Verse 3‑1
Challenge: If you have realized nondual ātmā and are a steady jñāni, why do you continue to pursue wealth and worldly roles?
Aṣṭāvakra confronts the apparent mismatch between Janaka’s inner realization and his external engagement in royal duties and acquisition.
Janaka’s answer: His external role as king is determined by prārabdha (the life‑script); he performs duties as a role (nāmarūpa) while internally abiding as ātmā. He lives like “water on a lotus leaf” — ready to lose anything at any time and not attached. Acting in the world does not contradict inner freedom.
Challenge: Is your interest in worldly objects merely ignorance?
Aṣṭāvakra argues that attachment to mithyā viṣaya arises from ignorance and asks why Janaka shows desire if he truly knows the nondual truth.
Janaka’s answer: Attachment arises from ignorance for those who are not established; for him the activity is functional to exhaust prārabdha and serve loka. Externally similar behaviour can hide very different inner attitudes; the difference is internal (sākṣī/ātmā vs. ahankāra).
Challenge: How can you accept the world as mere waves yet run after money and duties as if they were real?
Aṣṭāvakra presses the contradiction between recognizing the world as nāmarūpa and actively participating in it as if it were ultimately significant.
Janaka’s answer: He accepts the world as nāmarūpa and treats it as play (līla). He performs duties without identification; his inner identity remains ātmā. Engagement is not endorsement of reality‑status but the performance of a role.
Challenge: Why indulge in sense pleasures and entertainments when ātmā is the sole source of real bliss?
Aṣṭāvakra questions Janaka’s attachment to sensory enjoyment and suggests such pursuits pollute the mind of a true jñāni.
Janaka’s answer: As a householder he permits certain social entertainments for family life, but these are not his source of joy. Internally he rests in ātmā; outward enjoyments are treated as part of the role and not as binding sources of happiness.
Challenge: How can a wise one who knows ātmā in all beings still exhibit mamakāra and possessiveness?
Aṣṭāvakra points to Janaka’s apparent attachment to “mine” and asks how that fits with the vision of ātmā pervading everything.
Janaka’s answer: Apparent mamakāra is a surface phenomenon of the ahankāra role; the jñāni recognizes it as temporary and does not let it determine his inner stance. He distinguishes between role‑based claims and his unchanging inner reality.
Challenge: Having attained the supreme state, why are you enslaved by kāma and habitual worldly entertainments?
Aṣṭāvakra presses that a liberated person should not be weakened by repeated sensory habituation.
Janaka’s answer: He is not enslaved; any outward appearance of kāma is due to prārabdha and social duty, not inner bondage. A true jñāni has already neutralized raga‑dveṣa; actions performed are in accordance with dharma and exhaustion of prārabdha, not craving.
Challenge: After long involvement in worldly desires, and being in later life, why do you persist in them instead of renouncing? Dwesha towards Sannyasa?
Aṣṭāvakra emphasizes urgency and the incompatibility of intense kāma with the enemy status of desire against jñāna.
Janaka’s answer: Sanyāsa is not compulsory for liberation. Janaka explains that āśrama does not determine mokṣa; what matters is whether one lives from ahankāra or from sākṣī. He remains ready to renounce but continues in gṛhastha because prārabdha places him there. No dwesha towards Sannyasa ashrama, if prarabda dictates it, I am ready.
Challenge: Are you secretly afraid of sanyāsa or merely putting on a show of vairāgya?
Aṣṭāvakra suspects that Janaka’s continued household life may reflect fear or pretense rather than genuine dispassion.
Janaka’s answer: He denies fear or pretense. He is agnostic to āśrama — willing to take sanyāsa if required but not compelled by attachment. His staying in gṛhastha is pragmatic (prārabdha, duty), not fear‑based.
Challenge: If you are truly wise, why do you still cling to the body and its securities instead of resting solely in ātmā?
Aṣṭāvakra defines the jñāni’s hallmark as non‑identification with body and equanimity in pleasure and pain, and he asks why Janaka has not fully embodied this.
Janaka’s answer: He practices sākṣī bhāva: he does not identify with body or its pleasures/pains. The body’s experiences are accepted as prārabdha; he remains equanimous, not elated by pleasure nor upset by pain.
A Sanyasi has two give up two things: 1) Possessions and 2) All Relationships (associated with body-mind complex).
Janaka, living in sakshi bhava, is not bound by any possessions. Similarly, removed from body-mind identification, he is free from all duties and relationships.
While in sakshi bhava, he may participate/role play in many grihastha activities in jiva-jagad-isvara (triangular format). However, his main sadhana, while alone is atma/anatma viveka, and negate the entire anatma prapancha as mithya. Resolve the mithya sangata (including body-mind complex) as mithya.
Challenge: How can a great jñāni be moved by praise or blame when prārabdha alone should explain experiences?
Aṣṭāvakra challenges any residual reactivity and urges the stance that events are due to prārabdha, not personal affront or reward.
Janaka’s answer: A jñāni attributes events to prārabdha, not to personal affront or reward. He sees praise/blame as transient movements of the mind and does not let them disturb his inner balance.
Challenge: Why be curious to explain the mysteries of māyā when a wise person accepts variety and change without entanglement?
Aṣṭāvakra reproves intellectual curiosity that leads to involvement rather than the detached enjoyment of the world as play.
Janaka’s answer: A wise person accepts variety, change, and mystery without obsessive curiosity that leads to involvement. He treats the world as entertainment; intellectual probing that breeds attachment is avoided.
Challenge: How can one who claims to be the infinite ātmā retain rigid expectations or attachments?
Aṣṭāvakra highlights that true realization brings contentment and flexibility, not clinging or comparison.
Janaka’s answer: True realization brings contentment and flexibility; Janaka says he has no rigid expectations and is fearless about loss. His mind is unmatched in steadiness because he rests in ātmā.
Rare is the man who knows the Self as One without a second and as lord of the universe. He DOES what he considers worth doing and HAS no fear from any quarter. “Dhiraha”.
DOES – the man of Self-knowledge acts merely under the impulsion of the effects of his actions in the past life (prarabdha). As he is free from the sense of doer, his actions do not produce any binding effects upon his mind. His actions are completely free and spontaneous.
HAS- Because he sees nothing outside himself.
Challenge: If the world is māyā and essentially empty of intrinsic essence, why lend it reality by getting involved?
Aṣṭāvakra urges Janaka to treat the world as entertainment and to return regularly to the ātmā–anātmā perspective rather than becoming entangled.
Janaka’s answer: He uses the world for lokasaha (service/role) and to exhaust prārabdha, while privately abiding in ātmā. Participation does not equal belief in the world’s ultimate reality; involvement is performed without attachment and with ethical integrity.