Ashtavakra Gita 3.12 -

King Janaka’s enquiry was threefold: How can spiritual knowledge be attained, how does liberation result, and how can dispassion be achieved? Sage Ashtavakra has been dealing with spiritual wisdom and liberation extensively. About dispassion, he had emphasized right in the opening verse of his reply. Treat all sensory objects as poison, he had said.

Here now he brings dispassion and says that dispassion, desire-freeness and Self-realization go together. Self is present in all. The seeker has to realize it as already present in him. Once realization is had, one becomes blissful, as his Self itself is. In such blissfulness, where is the need for dispassion as a separate quality or achievement? Dispassion is co-existential with Self-realization. So is desire-freeness also.

In fact, not to yearn for anything is the characteristic of Self-contentment. Passion can be only when there is something to be passionate for. There is no second to the Self. In such a second-less presence, where is anything to be aspired for?

Yearn for the Self. Locate it within your body. Know it as Consciousness, which is never absent in you. When Consciousness exposes itself well, the experience will be so ecstatically fulfilling that you will need nothing, neither an object nor a quality or virtue. Whatever is needed will automatically grace you.