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Ashtavakra Gita · 19 of 20
Chapter 19: Self-Knowledge
Janaka said:
19.1. Using the tweezers of the knowledge of the truth I have managed to extract the painful thorn of endless opinions from the recesses of my heart.
19.2. For me, established in my own glory, there are no religious obligations, sensuality, possessions, philosophy, duality, or even nonduality.
19.3. For me established in my own glory, there is no past, future, or present. There is no space or even eternity.
19.4. For me established in my own glory, there is no self or non-self, no good or evil, no thought or even absence of thought.
19.5. For me established in my own glory, there is no dreaming or deep sleep, no waking nor fourth state beyond them, and certainly no fear.
19.6. For me established in my own glory, there is nothing far away and nothing near, nothing within or without, nothing large and nothing small.
19.7. For me established in my own glory, there is no life or death, no worlds or things of this world, no distraction and no stillness of mind.
19.8. For me remaining in myself, there is no need for talk of the three goals of life, of yoga or of knowledge.
Asked of Guide
Why does Janaka say there is 'no self or non-self' after gaining self-knowledge?
Janaka reports that after extracting “the painful thorn of endless opinions” he rests in his own glory, a state where pairs of opposites dissolve and categories used to steer life lose purchase. Saying there is “no self or non-self” describes that realization does not locate identity among conceptual labels; the sense of being an object you can name has fallen away.
This mirrors what the Crest-Jewel of Wisdom calls the secondless Eternal, where distinctions cease and the speaker can truthfully say “what that is, I am.” In this chapter the claim functions as an account of experiential cessation of conceptual framing rather than a metaphysical theory about persons.
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