संत साहित्य · Aṣṭāvakra · Verse by verse
Chapter 4 — The Glory of the Knower
Verse by verse
अष्टावक्र उवाच॥
हन्तात्मज्ञानस्य धीरस्य खेलतो भोगलीलया।
न हि संसारवाहीकैर्मूढैः सह समानता॥४- १॥
aṣṭāvakra uvāca||
hantātmajñānasya dhīrasya khelato bhogalīlayā|
na hi samsāravāhīkairmūḍhaiḥ saha samānatā||4- 1||
Aṣṭāvakra said: Ah, there is no equality between the wise self-knower, sporting freely in the play of experience, and the deluded who drag along like beasts of burden through saṃsāra.
The knower who has recognized ātman (the true self) as pure awareness plays lightly within experience, without the exhausting seriousness of one mistaking the roles of saṃsāra (the wheel of worldly striving) for reality; this isn't superiority, only a difference in what is taken to be real.
When your day's tasks pile up, do them, but don't drag them like a beast of burden — notice you can hold the whole thing lightly.
यत् पदं प्रेप्सवो दीनाः शक्राद्याः सर्वदेवताः।
अहो तत्र स्थितो योगी न हर्षमुपगच्छति॥४- २॥
yat padam prepsavo dīnāḥ śakrādyāḥ sarvadevatāḥ|
aho tatra sthito yogī na harṣamupagacchati||4- 2||
The state which Indra and all the gods, wretched, long to attain — ah, the yogi established in that state feels no elation.
What even the gods crave and cannot securely hold arrives for the yogi not as an achievement to celebrate but as recognition of what was already so; there's no thrill because there is nothing new gained.
The next time you finally get what you long wanted and feel oddly flat, don't chase the missing high — that flatness may be closer to peace than any thrill was.
तज्ज्ञस्य पुण्यपापाभ्यां स्पर्शो ह्यन्तर्न जायते।
न ह्याकाशस्य धूमेन दृश्यमानापि सङ्गतिः॥४- ३॥
tajjñasya puṇyapāpābhyām sparśo hyantarna jāyate|
na hyākāśasya dhūmena dṛśyamānāpi saṅgatiḥ||4- 3||
For the knower of That, virtue and vice do not truly touch the inner self — just as smoke, though visible, has no real contact with the space it moves through.
Merit and sin (puṇya-pāpa) mark the doer, the body-mind, but cannot stain awareness itself, which only witnesses — like smoke drifting visibly through space without ever touching or altering the space itself.
After doing something you're proud of or ashamed of, notice the part of you simply aware of the pride or shame — that witnessing carries no stain either way.
आत्मैवेदं जगत्सर्वं ज्ञातं येन महात्मना।
यदृच्छया वर्तमानं तं निषेद्धुं क्षमेत कः॥४- ४॥
ātmaivedam jagatsarvam jñātam yena mahātmanā|
yadṛcchayā vartamānam tam niṣeddhum kṣameta kaḥ||4- 4||
Who can restrain the great soul who has known that this whole world is nothing but the Self, and who lives as chance has it?
Once someone has recognized that the entire world is nothing other than the Self (ātman) they already are, no external rule or judgment can bind them, because there is no separate person left to control.
Stop asking permission from your fears about who you're allowed to become — the one imposing the limit and the one limited are the same fiction.
आब्रह्मस्तंबपर्यन्ते भूतग्रामे चतुर्विधे।
विज्ञस्यैव हि सामर्थ्यमिच्छानिच्छाविवर्जने॥४- ५॥
ābrahmastambaparyante bhūtagrāme caturvidhe|
vijñasyaiva hi sāmarthyamicchānicchāvivarjane||4- 5||
Among the fourfold host of beings, from Brahmā down to a blade of grass, only the one of true knowledge has the power to be free of both liking and disliking.
Of all beings, from the creator down to the humblest blade of grass, only the one who truly knows (vijña) has real freedom from the endless push-pull of wanting and not-wanting; everyone else is driven by preference.
Before your next reflexive "I want this" or "I don't want that," pause a beat — that gap is where freedom actually lives.
आत्मानमद्वयं कश्चिज्जानाति जगदीश्वरं।
यद् वेत्ति तत्स कुरुते न भयं तस्य कुत्रचित्॥४- ६॥
ātmānamadvayam kaścijjānāti jagadīśvaram|
yad vetti tatsa kurute na bhayam tasya kutracit||4- 6||
Rare is the one who knows the Self as non-dual, the lord of the world; whatever he does, he has no fear anywhere.
Almost no one recognizes the Self as advaya (without a second, non-dual) and as the very lord governing the world's appearance; whoever does recognize this acts freely and without fear, because fear requires the illusion of something separate that could be lost.
Ask yourself, honestly, what you're actually afraid of losing right now — then ask who exactly that loss would happen to.