Ashtavakra said:
1. My Child, study and discussion of different philosophies will not establish thee in Self. Forget all, and be happy.
2. O Wise One! Thou may’st take delight in action or in contemplation, but thy mind will still yearn for That which is beyond all objects and in which all desires are extinguished.
3. All are afflicted by reason of their exertions. Alas! this is understood by none. But he who is wise achieves emancipation through this very teaching.
4. That master idler to whom the opening or closing of the eyes is an infliction, to him belongs real bliss and to no other.
5. When the mind is free from “this I have done and this remains to be done,” it transcends the desire for religious merit, worldly prosperity, sensual enjoyment, and also liberation.
6. He who disdains sense objects is unattached. He who craves for sense pleasures suffers attachment. But he who neither rejects nor accepts is neither attached nor unattached.
7. The notion of desire and aversion is born of lack of true discrimination. The root and branch of the tree of phenomenal existence is dependent on these two.
8. Activity begets attachment, renunciation gives birth to aversion. But the wise man lives like a child, free from the pairs of opposites.
9. One who is attached to the world, desires to renounce it in order to avoid suffering, but the Sage who has no attachment, does not suffer even in the world.
10. He who has a feeling of “I-ness” even for release, and retains his body-consciousness, is neither a wise man nor a spiritual aspirant. His lot is suffering.
11. Even though Shiva, Vishnu, or Brahma instruct thee, unless thou regardest the world as unreal, and dismisses all sense of egotism, thou will not become established in thine own nature (the Self).