Chapter Four


Ashtavakra said:

1.  The wise man who has known the truth about the Self plays the game of life, and there is no similarity between his way of living, and the deluded who live in the world as mere beasts of burden.

2.  The Gnani does not feel elated even in the supreme state which Indra and all other gods ardently desire and suffer through not obtaining.

3.  The knower of truth is not affected by vice and virtue, as the sky is not really affected by the smoke with which it is covered, though it appears to be.

4.  The knower of truth, the great-souled one, who has known the Universe to be nothing but his own Self, lives as he pleases.

5.  Of the four kinds of created beings from Brahman to a tuft of grass, the wise alone, renouncing desire and aversion, know all to be Brahman.

6.  Indeed, how rare is the great-souled one who has realized the Self to be the One without a second, and also the personal God.  He does what he considers to be worth doing. He is without any fear whatsoever.