Ashtavakra Gita | Chapter 16

What this episode covers

Special Instruction Ashtavakra said --- 1. My child, you may often speak upon various scriptures or hear them. But cannot be established in the Self unless you forget all. 2. O wise one, you may enjoy, or work, or practice mental concentration. But your mind will still yearn for your own nature which is beyond all objects and in which all desires are extinguished. 3. All are unhappy because they exert themselves. But none knows this. The blessed one attains emancipation through this instruction alone. 4. Happiness belongs to that master idler to whom even the closing and opening of the eyelids is an affliction, and to none else. 5. When the mind is free from such pairs of opposites as “this is to be done” and “this is not to be done”, it becomes indifferent to religious merit, worldly prosperity, sensual enjoyment, and liberation. 6. One who abhors the sense-objects becomes non-attached, and one who covets them becomes attached to them. But he who does not accept or reject, is neither unattached nor attached. 7. As long as desire continues, which is the root of the state of indiscrimination, there will verily be the sense of attachment and aversion, which is the branch and shoot of the tree of samsara. 8. Activity begets attachment, and abstention from it aversion. The man of wisdom is free from the pairs of opposites, like a child, and indeed he lives on like a child. 9. One who is attached to the world wants to renounce it in order to avoid sorrow. But one without attachment is free from sorrow and does not feel miserable even in the world. 10. He who has an egoistic feeling even towards liberation and considers even the body as his own, is neither a jnanin nor a yogin. He only suffers misery. 11. Let even Hara, Hari and the lotus-born Brahma be your instructor, but unless you forget all, you cannot be established in the Self.

PodParley-generated summary based on available episode metadata and transcript content.