Ashtavakra said:
Whatever you perceive is your own reflection. Can the different ornaments like bangles, amulets or anklets exist otherwise than as gold? (139)
Give up all distinctions such as ‘I am this’ and ‘I am not this’. Have the conviction that all there is, is Consciousness. Free from all concepts, be happy. (140)
It is only through ignorance that the universe appears to exist. Other than you as Consciousness, or Reality, nothing exists. Other than you, there is neither any individual self, nor any transcendental self. (141)
One who understands with conviction that the universe is nothing but an illusion, becomes free from desire. With the conviction that nothing exists other than Consciousness, there arises peace and serenity. (142)
Be convinced that this apparent ocean of the manifested universe is in reality nothing but Consciousness. You are truly not concerned either with bondage, or with liberation. Live freely and happily. (143)
O, pure Consciousness that you are! Do not concern yourself with concepts of affirmations and negations. Abide in the silence of the eternal bliss that you are, and live happily. (144)
Give up conceptualizing altogether. Have no beliefs or concepts of any kind. You are the ever-free Consciousness. How can any thinking help you in any way? (145)
You may listen to diverse scriptures, or even give learned discourses on them, but abidance in the Self cannot happen unless all that is forgotten. (146)
You may keep yourself occupied in work, or enjoy the pleasures of the world, or indulge in meditation, and yet you will find that there is an inner urge towards that primal state which is prior to all phenomenality, in which all desire for phenomenal objects is extinguished. (147)
All keep exerting themselves, and yet find themselves unhappy. They do not realize that it is this very volitional effort that brings about unhappiness. It is only through this understanding that the blessed one reaches awakening. (148)
Happiness belongs to none but that master-idler, to whom even the natural act of opening and closing of the eyes seems an affliction. (149)
When the mind is free from pairs of opposites like ‘this is done but that is not yet done’, it acquires an indifference alike to righteousness, wealth, desire for sensual pleasure, as well as liberation. (150)
One who has an aversion for sense objects is considered a renunciate, and one who covets them is considered sensual. But one who neither rejects nor covets is unconcerned with them. (151)
Desire is at the root of ignorance, and so long as desire persists, the sense of the acceptable and the unacceptable, which is the branch and the sprout of the tree of samsara, must necessarily continue. (152)
Activity begets attachment, abstention from activity generates aversion. Rid of the bondage of opposites, the wise man established in the Self, lives like a child. (153)
One who is attached to samsara wants to renounce it in order to free himself from misery. But one who is not attached continues to remain in samsara, and yet live happily. (154)
He who seeks enlightenment as an individual seeker, and still is identified with the body, is neither a jnani nor a yogi, and suffers misery. (155)
Unless everything is totally forgotten, you cannot be established in the Self, even if Shiva, Vishnu or Brahma be your preceptor. (156)