AVG 2.21

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 21
अहो जनसमूहेऽपि न द्वैतं पश्यतो मम ।
अरण्यमिव संवृत्तं क्व रतिं करवाण्यहम् ॥ २-२१॥

PURPORT:
Oh!, even in the assemblage of multitudes,
I see not any conspicuous duality or dichotomy.
This is comparable to being unconditionally
alone, amidst pristine primeval woods.
What yearning can I have for anything at all?

TRANSLITERATION:
अहो जनसमूहे अपि न द्वैतम् पश्यतः मम ।
aho janasamūhe api na dvaitam paśyataḥ mama ।
अरण्यम् इव संवृत्तम् क्व रतिम् करवाणि अहम् ॥ २-२१॥
araṇyam iva saṃvṛttam kva ratim karavāṇi aham ॥ 2-21॥

MEANING:
aho (अहो) = Ahhh! (as in a happy exclamation)
janasamūhe (जनसमूहे) = within the throngs of people (compound of jana (जन) meaning people/public/tribe and samūhe (समूहे) assemblage/throng/horde/multitude)
api (अपि) = even
na (न) = not
dvaitam (द्वैतम्) = duality/dichotomy
paśyataḥ (पश्यतः) = visible/see/conspicuous
mama (मम) = my ।
araṇyam (अरण्यम्) = being in or relating to a forest/primeval wilderness/woods
iva (इव) = as if/just like
saṃvṛttam (संवृत्तम्) = having become
kva (क्व) = where/what (as in ‘to what do I attach myself’)
ratim (रतिम्) = desires/passion/craving/yearning
karavāṇi (करवाणि) = should do
aham (अहम्) = I ॥ 2-21॥

COMMENTS:
In these verses, full of vigor at his newfound understanding of his own awareness, Janaka ponders on the liberating aspects of freeing himself from a mindset that was perceptively dichotomous and his happiness in achieving a state of non-dual choiceless awareness. It occurs to Janaka that if duality is to be conceived as the designation of a self-nature to any existent entity that one encounters, then non-duality (or the absence of any dichotomy thereof) as a corollary is really the lack of any inhering essence or self underpinning that same existent entity. To better understand the underlying concepts, it might be useful to analyze the nature of an entity from three distinct standpoints of perceiving that entity – the first is from a standpoint that deals with the fabricated nature of the entity or the “how-it-appears-to-the-onlooker” aspect – where the definition and explanation of the entity happens within a linguistic and an ontological framework that is supported by our conventional understanding of such a framework derived over countless depositions of culture, mores, tradition, protocols, rites and formalities – with the added stipulation that such an understanding is only conventional and is fabricated; the second nature is from the standpoint of the entities dependent nature or the “what-arises-and-appears-to-the-onlooker-as-a-result-of-latent-preconditions”  aspect – that aspect of the underlying-contingently-linked causal and conditional narrative that brings about the entities conceptual construction; the third nature is from the standpoint of non-duality, something more fundamental, something more deeper or the “eternal non-existence-of-the-appearance-as-the-entity-appears-to-the-onlooker” aspect – that non-dual aspect that deals with the emptiness of all apparent entities that we conceptually encounter.
In summary, the first nature is the apparent appearance of the entity, the second nature is the conditionally causal process by which that entity makes that apparent appearance and the third nature is the lack of any inhering substrate or essence underlying that apparent entity. In this sense, anything fabricated is said to have a dual-self, whereas, the nature of reality itself is non-dual.
Janaka here also appears to be free of the two kinds of dualities that bedevil the best of us – conceptual duality and perceptual duality. The duality of the conceptual kind is that where we instinctively assign conceptual labels, forms and names upon an object as soon as we interact with any object by using our stored subset of conditioned categories that learning and knowledge has imparted to us. The corollary of the process of assigning a name to any entity automatically means that there is something else that is not-that-name. A quick example of conceptual dualism by using the example of a wooden chair: As soon as we see  a three dimensional spatial assemblage that consists of a wooden seat with four wooden legs and a back-board, we are apt to name it ‘chair’ and all other three-dimensional wooden assemblages that do not fall into this pre-defined category become ‘not-a-chair’. A duality is immediately created within our minds and our actions, reactions and our perceptions align themselves within this established conceptual duality the instant we categorize and name. We assign a ‘self’ to that object. We assign some sort of a permanence that is attached to that object (a ‘chairness’ for lack of a better word). This process continues to be the same for any other entity, be it a heap of diamonds or a pile of bird-poop. Given that the world and the larger universe is in a constant state of causal fluctuations and the world does not obtain via measurements nor determinations via conceptual constructs like chair, diamonds or bird-poop, every time we impose a version of our conditioning (and thereby duality upon this world), we automatically impose a fabricated construct upon the world.
Closely related to the idea of conceptual duality is the idea of perceptual duality – where we perceive an otherness between the ‘perceived object’ and our selves. Let us say that I open the door on a cold snowy morning, reach out and feel the snowflakes that softly fall from the sky. My skin feels the sudden onset of a cold sensation as the tiny bit of snow melts against the skin of my fingers. The instantaneous consequence of such an event is that I tend to see a separation and a distinction between my skin that ‘feels the snowflake’ and the snowflake itself that I see as sovereign from the skin (which clearly is a ‘part of me’). Therefore there is an instinctual duality built into this process at the time of perception itself – the ‘otherness’ imputed to the snowflake and the sense of oneness that is intuited when it comes to my skin (a sense of ‘mine’ verses the ‘other’). This applies to all our sense organs – smell, sight, sound and taste. The essence of the constructed sense of duality lies between the perceptual and the conceptual senses of duality where one strengthens the other and our sense of being separate and dissociated from the world around us thus accumulates.
Janaka compares his state of non-dual identity thus obtained by stating that he no longer has a yearning for things and even amongst the multitudes, he feels as serene as if he is within pristine primeval woods.

NOTES:
Nisargadatta Maharaj: "The mind ceased producing events. The ancient and ceaseless search stopped—I wanted nothing, expected nothing, accepted nothing as my own. There was no "me" left to strive for. Even the bare "I am" faded away. The other thing I noticed was I lost all my habitual certainties. Earlier I was sure of so many things, now I am sure of nothing. But I feel I have lost nothing by not knowing, because all my knowledge was false. My not knowing was in itself knowledge of the fact that all knowledge is ignorance, that "I do not know" is the only true statement the mind can make.
By looking tirelessly, I became quite empty, and with that emptiness all came back to me except the mind. I find I have lost the mind irretrievably. I am neither conscious nor unconscious, I am beyond the mind and its various states and conditions. Distinctions are created by the mind and apply to the mind only. I am pure Consciousness itself, unbroken awareness of all that is.
I am in a more real state than yours. I am undistracted by the distinctions and separations which constitute a person. As long as the body lasts, it has its needs like any other, but my mental process has come to an end. My thinking, like my digestion, is unconscious and purposeful.
I am not a person in your sense of the word, though I may appear a person to you. I am that infinite ocean of consciousness in which all happens. I am also beyond all existence and cognition, pure bliss of being. There is nothing I feel separate from, hence I am all. No thing is me, so I am nothing. Life will escape, the body will die, but it will not affect me in the least. Beyond space and time I am, uncaused, uncausing, yet the very matrix of existence.
Having realized that I am with, and yet beyond the world, I became free from all desire and fear. I did not reason out that I should be free, I found myself free, unexpectedly, without the least effort. This freedom from desire and fear remained with me since then. Another thing I noticed was that I do not need to make an effort; the deed follows the thought, without delay and friction. I have also found that thoughts become self-fulfilling; things would fall in place smoothly and rightly. The main change was in the mind; it became motionless and silent, responding quickly, but not perpetuating the response. Spontaneity became a way of life, the real became natural and the natural became real. And above all, infinite affection, love, dark and quiet, radiating in all directions, embracing all, making all interesting and beautiful, significant and auspicious.
The person is what I appear to be to other persons. To myself, I am the infinite expanse of consciousness in which innumerable persons emerge and disappear in endless succession.
The person, the "I am this body, this mind, this chain of memories, this bundle of desires and fears" disappears, but something you may call identity remains. It enables me to become a person when required.
Nothing troubles me. I offer no resistance to trouble—therefore it does not stay with me. On your side there is so much trouble. On mine there is no trouble at all. Come to my side.
What is added to memory cannot be erased easily. But it can surely be done, and in fact I am doing it all the time. Like a bird on its wings, I leave no footprints.
The world is like a sheet of paper on which something is typed. The reading and the meaning will vary with the reader, but the paper is the common factor, always present, rarely perceived. When the ribbon is removed, typing leaves no trace on the paper. So is my mind—the impressions keep on coming, but no trace is left.
Your world is transient, changeful. My world is perfect, changeless. You can tell me what you like about your world—I shall listen carefully, even with interest, yet not for a moment shall I forget that your world is not, that you are dreaming. In mine, the words and their contents have no being. In your world nothing stays, in mine nothing changes. My world is real, while yours is made of dreams. My world has no characteristics by which it can be identified. You can say nothing about it. My silence sings, my emptiness is full, I lack nothing. In your world I appear to have a name and shape, displaying consciousness and activity. In mine I have being only. Nothing else. I am my world. My world is myself. It is complete and perfect. I need nothing, not even myself, for myself I cannot lose. In your world I would be most miserable. To wake up, to eat, to talk, to sleep again—what a bother!
To me nothing ever happens. There is something changeless, motionless, immovable, rock-like, unassailable; a solid mass of pure being-consciousness-bliss. I am never out of it. Nothing can take me out of it, no torture, no calamity.
My condition is absolutely steady. Whatever I may do, it stays like a rock—motionless. Once you have awakened into reality, you stay in it. It is self-evident and yet beyond description.
All the three states (waking, sleeping, dreaming) are sleep to me. My waking state is beyond them. As I look at you, you all seem asleep, dreaming up worlds of your own. I am aware, for I imagine nothing. It is not samadhi, which is but a kind of sleep. It is just a state unaffected by the mind, free from the past and future. In your case it is distorted by desire and fear, by memories and hopes; in mine it is as it is—normal. To be a person is to be asleep.
The world of mind and matter, of names and shapes, continues, but it does not matter to me at all. It is like having a shadow. It is there, following me wherever I go, but not hindering me in any way. It remains a world of experiences, but not of names and forms related to me by desires and fears. The experiences are quality-less, pure experiences, if I may say so. I call them experiences for the lack of a better word. They are like the waves on the surface of the ocean, the ever-present, but not affecting its peaceful power.
I can see with the utmost clarity that you have never been, nor are, nor will be estranged from reality, that you are the fullness of perfection here and now, and that nothing can deprive you of your heritage, of what you are. You are in no way different from me, only you do not know it. Be fully aware of your own being, and you will be in bliss consciously. Because you take your mind off yourself and make it dwell on what you are not, you lose your sense of well-being, of being well.
You people do not know how much you miss by not knowing your own true self.
The moment you know your real being, you are afraid of nothing. Death gives freedom and power. To be free in the world, you must die to the world. Then the universe is your own, it becomes your body, an expression and a tool. The happiness of being absolutely free is beyond description.
The ordinary man is personally concerned, he counts his risks and chances, while the Jnaane remains aloof, sure that all will happen as it must; and it does not matter much what happens, for ultimately the return to balance and harmony is inevitable. The heart of things is at peace.
The particular is born and reborn, changing name and shape, the Jnaane is the Changeless Reality, which makes the changeful possible. The entire universe is his body, all life is his life. As in a city of lights, when one bulb burns out, it does not affect the network, so the death of a body does not affect the whole. With me, all is one, all is equal.
The Guru is basically without desire. He sees what happens, but feels no urge to interfere. He makes no choices, takes no decisions. As pure witness, he watches what is going on and remains unaffected. Victory is always his, in the end. He knows that if the disciples do not learn from his words, they will learn from their own mistakes. Inwardly he remains quiet and silent. He has no sense of being a separate person. The entire universe is his own, including his disciples with their petty plans.
Nothing in particular affects him, or, which comes to the same, the entire universe affects him in equal measure. In reality, the disciple is not different from the Guru. He is the same dimensionless centre of perception and love in action. It is only his imagination that encloses him and converts him into a person.
He is alone, but he is all. He is not even a being. He is the being-ness of beings. Not even that. No words apply. He is what he is, the ground from which all grows.
A Jnaane commands a mode of spontaneous, non-sensory perception, which makes him know things directly, without intermediary of the senses.
He is beyond the perceptual and the conceptual, beyond the categories of time and space, name and shape. He is neither the perceived nor the perceiver, but the simple and the universal factor that makes perceiving possible.
His state tastes of the pure, uncaused, undiluted bliss. He is happy and fully aware that happiness is his very nature and that he need not do anything, nor strive for anything to secure it. It follows him, more real than the body, nearer than the mind itself. To me, dependence on anything for happiness is utter misery. Pleasure and pain have causes, while my state is my own, totally uncaused, independent, unassailable.
As he gets older, he grows more and more happy and peaceful. After all, he is going home. Like a traveler nearing his destination and collecting his luggage, he leaves the train without regret. The reel of destiny is coming to its end—the mind is happy. The mist of bodily existence is lifting—the burden of the body is growing less from day to day."

REFERENCES:
Madhyamaka and Yogacara: Allies or Rivals? by Jay L. Garfield (Editor), Jan Westerhoff (Editor)