Peace Beyond Words

(The dawn light filters through the window as Ashtavakra sits in profound silence. Janaka waits, sensing something beyond the ordinary.)

(Finally, Ashtavakra speaks, his voice barely above a whisper.)

Ashtavakra: "Janaka, we have spoken many words. We have examined bondage and liberation, self and no-self, ignorance and wisdom. Now I point to what cannot be spoken."

Janaka: "(venturing) The peace itself?"

Ashtavakra: "Even the word peace disturbs it. What I point to is prior to the word, prior to the concept, prior even to the recognition of peace. It is what you are when you forget that you are anything at all."

Janaka: "(softly) I sense it. In the gaps between thoughts, in the space behind experience. Something vast and still."

Ashtavakra: "Do not call it something. Do not call it vast or still. These are all descriptions, and what you are cannot be described. The moment you describe it, you have created an object. But you are not an object — you are that in which all objects appear."

Janaka: "Then how can I know it?"

Ashtavakra: "You cannot know it as you know other things. You can only be it. In fact, you are always being it. The question is whether the mind is quiet enough to notice."

(Janaka closes his eyes. A long silence passes. When he opens them, tears glisten.)

Janaka: "There is nothing there. And yet, it is not emptiness. It is more full than anything I have ever experienced. But calling it full is wrong too."

Ashtavakra: "You are touching the edge of what words cannot reach. Stay there. Do not try to name it. Do not try to understand it. Simply rest in not-knowing."

Janaka: "But my mind wants to grasp it, to hold it, to ensure I do not lose it."

Ashtavakra: "The very effort to hold it is what veils it. You cannot lose what you are. You can only believe you have lost it — and even that belief appears in what you are. Let the mind do whatever it does. You remain."

Janaka: "And this peace — is it permanent?"

Ashtavakra: "It was never temporary. It cannot come or go because it is the ground in which coming and going appear. You have always known this peace. Every time you slept without dreams, it was there. Every moment of deep absorption, it was there. It is your nature."

Janaka: "Why then do we suffer?"

Ashtavakra: "Because we layer concepts over this peace. We say I am this or I am that. We narrate a story of a separate self, and the story brings suffering. But the peace beneath the story is never touched."

Janaka: "Can I share this with others?"

Ashtavakra: "You can point, as I have pointed to you. But words cannot convey what you are pointing to. Each one must see for themselves. At best, your words can create a longing, a turning within. The seeing itself is instantaneous and wordless."

(Janaka sits in the silence, letting it permeate every cell of his being.)

Janaka: "(finally) I have nothing more to ask. Not because all questions are answered, but because the one who questions has become transparent."

Ashtavakra: "This is the end of teaching. Not because you have learned everything, but because you have recognized that there is nothing to learn. What you are was never lost and never needs to be found. The peace that cannot be spoken is speaking through both of us now."

Janaka: "Thank you, master."

Ashtavakra: "Thank yourself. Thank the Self. There is only the Self, celebrating its own recognition through the play of teacher and student. The play continues; the peace remains."

(They sit together as the sun rises higher, two forms appearing in the formless, words dissolving into the wordless, two who have always been one.)