Bondage and Liberation are Illusions

Janaka: "Master, I begin to glimpse what you are pointing to. But tell me—if I realize this truth, will I be liberated?"

Ashtavakra: "There it is—the subtle trap. "If I realize... then I will be..." Do you see? You are still creating a future state that is different from now. You are still imagining a journey from bondage to freedom."

Janaka: "Is there no journey then?"

Ashtavakra: "You are pure consciousness, appearing as the world. Apart from you, there is nothing—no world, no bondage, no liberation, no seeker, no sought. Contemplate this truth."

Janaka: "No seeker?"

Ashtavakra: "Who is seeking? Find this seeker. Is he not also an appearance in awareness? The one who wants liberation—is he not a thought? And where do thoughts appear?"

Janaka: "In... awareness."

Ashtavakra: "And what is this awareness? Is it bound or free?"

Janaka: "It seems... neither. It simply is."

Ashtavakra: "Now you begin to see. Bondage is nothing more than imagining that you are bound. Liberation is nothing more than letting go of this imagination. But you—the awareness in which even this imagination appears—were never touched by either."

Janaka: "Then all my spiritual seeking—"

Ashtavakra: "Was seeking appearing in the sought. The eye cannot see itself, yet it sees all. You cannot find yourself because you are that which is doing the finding. Rest in this impossibility. Do not try to resolve it—let it dissolve."

Janaka: "What remains when it dissolves?"

Ashtavakra: "What was always here. Formless, stainless, pure consciousness—free from birth and death, free from suffering and joy, free from practice and attainment. This is your nature. This is what you have always been."

Janaka: "Then there is nothing to do."

Ashtavakra: "Nothing to do, nothing to undo, nothing to become, nothing to uncreate. You are complete. You have always been complete. Knowing this, be happy. Or be unhappy—it makes no difference to what you are. But why not be happy?"

Janaka: "Why not indeed."

Ashtavakra: "The wise one knows—"I am all things, from the highest to the lowest." Having this understanding, free from desire, he attains peace. Or rather—he recognizes the peace he always was."