9.1
Ashtavakra said:
To whom belongs what has been done
or has not been accomplished yet?
When are such oppositions all
resolved?
Where are they put to rest?
By knowing thus, you may proceed
from your indifferent ignorance
to be intent upon renouncing
and thus getting disengaged.
9.2
It’s only someone truly rich
whose wish for living, for enjoying
and for getting information
has been stilled – from an astute
discernment of the ways of world.
9.3
All this, that’s found impermanent,
gets vitiated in three ways.
It lacks in substance; brings on
blame;
it’s what we need to put aside.
By getting to be sure of this,
one may attain to lasting peace.
9.4
Just at what time or age in life
are opposites no longer found
to trouble people in the world?
It’s when these troubling opposites
are left behind that someone comes
to rest fulfilled, content with what
occurs of its own happening.
9.5
Great seers and saints and yogis
teach
through many different beliefs.
When this is noticed, who of us
could reasonably not attain
to that detached indifference
where peace and harmony are found?
9.6
Where someone has achieved in full
right knowledge of pure
consciousness,
what is that someone but a teacher –
taking, through impartial reason,
those who truly seek beyond
the cyclic process of rebirth.
9.7
Just see each transformed element
as that which all these elements
are always, in themselves alone.
Then, from that instant, you will
stand –
completely free and unconstrained –
in that one truth of your own nature,
which is what you always are.
9.8
It’s only inner inclinations
that make up a changing world
of happenings which seem outside.
Consid’ring this, it is just these
conditionings within your mind
from which you need to free yourself.
Renunciation of the world
can only come from giving up
mind’s inclinations from within.
By that achievement, here and now,
you stand where you are always free,
no matter in what circumstance.