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Aṣṭāvakra Saṃhitā
A Dialogue on Self-realization
Poojya Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha
Chapter 18, Verse 99
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Ashtavakra Gita 18.99 -

न प्रीयते वन्द्यमानो निन्द्यमानो न कुप्यति ।
नैवोद्विजति मरणे जीवने नाभिनन्दति

na prīyate vandyamāno nindyamāno na kupyati .
naivodvijati maraṇe jīvane nābhinandati .. 18-99..

He is not pleased when adored, not disturbed when blamed, not frightened in death, and delights not in life.

Commentary by Swami Bhoomananda Tirtha

Any extent of description and definition about the unconditioned, fullness and freedom of the Knower will not be an excess. Dvandvas are countless; they are external and internal, physical and mental alike. Praise and blame, gain and loss, rise and fall, success and failure, gross and subtle, sin and virtue, heaven and hell, life and death, body and soul, here and there, inside and outside, fluid and solid, earth and gold, passion and dispassion, good and bad, bondage and liberation, nay greatly more, are all dvandvas, pairs of opposites.

To be embodied is to course through these. Well analysed, all these are mind’s notions and expressions. The moment you think of the Self, all dvandvas cease altogether, because the Self does not permit any other existence. It is not matter, not energy, not outer, not inner. It is neither thought nor thinker nor the thinking substance. It is itself, self-radiant, self-revealing, and self-present.

To know it is to resemble it, nay be itself. This knowledge is so powerful and wholesome that all else dissolve in their own inner source, like thought dissolving into no-thought, non-thinking.

Let the body do what it will. Self shines in its exquisite singular glory. The Knower shines in his transcendental magnificence, like free, colourless, formless space reflecting in the plane mirror! Like the mind dropping its subject-object distinctions and being the homogeneous Consciousness itself!

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