Dattatreya’s Avadhuta Gita — Translation and Commentary by Rory Mackay
See Also: Introduction and Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6
Chapter 7
1. A tattered shawl from the side of the road may serve as garment for the liberated one, who is ever free of karma and devoid of both pride and shame. He will sit nakedly in an empty hut, absorbed in the pure, stainless bliss of the Self.
Ramana Maharishi, the great sage of Arunachala in India, was one of the most celebrated mahatmas (great souls) of the 20th century. His life beautifully exemplifies the life of the avadhuta, or liberated soul, as described here by Dattatreya. Following his enlightenment at age sixteen, Ramana became a renunciate, dressed in nothing but a loincloth and living in a cave for many years where he meditated more or less constantly, keeping his mind absorbed in the bliss and light of the Self.
Those who realise their nature as pure Awareness, and who then take the time and effort to actualise that knowledge and embody it in their lives, naturally lose their attachment to the things of the world. Even the greatest of luxuries, the finest of clothes and fastest of cars pale into insignificance when compared with the bliss of pure Consciousness.
The more we absorb the mind into its Source through Vedantic meditation and contemplation of the true nature of reality, the greater the bonds of doer-ship and karma fall away until we eventually know ourselves to be a non-doer and the stainless witness of all that is. Those with such Knowledge have neither pride nor any sense of insufficiency. They realise that the person they previously took themselves to be is but the play of the gunas. Such beings derive their joy from the limitless well of Wholeness at the core of their being and never again know the crippling sense of lack and fear that blights the worldly.
The next few verses continue to explore how this liberated soul, the avadhuta, sees and relates to the world.
2. The liberated care not for attainment or non-attainment. Transcending the opposites of duality, they remain established in the the pure, stainless Reality. Why should such an Avadhuta feel impelled to either speak or refrain from speaking?
3. Free from bondage to the fetters of hope; free from the chains of ordained conduct; free from everything in this world, the liberated enjoy absolute peace, knowing themselves to be the stainless and ever pure Truth of Being.
4. For the Self-Realised soul, what difference does it make whether enjoying form or formlessness? Where is the worry of attachment or non-attachment? Such beings exist as the naked Truth of Reality, as infinite and boundless as the open sky.
5. Knowing the Supreme Truth of Reality, how can one speak of worldly knowledge and of form and formlessness? Outside the Supreme Self, as infinite and unbounded as the sky, how can a world of differentiated objects exist?
The essential truth at the core of Vedanta is that only pure Awareness/Consciousness exists. This Awareness has no limit, no boundary, and thus cannot be divided or modified in any way. In the last chapter we explained maya; the creative force that allows for a world of apparent form and duality to appear within this universal Consciousness. This world cannot exist separately or independently of the Self, for that would necessitate both limitation and duality, both of which are antithetical to the nature of the Self.
This world is, therefore, but a projection in Consciousness; the product of ignorance. The scriptures liken it to a rope which, in the murky twilight, appears to be a snake. We might see and experience a snake and react to it with visceral terror, but the snake is only a superimposition; a mirage created by the mind and taken to be real, even though it does not exist. The same, too, with this world of objects and form. We experience it as real and independently existent, when all that really exists, and all that we’re ever actually experiencing, is Consciousness appearing as a universe of names and forms.
6. This Self is indivisible and undifferentiated like the formless sky; the one, pure and stainless Reality of all. How, then, can we explain difference and non-difference, bondage and freedom from bondage, division and change?
Duality, suffering and liberation pertain only to the jiva existing in the empirical realm of objects and form. As human beings, we are very much affected by worldly factors, and by physical and mental changes and challenges. As the Self, however—pure Awareness—nothing in this world, or any other, can touch us in any way. Eternal, infinite and beyond duality, our very essence is stainless and pure. Like Teflon, nothing sticks to Awareness! No matter what changes and traumas the body and mind undergo, our true essence is changeless and undiminished in any way. Knowing this is freedom.
7. Reality is One indivisible Whole. This being so, how can there be union, separation, or notions of attainment? The Self is the Supreme, indivisible All; how, then, can there be either substance or lack of substance?
This verse again draws contrast between the world of the relative (the empirical world of names and forms experienced by the mind, body and senses) and the Absolute (the undifferentiated Awareness underlying those forms). When you find yourself caught up in thoughts of union and separation, attainment and loss, or any of the other opposites of duality, you can bet that you’re identifying with the body-mind-sense complex and not as your true nature as Awareness. The Self just is; eternal, indivisible and whole. Nothing can be added to Awareness and nothing can be taken from it. Knowing this is freedom!
8. Only the One, stainless, indivisible Reality exists. Like the sky, it is clear, pure, formless and all-encompassing. How, then, can association or dissociation occur? In this One Reality, how can there be either relationship or the absence of relationship?
9. The enlightened one is a yogi who is free of yoga; an enjoyer who is free of enjoyment. Thus, they leisurely wander through life, their mind filled with the natural bliss of the Self.
In the space of a verse we move from talking about the universal Self to examining the personal self, or the jiva. The worldly spend their lives vainly seeking happiness and fulfilment in the world of impermanent objects. This never works out in the long run, but only the wise few are readily able to acknowledge that. With clear vision, these “awakened” few then devote their lives to seeking bliss inwardly by reeducating the mind with Self-Knowledge and rigorously applying it until the mind eventually yields.
Having then “attained” enlightenment (the actualised Knowledge that one is eternally whole, free and unaffected by the play of matter), such souls are free to move about the world, enjoying its pleasures without attachment and free of binding desire and aversion. They no longer demand that the world and other people provide them with happiness because they have found an altogether more secure and lasting happiness: the bliss of their own nature as pure, limitless Awareness.
10. If the worldly are bound by knowledge and ignorance, how can one attain freedom from duality and non-duality? How can a yogi be natural and free from attachment? By becoming aware that one is the stainless, ever pure Self, one shall enjoy unchanging bliss.
No solution to maya can be found within maya. The only solution to the problem of samsara, of existential suffering, is to realise that the true and essential part of yourself is already free. Enlightenment cannot be found by chasing experience, no matter how subtle and sublime. Experience is, by its nature, fleeting and finite, and the finite can never lead us to the Infinite.
While yoga is an excellent tool for purifying the mind and making it fit to accommodate Self-Knowledge, it cannot in itself bring enlightenment because no limited action is capable of yielding an unlimited result. Indeed, chasing after enlightenment experiences and grand cosmic epiphanies—while arguably better than chasing drugs, sex and rock and roll—is only likely to create attachment to such states.
Even spiritual attachments are a form of bondage. The one attachment that liberates is attachment to the ultimate truth of Reality: which is to say, keeping the mind fixed on the Knowledge that you are the ever present, ever pure, ever limitless Awareness/Consciousness in which all things appear. Because the Self never changes, its bliss is constant and imperturbable.
11. The Self is Destroyer, yet beyond destruction and non-destruction. The Self is Sustainer, yet beyond sustainment and non-sustainment. Indeed, how can substance and dissolution exist for the Absolute Reality? This Reality is changeless and all-pervading like the formless sky.
This verse makes reference to what Indian tradition calls the Trimurti, or the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; representing, in turn, the cosmic principles of creation, sustainment and destruction. While the Self doesn’t actively participate in the universe of form, at the macrocosmic level, the Self, associated with the creative principle of maya, appears as Ishvara, or God; the creative principle by which the manifest universe of gross and subtle matter appears, exists, and then dissolves back into the unmanifest in cyclic waves.
At the Absolute order of reality, the Self remains changeless and infinite, while at the empirical level we experience a world of change and limitation, created and overseen by Ishvara, the organising Intelligence that makes this superimposed realm of objects and form possible. These two orders of reality exist simultaneously as cause and effect; the effect (Ishvara and the empirical realm) entirely dependent upon its unchanging Cause (the limitless Self).
12. Free from everything and forever united with the Self, the liberated are the All, and yet free of all. How could birth or death exist for the One Reality? How can meditation or lack of meditation impact the Self?
By knowing who you are—the limitless Eternal Self—you realise that you are both one with all things yet unbound by all things.
Alas, Knowledge of your unity with the Absolute doesn’t confer omniscience. You won’t suddenly be able to see and experience things from other peoples’ perspectives or to read minds. That’s because, for the duration of this incarnation in the phenomenal world, your knowledge and experience is limited by a particular upadhi, or limiting adjunct—which means you will continue to process reality through the instruments of your particular body and mind.
But just as a drop of water is, in essence, no different from the ocean, so, too, do you realise your oneness with the totality of life. Although the senses will continue to process life as a duality, you are liberated by the Knowledge that this is but appearance alone, much like the “snake” superimposed upon the rope. Knowing that Consciousness alone exists, and you are that Consciousness, you are no longer troubled by the things of the world, which you allow to come and allow to go as they may.
How can birth and death affect that which was never born in the first place? To the Eternal, the birth and death of bodies are no different to the birth and death of thoughts. Nothing you can do, or not do, can diminish your Self in any way.
13. This world of the senses is conjured as by magic, like the water of a desert mirage. Beyond all differences, and beyond all forms, only the one Self exists—indivisible and impenetrable.
This verse again likens the maya world (one definition of which is “magic”) to a desert mirage; something that appears real to the dazed traveller, but which is nothing but an intangible projection of the mind. When you know you are Eternal Consciousness, you will see the world as little more than a passing mirage; perceivable to the senses, but ultimately fleeting and unreal.
14. Awareness itself is indifferent to all things—from the performances of rites and duties, to the attainment of liberation. Therefore, how can those who profess liberation be affected by either attachment or non-attachment?
The Self, pure Awareness, is the witnessing Consciousness, alike in both good experiences and bad, and unchanging even as the jiva moves between the states of waking, dream and deep sleep. Our reactivity and subjective interpretations come from the mind and its bundles of conditioning. These, in turn, inform our actions, shaping our desires and aversions. This leads to the formation of attachments which bind the jiva to action and reaction and the cycle of birth and death that is samsara. The liberated, however, by knowing the Truth at the very heart of Reality, live impartially as the Self, unswayed by either attachment or detachment.
15. For the Self, at the Absolute order of Reality, there exists no versified knowledge of any kind. But while apparently occupying the state of worldly existence, I, the Avadhuta, have shared this knowledge of the Self.
This was a tricky verse to translate, and is one that’s repeated at the end of several chapters. It concludes with yet another admission that the Self requires no scriptures or “versified knowledge”. How could It when It is the essence of freedom itself? The Self requires no knowledge because it is non-dual and without limit. Indeed, it is that by which all knowledge is known.
Of course, for the jiva living in the world of maya, it’s a different story. While worldly people have no regard for or interest in such Knowledge, sincere seekers of truth and enlightenment must devote their lives to its attainment. Fortunately, the enlightened Sages and Seers of the ages have shared this Self-Knowledge with love and generosity of spirit for the benefit of all committed and qualified students. And so it is on this note of love that Dattatreya ends the Avadhuta Gita, his Song of the Liberated Soul.
Om Tat Sat.
