I Am Infinite Like the Ocean

Janaka: "Master, I see it now clearly. I am like the infinite ocean. The universe rises and falls like waves upon my surface, yet I am never diminished, never disturbed."

Ashtavakra: "And these waves—the thoughts, the sensations, the worlds themselves?"

Janaka: "They arise from me, exist in me, and dissolve back into me. But they do not make me different. The wave is not other than the ocean—it is the ocean playing, dancing, expressing itself."

Ashtavakra: "Does the ocean become wet when waves arise? Does it become dry when they subside?"

Janaka: "No! And I do not become happy when pleasure arises or sad when pain appears. I am the space in which happiness and sadness both move. How can the sky be stained by clouds?"

Ashtavakra: "Yet the mind still moves?"

Janaka: "Let it move! The wind blows across the ocean—does the ocean fight the wind? Thoughts come, thoughts go. The Self neither invites them nor sends them away. It is simply present as the unchanging ground of all movement."

Ashtavakra: "(nodding) You have understood without making understanding into another achievement."

Janaka: "There is nothing to achieve. I was always the ocean pretending to be a wave, searching for water. The search is over—not because I found anything new, but because I stopped overlooking what was always here."