Ashtavakra Gita 10.1 -

Ashtavakra Samhita keeps up its strong tone of discrimination and dispassion. In fact, Janaka’s enquiry was on jñāna, vairagya and liberation. Maharshi sticks to these points.

Desire is a stark enemy of human. Krishna speaks of desire as mahāśanaḥ, mighty eater, mahā-pāpmā, mighty sinner, and nitya-vairin, incessant enemy (Gita 3.37 ). When obstructed, it becomes stark hatred, ready to perpetrate any crime.

Wealth is a source of fear for all. It makes one a victim of a variety of risks, hardships and assaults. The rich is often afraid of their own sons. Abandon wealth, says the Sage. When the blissful Self reigns closest to you, why strive for any other wealth?

It is significant that the Sage exhorts the seeker to relinquish Dharma also, saying it is the cause for artha and kāma. Adhering to dharma, the first of the fourfold purushārtha, one earns wealth to gratify his desires. Such dharma becomes redundant for a seeker of Self-knowledge. What dharma, artha and kāma will together bestow, Self-knowledge showers in full measure. Self-knowledge alone brings fulfilment. The seeker of Self need not yearn for anything else, however good, great and noble it is.

The words of the young Nachiketas before God of Death, in Kathopanishad, are extremely relevant here. Rejecting the offer of land, wealth, singers, dancers, long life and even emperorship over a large territory, Nachiketas said (Kathopanishad 1.2.14 ): “If you find anything different from dharma and adharma, different from cause and effect, different from past and future, then disclose it to me”. For a young mind, how great an insight!

What does this mean? The entire world is a conglomeration of dvandvas, pairs of opposites. Dharma and adharma are just one of these. It is virtually abandoning half of a total and accepting the other half. But the entire world is a display of the supreme Truth. Keep the ideal of One, Oneness. None can be satisfied with the any conditional or tentative choice.

Krishna also in Bhagavad Gita exhorts Arjuna to abandon all plural considerations of dharma and focus solely on the supreme Truth of Oneness. That will save him, says Krishna (Gita 18.66 ), from all sinfulness and bondage. So, the goal of the seeker is unalloyed Oneness, nothing short of it.

The Sage here too emphasizes the same principle, to lift the mind to the lofty note of fullness, Oneness, comprehensiveness,wherein alone the mind and intelligence of the human will be able to find and rejoice in full freedom, resulting from desire-extinction.

Devotees also sing aloud: “I do not seek dharma, as I have no intention to amass wealth. Nor do I have any craving for sensory enjoyment. Let whatever will take place, transpire. We have only one prayer. We must have unflinching devotion to your Lotus Feet.” (From Mukundamālā śloka 7 ) The goal of Oneness is indisputably clear!

Dharma is of interest for the mind, only if mind is bent on earning wealth and enjoying sensory delights. If full freedom, moksha, is the goal, then dharma has no relevance at all.