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Aṣṭāvakra Saṃhitā
A Dialogue on Self-realization
Poojya Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
Chapter 13, Verse 5
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Ashtavakra Gita 13.5 -

अर्थानर्थौ न मे स्थित्या गत्या न शयनेन वा ।
तिष्ठन्गच्छन्स्वपन्तस्मादहमासे यथासुखम्

arthānarthau na me sthityā gatyā na śayanena vā .
tiṣṭhan-gacchan-svapan-tasmād-aham-āse yathā-sukham .. 13-5..

By staying, going or lying I contract no good or evil. Therefore, I comfortably sit, move and sleep, and am restful in my own inner spiritual expanse.

Commentary by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

Virtue and vice, good and evil, are feelings and considerations mind fosters, looking at the manifold world. As long as our senses perceive the world, ideas like good and bad, virtue and vice, are incidental. But the fact remains we are not the body or senses, but the singular spiritual expanse within. Activities revolving around the body do not the least affect the inner Self.

Self manifests the body with senses only to reveal that the world including the body cannot affect or involve it the least. One who realizes this has no conflict with the world or his body. What works here is the supreme knowledge one gains with his intelligence.

The seeker must have the discrimination to understand the unaffected nature of the Self, in all states and circumstances. Think of the wind blowing all around the earth. How many kinds of smell it gathers as it blows on! But do they the least stain it? As it blows further and further, the smells get dissolved, making the wind uncontaminated, fresh. Wind has been blowing for countless millennia, and it is our prāṇa, life force.

What then about the Self, far more subtle than wind? Will it be the least affected by the body or its functions?

Let the activities be or not. Self will contract no effect from them. Realizing this, the Knower will always remain himself, resting calmly in the sublime expanse within.

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