Ashtavakra Gita | Chapter 10

Quietude Ashtavakra said --- 1. Cultivate indifference to everything, having given up kama (desire) which is the enemy, artha (worldly prosperity) which is attended with mischief, and dharma(performance of good works) which is the cause of these two. 2. Look upon friends, lands, wealth, houses, wives, presents and such other marks of good fortune, as a dream or a juggler’s show, lasting only a few days. 3. Know that wherever there is desire there is the world. Betaking yourself to firm non-attachment, go beyond desire and be happy. 4. Bondage consists only in desire, and the destruction of desire is said to be liberation. Only by non-attachment to the world does one attain the constant joy of the realization of the Self. 5. You are One, Pure Intelligence. The universe is non-intelligent and unreal. Ignorance also is no real entity. What can you yet desire to know? 6. Kingdoms, sons, wives, bodies and pleasures have been lost to you birth after birth, even though you were attached to them. 7. Enough of prosperity, desires, and pious deed. The mind did not find repose in these in the dreary forest of the world. 8. For how many births have you not done hard and painful work with body, with mind and with speech! Therefore cease at least today.