অষ্টাবক্র গীতা is a 20-chapter dialogue of radical অদ্বৈত, alternating between অষ্টাবক্র's precise instruction and জনক's ripening recognition. Again and again it points to one correction that changes everything: you are the awareness that knows experience, not the body-mind that appears in experience. The work does not aim to create a new spiritual personality; it aims to dissolve the old habit of identification, so life can be lived with responsibility but without inner bondage.
Up to this point, the dialogue has moved through a clear arc. Chapter 1 answers জনক's questions about জ্ঞান, মুক্তি, and বৈরাগ্য়, warning against compulsive attachment to বিষয়s while pointing to the witness (সাক্ষী). Chapter 2 expresses the "afterglow" of recognition through metaphors like wave-water and rope-snake, loosening fear and ownership.
Seen as a whole, Chapter 5 is the "laya chapter": it points to freedom as a collapse of false identification, not as a project of self-improvement.
অষ্টাবক্র উবাচ ॥
ন তে সংগোঽস্তি কেনাপি কিং শুদ্ধস্ত্যক্তুমিচ্ছসি ।
সংঘাতবিলয়ং কুর্বন্নেবমেব লয়ং ব্রজ ॥ 5-1॥
Translation (ভাবার্থ):
Ashtavakra said: You have no real attachment to anyone. Why do you, being pure, wish to renounce? Dissolve identification with the aggregate, and in this way enter dissolution.
উদেতি ভবতো বিশ্বং বারিধেরিব বুদ্বুদঃ ।
ইতি জ্ঞাত্বৈকমাত্মানমেবমেব লয়ং ব্রজ ॥ 5-2॥
Translation (ভাবার্থ):
The world arises from you like a bubble from the ocean. Knowing yourself as the one Self, in this very way enter dissolution.
প্রত্যক্ষমপ্যবস্তুত্বাদ্ বিশ্বং নাস্ত্যমলে ত্বয়ি ।
রজ্জুসর্প ইব ব্যক্তমেবমেব লয়ং ব্রজ ॥ 5-3॥
Translation (ভাবার্থ):
Even though it is directly seen, the world has no independent substance in you, O stainless one; it is like the snake imagined on a rope. In this very way enter dissolution.
সমদুঃখসুখঃ পূর্ণ আশানৈরাশ্যয়োঃ সমঃ ।
সমজীবিতমৃত্য়ুঃ সন্নেবমেব লয়ং ব্রজ ॥ 5-4॥
Translation (ভাবার্থ):
Be even in pleasure and pain, full and complete; be even in hope and hopelessness, even in life and death. In this very way enter dissolution.
Browse Related Categories:
