Complete Stillness

(Janaka sits unmoving, yet his stillness is not vacant. It is luminous, present, awake.)

Janaka: "Master, I have found a stillness that does not oppose movement. It includes everything yet remains unmoved."

Ashtavakra: "(leaning forward with interest) Describe it."

Janaka: "It is like the center of a wheel. The rim turns—sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly—but the center is perfectly still. The stillness does not prevent the turning; the turning does not disturb the stillness. I am that center."

Ashtavakra: "And the activities of life?"

Janaka: "They continue on the rim. The body works, the mind thinks, relationships unfold. But I am not on the rim anymore. I watch from the center, at rest while all moves around me—or rather, within me."

Ashtavakra: "This is what the scriptures call 'actionless action.'"

Janaka: "Yes, but I did not understand it before. I thought it meant doing things without attachment. Now I see it means something deeper—the recognition that there is no doer. Action happens; the Self remains still. There is no one doing and no one refraining from doing."

Ashtavakra: "How did you come to this stillness?"

Janaka: "By no longer seeking it. For years I practiced meditation, trying to still the mind. Sometimes I succeeded temporarily; the effort created a fragile peace. When the effort relaxed, the turbulence returned. Then I understood—I was seeking stillness as an achievement, another state to attain."

Ashtavakra: "And now?"

Janaka: "I stopped seeking. I let the mind be as it is—sometimes busy, sometimes quiet. And I noticed something extraordinary: the stillness was already here. It had never left. It was not created by my practices; it was obscured by my seeking. The moment I stopped looking for it, I found it everywhere—as the background of all experience."

Ashtavakra: "(confirming) This is the discovery all seekers eventually make."

Janaka: "The stillness is not a state of mind. It is what I am. States come and go—calm, agitation, clarity, confusion. But I do not come and go. I am the unchanging presence in which all states appear. This presence is naturally still, as the ocean depths are still regardless of surface waves."

Ashtavakra: "And can anything disturb this stillness?"

Janaka: "Nothing can touch it. Disturbances appear—conflicts, challenges, pain. These are weather on the surface. But the stillness is prior to weather. It was here before the body was born; it will be here after the body dies. It is eternal, but not in the sense of lasting forever—in the sense of being outside time altogether."

Ashtavakra: "What is it like to live from this stillness?"

Janaka: "Everything is simpler. Without the friction of the ego, life flows. Decisions arise naturally, actions unfold effortlessly. I do not struggle to know what to do—the situation itself calls forth the response. The stillness is not passive; it is infinitely intelligent. It knows what is needed and provides it."

Ashtavakra: "And joy? Is there joy in this stillness?"

Janaka: "Joy is another word for it. Not the excitement of gaining something, but the quiet joy of being what I am. It does not depend on circumstances. It is simply present—a gentle, steady radiance that requires nothing to sustain it."

Ashtavakra: "You have found the pearl of great price."

Janaka: "I found that I always had it. The tragedy of seeking is that it presupposes absence. But nothing was ever absent. The stillness was here, waiting for me to stop running so I could notice. Now I rest in what I am—and that resting is complete."

Ashtavakra: "(concluding) This is the teaching fulfilled. Not in words but in being. You are the stillness you sought. May all beings recognize this in themselves."