Looking at the Ashtavakra Gita

“My child, if you are seeking liberation, shun the objects of the senses like poison; and seek forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, contentment and truth like you would seek nectar.” 

Ashtavakra Gita 1.2

I don’t know about shunning the objects of the senses as I really really like life- I like the movement and the grit and the chaos and the beauty of everything that moves.  But I understand that part about forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, contentment, and truth. I wish I could raise one of these up on a pedestal, but each is a complete practice and a complete challenge on its own. 

Many of us struggle with kindness the most. In Yoga this is the first Yama (first “limb” of practice, or the first “constraint”). When I get in fights with my husband I’m usually the wrong one- well, maybe more than usually. That’s hard enough for me to see- I can get all hot and huffy in my own defense and even if I see he’s right about something I’ll dig in my point because “winning” by force is a (far) second best to resolution.  But the nectar in all arguments and dramas is kindness- can you and your partner be kind to each other even in your huffiness? Small acts of kindness show each other that we forgive each other for being our whole unpredictable and stormy selves. Actually, I think it’s the small kindnesses that keep a long-term relationship happy. Sincerity to look, sincerity to be honest, and melting the pain body so that kindness can germinate and grow even at the center of a little drama.

“All it needs for enlightenment to occur is a clear understanding of a dimension quite different from intellectual comprehension.  What intellectual comprehension brings about is a belief in what is comprehended but an intuitive apprehension is based on faith. Intellectual comprehension- belief- is based on argumentation, logic, effort and conflict. Intuitive apprehension- faith- is based on a certain inescapable inevitability, a relaxed acceptance of What-is, totally free of any doubt or opinion.”

Ramesh Balsekar, A Duet of One, commentary from the Ashtavakra Gita 1.4

We teach our children to defer to intellect over and over again… we praise people for their intelligence and their logic and their comprehension.  I think I’ve spent most of my adult life un-intelligenting, trying to not feed the thought wheel. It’s like a big labrinth up there- the intellectual brain.  I want to read. I want to know the answers. I want to sit in the front row and raise my hand the highest. I recently asked the doctor at my hearing test if I got an “A.”  But if I’m really honest with myself, I can see it’s true: there is not a single “why?” question that I can answer. My mind hates that.

But I can find a place where I fall in love with my mind for all of its silliness and all of its desire for perfection, order, and identifiable patterns. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I transcend the mind altogether- it still does what it does and tries to find order, but my intuitive apprehension and faith are much stronger these days. As soon as that old thought comes can you say “I see you. I love you. It’s ok- welcome in old friend. Let’s chat.” Trust that your heart is much, much, MUCH bigger than your mind. It can hold anything that comes up. Faith unlocks the heart. Balsekar (an incredible non-duality teacher) reminds us that intuition and faith are larger than comprehension. The heart is the vast sea upon which the mind floats and tinkers.

“Phenomenal objects including the sky and the sun and the moon, up there or down here or anywhere, simply do not exist except as concepts in the mind, except as illusory appearances in Consciousness, observed and cognized by Consciousness.”

Ramesh Balsekar, A Duet of One, commentary from the Ashtavakra Gita 1.12

If the things around us are fixed then maybe I’m fixed and some part of myself does not change and will not die.  Doesn’t that feel like a familiar notion? Those of us that try for the immortality of our names forget that our planet itself is mortal. Maybe we remember Odysseus for a couple thousand years, or Jesus, or the Buddha.  Maybe Oprah or Trump will be remembered in a couple hundred years- what success! Percy Bysshe Shelly brilliantly summed up this particular kind of immortality-seeking arrogance in his poem “Ozymandias;” “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Not only does the entire universe of movement exist only within us, there is no body as a container in the first place to hold that movement.  While this quote is utterly true (even scientists agree that the universe is either expanding outward eternally or will contract back to singularity eventually), it is also true that when I look at the sky and the sun and the moon that they are in exquisite existence in that moment.  Spectacular and big and awe-some. So today the sun exists, and tonight in my sleep it may not. I think I can hang with that.

“Give up the illusion that you are the individual self together with all external and internal self-modifications, and meditate on the Atman, the immutable, non-dual Consciousness. (1.13)

You are unattached, actionless, self-effulgent, without blemish.  This indeed is your bondage, that you practice meditation.” (1.15)

Ashtavakra Gita

I love this: meditate on all that you are- the immutable everything... But your bondage is that you meditate!  Who does’t love a little bit of double-speak. By far this is one of my favorite spiritual passages of all time. The Ashtavakra Gita is reminding us that meditating on what we are is DIFFERENT than the practice of meditation.  Practice of anything gets in our way at some point. Even practice of meditation. Imagine how sucky it would be for a meditator who prioritizes consistent, daily meditation to all of a sudden have a kid with the stomach flu, or suffer some debilitating body injury that prevents sitting comfortably, or have a car alarm going off just outside the window… what I mean is- the practice of meditation is similar to all rituals, all tools that we use to soothe ourselves, yes- hard to hear- but even all little addictions.  But meditation itself is not the same thing as practice. It’s much bigger than practice. And that kind of meditation- where you are swallowed whole by the divine and no action can touch your wholeness- your blemishlessness- that indeed is worthy meditation. Try it anywhere. Try it now, sitting, standing, walking, making breakfast for your loud family, rushing yourself and others out the door.

“I am like the ocean and the phenomenal universe is like a wave.  This is knowledge. There is therefore no question of any renouncement or any acceptance or any dissolution. (1.71)

I am like the mother-of-pearl and the illusion of the universe is like that of the silver. This is knowledge. There is therefore no question of any renouncement or any acceptance or any dissolution. (1.72)

I am indeed present in all beings and all beings are in Me. This is knowledge.  There is therefore no question of any renouncement, or any acceptance or any dissolution.” (1.73)

Ashtavakra Gita

There is no question of any renouncement.  There is no question of acceptance. There is no question of dissolution.  It’s just happening. What a relief. In that case, I think I’ll just relax, drink my coffee (caffeinated, please), and read the news. Good morning.

“Deep understanding reveals that the functioning of the total universe is based on duality and that each phenomenon is actually ‘being lived’ according to its inherent nature and subsequent conditioning in order to serve as the respective characters in this living-dream.”

Ramesh Balsekar, A Duet of One, commentary from the Ashtavakra Gita 1.90

We are all characters in a dream.  Maybe. On one level of Truth- that last rung- then probably and certainly yes, each phenomenon is being lived by the great big and whole and divine Nothing.  But this kind of statement implies that that Nothing is devoid of anything- indeed the only characteristic of the divine is its pure silence and no-thing-ness. Ground of Consciousness. Siva prone- asleep or dead, who can say.  I for one prefer all-things-ness. I enjoy my character. I love the living dream. I love myself as Shakti dancing on Siva’s prone body. I love the goddess that moves and stretches and touches her toes and gets angry and drinks water and makes a face when eating a lemon.  Can’t it be both? Can’t we be lived as characters but also fall in love with the fullness and the richness and the incredible beauty of those characters? Why else have relationships, why else fall in love or try to pick up your far-too-big children, why else lose yourself, and why else return to your complexity?  Indeed, I think it must be both.