Enlightenment - Have It🔗

Ashtavakra Gita

Today's topic is 'Enlightenment: Have it'.

On the first day we heard a few basic things about enlightenment based on Ashtavakra Gita: 'Enlightenment: It is possible'. The next day we understood a few more things: 'Enlightenment: Guaranteed'. Now today, we shall talk about 'Enlightenment: Have it'.

Let us enter into the sutra and see how Ashtavakra says about enlightenment that we have it and how to have it.

Virtue and vice, pleasure and pain are of the mind, not of you.

O all pervading one, you are neither doer nor enjoyer. Verily you are ever free.

In this sutra, Ashtavakra directly addresses Janaka as the all pervading one. Here he directly calls him, 'O, all pervading one'. Till this point, he was saying you are this, you are that, you are pure consciousness. Now he straight away addresses Janaka as all pervading one.

Virtue and vice, pleasure and pain are of the mind, not of you.

Actually, Ashtavakra is answering the doubts that will come after listening to the truth of being unattached. Yesterday I talked about how there is no shaft in our being. We are completely unclutched; every moment, by our nature we renounce our thoughts. Unless we renounce one thought we cannot have the next thought. By our very nature constantly we are renouncing our thoughts.

Only fools try to create same thoughts over and over again. Whether you try to visualize or verbalize the same things constantly you are damaging your being. Please be very clear, the eastern consciousness is suffering so much because you are constantly trying to visualize or verbalize something. Almost all the people who take up spiritual life try one exercise or another; constantly they try to visualize something or verbalize something through some mantra or some form of technique.

Both damage our being. By our very nature we are unattached. By our very nature we renounce thoughts. The more we try to stay with one thought the more we suffer.

I've seen people who try to chant some mantra or use some visualization for thirty or forty years. After forty years they come to me and ask me 'Master, how can I learn to concentrate? Please teach me how to concentrate'.

To tell you honestly, let me be very clear, I do not know because it never happened in me. I've seen thousands of seekers constantly trying to repeat a thought or to repeat the same mantra or to bring the same visualization in their minds, but until the end they all fail; they are utterly frustrated, completely failed.

After that failure they try to find other solutions. Please understand by our very nature constantly we renounce thoughts. Unless we renounce one thought we cannot go to the next thought. The moment we renounce one thought, we go to the next thought. By our very nature we are renouncing thoughts.

If you try to keep your mind in single thought you will only be torturing yourself. I've seen people torturing themselves through some mantra or some visualization. But whether mantra or visualization, both create only more and more pressure and stress in you.

Already you have so much of pain and problem. Now you create one more pain: of repeating some mantra or creating some visualization. Be very clear, by your very nature you cannot be with the same thought constantly. You cannot be with one thing. All you need to understand is that by your very nature, you are unattached.

That is what Ashtavakra means when he says that by your very nature you are unattached. Yesterday when I said that by your very nature you are unattached, it means that there is no linear connection between one thought and another thought. The only relationship between thoughts is that, they are from the same source, that's all.

There is only a seemingly vertical linkage between thoughts as they all arise from the same base independent of each other, but there is no linear connection between one thought and another thought. The moment we hear this truth we are shocked, because we are constantly connecting one thought and another thought, a thought with a thought, in a linear way.

For example you will connect your today's depression with yesterday's depression. The moment you connect independent incidents that happen in your life, you start creating an idea that you are a depressed being. Or if you connect all joyful incidents of your life you come to the conclusion that you are a simple person or a joyful being. You come up with some concept about yourself by connecting all your thoughts in a linear way.

One big problem is that you do not connect all your thoughts. Instead you choose just a few thoughts and connect them. Some people feel that their whole life is pain and some people feel that their whole life is joy. When you connect your thoughts in a linear way you create an idea that whole life is pain or whole life is joy or pleasure.

If you feel that your whole life is pain, you try to break the shaft. If you feel that whole life is pleasure you try to extend that shaft. But in both the ways you will fail. You will be a complete and utter failure because there is actually no shaft.

First thing, connecting and seeing your thoughts in a linear way is the original sin you commit. It is because of this, you create something that does not exist in you. This something is what I call the mind. Mind is a pure myth.

Somehow we have learnt the habit of keeping files. I've seen people keeping files not only about themselves but about others too. This is a true incident that happened to me.

One gentleman around forty–five years of age came up to me and said*, '*Master, I am going to divorce my wife, please bless me'.

I told him, 'I only bless for marriages, what made you come and ask me to bless you for a divorce'.

He replied, 'No, no Master, you have to bless me because I have suffered too much'.

I said, 'Suffering is always give and take, it is never just taking. You must have given her enough suffering too. So please tell me the truth about what happened, and then we will analyze the situation'.