Ashtavakra said:
1. Praise be to That by the awareness of which delusion itself becomes dream-like, to that which is pure happiness, peace, and light.
2. One may get all sorts of pleasure by the acquisition of various objects of enjoyment, but one cannot be happy except by the renunciation of everything.
3. How can there be happiness, for one who has been burnt inside by the blistering sun of the pain of thinking that there are things that still need doing, without the rain of the nectar of peace?
4. This existence is just imagination. It is nothing in reality, but there is no non-being for natures that know how to distinguish being from non-being.
5. The realm of one’s self is not far away, nor can it be achieved by the addition of limitations to its nature. It is unimaginable, effortless, unchanging, and spotless.
6. By the simple elimination of delusion and the recognition of one’s true nature, those whose vision is unclouded live free from sorrow.
7. Knowing everything as just imagination, and himself as eternally free, how should the wise man behave like a fool?
8. Knowing himself to be God, and being and non-being just imagination, what should the man free from desire learn, say, or do?
9. Considerations like “I am this” or “I am not this” are finished for the yogi who has gone silent realising “Everything is myself.”
10. For the yogi who has found peace, there is no distraction or one-pointedness, no higher knowledge or ignorance, no pleasure and no pain.
11. The dominion of heaven or beggary, gain or loss, life among men or in the forest, these make no difference to a yogi whose nature it is to be free from distinctions.
12. There are no religious obligations, wealth, sensuality, or discrimination for a yogi free from such opposites as “I have done this,” and “I have not done that.”
13. There is nothing needing to be done or any attachment in his heart for the yogi liberated while still alive. Things will last just to the end of life.
14. There is no delusion, world, meditation on That, or liberation for the pacified great soul. All these things are just the realm of imagination.
15. He by whom all this is seen may well make out it doesn’t exist, but what is the desireless one to do? Even in seeing it he does not see it.
16. He by whom the Supreme Brahma is seen may think “I am Brahma,” but what is he to think who is without thought, and who sees no duality?
17. He by whom inner distraction is seen may put an end to it, but the noble one is not distracted. When there is nothing to achieve what is he to do?
18. The wise man, unlike the worldly man, does not see inner stillness, distraction, or fault in himself, even when living like a worldly man.
19. Nothing is done by him who is free from being and non-being, who is contented, desireless, and wise, even if in the world’s eyes he does act.
20. The wise man who just goes on doing what presents itself for him to do, encounters no difficulty in either activity or inactivity.
21. He who is desireless, self-reliant, independent, and free of bonds functions like a dead leaf blown about by the wind of causality.
22. There is neither joy nor sorrow for one who has transcended samsara. With a peaceful mind he lives as if without a body.
23. He whose joy is in himself, and who is peaceful and pure within has no desire for renunciation or sense of loss in anything.
24. For the man with a naturally empty mind, doing just as he pleases, there is no such thing as pride or false humility, as there is for the natural man.
25. “This action was done by the body but not by me.” The pure-natured person thinking like this is not acting even when acting.
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Astavakra Gita Translated by John Richards 
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