From the Ashtavakra Gita

From the Ashtavakra Gita Chapter Ten

1. Give up the chief enemy, desire for pleasure and for worldly prosperity, both being fraught with evil, as well as enslavement to dharma (good deeds) from which they spring.

Note: The three objects of the worldly-minded are kāma (pleasure), artha (prosperity) and dharma (good deeds); but release from the bonds of nescience should be the ultimate purpose of life. Truth cannot be discerned unless kāma, artha and dharma are transcended. This is the step beyond virtue and Plato’s ‘Ultimate’. Knowledge and not benevolence produces the state of complete freedom.

2. Look upon friends, possessions, wealth, mansions, wives, gifts and other good fortune as a dream or a magic show, lasting only three or five days.

3. Know that where desires prevail, there is the world. Cherishing feelings of steadfast non-attachment, free thyself from desire and be happy.

4. Desire constitutes the only bondage; to be freed from it is liberation. By cultivating indifference to worldly objects, one obtains the bliss of realisation.

5. Thou art One, pure Consciousness. The world is inert and unreal. Even ignorance is non-existent. Therefore, what desire can’st thou cherish?