The very summit of non-dual devotion opens here, at the point where every rite of worship turns into an offense. Dattatreya speaks to God. By traveling all the way to you, he says, I have shrunk your all-pervadingness, for what place is there to go toward the one who is already everywhere? By holding you in meditation, I have insulted the form that lies past the mind, for how can the mind bind what stands beyond its grasp? By praising you, I have insulted the form that lies past speech, for how can words gather in the one who lies past their reach? Forgive these three kinds of offense, always. Inside this plea for pardon the highest praise lies hidden.

With the forgiveness asked, Dattatreya now draws the portrait of the sage men call the avadhuta. He may wear rags on the outside or wander sky-clad, and his true mark still sits within. Desire never shakes his understanding, his senses answer to him, his nature is gentle, his inner being is clean, and nothing at all is left for him to keep. Free of longing, eating little, calm and steady, that sage lives always in the shelter of God. Here having-nothing carries no taste of destitution; it is the total end of possession, a state where clinging finds no place to settle.

His inner portrait deepens. He stays watchful at all times, grave by nature, patient as a matter of course, and he has already conquered the six inner enemies: desire, anger, greed, delusion, pride, and envy. He wants not a trace of honor for himself, and he gives honor to others in full measure. This pairing, claiming no honor while granting it, sits at the center of his nature. He is capable, friendly, filled with compassion, and a poet in the Vedic sense, which is to say a seer who looks far into the distance.

He is kind, and he bears ill will toward no one. All the pairs the world throws up, pleasure and pain, honor and dishonor, he endures without complaint, and for this he is called titiksu, the one who forbears. Truth is his very core, and his conduct leaves no opening anywhere for reproach. He looks on all living beings with one even gaze, and he works for the good of all. Whatever his way of living, his dealings stay clean from within and rooted in truth.

Now Dattatreya turns to an ancient method. The mark of the avadhuta lies hidden in the very letters of his name, and only certain people can read it: the finest devotees of God, those who know the syllables, the meaning, and the essence of the Veda, and those who have entered the heart of Veda and Vedanta. This is the old way of nirukta, where the essence of a word is held to rest inside its derivation. Now each letter of the word “avadhuta” will begin to open its meaning.

The first letter, “a,” holds three marks inside it. The one who has slipped free of the bonds of hope, whose beginning, middle, and end are without stain, and who rests always in bliss, he is the bearer of “a.” These three qualities are three faces of a single nature, and in Sanskrit each of the three words begins with the letter a.

The second letter, “va,” carries three marks as well, and in Sanskrit all three begin with “va.” The one who has let go of his cravings, whose speech is unclouded, and who stays settled in the present, he is the bearer of “va.” To hold fast in the present is to rise above worry over past and future, until this moment alone stands as the real.

Now the last letter, “ta,” arrives, and it too holds three marks. The one who has taken up the contemplation of truth, who is free of worldly worry and useless effort, and who is loosed from darkness and ego, he is the bearer of “ta.” The middle letter, “dhu,” stands in this recension without its explaining verse. Tradition ties “dhu” to dhuta, the shaken-off, meaning the one who has shaken away every attachment to the body along with attraction and aversion.

Now comes the fruit-declaration that closes it all. Whoever reads this Gita, composed by Dattatreya the avadhuta whose very form is bliss, and whoever hears it, is born no more. On the plain reading this means release from the wheel of birth and death, though in the avadhuta’s sight the heart of it runs deeper. There is no rebirth, for birth and death never were at all. The atman, the self, is unborn, and reading this Gita and hearing it throws open that very unborn nature.