The fifth chapter carries the name ‘laya’, dissolution, a melting away. The comparison with the Buddhist ‘nirvana’ is an interesting one here, though laya and nirvana are not the same. Nirvana is a kind of extinguishing. Laya is a kind of becoming one. The difference is very fine, and Shraddha Singh’s ‘Advaita and Buddhist Philosophy’ (1981) takes it up in detail. Ashtavakra’s account of laya also stands apart from the ‘yoga’ of the Bhagavad Gita. In the Gita, yoga is a practice. Laya is a state, and it cannot be attained. Acharya Shankara would later restate this philosophical position in the ‘Viveka-Chudamani’.Textual context
Dissolution
Dissolution · 4 shlokas
Only four shlokas. Each one ends on the same phrase, “एवमेव लयं व्रज”, “come to dissolution in just this way”. Ashtavakra names four methods, one after another, and says: now let yourself dissolve.
The fifth chapter introduces the word “laya”. It runs close to “nirodha” in the Buddhist vocabulary, yet Ashtavakra reads it as a kind of natural state. It arises on its own, and practice does not produce it. He describes four kinds of laya, and the later Yoga Vasishtha would carry the idea much further.
So far
After the non-dual and the all-pervading, this chapter rests on “laya”. The mind coming to rest.
सङ्घातविलयं कुर्वन्नेवमेव लयं व्रज॥
saṅghāta-vilayaṁ kurvann evam eva layaṁ vraja
Meaning“You have no attachment to anyone. You are pure. What would you give up? Dissolving the aggregate that is the body, come to dissolution in just this way.”
For the reader“शुद्धस्त्यक्तुमिच्छसि?” “Being pure, what do you wish to give up?” This is the moment when the seeker stops running after “renunciation”. Renunciation too is an action. The one who knows steps up out of action and rests in a single recognition.
इति ज्ञात्वैकमात्मानमेवमेव लयं व्रज॥
iti jñātvaikam ātmānam evam eva layaṁ vraja
Meaning“The universe rises out of you, the way a bubble rises from the sea. Know the atman as one, and come to dissolution in just this way.”
For the readerAn experiment. You are looking at this screen. When does it “rise”? In this very moment, within consciousness. If there is no consciousness, the screen “is not”. So the screen’s “being” depends on consciousness. The screen is a bubble of consciousness.
रज्जुसर्प इव व्यक्तमेवमेव लयं व्रज॥
rajju-sarpa iva vyaktam evam eva layaṁ vraja
Meaning“Though it stands plainly before the eyes, the universe, having no substance, is not there in the spotless you. Just as a snake shows itself on a rope, come to dissolution in just this way.”
For the reader“The rope and the snake.” A rope in the dark, shaped like a snake. The moment light arrives, the snake is gone. Where did the snake go? It was never really there at all, only a mistake in the seeing. The world is just like this. The moment the light of knowledge arrives, the “snake” is gone and only the “rope” remains.
समजीवितमृत्युः सन्नेवमेव लयं व्रज॥
sama-jīvita-mṛtyuḥ sann evam eva layaṁ vraja
Meaning“Even-minded in pleasure and pain, full and whole, even-minded in hope and despair, even-minded in life and death, come to dissolution in just this way.”
For the reader“समजीवितमृत्युः”. To see life and death as equal. This is the hardest of them all, because the body instinctively pulls toward life. As knowledge deepens, even this instinct loosens. Death is an event, only that.
Chapter 5 ends. Four methods in four lines. Each one closing on “एवमेव लयं व्रज”. The sense: just dissolve, in this very way. Let go of every effort to do or to become, and melt away directly.