense.

 

When there is no "me", that is liberation, and when there is me there is

bondage. Considering this earnestly, I do not hold on and do not reject.

 

The essential nature of bondage is nothing other than desire, and its

elimination is known as liberation. It is simply by not being attached to

changing things that the everlasting joy of attainment is reached.

 

Realising "I am not the body, nor is the body mine, I am the consciousness", one

attains the supreme state and no longer fritters over things done or undone.

 

One who is proud about even liberation or one's own body, and feels them one's

own, is neither a seer nor a mystic. Such a person is still just a sufferer.

 

The stupid does not find peace because he is wanting it; while the wise

discriminates the truth and so is always peaceful-minded.

 

The mind of the person seeking liberation can find no resting place within, but

the mind of the liberated person is always free from desire by the very fact of

being without a resting place.

 

Peace is everywhere for the wise person who lives on whatever happens to come,

going to wherever one feels like, and sleeping wherever the Sun happens to set.

 

Begger or king, one excels who is without desire, and whose opinion of things is

rid of "good" or "bad".

 

The liberated person is self-possessed in all circumstances and free from the

idea of "done" and "still to do". Such a one is the same wherever and whenever,

without greed. Such a one does not dwell on what has been done or has not been

done.

 

Such a one is not pleased when praised nor upset when blamed. One is not afraid

of death nor attached to life.

 

A person at peace does not run off to popular places or to the forest. Whatever

and wherever, one remains the same.

 

 

With love,

 

Shengping