I do as I please.

Picture: Rhodopsin, the protein in rod and cone membranes responsible for light excitations

Janaka said:
The inner freedom of having nothing is hard to achieve, even with just a loin-cloth, but I live as I please, abandoning both renunciation and acquisition. 13.1

Sometimes one experiences distress because of one's body, sometimes because of one's speech, and sometimes because of one's mind. Abandoning all of these, I live as I please in the goal of human life. 13.2

Recognising that in reality no action is ever committed, I live as I please, just doing what presents itself to be done. 13.3

Yogis who identify themselves with their bodies are insistent on fulfilling and avoiding certain actions, but I live as I please abandoning attachment and rejection. 13.4

No benefit or loss comes to me by standing, walking or lying down, so consequently I live as I please whether standing, walking or sleeping.13.5

I lose nothing by sleeping and gain nothing by effort, so consequently I live as I please, abandoning success and failure. 13.6

Continually observing the drawbacks of such things as pleasant objects, I live as I please, abandoning the pleasant and unpleasant. 13.7

Janaka said:
He who by nature is empty-minded, and who thinks of things only unintentionally, is freed from deliberate remembering like one awakened from a dream. 14.1

When my desire has been eliminated, I have no wealth, friends, robbers, senses, scriptures or knowledge. 14.2

Realising my supreme self-nature in the Person of the Witness, the Lord,and the state of desirelessness in bondage or liberation, I feel no inclination for liberation. 14.3

The various states of one who is free of uncertainty within, and who outwardly wanders about as he pleases like an idiot, can only be known by someone in the same condition. 14.4

Ashtavakra said:
While a man of pure intelligence may achieve the goal by the most casual of instruction, another may seek knowledge all his life and still remain bewildered. 15.1

Liberation is distaste for the objects of the senses. Bondage is love of the senses. This is knowledge. Now do as you wish. 15.2

This awareness of the truth makes an eloquent, clever and energetic man dumb, stupid and lazy, so it is avoided by those whose aim is enjoyment. 15.3

You are not the body, nor is the body yours, nor are you the doer of actions or the reaper of their consequences. You are eternally pure consciousness, the witness, in need of nothing -- so live happily. 15.4

Desire and anger are objects of the mind, but the mind is not yours, nor ever has been. You are choiceless awareness itself and unchanging -- so live happily. 15.5

Recognising oneself in all beings, and all beings in oneself, be happy, free from the sense of responsibility and free from preoccupation with "me." 15.6

Your nature is the consciousness, in which the whole world wells up, like waves in the sea. That is what you are, without any doubt, so be free of disturbance. 15.7

Have faith, my son, have faith. Don't let yourself be deluded in this. You are yourself the Lord, whose very nature is knowledge, and you are beyond natural causation. 15.8

The body invested with the senses stands still, and comes and goes. You yourself neither come

nor go, so why bother about them? 15.9

Let the body last to the end of the Age, or let it come to an end right now. What have you gained or lost, who consist of pure consciousness? 15.10

Let the world wave rise or subside according to its own nature in you, the great ocean. It is no gain or loss to you. 15.11

My son, you consist of pure consciousness, and the world is not separate from you. So who is to accept or reject it, and how, and why? 15.12

How can there be either birth, karma, or responsibility in that one unchanging, peaceful, unblemished, and infinite consciousness which is you? 15.13

Whatever you see, it is you alone manifest in it. How can bracelets, armlets and anklets be different from the gold they are made of? 15.14

Giving up such distinctions as "He is what I am," and "I am not that," recognise that "Everything is myself," and be without distinction and happy. 15.15

It is through your ignorance that all this exists. In reality you alone exist. Apart from you there is no one within or beyond samsara. 15.16

Knowing that all this is just an illusion, one becomes free of desire, pure receptivity, and at peace, as if nothing existed. 15.17

Only one thing has existed, exists and will exist in the ocean of being. You have no bondage or liberation. Live happily and fulfilled. 15.18

Being pure consciousness, do not disturb your mind with thoughts of for and against. Be at peace and remain happily in yourself, the essence ofjoy. 15.19

Give up meditation completely but don't let the mind hold on to anything. You are free by nature, so what will you achieve by forcing the mind? 15.20

Ashtavakra said:
My son, you may recite or listen to countless scriptures, but you will not be established within until you can forget everything. 16.1

You may, as a learned man, indulge in wealth, activity, and meditation, but your mind will still long for that which is the cessation of desire, and beyond all goals. 16.2

Everyone is in pain because of their striving to achieve something, but noone realises it. By no more than this instruction, the fortunate one attains tranquillity. 16.3

Happiness belongs to noone but that supremely lazy man for whom even opening and closing his eyes is a bother. 16.4

When the mind is freed from such pairs of opposites as, "I have done this," and "I have not done that," it becomes indifferent to merit, wealth, sensuality and liberation. 16.5

One man is abstemious and averse to the senses, another is greedy and attached to them, but he who is free from both taking and rejecting is neither abstemious nor greedy. 16.6

So long as desire, the state of lack of discrimination, remains, the sense of revulsion and attraction will remain, which is the root and branch of samsara. 16.7

Desire springs from usage, and aversion from abstension, but the wise man is free from the pairs of opposites like a child, and becomes established. 16.8

The passionate man wants to eliminate samsara so as to avoid pain, but the dispassionate man is free from pain and feels no distress even in it. 16.9

He who is proud about even liberation or his own body, and feels them his own, is neither a seer nor a yogi. He is still just a sufferer.16.10

If even Shiva, Vishnu, or the lotus-born Brahma were your instructor, until you have forgotten everything you cannot be established within. 16.11