Chapter Ten


Ashtavakra said:

Abandon desire, the enemy, along with gain, itself so full of loss, and the good deeds which are the cause of the other two -- practice indifference to everything. 10.1

Look on such things as friends, land, money, property, wife, and bequests as nothing but a dream or a magician's show lasting three or five days. 10.2

Wherever a desire occurs, see samsara in it. Establishing yourself in firm dispassion, be free of passion and happy. 10.3

The essential nature of bondage is nothing other than desire, and its elimination is known as liberation. It is simply by not being attached to changing things that the everlasting joy of attainment is reached. 10.4

You are one, conscious and pure, while all this is inert non-being. Ignorance itself is nothing, so what is the point of wanting to understand? 10.5

Kingdoms, children, wives, bodies, pleasures -- these have all been lost to you life after life, attached to them though you were. 10.6

Enough of wealth, sensuality, and good deeds. In the forest of samsara the mind has never found satisfaction in these. 10.7

How many births have you not done hard and painful labour with body, mind, and speech. Now at last, stop! 10.8