There is no aggression nor compassion, no pride nor humility, no wonder nor confusion for the man whose days of samsara are over.
Ashtavakra Gita (Chapter 17, Shlok 6)
Acharya Prashant (AP): Whose days in Sansara are over.
Must be closer to death, some terminal disease. Must be dying.
It is a good point to begin with. It’s a good word to use. Live in the world, don’t be worldly. When Ashtavakra says that his days in the world are over, all he means is that his worldliness is over.
There is no aggression nor compassion, no pride nor humility, no wonder nor confusion for the man whose days in Samsara are over.
What is the world?
The world is Truth expressed as you can see it.
The world is just an expression of the Truth, nothing else.
What kind of expression it would be?
Depends on to whom it is being expressed; simple.
There is nothing but the truth, the world is an expression of the Truth, expressed to you exactly as you are capable of seeing it. It’s the same thing that reveals itself differently to different people according to their own beliefs and fantasies and assumptions and abilities.
Bhagavad Gita 4.11:
‘I appear exactly in the same form to you, as you conceive of me. I am what you will conceive of me.’
Are you getting it?
You will see the world exactly as you are.
It’s the One thing, it’s the One reality which is showing up differently to different people, to different things, to different universes, depending upon their own limitations, their own assumptions, their own ego. That’s why the world starts changing, starts opening up, starts showing up in an altogether different way as your mind changes.
Had there been an objective reality to the world, how could it have changed with the subject?
As the subject changes so do the world.
As the subject becomes lighter and lighter, the world also keeps becoming lighter and lighter.
And as the subject dissolves totally, the world too, in its present form dissolves totally.
But remember when we say ‘dissolves’, it does not mean that it has become non-existent. The salt that dissolves in water does not become non-existent, it just dissolves.
When it is said that the days in samsara are over, it only means that samsara has dissolved. Why has the samsara dissolved? Because the subject has dissolved. Subject dissolves, the world dissolves. What is the world except for a set of meanings to you? Meanings.
When the meanings are no more there, the world is no more there. The world is a bundle of significances. Something is important to me, something is significant to me and the bundle of that, the basket of that is called the world. When those meanings, those significances disappear, the world is gone.
What happens is that to the layman, words of people like Ashtavakra appears so damn threatening, that the bulk of people have avoided Truth like it is an infectious disease. It is actually infectious but it is not a disease. So when it is said that ‘no more this, no more that for the man whose days in samsara are over’ The heart skips a beat! ‘Oh my god! Gone?’
Gatay Gatay Paragatay.
There is nothing to be afraid. Samsara will just open up, you will not be plugged out of samsara and thrown somewhere else. There is nowhere else to go to. Whichever galaxy, whichever universe you are thrown into, would still be a part of samsara. ‘My God, something great will be lost’. Nothing will be lost. Rest assured, nothing will be lost.
