The One Who Has Arrived

Janaka spoke with quiet authority.

"Master, I understand now why you say there is no journey. How can there be travel when I was always here? The destination and the starting point were never separate."

Ashtavakra listened with deep attention.

"Tell me more. What is it like to have arrived?"

"It is like waking from a dream of traveling. In the dream, I crossed mountains and rivers, faced obstacles, celebrated victories. Now, awake, I see I never moved. The mountains were imagination. The rivers were thought. Only I remained—unchanged, unmoving, complete."

"And what of the one who traveled?"

"He was a character in the dream. I was the dreamer, then I was the waking—but these too are concepts. What I am cannot be captured in words. I am before the dreamer and the waking. I am the space in which dreaming and waking appear."

"Some would say you speak from pride."

"There is no one left to be proud," Janaka replied gently. "Pride requires a separate self claiming achievement. I claim nothing. What has happened is not my doing—it is simply the revealing of what was always true. A cloud parting reveals the sun, but the cloud does not take credit for the sun's brightness."

"What does the world look like from this place?"

"The world is the same—people, events, forms. But the relationship is different. Before, I was entangled in it, pushed and pulled by its movements. Now, it floats in me. I am the context, not the content. The content changes; I do not."

"And your duties as king?"

"They continue. The body-mind called Janaka attends court, makes decisions, relates to subjects. But I am not Janaka. I am that which appears as Janaka—and appears as everyone and everything else. The role is played; the player is at rest."

"Do you ever forget?"

"Forgetting may appear—the old habits of mind arise sometimes. But the forgetting is not mine. I watch it as I watch everything else. Even when the mind is confused, awareness is clear. Confusion belongs to the mind; I am beyond the mind."

"What would you say to those still seeking?"

"Stop. Look at what is seeking. Is it not awareness imagining itself to be limited? Is it not the Self pretending to search for itself? The cosmic hide-and-seek can end now, in this instant. There is no preparation needed. Simply recognize what you already are."

"And if they say 'I don't get it'"

"That 'I' is the problem. As long as there is an 'I' that needs to get something, truth is veiled. But even this veiling is the play of the Self. The Self veils itself, seeks itself, finds itself. It was all one movement—like a child covering its eyes and then laughing with delight upon uncovering them."

"This is profound joy," Ashtavakra observed.

"It is. But it is not my joy. It is the joy of existence itself, celebrating its own being. I am simply that celebration happening in this form. The joy does not come and go—it is the nature of what is. When I stopped resisting, I noticed it was always here."

"And death? Does the one who has arrived fear death?"

"How can I fear what has never touched me? The body will die—this is certain. But I was never born. The unborn cannot die. When this form dissolves, I will be exactly as I am now—infinite, eternal, free. Nothing will change. Only the appearance will change."

Ashtavakra bowed to his student.

"You have arrived. Or rather, you have recognized that there was never any distance to travel. The one who has arrived is the one who sees there was never a journey."