I am thoroughly enjoying Robert Wolfe's book, Always Only One. This gem comments on the verses of the Ashtavakra Gita, a very old Vedic teaching text that may predate the Bhagavad Gita and the Buddha. To read the Ashtavakra Gita, is to be reminded of the world of a little squirrel! I love that they are all little teachers of how to transcend duality! Can you see the squirrel wisdom in the following verses??
"The liberated one rests in the Self under all conditions; is the same everywhere; does not reflect on what he "has" or "has not" done.
His nature is free from conditions: acting as he pleases, the wise one is not affected by "honor" of "dishonor." He moves about at his own pleasure, and can only be understood by those Self-realized like him. Only those like him understand his liberated state.
Realizing the Self in all-- and all in the Self-- and free from egoism, and the sense of "mine," he is happy.
The man of Knowledge (squirrel) lives happily on whatever subsistence comes as a matter of course. Where is even fear, for him who abides in Self?"
Praised, he does not feel pleased; and blamed, he does not get annoyed: he neither rejoices in life, nor fears death.
For me, who am reposing in Self, there is no need of talking about the "end of life." Reposing on the foundaton of his own Being... he cares not whether his body dies. He is not perturbed at the sight of approaching death. Let the body go, even today: where is there any increase or decrease in You?
This knowledge of the Truth is shunned by those who want to enjoy the "world."
Little squirrels know.
In spiritual literature, the terms
Tao, God, Love, Brahman, Great Mystery,
The Way, All That Is, are names for the ultimate reality.
I prefer to use the term Squirreluminosity or Squirrel Light.
See if you agree with my choice as you
read the next verse from
the Ashtavakra:
"As the same all-pervading air is inside and outside a jar, even so the Eternal all pervasive exists in all things-- It in all, and all in It. The universe is permeated by It through and through. It exists inside and ouside this body. The universe, emanating from It, is not different from it and this universe, which has emanated from it, will dissolve into It."
Mr.Nut... my teacher!
