Ashtavakra Gita 2.3 - Self-Realization and the Nature of Consciousness

See how confidently king Janaka speaks and how well he applies the wisdom he heard to develop his own perceptions. He says: “I am able to renounce the whole Universe together with the body, only due to the strength and dexterity of spiritual wisdom.”

Renunciation is an act done by the mind, not by the body or senses. Mind renounces whatever is its product and outcome. As the mind is not the body, matter or energy, its renunciation also is ideational, notional. Janaka says he is renouncing the world as well as his body.

Both the world and the body are, in terms of experience, floating in the mind within alone. Being so, they are just a mental product and outcome. What is there at all in them, besides the mind? So, where is the object, material world, and the body, except as cognitions in and by the mind? The whole display becomes inner and mental, devoid of externality, solidity and grossness. And as such, they have no separate existence or expression. This realization is tantamount to their renunciation. It is their separateness that is renounced, realizing their identity.

Janaka clearly experiences how the inner sentience alone reigns, nothing besides it, in the way of a gross Universe, including the body. One may wonder at the statement. But this is the truth, when you approach the subject earnestly, enter the mind arena and study what transpires there. No thought, idea or emotion survives. Sentience is the root entity, all else its illusory creation.