The End of Seeking

Janaka rose as the first light of dawn touched the palace windows. His face bore the expression of one who has arrived at the end of a long journey—only to discover he never left home.

"Master," he said, his voice clear and steady, "my seeking has ended."

Ashtavakra smiled. "Tell me about this ending."

"It is not that I found what I was looking for. It is that I discovered there was never anything to find. The seeker was the only problem. The moment seeking stopped, I recognized I had never been separate from what I sought."

"And what do you recognize?"

"That I am This—this awareness, this presence, this being. Not a person who has awareness, but awareness itself, appearing temporarily as a person. The seeking was awareness pretending to search for itself, playing hide and seek with its own nature."

"Was the game worth playing?"

"From where I stand now, the question has no meaning. The game was neither worth nor not worth playing. It simply happened—a spontaneous expression of the Self's infinite creativity. There was never a choice to seek or not seek. The seeking arose; now it has dissolved. Both were the movement of what I am."

"And what of the future? Will you continue to seek?"

"How can I seek what I am? That would be absurd—like the eye trying to see itself. But I also cannot prevent seeking if it arises. I am not in control of these appearances. I am simply the awareness in which they come and go. If seeking appears tomorrow, it will be watched. If contentment appears, that too will be watched. I am the watching, unchanging through all changes."

"Some will say you have achieved something great."

"They speak of an achievement because they still believe in a separate self who can achieve. But there is no achievement here—there is only recognition. And what is recognized was never hidden. The treasure was always in plain sight. The blindfold was imaginary. The search was the only distance."

"What will you do now?"

"Do? I have nothing to do. And yet, life will continue. The king will rule, the body will move, the mouth will speak. These happenings are the Self in motion, playing its roles. But I do not do them. They happen in me, through me, as me—without an agent behind them."

"Is there anything left to say?"

"Nothing. And everything. Every word is both true and false—true as a pointing, false as a description. The truth is silence. But silence too is just a word. What I am cannot be spoken, yet it is speaking now. What I am cannot be known, yet it is knowing now. The paradox dissolves only in direct seeing."

Ashtavakra stood and embraced his student.

"The teaching is complete—not because you have learned, but because you have unlearned. You have released the burden of becoming and settled into being. You have stopped running from yourself and discovered yourself in the running. The end of seeking is not an achievement; it is a falling away of everything that was never true."

"I am grateful beyond words."

"Gratitude is the Self thanking itself. In truth, nothing happened. You woke from a dream of separation, but you were always awake. You found yourself, but you were never lost. You ended your seeking, but there was never anything to seek."

Janaka laughed—a deep, free laugh of one who has seen through the cosmic joke.

"So it was all a dream?"

"It was all reality—dreaming itself as a dream. And now, the dream knows itself as the dreamer. That is all that has changed. That is enough. That is everything. That is This."

They stood together in silence as the sun rose fully, two forms dissolving in light, the ancient dialogue complete, the timeless truth revealed—not in words, but in the living recognition of what always is."