Ashtavakra Gita 15.5 -

To be, to have something, to change, to become different each time, not to be, to doubt, verifying – all these are notions, feelings, ideas. None of them is static. They cannot be relied upon. Somehow these spring up. Where? If analyzed, verily no finding we can reach at. Every idea, notion or experience fleets off. How can the intelligent go after such evanescence?

Ashtavakra Maharshi points that desire and hatred are at best some kind of mental notes, elusive, never traceable at all. Mind is also an object, internal and subtle, you witness like any gross object including the body. Even the body disappears for hours in sleep. But you the sleeper disappears not. He is not the body, mind, intelligence or even the ego.

There is doubt, uncertainty, about everything, external and internal alike. The only doubtless factor is oneself, one’s own presence, the ‘I am’ness. For anything to be felt, experienced, no matter as transitory or otherwise, the feeler ‘I’ must first be there. The ‘I’ alone can feel and say ‘am this or that’. About the presence of such an ‘I’, none can doubt. The ‘I’ alone feels and reports a doubt, if at all. This ‘I’ transforms not the least, ever.

Hold on to it mentally, intelligentially, ego-wise as well. And live and move freely, unaffected, un-assailed, un-tormented, blissfully!