A scholarly debating conference on the scriptures was going on in the court of the king Janaka. The scholars of the whole country were present in the court . Ashtavakra’s father was also present there. He was on the verge of his defeat and the message came to Ashtavakra that his father was losing.. Receiving the message Ashtavakra went to the palace to see his father. As he entered the court, everybody started laughing. He was a strangely crippled boy of 12 years and his body was awkwardly bent and deformed in eight places. They were all laughing and joking about him. Ashtavakra went directly to the king and said ‘It seems you have gathered shoemakers here, chamars’ -They can only see my skin, my body. They don’t see me. My body is twisted, but I am not’.Janak was impressed. He felt guilty that he too had laughed.. The whole conference was dissolved, and the king told Ashtavakra,’ From tomorrow you come and teach me. I want to be your disciple’. Thus Janaka as a diciple put his questions to Ashtavakra,. and Ashtavakra explained. These are the songs of Ashtavakra, better known as ‘Ashtavakra Gita’ (‘Ashtavakra Samhita’ as some call it).
Ashtavakra’s key teaching is rest and relaxation. There is nothing to do .Ashtavakra’s saying is just this: The divine is not attained by running, it is attained by stopping. . You cannot find truth by seeking because truth is hidden in the one who is seeking. All of Ashtavakra’s sutras give this one message that it is not to be attained, it is already attained. .Ashtavakra also says that practice is bondage, methods are bondage, doing itself is bondage. He also gives the message to be free of all projections, all beliefs, all imagination, all interpretations, all practices and rituals’.
This book is all about Ashtavakra and’ Ashtavakra Gita’. Osho’s beautiful commentary on this ‘Gita’ make ‘Enlightenenment’ rather unique. In this book Osho observes:
If an ignorant person does ask, he asks just to prove you wrong, because the ignorant presumes he already knows and wants to see whether you know or not. The ignorant person asks to test you.
He who considers himself free is free, and he who considers himself bound is bound.
What has been suppressed will flare up again. Whatever you have forced down will come again and again.
When you mix the higher with the lower there is no harm to the lower, but the higher is harmed.
Interesting jokes, parables anecdotes and small stories including that of Mulla's are aplenty in this book. One such Mulla story is like this:
Mulla Nasruddin came home drunk one night. As he was returning, he thought hard how to keep his wife from knowing. What should he do? He thought, ‘Let me read the Koran. Has anyone heard of a drunk reading from the Koran? If I read the Koran, then it will be clear that I am not drunk. Have drunkards ever read the Koran?
He got home, lit a lamp and sat reading the Koran. Finally his wife came and gave him a good jerk, saying ’stop this nonsense! What are you doing , sitting here with this suitcase open?’
More Mulla Stories
A case was being heard in court. The judge asked Mulla Nasruddin, ‘How did you recognize your own buffalo from among these hundreds of identical looking water buffaloes?’
Mulla replied, ‘What is so difficult about it,your honour? In your court,hundreds of lawyers in black coats are standing around, but still I can recognize my own lawyer, can’t I?
***
Once Mulla Nasruddin boarded a bus. Absorbed in thought he took a seat and lit a cigarette. ‘It is clearly written that smoking is forbidden on the bus,’ the conductor angrily said: ‘Didn’t you read it? Don’t you know how to read?’
I read it, but there is so much written in the bus. Which of them should I do? Nasruddin said. “Look at this: it says here, ‘Always Wear Handloom Saris!”
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