Astavakra Gita Quotes

1. Truly I am but pure consciousness,
   and the world is like a conjuror's show,
   so how could I imagine there is anything there
   to take up or reject?
    
2. The passionate man wants to be rid of samsara so as to avoid pain,
   but the dispassionate man is without pain
   and feels no distress even in it.
    
3. Since you have been bitten by the black snake
   of the self-opinion that "I am the doer",
   drink the nectar of faith in the fact that
   "I am not the doer", and be happy.
    
4. You are the one witness of everything,
   and are always totally free.
   The cause of your bondage is that you see the witness
   as something other than this.
    
5. Not attached to the things he has enjoyed,
   and not hankering after the things he has not enjoyed,
   such a man is hard to find.
    
6. Give up the practice of concentration completely
   and hold nothing in your mind.
   You are free in your very nature,
   so what will you achieve by working your brain?
    
7. Realising, "I am not the body", "nor is the body mine".
   "I am awareness" one attains the supreme state
   and no longer remembers things done or undone.
    
8. One may get all sorts of pleasure
   by the acquisition of various objects of enjoyment,
   but one cannot be happy except by
   the renunciation of everything.
    
9. Look on such things as friends, -
   land, money, property, wife, and bequests as nothing
   but a dream or a three or five-day conjuror's show.
    
10. One man is abstemious and averse to the senses,
    another is greedy and attached to them,
    but he who is free from both taking and rejecting
    is neither abstemious nor greedy.
     
11. He who is proud about even liberation or his own body,
    and feels them his own, is neither a seer or a yogi.
    He is still just a sufferer.
     
12. None of these senses please a man
    who has found satisfaction within,
    just as Nimba leaves do not please the elephant
    that has a taste for Sallaki leaves.
     
13. It is because of effort that everyone is in pain -
    but no-one realises it.
    By just this simple instruction,
    the lucky one attains tranquillity.
     
14. You do not belong to the Brahmin or any other caste,
    you are not at any stage,
    nor are you anything that the eye can see.
    You are unattached and formless,
    the witness of everything, so be happy.