The Self Alone Exists

Ashtavakra spoke with the weight of absolute certainty.

"Janaka, hear me well. You are the one infinite reality. All else is imagination. The world you see, the body you inhabit, the mind that questions—all are appearances in you, the Self."

Janaka stirred uneasily. "But master, I see the palace walls, I feel the ground beneath me, I hear your words. How can all this be unreal?"

"Does the dreamer's body in the dream feel real? Do the dream walls seem solid? Yet upon waking, where do they go?"

"They vanish," Janaka said slowly. "But this waking state seems different. It persists."

"Persists to whom?" Ashtavakra's gaze was unwavering. "Look closely. Can you find a continuous experience called 'waking state'? Or only this present moment, arising fresh, never repeated?"

Janaka fell silent, examining his experience. "There is only now. Each moment seems to arise anew."

"And in this now, what truly exists? Not the past—it is memory, a thought arising now. Not the future—it is anticipation, also a thought arising now. What is actually present?"

"Awareness," Janaka whispered. "Only awareness is present. Everything else appears within it."

"Now you begin to see. The world appears in awareness like waves appear in water. But can you separate the wave from the water? Can you find where awareness ends and the world begins?"

"I cannot. The world seems to be made of awareness itself."

Ashtavakra nodded. "This is the truth the scriptures point to. Not that the world is an illusion to be denied, but that it is not separate from the Self. You are not in the world—the world is in you."

"But if I am all that exists," Janaka said, his voice troubled, "then who is speaking to whom? Are you also within me?"

"The one Self appears as teacher and student, as question and answer. This dialogue itself is the Self playing with itself, exploring its own nature. There is no other."

Janaka was silent for a long moment. "This is a teaching that undoes the mind. If I truly accept it, nothing remains to hold onto."

"Nothing ever did remain to hold onto," Ashtavakra said gently. "You have been clinging to clouds, believing them to be mountains. Let go, and discover you are the sky that holds all clouds without effort."

"But what of action? What of duty? If only the Self exists, why do anything?"

"Does the ocean decide whether to wave? Action happens by the Self, in the Self, to the Self. The wise one allows action to flow naturally, knowing there is no separate doer. This is true freedom—not the freedom to choose, but freedom from the illusion of being a chooser."

Janaka laughed suddenly. "I have been asking questions to a reflection. The Self has been questioning the Self, answering the Self, and understanding within the Self."

"Now you know the cosmic joke," Ashtavakra smiled. "There is only you. There has only ever been you. The loneliness you feared is actually aloneness—the recognition that you are all-one, complete, lacking nothing."

"And this body? This kingdom?"

"Appear and disappear like ripples on a vast lake. Enjoy them as the Self enjoying itself. Fear them not, for they cannot touch what you truly are. You were never born and you will never die. Only forms change; you remain."

Janaka placed his palms together. "The seeker has dissolved. The teacher has dissolved. Only truth remains."

"Truth alone is," Ashtavakra agreed. "And you are That."