Janaka:
2.1 Spotless am I and burden-free—Absolute Awareness bred, devoid of earthly consciousness! You duped me, O’ weary world, and I allowed myself to be duped!
This is Janaka’s turn at bat and he loudly sings of how Ashtavakra’s teaching has freed his mind and spirit from former identification with the body-consciousness. He is thus no longer deceived by worldly illusions.
2.2 My Luminous-Light is master over this skandhic-husk—just so Am I alone this present Universe, or nothing else liveth!
Devoid of the Unborn Light of the Self, the body-consciousness, yea the entire universe could not be manifested. The Absolute Substance of the Universe is the Divine Self—Ātman; without IT the Universe is naught.
2.3 Since I have dropped the body-consciousness and the manifest universe, the infinite wonder of the Divine-Self shines-forth in all Its wonder!
Apart from the Self, nothing is real, nothing to get hung-about.
2.4 As waves and foaming bubbles are not separate from water, just so the Universe originating from the Self is not apart from IT.
The whole created order stems from the originating Self (Ātman), never standing on its own.
2.5 Look closely at a piece of cloth—it is comprised of threads. In like manner, when looking closely at the cosmos, it is all pieced together by the command of the Self.
It is delusional to think that anything exists apart from the Self-Mind.
2.6 As Sugar is permeated with the sweetness of sugarcane juice, just so Am I the permeating Essence behind creation.
Once again the simile is clear—No-thing apart from the Essential Self.
2.7 Out of self-ignorance the world suddenly appears; with Self-Gnosis it all unravels into nothingness. Just as the apparent snake unravels from the coiled-rope when observed from the Self-same vantage point.
Illusions will continue to persist lest we generate the necessary Self-gnosis that highlights our error.
2.8 Light itself is my essential nature. When the Universe expands it is My Light that illuminates the way.
Nothing in creation can be known unless the Clear-Light of the Self makes it so.
2.9 All of creation is manifested through Me, just as silver gleams in mother of pearls, as the apparent snake slithers in a piece of rope, and water in a glistening lake.
Self-manifests through the fata morgana of phenomena.
2.10 All about you originates out of Myself and will one day be dissolved back into me—like a jug dissolves back into clay, a wave into water, and a bracelet into gold.
With the dawning of Self-gnosis, name and form dissolve back into the sands of time and space.
2.11 I celebrate Myself! My ways are beyond comprehension! I was never born and I will never die, though great Brahmas and their galaxies will perish as a single blade of grass.
This will be a recurring motif in the following stanzas—the great Celebration of the Self AS Itself and through its manifestations!
2.12 I celebrate Myself! O’ I Am wonderful indeed! My nature is solitariness yet I appear to manifest in forms. I Am the Great Tathagata—neither coming nor going yet everywhere present.
The Divine Ātman is ever immutable yet supple in its ability to change—like quicksilver, swimming along the streams of time.
2.13 I celebrate Myself! How astounding are My Absolute Powers! The apparent Cosmos moves and has its being through me, yet I Am Unmoving and never do touch it.
This is the marvelous and infinite Power of the Self—in Itself Unmoving yet capable of creation in a single-bound!
2.14 I celebrate Myself! I own nothing yet everything is mine! Verily everything that is thought or spoken.
The Self is unattached yet simultaneously creates the Sounds of Music and Verse.
2.15 In truth, the knower of knowledge and the very capacity “to know” is non-existent. However, through the transparency of Myself ignorance is born. Yet through it all I remain spotless.
It is through Self-gnosis alone that the brittle chain of ignorance can be broken and Self-Awareness returned to Its rightful position.
2.16 Duality is the root of all suffering! The remedy consists in Self-realizing that I Am One and not two. I alone Am the spotless Reality.
Rest aware and free in the Absolute Oneness of Reality.
2.17 My Essential-Suchness rests in Unbounded Awareness Itself. Recollecting this, simply abide in the Absolute.
In the song of the Absolute, duality simply vanishes away.
2.18 Within Myself there is no bondage nor the need for liberation. In realizing this the illusion will lose its appeal. Stay put in Me; outside of Me No-thing is.
Just keep sight of the universal appeal of Suchness, then all illusions evaporate.
2.19 Having discerned that all-apart from Me has not form nor substance, My Absolute Awareness basks in the Light of Its aloneness. Shun imagination—it has no place here.
It’s amazing how Janaka speaks from the mouth of the Absolute Itself. What need imagination when all-about rings out in tones of Reality.
2.20 The body-consciousness, heaven and hell, bondage and liberation—yea, even fear itself are mere figments of one’s imagination. What need for any of these when Myself is all that is needed.
The voice of the Absolute has no need for such annoying trinkets of a rabid imagination. All IS One—no separate terrors of otherness.
2.21 I am complete in Myself—what need of any separation? The cries of the masses are nothing but the wild shrieks of the jackal in a desert whose sands are illusion. Yea, to what should I cling?
As there is nothing else Real other than the Absolute, to what should it attach Itself?
2.22 I am not the body, nor do I cling to its consciousness. What am I? Pure Undivided Awareness—not a separate person. It was merely My thirsting after existence that I became bound.
The Absolute becomes a creature of duality when it yearns after existence.
2.23 It is through the limitless ocean of Myself that the waves of thought rush-in upon the unwary mind and render it powerless, just as the winds of chance produce a panoply of worlds and outcomes untold.
The Mind, through self-ignorance, gives birth to myriads of worlds through the cosmic-waves of Re-genesis.
2.24 When the cosmic-waves subside, there—along the shoreline of Self—lies the debris of countless misfortunes, just like a shipwrecked merchant.
When the cosmic-play winds down, what is left are the misfortunes that occurred unawares along the way. Such is the sad result of the Un-aware mind.
2.25 O’ Absolute Wonder! Look how it all dances about—Unaware—they collide and disappear, each according to their natures!
Nature, sentient beings, and all their forms karmically spin and karmically end.
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