Janaka Exclaims. Part Two.

1. pure consciousness

Knowledge, knower and the knowable — this trinity does not exist in reality. I am that stainless Self in which, through ignorance, this triad is appearing. Janaka declares.

O duality is the root of misery. There is no remedy except the realization that this visible world is not real and I am the One Pure Consciousness.

Yes, I am pure Consciousness. Through ignorance I have projected these limitations, like the body-mind, upon my Self. Contemplating constantly this way without the activity of thought, I abide in the Absolute.

2. on bondage

Janaka says, I have neither bondage nor liberation. For having lost its reinforcement, the illusion has ended. O! The universe although appearing in myself does not in fact exist.

Along with this body, the universe isn’t anything. Thus I know for certain that pure Consciousness alone is the Self. So upon what can imagination make its stand now?

Body and mind, heaven and hell, bondage and freedom, misery and fear: all of this is mere imagination. What purpose has it with myself whose nature is pure Consciousness?

O! Even in the multitudes of human beings, no duality is seen, their having now become like a forest. To whom should I feel an attachment?

I am not the body nor is the body mine. Nor am I a finite living being. For I am Consciousness. And the only bondage is the desire for life.

3. the limitless sea

Janaka utters O! Diverging waves of worlds spontaneously generate in me, the limitless sea, as the mental storm arises.

In me, the limitless sea, the storm of the mind has ceased to be. And woe to the merchant individual whose ship of world is wrecked and drowned.

In me, the limitless and shore-free sea, how marvelous as waves of individuals arise and collide, jostle and play, and then re-enter into me according to their nature.

~my free transcreation of Ashtavakra Gita 2, 15-25 using the translations of Chinmayananda and Nityaswarupananda et al.