Peace

18.1

Ashtavakra said:

In the arising of whose knowing,

does delusion come about,

so much made up as in some dream

created by imagining?

It’s that which shines as happiness,

at peace with its own clarity.

To that alone is due respect.

18.2

Acquiring all kinds of things

brings much experience, many joys.

But happiness cannot be found

except by giving up all objects

sought by mind to be possessed.

18.3

The thought of duty to be done

burns painfully into the heart,

devouring tenderness within.

How then can there be happiness,

without a welling up inside

of undisturbed tranquility

that keeps refreshing heart inside?

18.4

This world of things that come to be

is all imagined in our minds.

It’s nothing but imagining.

In ultimate reality,

this world that seems to be imagined

is not anything at all.

There is no ceasing of these beings

that are here thought self-conceived,

these that discriminate between

what has occurred or not occurred.

We think of these as persons who

inhabit bodies in the world.

18.5

Where does one stand in one’s own self?

That stand is not found far away,

by looking out extensively

across the universe at large.

Nor can it be attained from something

limited or small in size;

within some body, sense or mind.

It has to be found effortless,

unchanged by all activity,

unmixed with any differences

that may appear to compromise

its unaffected purity.

It is forever thus attained.

18.6

The moment that illusion ends,

from that same instant when the truth

of self is realized, they who

seemed to be bound now find true self

presiding always free at heart.

There, seeing is found clarified,

dissatisfaction is dispelled.

18.7

All of this put-together world

is made of mind’s imagining.

The self that knows is always free,

beyond all thought of passing time.

Why then should one who knows correctly

be in need of practices

that help achieve desired traits

of cultured personality,

as in the training of a child?

18.8

True self, within each mind and heart,

is all that's real everywhere,

throughout all space and time in world.

Whatever happenings occur

or don’t occur, are nothing else

but supposition shown created

by the mind’s imagining.

But, through its wishful fantasies,

this mind is driven, stupefied

by wanting objects of desire.

Who knows this comes to certainty

where knowing is at last found free

of mind that’s driven by desire.

But what then may be known

or said or done, by someone who is thus

found free of all desires in mind?

18.9

A yogi who turns silent thus

comes to exhaust all differentiating

thoughts, like ‘This is what

I am’ or ‘No, I am not this’.

But just what this exhaustion means

is understood by finding out

that ‘Everything is self alone’,

beyond the slightest trace of doubt.

18.10

A yogi who has come to peace

finds no distraction, concentration;

no excess of cleverness,

no blind unthinking foolishness;

no pleasure, nor unpleasantness.

18.11

In self-supported sustenance,

in dire need; in gain, in loss;

at home in friendly company,

or in withdrawal far away

into a lonely wilderness ...

these cannot make much difference

to one whom yoga has released,

from habit-driven tendencies

induced by past conditioning.

18.12

Then, where is virtue, where enjoyment,

where are riches, where discernment,

for the yogi who is freed

from dual thought: like this that’s ‘done’,

opposed to that which is ‘not done’.

18.13

There is no duty to be done,

nor any compromising taint at heart;

not for that yogi who is liberated inwardly,

though seen to live conditioned

outwardly in an external world.

This kind of yogi takes to any

way of life spontaneously,

in consonance with happenings

that take place of their own accord.

18.14

Where is delusion? Where is world?

Where contemplation upon that?

And where is liberation, for

that someone who is great at heart?

Who, at the limit of conception,

comes to rest in peace itself,

where all conceiving is dissolved?

18.15

One who perceives this world may well

make out that it does not exist.

But what is there to do for one

who has no inclination left?

That one, though seeing, does not see

what is imagined to be seen.

There’s only seeing in itself

unmixed with anything thought seen.

18.16

By one who’s seen the ultimate

reality of everything,

it may be thought: ‘That’s what I am,

that one complete reality.’

But what of one who sees no second,

nothing but one self alone?

That someone is then free of thought

which goes from self to something else.

Thus freed from mind’s duality,

how does that someone think at all?

18.17

It is from seeing self distracted

that one practices control.

One who is noble does not get

distracted. Having nothing to

achieve, what does that someone do?

18.18

A sage, who stands established in

true knowing, is thus different

from most of us who take ourselves

to stand in an uncertain world.

Just like the rest of us, a sage

appears to stand on shifting ground:

as circumstances in the world

get changed, with such uncertainty.

But, inwardly, a sage lives free,

where nothing seen is thought possessed.

There, no absorption, no distraction,

no conditioned act is seen.

No act of ego covers self

with any taint of compromise.

18.19

One who is wise remains content,

not driven by desiring

for what may or may not occur.

By such a one, there’s nothing done;

not even when observed as acting,

from the sight of those in world.

18.20

Remaining steadfast in true knowledge,

whether doing or not doing,

such a one takes nothing ill.

As what needs doing comes about,

it is then done; while that same self

from which the doing issues forth

is found completely undisturbed,

in its unchanging happiness.

18.21

One who breaks free from inclinations

gets to be thus independent,

motivated from within

and free from bondage to the world.

Thus, in such moving from within,

someone who’s liberated may

be found to act spontaneously.

Each act is a dried leaf that’s blown

by wind inspired from pure self.

Each leaf shows self alone,

through an inherited conditioning.

18.22

For one who’s free of changing world,

there’s nowhere any joy or grief.

Cool-minded always, such a one

presides in body unaffected,

as though disembodied here.

18.23

There’s nowhere any sense of loss

nor wish to give up anything,

for one who stands established where

untroubled self is realized,

enjoying its own happiness.

18.24

For one whose natural state of mind

is free of calculating thought,

what’s done comes up spontaneously:

from standing back in truth of self.

There, standing back in self alone,

no sense of pride or shame is found

like that affecting what is done

by most of us – who take our stand

in troubled bodies, senses, minds.

This is the stand of ego-mind:

inevitably compromised,

as mind confuses knowing self

with acting personality.

18.25

‘This work is done by me as body,

not by me in my true nature

as pure self.’ One who adheres

to thinking thus, attains that self

which seems to act but does not act.

It, even in the midst of action,

stays completely actionless.

It is that knowing light from which

all actions are inspired to rise.

It’s that alone which truly knows,

beneath all acts that come from it.

18.26

One who is free in living body

may well seem to act as though

maintaining quite the opposite.

But such a one is not a fool.

Seen even as a person here

engaged in world, that person who

is free within shines truly bless’d,

finds happiness unqualified

by what may or may not occur.

18.27

Grown tired of conflicting thoughts

that reason in such different ways,

someone steady in true knowing

has at last returned to rest.

Found there established, such a one

does not see any sight, nor hears

a sound, nor thinks a thought, nor knows

an object other than what knows.

18.28

One who is truly great at heart

stays unaffected by distractions

or by states of concentration

drawing outward thoughts back in.

Thus, such a one does not aspire

to liberation from the world;

nor seeks out objects fancied here

by partial personality.

One great at heart has come to know,

beyond the shadow of a doubt,

that all this world is nothing more

than fictional imagining.

Attaining to that certainty,

one lives oneself identified

as all of the reality

that anyone experiences.

Throughout all seeing of a world

made up of mind’s imagining,

one lives at heart unlimited

and utterly unchanged.

18.29

It’s only one possessed of ego

who may act or may not act.

By one who knows unwavering,

unmixed with ego’s falsity,

there’s nothing done or left undone.

18.30

One who is free must be released

from agitation in the mind.

Thus, no one free can be a doer:

getting driven into trouble,

or made somehow gratified.

In someone who is liberated,

mind must shine desireless,

with its uncertainties resolved.

18.31

In one thus free, there is no mind

that sets out to reflect within,

or to engage in outward acts.

And yet – inspired from within,

unmotivated from outside –

mind sometimes may be found reflecting,

sometimes acting in the world.

18.32

On hearing truth directly told,

some unreceptive person thus

becomes bewildered and confused.

But someone more intelligent

may get withdrawn back into mind.

Through this withdrawal, thoughts are

silenced, showing mind as if perplexed.

18.33

It’s only them who are confused

that keep repeating practices

of concentration and control.

They who discern what knowing is

do not see anything to do.

Each stands, as though in depth of sleep,

in just that state which is one’s own,

where one’s own self alone abides.

18.34

For one who’s blindly ignorant,

no idleness nor effort can

result in happiness found free

of our conflicting differences.

It’s only by determining

what’s true and right that one who knows

finds peace, and is there satisfied.

18.35

True self is pure intelligence.

It’s what we love, found always

perfect, unaffected by all ill,

completely free of any world

made up from seeming differences.

There in the world, as people take

to a variety of different practices,

they do not know that self.

18.36

One who stays blindly ignorant

does not attain to liberation

through repeated practices.

But one who’s bless’d – by nothing more

than knowing truly – stands thus free,

devoid of all activities.

18.37

A person who is ignorant

does not attain to all the world’s

reality. For that is what

this person wishes to become.

But one who knows most definitely

realizes its true nature,

even without wishing so.

18.38

Those who don’t know are found in want

of true support for their beliefs.

They seek to grasp at what they can,

and thus perpetuate this show

of passing fiction in our minds.

Those who know better get to cut

the root of this absurdity

that mind believes to be a world

made up of change and happening.

18.39

One who stays ignorant does not

find peace. For it is then desired

as though it has to be obtained.

But one who knows has ascertained

a truth that doubt can never change.

Such certainty establishes

a peace that’s present at all times,

can’t ever disappear from mind.

18.40

Just where is seeing rightly known

to come from self, for any person

who depends on objects seen

through changing personality?

Those who know clearly don’t see things

as ‘this’ or ‘ that’. They see no more

or less than self, which does not change.

18.41

Where is restraint or mind control,

for one who obstinately strives,

while still remaining ignorant

of where it’s from that guidance comes,

and where control originates?

For one established in true knowing,

mind is guided and controlled

from happiness of self within.

That guidance is no changing act

of any artificial mind.

It is completely natural:

inspired of its own accord.

Thus, at all times, a timely guidance

is found present: timelessly

inspired from that inmost self

which shines unchanged as knowing light.

18.42

Some think about a universe

that is made up of happenings.

Some others think these happenings

(which are thus taken to occur)

may not, in stricter truth, exist.

One who does not think either way

gets thereby calm and unconfused.

That’s all the more remarkable.

18.43

Conceiving of subjective self

as ‘pure’ or ‘one without a second’,

it appears objectified,

by those of sorry intellect.

But they don’t rightly know that self,

from this confusion in their minds.

So long as the confusion lasts,

their lives are troubled, ill at ease.

18.44

The mind of one who longs for freedom

cannot function independent

of what’s thought to be outside.

But, for one who stands in freedom,

mind is always independent:

functioning desireless,

inspired only for the sake

of unaffected self within.

18.45

On seeing objects seemingly

like fearsome tigers, those afraid

seek hurried refuge in a cave:

where concentration and control

may, hopefully, be found attained

through solitude and exercise.

18.46

On seeing personality

from where it is desireless,

it’s like a lion reigning free

out in some forest wilderness.

The objects of our senses then

turn out to be like elephants.

They lumber off contentedly;

or if they can’t, they gather round

performing courtly services

that make a show of flattery.

18.47

One who is free from any doubt,

whose mind is found at one with self,

does not have need of treatises

that say how freedom should be found.

In seeing, hearing, smelling odours,

touching objects, eating food ...

whatever life may bring about

accords with that same happiness

for which all happenings take place.

18.48

By the mere hearing of what’s true,

someone whose intellect is pure

gets thereby clear, and comes to peace

that shines completely undisturbed.

There, nothing proper nor improper

may be seen, nor even plain

indifference to the both of them.

18.49

One who is open and straightforward

does what’s present here to do.

That person’s actions are like those

done by a child: not calculating

what looks good, or what looks ill.

18.50

From freedom of self-governance,

a person comes to happiness.

Through freedom, someone may transcend

beyond this personality.

Through freedom, clarity of peace

that shines from self, uncompromised.

Through freedom, one’s own stand in self,

which is described as ‘ultimate’.

From there, there’s nothing else to find.

18.51

When someone comes to recognize

that one is not oneself a doer,

nor a personal enjoyer;

then all changing states of mind

get tired out and are destroyed.

This thought – that one is neither doer

nor enjoyer – thus destroys

all other thoughts. It then must turn

back on itself and get destroyed;

so that none else but self remains,

just as it is, unmodified.

18.52

One who knows rightly, leads a life

that is by nature unrestrained.

And yet that life is found to shine

with light that guides it, from within,

to function of its own accord,

unforced by anything outside.

Not so the made-up show of calm

that’s artificially produced

by those who are still ignorant –

whose minds are driven by desire.

18.53

Those who know surely may appear

sometimes in great enjoyments; or,

it may be that at other times

they find retreat in mountain caves.

But they are always free in mind,

unfettered at the depth of heart.

There, no imagining remains.

It has completely been removed

from what is rightly understood.

18.54

From seeing or performing worship –

whether to a scholar or a god,

a holy place, a woman

or a king or someone loved –

no driven inclination can

at all remain, there in the heart

of one who stands in truth unchanged

by mixing it with falsity.

18.55

A yogi is not in the least

affected – even when reproached

and made to look ridiculous

by servants, children, wives, grandchildren

and by other relatives.

18.56

Though pleased, a sage is not found pleased.

Though pained, a sage is not distressed.

It’s only someone else like that –

some other sage – who understands

this quite extraordinary state.

18.57

The sense of duty makes it seem

that something needs to be achieved.

This sense of needed doing is

what makes the changing world appear.

The world is made of this alone.

But those who have attained to wisdom

do not see this world made up

from thought of what needs to be done.

They see that any thought of need

shows mind in want, and thus admits

this thinking to be compromised.

No world made up of needy thought

is seen by those who know it right.

Such knowers see their seeming selves

as empty personalities

appearing formed from nothingness.

Accordingly, they realize

that self which has itself no form.

It’s that which cannot be transformed,

stays unaffected by all ill.

18.58

One who stays ignorant in mind

is worried and distracted always:

never free from restlessness,

not even when there’s nothing done.

But one who’s truly capable

stays unconfused and unexcited,

through all duties that get done.

18.59

One who finds peace in depth of mind

thereby returns from changing acts,

to stand in peace which does not change

throughout all actions that take place.

Established there, a person may

thus keep on living undisturbed

through all activities in world.

No matter if that person sits,

lies down, or comes or goes away,

or speaks or eats. None of these acts

can undermine that happiness

which always stays uncompromised.

18.60

One who knows truth is self-possessed,

acts for the sake of self within.

But most of us act from a sense

of wanting what we don’t possess.

This sense of want makes us distressed.

No such distress is felt by one

who rightly knows, not even when

shown acting in the world outside.

Seen even in the midst of action,

one who knows retains the calm

of waters infinitely deep.

All troubles are thus found dissolved

in peace that shines uncompromised.

18.61

The very inactivity

of one who’s ignorant gives rise

again to action in the world.

And even the activity

of one who knows partakes of fruits

that come from what is actionless.

18.62

One who is ignorant may show

aversion towards things possessed.

For one in whom all bodily …

attachment has dissolved away,

where is desire, where disgust?

18.63

For one who does not rightly know,

what’s taken to be ‘seeing’ is

found always caught in thinking or

unthinking what’s been thought about.

But, for that someone who would stand

in self, it is by thinking what

ought to be thought that self appears.

It paradoxically appears,

shown formed as blank ‘unconsciousness’:

which knows no objects seen by body,

sense or mind in seeming world.

18.64

A sage is one who, like a child,

is moved to act spontaneously:

quite innocent of calculation

tied to objects of desire.

For such a one, who’s motivation

is thus pure, no taint is left

by anything that may be done.

18.65

Bless’d is the one who knows true self.

That knower always is the same,

no matter in what circumstance.

No matter whether seeing, hearing,

touching objects, smelling odours ...

one who knows is found the same:

untouched by personal desire,

disinterested in wanting mind.

18.66

Where is there any world that changes?

Where some show of changing things?

Where is achievement to be found?

Where any striving to achieve?

How can such questions rise at all,

for one whose knowing carries on

unchanged throughout all space and time,

beyond all thought of difference?

18.67

Whoever truly wins success

is freed from all objective aims.

A person who thus finds release

may then be recognized as an

embodiment of perfect peace

and unaffected happiness.

Just that is savoured as the essence

of one’s own true nature: not

as seen through personality

from some imagined world outside,

but realized returned within

to one’s own true identity.

For someone standing back in self,

absorption in plain truth is only

natural and spontaneous.

No further effort is requir’d.

There is no need to interfere,

as living functions carry on

completely of their own accord.

18.68

What need is there to say much here?

One great at heart – who’s come to

realize plain truth – is thereby freed

from fancied want for life’s enjoyments

and for freedom from such want.

But, one thus free is utterly

disinterested everywhere.

In such a one, no interested

expectation can be found.

No act is ever driven by

some fantasy of wish and hope

for any personal reward.

All acts that may seem personal

must none the less in truth turn out

to be impersonally done.

18.69

All of this dualistic world

 – seen here extended forth into

the vast expanse of space and time –

is a description made from words

that need to be interpreted.

This play of words and what they mean

must finally be left behind,

by one who realizes self

as nothing else but consciousness.

But, when all words are thus transcended,

what can there be left to do,

by one who is pure consciousness?

18.70

In fact, this world does not exist.

It’s all a product of confusion,

wrongly showing what appears.

By coming to be sure of this,

the inexpressible becomes

expressed to someone rightly pure,

who thus comes naturally to peace.

18.71

For one whose nature is pure shining –

never found perceiving objects

that mind thinks are ‘to be seen’ –

just where are any rules of conduct,

where dispassion, where renouncing,

where withdrawal of the senses

or of mind from seeming world?

18.72

For one who shines unlimited –

not caught in seeing nature’s realm

of actions leading to more actions –

where indeed can there be bondage,

where can there be liberation,

where excitement or despair?

18.73

Up to the limits of the mind,

a world of change is manifest.

But it is shown mistakenly,

through a deceptive functioning.

Beyond this tricky show in mind

no world nor any change appears.

One who is wise lives free of any

sense of ‘mine-ness’; free of ego’s

falsely claimed identity

to be at once a changing doer

and a changeless, knowing ‘I’.

The changing doer is a person

felt attached to fond desire.

The ‘I’ that knows can’t be attached.

It’s thus that one who rightly knows

shines free of all desiring,

lives utterly impersonal

in changing personality.

18.74

For one who sees correctly that

true self cannot be tired out,

can’t suffer any pain or grief ...

just where is knowledge? Where a world?

And where can there be any feelings:

‘I am body’, ‘This is mine’?

18.75

If someone unintelligent

stops practicing restraint of mind

and other forms of artificial

exercise, it takes no time

for mind to get caught up again

in unexamined foolishness

of fancies driven by desire.

18.76

A person who is lazy-minded –

unprepared to ask sharp questions –

will not give up ignorance,

not even when what’s plainly true

is heard with due formality.

Through efforts made in world outside,

such a person may achieve

a state where mind seems to be free

of all its fond imagining.

But, deep within such ‘no mind’ states,

blind cravings stubbornly persist

for objects fondly fantasized.

18.77

For one who comes to know plain truth,

all need to act is thereby found

dissolved away. And yet that someone

may still seem engaged in acts

performing various kinds of work,

as seen by people in the world.

But even while thus seen engaged,

someone who realizes truth –

as seen from where that someone stands –

can find no opportunity

to do or to say anything.

18.78

For one who knows, unaltering,

beyond all trace of doubt or fear,

where is there dark? Where light? Where

giving up? Where anything at all?

18.79

Where is there steadfast clarity?

Where is discernment, fearlessness?

What are these, to a yogi whose

own character can’t be described

and who is thus ‘impersonal’?

18.80

There is no heaven, nor hell. Nor

even liberation, here in life.

In short, there’s nothing that exists

as seen in yogic consciousness.

18.81

Someone who’s steadfast in plain truth

does not seek gain, nor gets upset

by failure to achieve success.

The mind of such a one stays cool.

It gets refreshed perpetually,

by that clear light which does not die.

18.82

Someone desireless does not

heap praise on those who’ve come to peace,

nor look to blame those doing wrong.

For such a one remains content –

the same in grieving as in joy –

finds always nothing to be done.

18.83

Someone who knows does not dislike

the ebb and flow of changing world,

nor wishes to perceive the self.

Free thus from all excited joy

or driven anger, such a one

is neither dead to that which lives,

nor is alive to outward things

that make a dying show of life.

18.84

Not bound by family affection,

nor by objects of desire,

not caring even for this body

that is thought to be ‘one’s own’,

no expectations bind a sage

who shines as nothing else but light

that lives in every one of us.

18.85

Someone established in true knowing

finds contentment everywhere;

and lives at peace with what occurs,

no matter how things may turn out.

All movements are thus found inspired

spontaneously, from self alone.

Such movements go from place to place,

inspired of their own accord.

And when it’s time, a sage may rest

wherever energy runs out

and gets returned back home to self:

in which all movements are dissolved.

18.86

Not caring whether body falls

back into death or rises into

life again, one great at heart

has utterly forgotten all

the ebb and flow of death and birth ...

and now rests only on the ground

of one’s own being, as it is.

18.87

Possessing nothing, moving freely

from the depth of heart within,

a sage is always found untouched

by conflict of opposing things.

By standing free of conflict thus,

all troubled doubts get torn away.

No shadow of a doubt remains.

What’s true is found uncompromised.

One thus, who has attained to wisdom,

is completely unattached

to anything that may occur.

That one finds perfect happiness

in self alone: found absolute,

unmixed with any other thing.

18.88

One who is wise lives free of ‘mine-ness’.

Earth, stone, gold ... are found the same.

All knots of heart are cut completely.

Neither striving to achieve,

nor dragging laziness takes hold

of driven personality.

With strife and laziness removed,

what seemed a ‘person’ is found free

of personal identity.

18.89

For someone who stays everywhere

indifferent, quite unconcerned

with anything, there is at heart

no habit-driven inclination

towards objects of desire.

Who then can bear comparison

with such a one who stays content,

established in that truth of self

where each of us is always free?

18.90

It is from there that one may know,

but not by any act of knowing

formed and understood by mind.

It is from there that one may see,

but not by any act of seeing

shown by changing sense of sight.

And, it’s from there, that one may speak,

though not by any act of speaking

formed by breath and heard by ears.

Who else but one desireless

could know or see or speak like that?

18.91

Be it a starving beggar or

a wealthy king, it’s only one

desireless that truly shines.

For, paradoxically, no person

can achieve true excellence

until all fondly held belief,

in good or bad things happening,

has dropped away entirely.

It’s only then that self shines clear,

as utterly impersonal.

18.92

What of ungoverned wantonness,

or of restrained humility?

And what about discerning truth

found so confusingly mixed up

with our mistaken falsities?

What can these be, for one whom yoga

has joined back to truth of self?

That one, who’s called a ‘yogi’, has

attained the goal that we all seek.

Abiding there, that yogi may

be seen to stand uncompromised:

as an embodiment of plain,

uncomplicated honesty.

18.93

For one who rests content in self,

untainted by desiring,

all pain and trouble is destroyed.

How and of whom can be described

what is experienced within,

by one who speaks from such a state?

18.94

Not sleeping in the soundest sleep,

not even in the wildest dream

withdrawn from world of waking sense,

not even in the waking state

aware of anything perceived

in world outside or thinking mind,

one who is steadfast in true knowing

stays contented everywhere,

throughout all change of passing states.

18.95

A sage is always free of thinking,

even when engaged in thought.

So also free of any senses,

even though possessed of them.

So also free of intellect,

although in full control of it.

So too completely free of ego,

even when the self that knows

is wrongly thought to be engaged

in acts of body, sense and mind.

18.96

One such can’t rightly be described

as ‘happy’ or as ‘suffering’,

as ‘unattached’ or as ‘attached’,

as ‘seeking freedom’ or as ‘free’,

as anything that’s ‘here’ or ‘there’.

18.97

One who is truly fortunate

stays undistracted even in

what seem distracted states of mind ...

cannot be found to disappear

in states where mind is thought dissolved ...

can’t even be insensitive

in states where no sense can be made

of what seems utter senselessness ...

can’t be made capable or skilled

by any learned accomplishment.

18.98

One who is free stands self-possessed,

untroubled by all sense of what’s

been done and what needs doing still.

One thus attained to self-possession

is found everywhere the same.

No fancied want drives needful thought

of what has or has not been done.

18.99

Though praised, someone who is thus free

does not feel flattered or feel pleased;

though blamed, does not become enraged.

One such is not afraid in dying;

nor feels happy to be living

here in body, sense and mind.

18.100

One who at heart has come to peace

does not seek crowds and company,

nor any lonely wilderness.

One such lives utterly unchanged:

the same however things turn out,

no matter where or when perceived.