Ashtavakra (contd.)

   What does he mean when Ashtavakra says, "This world is unreal"? This is the same instruction given by Sage Vashishtha to Prince Ramachandra of Ayodhya. The Upanishads explain this fact with a simile how we get afraid in the dark when we see a rope and think it is a snake. This sarpa-rajju example is given to impress up on our mind that it is 'the ignorance that causes all misery'. The moment ignorance is removed, misery, fear, anxiety, etc. disappear like the morning mist that disappears when the sun rises. 

  In the case of mistaking a rope for the snake, the fear is of the snake; but, the snake is not there. The rope appears like a snake because of the darkness. The moment light falls on the rope, the snake of our mind disappears and the rope is restored.  Hence, the fear is of the mind and the mind is obsesses with fear and snake becomes a medium, 'nimitta matrena' or cause here. Ajnyan is enlightened person who does not have any fear wherther it is a snake of not.

  Now, as regards the world, it is our mind that creates a world of objects due to the desire inherent in us. Whatever desire is there in the mind manifests itself as an idea, imagination and the resolve (sankalpa ) creates an idea, a means to possess it. Thus the paraphernalia of the objective material world appears from the mind and its desire. A mind calm and unaffected by any sort of desire due to the knowledge of the self establishes in itself, its Self. Thus, there is no beginning or end of the insentient here. This is what the great sages instruct us. When you are established in your Self, there is nothing to seek or nothing to possess. The world of objects, 'an other', not-self, disappears as soon as the knowledge of the Self dawns!

  Thus, a person can be happy and spend the stipulated span of life in sheer joy without any external support! All that we hold on to as a support falls off since these are not real. The Self, the atman is its own support and needs no external one for its existence. Whoever knows this will be established in his Self, svastha. Since the Self, Atm is also sat, chit and ananda, the 'knower of the Self' (jnyeya) is sacchidanada. He has no beginning (birth) or end (death) since it is 'sat' - nitya, nirantara, amara.