Ashtavakra Gita 1.13 - Teachings on Self-Realization and Liberation

Ashtavakra becomes more specific. He exhorts the king to understand the subject more precisely and ruminate and contemplate over the Self alone, distinguishing it from all else.

Do not mix up the ‘I’ with anything else. To think of it, the ever-abiding witness, as anything else is totally wrong. Mind is given to mixing up the ‘I’ with external and internal things, like the gross body and the inner subtle thoughts, emotions and reasons, all of which stand separate as objects for it. As you say ‘my body’, you also say ‘my thought, my understanding, my doubt’. Are not these then clearly different from the ‘I’, which you are?

Do not confuse the ‘I’ with any other, whether an object outside or ideas and notions inside. ‘I’ is exclusively itself. It never becomes another. All others are the witnessed. The ‘I’ alone is the one witness of them all. Where is then any scope for confusion or illusion in this?

Contemplate repeatedly upon the qualities of the Self. For instance, it is kūṭastha, never changing the least. Like blacksmith’s anvil, on which he places iron articles, hammering them to shape them into the desired products.

The seeker needs firmness and precision in the matter. The whole process is inner, within the close reach of every one!