The Absolute Teaching

Ashtavakra's voice carried the weight of finality.

"Janaka, I will now speak what cannot be spoken. Listen, but know that even listening is already the teaching happening."

"I am listening, master."

"There is no teaching. There never was. What seems to have happened between us is the Self speaking to itself. The appearance of guru and disciple is a play—a beautiful play, but a play nonetheless. The one who teaches and the one who learns are not two."

"I have suspected this."

"Suspicion is still subtle separation. I do not speak of suspicion but of direct seeing. Right now, in this very moment, there is only the Self. The form called Ashtavakra and the form called Janaka are temporary waves in the one ocean. The teaching that seemed to flow between them was water speaking to water."

"Then what was the purpose of our dialogue?"

"From the absolute view, there is no purpose. Purpose implies a future, a goal, a separation between here and there. But there is only here. There is only now. The dialogue was a happening—a spontaneous expression of what is—not a means to achieve something."

"Yet I feel transformed."

"The sense of transformation is also an appearance. What you are has not changed. It cannot change. It was never ignorant; it was never enlightened. These are concepts appearing in timeless awareness. The one who feels transformed is part of the appearance."

"This dissolves even my realization."

"Yes. That is the absolute teaching. Even realization is a concept. Even liberation is a concept. The Self was never bound, so it cannot be liberated. The Self never slept, so it cannot awaken. These words point, but what they point to has no need of words."

"Is there anything that is true?"

"The truth cannot be stated. Every statement creates a duality—true versus false, real versus unreal. The truth is prior to statements. It is the silence out of which all words arise and into which they return."

"Then why speak at all?"

"Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Speaking happens. Not because it is necessary, but because it is natural. The Self expresses itself endlessly—as words, as silence, as confusion, as clarity. It needs nothing, yet it appears as everything."

"I feel I am losing ground."

"You are losing the illusion of ground. The one who needed ground was never real. What you are needs no support because it is the support of everything. Let the ground dissolve. Let the seeker dissolve. Let even the sage dissolve. What remains is what was always here."

"And that is?"

"Unnameable. The moment I name it, I have missed it. Call it Self, call it awareness, call it consciousness—all these are fingers pointing at the moon. The moon cannot be grasped by any finger."

"Then what should I do with these teachings?"

"Forget them. They were medicine for an illness that never existed. You are not sick; you never were. The medicine was a dream cure for a dream disease. Now, wake up—not to something, but from the dream of needing to wake up."

Janaka sat in silence, feeling the dissolution of everything he thought he had gained.

"Master, I have nothing."

"Now you have everything. Because nothing and everything are not two. In the absolute view, absence and presence collapse. What you call nothing is the fullness that cannot be added to. What you call everything is the emptiness that cannot be taken from. Rest there—where all opposites dissolve, where all teachings end, where only This remains."

"Thank you for pointing."

"There was no pointing. There is no one to thank. There was only This, playing at teaching and learning, at seeking and finding—and now, playing at gratitude. It is all the Self. It has always been the Self. Nothing else exists."