Aṣṭāvakra Saṃhitā
A Dialogue on Self-realization
Chapter 18, Verse 72
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Ashtavakra Gita 18.72 -
स्फुरतोऽनन्तरूपेण प्रकृतिं च न पश्यत: ।
क्व बन्ध: क्व च वा मोक्ष: क्व हर्ष: क्व विषादिता
sphurato’nanta-rūpeṇa prakṛtiṃ ca na paśyataḥ .
kva bandhaḥ kva ca vā mokṣaḥ kva harṣaḥ kva viṣāditā..18-72..
For one who is sparkling with infinitude, not perceiving any manifoldness, where is bondage, where is liberation either? Where is joy and where is sorrow?
Commentary by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
To know that one is the Self is to be radiant like the Self. Thus, Self-realization makes one feel and manifest the spiritual qualities of the Self. The Knower thus experiences noumenal infinitude, displacing the idea of phenomenal manifoldness, which nature is seen to display. For such a one, can there be the least notion or impact of comparisons and contrasts? In the singularness of the Self all else become extinct. This is the majesty and magnificence of knowledge, which has untold power.
Injunction and prohibition, passion and dispassion, possession and dispossession, gain and loss, victory and defeat, positive and negative, up and down, right and left, heaven and hell, outer and inner, subject and object, phenomenon and noumenon, centre and circumference, front and back, bondage and liberation, joy and sorrow, these and all others are but dvandvas, which constitute the manifoldness called the world. Mind you, this is a perception and assessment made by our mind and intelligence. All are notional, imaginational. As concepts, products of the mind, they dwell only inside our body.
To dwell in the Self means to outlive all dvandvas which lead only to sukha and duḥkha, the mind repeatedly produces. The wise one has no qualms in invalidating and being free of these outright. Imagine, the state of oneness, transcendence, the Knower naturally begets and preserves!
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