Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Introduction To Avadhuta Gita

 

There are many writers of lore; who wrote treatise after another about metaphysical reality yet at the end never forgot (some fucking how) to sign off with their own name(s), there is Sant Kabir/the revered Kalidasa/Tulsidasa/Tukaram and so so many more from India itself… they wrote about being god and being the servant of the divine; yet somehow at the end or even in middle of quatrains never forgot to mention their all important names.

There is nothing wrong with this, but for someone who is trying to share his holy mystical experience, ego is the first thing to banish; not promote, and I a sure each one of the so many scholars and saints had their reasons to do self promotion but at the cost of spreading enlightened thought? That seems ridiculous.

There was Michael Angelo on the other hand (a gifted spirit indeed), who almost never put across his name on any of his creations (I believe excluding one piece). And similarly there was the author(s) of the famed and mystical and little known- Avadhuta Gita.

The Avadhuta is the free one; the innocent one. Similar to a plant or any other life form with little or no ego connection- its there to sustain life on day to day basis; but within this life is something more. Its unified singular present power/consciousness. This is an avadhuta. Completely free from the snares which make ignorance up. This small book containing chapter after chapter of quatrains are full of esoteric and powerful natural knowledge or experience displayed.

The entire ‘book’ or chapters are elucidations on metaphysical unified consciousness, and how anything intermediate is not required. The concept remains that as we all strive in ignorance trying to acquire the original state (perhaps the womb state to many rationalists); the illusion is at the end just illusory, and why paying attention to it only vivifies it. So the avadhuta gita just negates it. It says over and over- no need to pray? who's there to pray to… no need to devote and sacrifice and commit. To whom and what is this done and by whom or what. Its a very profound state indeed.

Couple of the quatrains/couplets go like this:

The mind indeed is of the form of space.
The mind indeed is Omni faced.
The mind is the past.
The mind is all.
But in reality there is no mind

Thus you are One. Why then do you not understand -
that you are the unchangeable One, equally perceived in all?
O mighty One, how can you, who are ever-shining, unrestricted,
think of day and night?

Union and separation exist in regard neither to you nor to me.
There is no you, no me, nor is there this universe.
All is verily the Self alone.

Union and separation exist in regard neither to you nor to me.
There is no you, no me, nor is there this universe.
All is verily the Self alone.

- As you can see; the author understands that even the “act of meditation” is rooted in ignorance. When there is but one, who will try to meditate on the other. Meditation is all that is.

Know all instruments of perception to be
like ethereal space. Know all of perception to be
like ethereal space. Know this pure one as neither bound
nor free. I am the nectar of knowledge,
homogenous existence, like the sky

To those interested, a fairly decent english translation is found on this page: (I picked the above quatrains from there)

http://www.messagefrommasters.com/Ebooks/Spiritual-Books/Dattareya-Avadhuta-Gita-trans-by-Hari-Prasad.pdf

Its indeed revelling to see that there are those, who were born in non-duality and died in it as well. Its indeed comforting to endure the world, an illusion with the heart beating completely free- like an avaduta without any false misery

Peace

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