AVG 2.18

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 18
न मे बन्धोऽस्ति मोक्षो वा भ्रान्तिः शान्तानिराश्रया  ।
अहो मयि स्थितं विश्वं वस्तुतो न मयि स्थितम् ॥ २-१८॥

PURPORT:
I am neither emancipated nor bound.
Illusions such as being fettered thus
are unsupported in my calm tranquility.
Aha, the universe abides within me,
or, as a matter of fact, it does not
abide within me at all.

TRANSLITERATION:
न मे बन्धः अस्ति मोक्षः वा भ्रान्तिः शान्ता निराश्रया ।
na me bandhaḥ asti mokṣaḥ vā bhrāntiḥ śāntā nirāśrayā ।
अहो मयि स्थितम् विश्वम् वस्तुतः न मयि स्थितम् ॥ २-१८॥
aho mayi sthitam viśvam vastutaḥ na mayi sthitam ॥ 2-18॥

MEANING:
na (न) = not
me (मे) = mine/my
bandhaḥ (बन्धः) = bondage/fettered
asti (अस्ति) = is
mokṣaḥ (मोक्षः) = liberation/deliverance/emancipation
vā (वा) = or (as nor)
bhrāntiḥ (भ्रान्तिः) = false opinion/perplexity/confusion
śāntā (शान्ता) = has achieved tranquility/has ceased/abated
nirāśrayā (निराश्रया) =  having or offering no prop or stay/unsupported।
aho (अहो)  = astonished! [as an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised at himself]
mayi (मयि) = in me/within me
sthitam (स्थितम्) = being/existing/abiding in
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
vastutaḥ (वस्तुतः) = de facto/in reality/as a matter of fact/essentially/verily
na (न) = not
mayi (मयि) = in me
sthitam (स्थितम्) = being/existing/abiding in ॥ 2-18॥

COMMENT:
This is another beautiful verse, albeit, a bit of a repetition in terms of the insights offered. Janaka's refrain remains the same and the theme is that of a seeker understanding and cognizing a deeper aspect of reality and in-turn their own selves. The import of this verse boils down into four key insights: firstly, Janaka's understanding that his own self is a constructed model within his mind that, if  left unchecked, morphs into an all-encompassing ego and thus stultifies the underlying clarity of being; secondly, his clearer understanding concerning the nature of conventional reality allows for Janaka to participate, partake and accomplish actions, duties and responsibilities pertinent to his being while simultaneously understanding that conventional reality is bereft of any fundamental inherent permanence, thirdly, understanding that the demeanor we bring to bear on the world via our interactions (both inwardly focused as well as externally directed) are purely a reflection of our societal conditioning and such conditioning in most cases masks ones natural being and finally, the fact that Janaka understands that the causal conditions for confusion, illusion, fears and other ills that ails our minds are a result of the autonomous thought generation that constantly churns within our minds - he who learns to harness, control and volitionally suppress such mind fluctuations is the one who achieves a more harmonious clarity of being.

AVG 2.17

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 17
बोधमात्रोऽहमज्ञानाद् उपाधिः कल्पितो मया ।
एवं विमृशतो नित्यं निर्विकल्पे स्थितिर्मम ॥ २-१७॥

PURPORT:
I am amaranthine awareness.
The impediments imposed on myself
emanate from incomprehension
and are of my imagination.
Perpetually deliberating on this,
within knowledge free of differences,
I abide in disciplined steadiness.

TRANSLITERATION:
बोधमात्रः अहम् अज्ञानात् उपाधिः कल्पितः मया ।
bodhamātraḥ aham ajñānāt upādhiḥ kalpitaḥ mayā ।
एवम् विमृशतः नित्यम् निर्विकल्पे स्थितिः मम ॥ २-१७॥
evam vimṛśataḥ nityam nirvikalpe sthitiḥ mama ॥ 2-17॥

MEANING:
bodhamātraḥ (बोधमात्रः) = possessing as much as and no more knowledge/just intelligence
aham (अहम्) = I
ajñānāt (अज्ञानात्) = from incomprehension/from ignorance
upādhiḥ (उपाधिः) = constraint/limitation/impediment
kalpitaḥ (कल्पितः) = fabricated/conceptual/imagined
mayā (मया) = by me ।
evam (एवम्) = in this way
vimṛśataḥ (विमृशतः) =  deliberate/cogitate/meditate/reflect
nityam (नित्यम्) = constantly dwelling in/perpetually involved with
nirvikalpe (निर्विकल्पे) = within knowledge not depending upon or not derived from the senses/within the undifferentiated/in a place free from differences
sthitiḥ (स्थितिः) = sojourn in/steadiness/maintenance of discipline
mama (मम) = my ॥ 2-17॥

COMMENT:
The impediments that emanate from incomprehension that Janaka is talking about in these verses refer to the virtual worlds of experience that are made manifest and updated on a moment-by-moment basis within our consciousnesses. This happens whether we are dreaming (while sleeping) or when we are awake and alert. The only difference being that in the dream state, there are no constraints within the modes of our thoughts – which means that thoughts arising automatically within the mind are also unconstrained in and of themselves and play out in unrestrained flights of fancy that compose our dreams. On the same token, the awake and alert state allows for the incorporation of sensory stimuli that constrict and inhibit our modes of expressions and behavior. While the dream state as well as the waking state are truly two sides of the same coin, we remain unsophisticated realists about the virtual worlds that our minds create not recognizing that the psychic and cerebral constructs created are just that – constructs of the mind.
Evolution over generations and experience garnered during ones formative years have created and refined various mental representations that are integrated harmoniously into our everyday conscious experience that gives us a seamless flow of reality. The integrated model of the world thus constructed allows for the process of perception to see a representation of the world that is stitched together continually via multiple interconnected cognitive processes. The fact that the constructed world is a representation is itself transparent to the very cognitive systems that creates the representation and makes use of the representation. Thus, experiential phenomena can be considered to be fabricated in the sense that we participate in a reality of mentally constructed objects within a virtual world of experience that seem to be logically independent of their cause (the cause being the continuous world-model building and updating that goes on within our minds). Direct objects of experience are mental constructs that repeatedly and continuously materialize from intrinsic causal processes within our minds that we are not even aware of. Janaka closes these beautiful verses by remarking that he aims to reach a place wherein he can abide within disciplined steadiness with knowledge free of differences by continuously reflecting on these truths.

NOTES:
1. Thomas Metzinger in the book The Ego Tunnel writes: "Millions of years ago, nature’s virtual reality achieved what today’s software engineers still strive for: the phenomenal properties of “presence” and “full immersion.” From an engineering point of view, the problems involved in creating successful virtual environments are problems of advanced interface design. A virtual interface is a system of transducers, signal processors, hardware, and software. It creates an interactive medium that conveys information to the user’s senses while constantly monitoring the user’s behavior and employing it to update and manipulate the virtual environment. Conscious experience, too, is an interface, an invisible, perfect internal medium allowing an organism to interact flexibly with itself. It is a control device. It functions by creating an internal user interface—an “as\if” (that is, virtual) reality. It filters information, has a high bandwidth, is unambiguous and reliable, and generates a sense of presence. More important, it also generates a sense of self. The self-model is much like the mouse pointer on the virtual desktop of your PC—or the little red arrow on the subway map that advises “You are here.” It places you at the center of a behavioral space, of your consciously experienced world-model, your inner virtual reality. The Ego is a special part of this virtual reality. By generating an internal image of the organism as a whole, it allows the organism to appropriate its own hardware. It is evolution’s answer to the need for explaining one’s inner and outer actions to oneself, predicting one’s behavior, and monitoring critical system properties. Finally, it allows the system to depict internally the history of its actions as its own history. (Autobiographical memory, of course, is one of the most important layers of the human self-model, enabling us to appropriate our own history, inside-time and outside-time, the Now and the past.) Consciousness gives you flexibility, and global control gives you the Ego. On the level of conscious experience, this process of functionally appropriating one’s hardware—one’s body—in a holistic fashion is mirrored as the sense of global ownership, or minimal selfhood."

2. Matthew Mackenzie in the paper titled The Yogacara theory of three natures: Internalist and non-dualist interpretation (Comparative Philosophy Volume 9, No. 1 (2018): 18-31) writes:
"People who suffer from persistent musical hallucinations often report that the music is experienced as if it were like any other music playing in their environment. It can be experienced as loud or quiet, as nearby or far away, as clear or muffled, and so on. While some people quickly realize that they are experiencing hallucinations, others remain for extended periods under the impression that their auditory experience is veridical. ... the transition process follows three stages. In the ‘deceptive phase’, the music is experienced as externally produced, spatially located, and public. Here the auditory experience is constructed as an external sound event. Eventually, in the ‘transition phase’ the subject realizes that the auditory experience does not correspond to bodily movements in the right way (moving toward or away from the apparent location of the sound does not change its sensory character) or that others can’t hear it, etc. In the final ‘realization phase’, the subject has come to fully recognize the hallucination as a hallucination. What this involves, is a shift in the way the auditory phenomenon is automatically conceptualized. So, while the subject can still describe the various phenomenal features of the auditory phenomena (volume, pitch, timbre, etc.), she no longer takes it to be an objective sound event. It is important to see that, this is not a merely intellectual change. Rather, because our experience involves an integration of sensory and cognitive aspects, a change in how a sensory phenomenon is automatically conceptualized is a change in the overall phenomenal character of the experience. What was transparently experienced as an objective event is now experienced as an internal merely subjective event."

AVG 2.16

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 16

द्वैतमूलमहो दुःखं नान्यत्तस्याऽस्ति भेषजम् ।

दृश्यमेतन्मृषा सर्वं एकोऽहं चिद्रसोऽमलः ॥ २-१६॥

PURPORT:

Oh!, our sense of dichotomy is the root

of all suffering, and, there are no separate 

panaceas for this; other than the realization 

that all discernible phenomena are illusory.

Understanding this, I am now transformed  

into an essence of pure comprehension.

TRANSLITERATION:

द्वैतमूलम् अहो दुःखम् न अन्यतः तस्य अस्ति भेषजम् ।

dvaitamūlam aho duḥkham na anyataḥ tasya asti bheṣajam ।

दृश्यम् एतत्  मृषः सर्वम् एकः अहम् चिद्रसः अमलः ॥ २-१६॥

dṛśyam etat mṛṣaḥ sarvam ekaḥ aham cidrasaḥ amalaḥ ॥ 2-16॥

MEANING:

dvaitamūlam (द्वैतमूलम्) = having duality as the source of (compound of dvaita (द्वैत) meaning duality/dichotomy and mūlam (मूलम्) meaning root/source/basis)

aho (अहो) = astonished! [as an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised at himself]

duḥkham (दुःखम्) =  sorrow/distress/misery/suffering

na (न) = not

anyataḥ (अन्यतः) =  other/separate

tasya (तस्य) = of that (referring to duḥkham (दुःखम्) =  sorrow here)

asti (अस्ति) = is

bheṣajam (भेषजम्) = remedy/cure/antidote/panacea ।

dṛśyam (दृश्यम्) = visible object/palpable entity/discernable phenomena 

etat (एतत्) = this

mṛṣaḥ (मृषः) = false/unreal (as in everything other than awareness is false and unreal)

sarvam (सर्वम्) = all

ekaḥ (एकः) = one

aham (अहम्) = I

cidrasaḥ (चिद्रसः) = essence of awareness (compound of cit (चित्) meaning awareness/comprehension and rasaḥ (रसः) meaning essence/juice/essential basis)

amalaḥ (अमलः) = spotless/stainless/shining/pure ॥ 2-16॥

COMMENT:

The sense of dichotomy or duality referenced by Janaka and implicated as the cause for suffering and confusion stems from the mistaken notion that reality is fundamentally composed of two parts where the composition of the two parts can take various formalisms and formulations depending upon the school of thought that the person identifies with - formalisms of dualisms ranging from mind separate from matter to consciousness separate from corporeal entities to the separation of theistic essences between concepts like 'god' and the world etc. 

While we have strict dualism of this fashion on the one side, there is also the other side that consists of monism - where oneness or a over-arching unity is posited where all existing things go back to a source and strictly speaking there exists only a single thing, the Universe, which can only be artificially and arbitrarily divided into many things.

Janaka here is not talking about strict duality nor of strict monism, but, of a path that allows for complementarity - where reality - both material as well as immaterial are fundamentally inter-dependent systems that complement each other, where one part cannot be specified or stipulated without direct (or implicit) reference to the other portion to which the first part is inter-dependently linked. 

In this sense, the complementarity is seen between an existent entity and the causal conditions supporting the entity like a person observing and the object observed, or the emotion of desire and the desirous person or the arising of existent entities and the conditions for such arising or the actor and her action. 

Let us briefly examine the example of fire and fuel to make this a little more clear: Fire and fuel are not mutually separate as per strict dualism nor are they one as per strict monism; if fire and fuel were mutually separate and one can find them as separate entities in nature. But, fire never stands alone in and of itself. Fire exists due to a combustible entity being burned and the combustible entity is designated so as it has the potential to catch fire (or because the fuel is on fire). Fire and fuel are mutually and reciprocally interlinked. One cannot exist without the other and one cannot be designated as such without the presence of the other. One sees only complementarity within manifest reality. Reality boils down to an understanding for Janaka where existents cannot lay claim to having an own-being or independence. Fundamental reality does not consist of single, isolated corporeal or intangible moieties, instead, entities arise only in dependence to and in complement with other things. Understanding this, Janaka says that he is transformed into an essence of pure comprehension. 

NOTES:

From the book Figuring by Maria Popova: "All of it — the rings of Saturn and my father’s wedding band, the underbelly of the clouds pinked by the rising sun, Einstein’s brain bathing in a jar of formaldehyde, every grain of sand that made the glass that made the jar and each idea Einstein ever had, the shepherdess singing in the Rila mountains of my native Bulgaria and each one of her sheep, every hair on Chance’s velveteen dog ears and Marianne Moore’s red braid and the whiskers of Montaigne’s cat, every translucent fingernail on my friend Amanda’s newborn son, every stone with which Virginia Woolf filled her coat pockets before wading into the River Ouse to drown, every copper atom composing the disc that carried arias aboard the first human-made object to enter interstellar space and every oak splinter of the floor-boards onto which Beethoven collapsed in the fit of fury that cost him his hearing, the wetness of every tear that has ever been wept over a grave and the yellow of the beak of every raven that has ever watched the weepers, every cell in Galileo’s fleshy finger and every molecule of gas and dust that made the moons of Jupiter to which it pointed, the Dipper of freckles constellating the olive firmament of a certain forearm I love and every axonal flutter of the tenderness with which I love her, all the facts and figments by which we are perpetually figuring and reconfiguring reality — it all banged into being 13.8 billion years ago from a single source, no louder than the opening note of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, no larger than the dot levitating over the small i, the I lowered from the pedestal of ego.

How can we know this and still succumb to the illusion of separateness, of otherness? This veneer must have been what the confluence of accidents and atoms known as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saw through when he spoke of our “inescapable network of mutuality,” what Walt Whitman punctured when he wrote that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

One autumn morning, as I read a dead poet’s letters in my friend Wendy’s backyard in San Francisco, I glimpse a fragment of that atomic mutuality. Midsentence, my peripheral vision — that glory of instinct honed by millennia of evolution — pulls me toward a miraculous sight: a small, shimmering red leaf twirling in midair. It seems for a moment to be dancing its final descent. But no — it remains suspended there, six feet above ground, orbiting an invisible center by an invisible force. For an instant I can see how such imperceptible causalities could drive the human mind to superstition, could impel medieval villagers to seek explanation in magic and witchcraft. But then I step closer and notice a fine spider’s web glistening in the air above the leaf, conspiring with gravity in this spinning miracle.

Neither the spider has planned for the leaf nor the leaf for the spider — and yet there they are, an accidental pendulum propelled by the same forces that cradle the moons of Jupiter in orbit, animated into this ephemeral early-morning splendor by eternal cosmic laws impervious to beauty and indifferent to meaning, yet replete with both to the bewildered human consciousness beholding it.

We spend our lives trying to discern where we end and the rest of the world begins. We snatch our freeze-frame of life from the simultaneity of existence by holding on to illusions of permanence, congruence, and linearity; of static selves and lives that unfold in sensical narratives. All the while, we mistake chance for choice, our labels and models of things for the things themselves, our records for our history. History is not what happened, but what survives the shipwrecks of judgment and chance.

Some truths, like beauty, are best illuminated by the sidewise gleam of figuring, of meaning-making. In the course of our figuring, orbits intersect, often unbeknownst to the bodies they carry — intersections mappable only from the distance of decades or centuries. Facts crosshatch with other facts to shade in the nuances of a larger truth — not relativism, no, but the mightiest realism we have. We slice through the simultaneity by being everything at once: our first names and our last names, our loneliness and our society, our bold ambition and our blind hope, our unrequited and part-requited loves. Lives are lived in parallel and perpendicular, fathomed nonlinearly, figured not in the straight graphs of “biography” but in many-sided, many-splendored diagrams. Lives interweave with other lives, and out of the tapestry arise hints at answers to questions that raze to the bone of life: What are the building blocks of character, of contentment, of lasting achievement? How does a person come into self-possession and sovereignty of mind against the tide of convention and unreasoning collectivism? Does genius suffice for happiness, does distinction, does love? Two Nobel Prizes don’t seem to recompense the melancholy radiating from every photograph of the woman in the black laboratory dress. Is success a guarantee of fulfillment, or merely a promise as precarious as a marital vow? How, in this blink of existence bookended by nothingness, do we attain completeness of being?

There are infinitely many kinds of beautiful lives.

So much of the beauty, so much of what propels our pursuit of truth, stems from the invisible connections — between ideas, between disciplines, between the denizens of a particular time and a particular place, between the interior world of each pioneer and the mark they leave on the cave walls of culture, between faint figures who pass each other in the nocturne before the torchlight of a revolution lights the new day, with little more than a half-nod of kinship and a match to change hands."

AVG 2.15

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 15
ज्ञानं ज्ञेयं तथा ज्ञाता त्रितयं नास्ति वास्तवम् ।
अज्ञानाद्भाति यत्रेदं सोऽहमस्मि निरञ्जनः ॥ २-१५॥

PURPORT:
Knowledge, the knower and the knowable,
this set of three, in reality, do not exist.
I am that unsullied being, in which this triad
manifests through distracted ignorance.

TRANSLITERATION:
ज्ञानम् ज्ञेयम् तथा ज्ञाता त्रितयम् न अस्ति वास्तवम् ।
jñānam jñeyam tathā jñātā tritayam na asti vāstavam ।
अज्ञानात् भाति यत्र इदम् सः अहम् अस्मि निरञ्जनः ॥ २-१५॥
ajñānāt bhāti yatra idam saḥ aham asmi nirañjanaḥ ॥ 2-15॥

MEANING:
jñānam (ज्ञानम्) = knowledge/intelligence/expertise
jñeyam (ज्ञेयम्) = knowable/intelligibleness/that which can be learned or ascertained or perceived
tathā (तथा) = as well as
jñātā (ज्ञाता) = knower/perceiver/the one who knows
tritayam (त्रितयम्) = triad/troika/set of three/triplet
na (न) = not
asti (अस्ति) = is
vāstavam (वास्तवम्) = in reality/in truth/genuine ।ajñānāt (अज्ञानात्) = from ignorance/from inexperience/through incomprehension
bhāti (भाति) = appears/to pass for/to manifest in a mistaken manner
yatra (यत्र) = where
idam (इदम्) = this ('this' as in the troika of knowledge, knowable and the knower)
saḥ (सः) = that
aham (अहम्) = I
asmi (अस्मि) = am
nirañjanaḥ (निरञ्जनः) = pure/spotless/unsullied/immaculate॥ 2-15॥

COMMENT:
From an epistemological* perspective, our perceived reality consists of three aspects, the knowledge itself (the object), the one know knows (the subject) and the realm of the knowable (the object arena perceived by the subject). In our conditioned reality handed down to us through education, stored memories, past experiences and societal interactions, we routinely recognize ourselves to be the knower (the subject or the one who knows). The accumulation of knowledge and our subjective understanding of such knowledge ultimately results in the formulation of a self-model always based upon this recognition as the knower (a self-model that considers itself alien and separate from our surroundings).
While on the subject of knowledge and the knower, a relevant little digression is helpful: it might be useful to quickly differentiate between the structure (the brain), the process (the mind) and consciousness (the emergent self-model within the structure as a result of the process). Brain is the physical structure. A dependent biological emergence from neurons, chemical complexes and electric potentials. Mind is the process - a dependent process emergent from the underlying structure - an amalgam of emotions, thoughts, experiences and memories modulated by emotions and other sensory stimuli. Consciousness is the emergent phenomena whose intimate and ultimate manifestation results in the development of a self-model in humans. Each of these three components are present in every sentient being, the degrees differ (while the structure itself might be there, the mind and the consciousness emerge in limited quantities within sentients other than humans).
One of the ways by which consciousness manifests itself is via the ever-constant and incessant, though automatic, arising of thoughts within our mind. As an example, let us consider the arising of a psychological sensation within our consciousness - say the feeling of hatred (the arising of the feeling of hatred itself is dependent upon multiple underlying inter-connected causal conditions that variously depend upon sensory stimuli, predispositions, conditioning, predilections and memories). In response to this psychological sensation, thoughts within us would autonomously assemble unremitting mental variations such as "This is hatred," or "I feel hatred," or "I am hatred." The very first thought variation announces a separation from the phenomenological sensation of hatred and produces a deluded feeling that there is an observer. Hatred as a separate sensation from the observer of the phenomenon of the sensation. The second thought variation alludes to the fact that there is a separate self endowed with appropriate qualities, characteristics and virtues; a self onto which the attribute of 'hatred' was just manifested and projected. The self thus is seen as experiencing the characteristic of hatred. If 'hatred' goes away, the self still remains - or so, it is inferred - leading to the separation of the self from the characteristic. The third thought variation identifies the self as one and the same with the attribute of 'hatred' at-that-moment. The separation and duality experienced in the third variation is subtle - as the self infers that at-this-moment, the self is synonymous with hatred, but there-are-other-moments where there are other attributes like love, hate or anger that the self can potentially be correlated with - leading to the feeling of separation of the self with those other attributes. All of the three variations of thought presented above inherently affirm their dualistic, albeit alienating nature where the self is separate - in the first case, the knower is separate from the knowledge; in the second case, the knower is separate from a property of knowledge and in the third, the knower is separate from any other attributes other than the one the knower is experiencing. In all of these three cases, there is a separation and the creation of a sense of self separate from the knowledge within the knowable. In these beautiful lines, Janaka makes clear that he understands that there is no separation between the knowledge, the realm of the knowable and the supposed self (the knower) perceiving the knowable. Janaka understands that the separation arises out of a sense of illusory immersion within the world of thoughts that spring up from the mental processes - mental processes that are hallucinatory at best and pernicious at worst. Janaka also realizes that the self only reinforces its sense of permanence within these thoughts created out of the notions, biases, impressions and perceptions propagating within the mental processes. Thus, he joyously proclaims that the triad; of knowledge, the knower and the knowable, in reality, does not exist and he is just a being onto which this triad manifests only through distracted ignorance.

*Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Epistemology addresses such questions as: "What makes justified beliefs justified?", "What does it mean to say that we know something?", and fundamentally "How do we know that we know?" Example: In mathematics, it is known that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person (e.g., knowing other persons, or knowing oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g., addition). Some philosophers think there is an important distinction between "knowing that" (know a concept), "knowing how" (understand an operation), and "acquaintance-knowledge" (know by relation), with epistemology being primarily concerned with the first of these.
Via James, William, The Principles of Psychology: Volume One, Henry Holt and Company, (New York), 1890: "I am acquainted with many people and things, which I know very little about, except their presence in the places where I have met them. I know the color blue when I see it, and the flavor of a pear when I taste it; I know an inch when I move my finger through it; a second of time, when I feel it pass; an effort of attention when I make it; a difference between two things when I notice it; but about the inner nature of these facts or what makes them what they are, I can say nothing at all. I cannot impart acquaintance with them to any one who has not already made it himself I cannot describe them, make a blind man guess what blue is like, define to a child a syllogism, or tell a philosopher in just what respect distance is just what it is, and differs from other forms of relation. At most, I can say to my friends, Go to certain places and act in certain ways, and these objects will probably come."

NOTES:

"The three: subject / perceiver, action / perception, object / perceived world cannot exist independently of each other, inherently, and meet once in a while. They are inseparable / interdependent / co-dependent / co-emergent / co-evolving / co-ceasing / non-dual ... <==> thus empty of inherent existence. Empty but still dependent on their causes and conditions and relatively functional." - Gilles Therrien

AVG 2.14

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 14
अहो अहं नमो मह्यं यस्य मे नास्ति किंचन ।
अथवा यस्य मे सर्वं यद्वाङ्मनसगोचरम् ॥ २-१४॥

PURPORT:
I remain amazed; salutations to myself!
I who have nothing to show for;
or, rather, everything that is spoken
and thought of is mine.

TRANSLITERATION:
अहो अहम् नमः मह्यम् यस्य मे न अस्ति किञ्चन ।
aho aham namaḥ mahyam yasya me na asti kiñcana ।
अथवा यस्य मे सर्वम् यत् वाङ्मनसगोचरम् ॥ २-१४॥
athavā yasya me sarvam yat vāṅmanasagocaram ॥ 2-14॥

MEANING:
aho (अहो) = astonished! [as an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised at himself]
aham (अहम्) = I am
namaḥ (नमः) = salutation/adoration
mahyam (मह्यम्) = to myself/for me
yasya (यस्य) = whose
me (मे) = my
na (न) = not
asti (अस्ति) = is
kiñcana (किञ्चन) = nothing/aught ।
athavā (अथवा) = or
yasya (यस्य) = whose
me (मे) = my
sarvam (सर्वम्) = everything/all
yat (यत्) = which (that which)
vāṅmanasagocaram (वाङ्मनसगोचरम्) = the range/field of action for the speech and thought (compound of vak (वाक) meaning speech, manasa (मनस) meaning mind/thought and gocaram (गोचरम्) meaning range of action) ॥ 2-14॥

COMMENT:
While the purport might seem a bit abstruse at first, these lines read within the context of the immediately previous verse (where Janaka does not see any separation between the physical body and the material universe) helps clear the background. Janaka says that he "has nothing to show for" as he does not see anything else as separate and apart from himself. He is part of it all and he does not see a separation nor any demarcation where his physical self 'ends' and the rest of the universe 'begins'. In this sense, he has nothing to show for. His being is in a harmonious unitary movement within the larger universe and he sees no need for (nor any reason to find) dualism in any shape or form. In the same breath, he also understands that "everything that is spoken and thought of is mine"; meaning that the universe of names, forms, shapes and sounds that he perceives is purely of his sensory fabrication of conventional truths and his cultural conditioning.

NOTES:

“The world is an illusion, but it is an illusion that we must take seriously, because it is as real as it goes, and in those aspects of reality which we are capable of apprehending. Our business is to wake up. We have to find ways in which to detect the whole of reality in the one illusory part which our self-centered consciousness permits us to see. We must not live thoughtlessly, taking our illusion for the complete reality, but at the same time we must not live too thoughtfully in the sense of trying to escape from the dream state. We must continually be on our watch for ways in which we may enlarge our consciousness. We must not attempt to live outside the world, which is given to us, but we must somehow learn how to transform it and transfigure it. Too much 'wisdom' is as bad as too little wisdom, and there must be no magic tricks. We must learn to come to reality without the enchanter's wand and his book of the words. One must find a way of being in this world while not being in it. A way of living in time without being completely swallowed up by time.” —- Aldous Huxley

AVG 2.13

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 13
अहो अहं नमो मह्यं दक्षो नास्तीह मत्समः ।
असंस्पृश्य शरीरेण येन विश्वं चिरं धृतम् ॥ २-१३॥

PURPORT:
I remain amazed; salutations to myself!
I confidently persevere, unlike the others,
sustaining the universe for all eternity,
without my body appropriating any part.

TRANSLITERATION:
अहो अहम् नमः मह्यम् दक्षः न अस्ति इह मत्समः ।
aho aham namaḥ mahyam dakṣaḥ na asti iha matsamaḥ ।
असंस्पृश्य शरीरेण येन विश्वम् चिरम् धृतम् ॥ २-१३॥
asaṃspṛśya śarīreṇa yena viśvam ciram dhṛtam ॥ 2-13॥

MEANING:
aho (अहो)  = astonished! [as an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised at himself]
aham (अहम्) = I am
namaḥ (नमः) = salutation/adoration
mahyam (मह्यम्) = to myself/for me
dakṣaḥ (दक्षः) = wise/capable/diligent/confident
na (न) = not
asti (अस्ति) = is
iha (इह) = in this
matsamaḥ (मत्समः) = like me/just like me ।
asaṃspṛśya (असंस्पृश्य) = without touching/without appropriation
śarīreṇa (शरीरेण) = with the body/with the help of the body
yena (येन) = for this (referring to the universe)
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
ciram (चिरम्) = existing from ancient times/lasting a long time/everlasting/forever
dhṛtam (धृतम्) = is borne (as in bearing the universe) ॥ 2-13॥

COMMENT:
Janaka here renders in beautiful verse his continued astonishment at the insight that his awareness has wrought. The fundamental underlying message herein is subtle – the crux being that when one considers that our physical bodies are organic apportionments of the universe at large, the concept of life and death become immaterial. Existence and extinction become essentially one. In that sense, our bodies are no different from any other entity out there – be it a clod of dust or the incandescent electric bulb. The fundamental building blocks that constitute our bodies come to fruition fortuitously based upon cooperating atoms and molecules enmeshed in an inter-dependent dance; a dance that emerges with our physical bodies and thinking selves. The same set of atoms and molecules, on death of the physical body, only decays back to the raw matter and cycles back to get organized within another form of a sentient being or a non-sentient entity. When Janaka mentions that he confidently perseveres in the understanding that he sustains the universe for all eternity without his body appropriating any part of the universe, the import is immediate – life does not have a beginning nor an end – it is a continuous dance and Janaka now knows that he is part of the dance. While alive, our bodies nourish themselves and after death, the same body (in the process of dissipation) nourishes other forms of sentient and non-sentient matter. The cycle propagates thus.

AVG 2.12

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 12
अहो अहं नमो मह्यं एकोऽहं देहवानपि ।
क्वचिन्न गन्ता नागन्ता व्याप्य विश्वमवस्थितः ॥ २-१२॥

PURPORT:
I remain amazed; salutations to myself!
Though I am actualized in this body, I am One.
I neither go anywhere nor come from anywhere,
but, I am present, pervading the universe.

TRANSLITERATION:
अहो अहम् नमः मह्यम् एक अहम् देहवान् अपि ।
aho aham namaḥ mahyam eka aham dehavān api ।
क्वचित् न गन्ता न आगन्ता व्याप्य विश्वम् अवस्थितः ॥ २-१२॥
kvacit na gantā na āgantā vyāpya viśvam avasthitaḥ ॥ 2-12॥

MEANING:
aho (अहो)  = astonished! [as an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised at himself]
aham (अहम्) = I am
namaḥ (नमः) = salutation/adoration
mahyam (मह्यम्) = to myself/for me
eka (एक) = one (as in one without duality of any kind)
aham (अहम्) = I
dehavān (देहवान्) = having a body/being embodied
api (अपि) = even (as in ‘even though I am embodied’) ।
kvacit (क्वचित्) = anywhere/in whatever place
na (न) = not
gantā (गन्ता) = going (as in ‘going from anywhere)
na (न) = not
āgantā (आगन्ता) =  coming
vyāpya (व्याप्य) = permeable/pervading everywhere
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
avasthitaḥ (अवस्थितः) = to be present/to have its place or abode/existing ॥ 2-12॥

COMMENT:
Janaka here talks about his realization of the underlying oneness that connects his physical body to the universe. His joy at realizing that the material constituents of his body is in reality in a harmonious continuum with the rest of the matter within the universe is palpable (repeated use of the phrase "I remain amazed; salutations to myself!" across this verse as well as subsequent ones attest to this).
Our bodies are chemical machines with no notion of separateness from the nature that surrounds us. After physical death, the remnants remain with the flow of sentient and non-sentient matter within the universe - our bodies come from this and to this it returns. The fortuitous collection of atoms that temporally came together to form our bodies does not desire in any sort of a manner towards an afterlife or immortality or a state of eternality. All the body does during its brief sojourn here is two things: making sure that internal equilibria are maintained via homeostasis and making sure that the genetic imprint of the body is passed on via the reproductive activity.
In this regard, the brain is a part of the inter-dependent mechanism within the body that strives to manage, maintain and regulate these two processes. So, one might ask, if this were the case, where do feelings of impermanence, unhappiness and the resultant suffering come from? How is thought (and thinking) connected with all of this if the body is a chemical machine that strives to homeostasis and reproduction?
This is where the influence of shared culture and the conditioning of thoughts with the artifacts of culture come into the picture. Culture imposes its own conditioning upon the brain in the form of preferences, choices and perceived pleasurable outcomes. In a deeper fundamental manner, the body does not care too much for happiness or pleasure as long as its basic functions of homeostasis and reproduction are satisfied. Even if the body does not care too much, our thoughts are conditioned towards craving and permanence within the realm of pleasurable outcomes - outcomes that are deemed pleasurable based on our cultural prejudices and leanings. The innate insistence to keep desiring more and more of the same is really the projection of our feelings of permanence upon those aspects of our life. Such projections of permanence are further driven by the sensory inputs that amplify our latent prejudicial projections.
Of course, as far as the body is concerned, notions of permanence are really anathema - as the body is focused on homeostasis and reproduction - not on permanence of any manner. So, we have this interplay between two forces - where the body wants to carry on its basic functions that evolution and programmed genetics have set out to perform while the force of conditioned thoughts within our brains puts our thoughts/brains at odds with the body - leading to feelings of body/mind separation and the resultant dualities. The fear and confusion borne out of this dynamic interplay is the measure of misery we bring to bear upon ourselves as well as our fellow sentients in this world. Our overarching insistence towards the search for permanence in the objects we cherish as well as the sense of separation that such a search imputes within ourselves results in suffering and dissatisfaction. While the body as a unitary whole will arise, endure and dissipate, it is the process of thought and thinking that leads us to a place of dissatisfaction, unhappiness and suffering.

An additional note: The sense of wanting to attribute a notion of permanence to entities per our cultural conditioning is the process of thinking and thinking is the process by which we impute an imaginary sense of permanence to entities deemed so per our cultural conditioning processes.

AVG 2.11

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 11
अहो अहं नमो मह्यं विनाशो यस्य नास्ति मे ।
ब्रह्मादिस्तम्बपर्यन्तं जगन्नाशोऽपि तिष्ठतः ॥ २-११॥

PURPORT:
I remain amazed; salutations to myself!
I, who know no decrepitude,
cannot atrophy nor abate,
even if manifest reality be negated
right down to the last blade of grass.

TRANSLITERATION:
अहो अहम् नमः मह्यम् विनाशः यस्य न अस्ति मे ।
aho aham namaḥ mahyam vināśaḥ yasya na asti me ।
ब्रह्मादिस्तम्बपर्यन्तम् जगन्नाशो अपि तिष्ठतः ॥ २-११॥
brahmādistambaparyantam jagannāśo api tiṣṭhataḥ ॥ 2-11॥

MEANING:
aho (अहो)  = astonished! [as an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised at himself]
aham (अहम्) = I am
namaḥ (नमः) = salutation/adoration (related note: Namaskaram means the process of salutations. The word is Namaskara i.e. NamaH is salutations and Kara (karanam) is the process. Difference between Namaskaram and Namaste: नमस् + कृ = नमः कार = नमस्कारः नमस् denotes salutations. This is combined with the verb कृ to make the word Namaskara. The word Namaskara as a whole means “The act of bowing to someone or saluting someone”. नमस् + ते = नमस्ते Here नमस् is Combined with ते which means “to you”. So Namaste means “Salutations to you”. This is generally used when addressing someone personally.)
mahyam (मह्यम्) = to myself/for me
vināśaḥ (विनाशः) = annihilation/destruction/perdition
yasya (यस्य) = whose/of that which
na (न) = not
asti (अस्ति) = is/to be
me (मे) = my ।
brahmādistambaparyantam (ब्रह्मादिस्तम्बपर्यन्तम्) = all the way from Brahma down to a tiny clump of grass
jagannāśo (जगन्नाशो) = armageddon/apocalyptic end of the world as we know it/destruction of the world
api (अपि) = even
tiṣṭhataḥ (तिष्ठतः) = stay/abide/remain existing/remain potent ॥ 2-11॥

COMMENT:
The themes recurrent at the heart of this verse is resurgence, elimination and a form of enduring that while impermanent is nevertheless uplifting. Within these spare, beautifully rendered lines, Janaka talks about the awareness that he sees WITHIN and WITHOUT himself. Within, he finds a measure of calm acceptance of fundamental truths that offers in him an internal fortitude and confidence ("I, who know no decrepitude, cannot atrophy nor abate") with understanding an existence that is not permanent. Without, he finds that the application of such an awareness allows for the mental equipoise to comprehend the latent impermanence of all manifest matter within this universe.

I have a little back story here to accompany this particular verse that brings it home for me: In a corner of my office at work where the windows meet, I have a relatively large chunk of bedrock that once formed the understory of Manhattan. An amateur assay of the rock I had undertaken indicated that it was composed of Fordham gneiss that was deposited over 500 to 600 million years ago. The dull black surface is broken up by flecks of mica that catch the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Every once in a while, we are visited upon by the forces of erosion and I notice that tiny bits of the rock break off and collects underneath. I dutifully dust off the flecks the keep the area tidy. I reason that given enough time and enough fluctuations in temperature, air currents and sunlight (or the lack thereof), the solidity of the rock will have long gone, bit by bit breaking off ever so gradually until nothing more than dust remains. In due course, the dust will doubtless be scattered. Impermanence of manifest entities is a difficult concept to get ones head around; not because the concept itself is hard, but, because we do not want to be reminded of the same. In polite society, talk of decay and death is oftentimes taboo; sometimes, downright rude. Yet, the only absolute truth that one can certainly state about any manifest entity that we encounter is the onset of decay and the certainty of eventual dissolution into our constituent elements. If you ask me, impermanence rules the cosmos; from the change of seasons, to the slow fade of a photograph to decrepitating books to the cycle of birth and death amongst our sentients to mountain ranges eroding in response to the movement of continental plates to planets changing course; there is no real way to escape the fact that impermanence is everywhere around us. In fact it is the only certainty that we can be assured of in our relatively short stint of existence on this planet. So, of course, it reasons to ask: why is it that we never broach the subject of eventual decay, dissolution and the general importance of everything? Maybe we are hard-wired genetically to not focus on impermanence so that we may concentrate on the proliferation of our species? Maybe the thought of impermanence is stultifying in and of itself that we do not want to think about it as it might a complete let-down on our otherwise precarious mood levels? Maybe we reason that will be able to escape the perceived curse of impermanence if we do not think or talk about death? But, I find that keeping oneself close to the ideas and the concept of impermanence is not stultifying in the least and is in fact, a healthy perspective. It gives credence to the underlying reality that we are sentient on this planet for a short period of time. It further pushes the thinking that we give the best of what we have to the world in that short period of time. We also begin to understand that all of our fellow-travelers on similar short journeys with whom we are fortunate to travel also have similarly short stints. A mindset grounded on a substratum of impermanence grounds our thinking. Impermanence as a concept is not only applicable to our fellow-travelers, but also the world and the universe at large. Entropy being the greatest common leveler, even something solid as a rock that seems whole and immobile eventually weathers away. The only constant that seems to be ever-present with our waking lives is continuous change and eventual dissolution. While some might find the concept of thinking about and introducing the idea of impermanence within our daily lives dreary at best and downright depressing at worst, I find this notion liberating. It reminds me of our boundaries that are bookended and clearly bracketed; boundaries that comprise arising via association, dependent enduring and eventual cessation. It reminds me of the fact that we should treat each waking moment in as precious a manner as possible and approach each moment with the feeling that this moment is the only one we really have to call our very own as the present is all we have. I use the rock to remind myself of impermanence.
Reading these verses again, it dawns that Janaka sees the impermanence allowing for his happiness to confidently shine through. 

AVG 2.10

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 10
मत्तो विनिर्गतं विश्वं मय्येव लयमेष्यति ।
मृदि कुम्भोजले वीचिः  कनके कटकं यथा ॥ २-१०॥

PURPORT:
Just as a clay pot renders into earth, as
waves restore to water and a bracelet to gold;
so too the universe, which materialized
from me, will coalesce into me.

TRANSLITERATION:
मत्तः विनिर्गतम् विश्वम् मयि एव लयम् एष्यति ।
mattaḥ vinirgatam viśvam mayi eva layam eṣyati ।
मृदि कुम्भः जले वीचिः  कनके कटकम् यथा ॥ २-१०॥
mṛdi kumbhaḥ jale vīciḥ kanake kaṭakam yathā ॥ 2-10॥

MEANING:
mattaḥ (मत्तः) = from me
vinirgatam (विनिर्गतम्) = come forth/issued out/emanate
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
mayi (मयि) = in me
eva (एव) = surely
layam (लयम्) = dissolution/fuse/coalesce/merge
eṣyati (एष्यति) = will go into [as in ‘will coalesce into me’] ।
mṛdi (मृदि) = in[to] clay/mud
kumbhaḥ (कुम्भः) = pot/jar/pitcher
jale (जले) = in[to] water/aqua
vīciḥ (वीचिः) = wave/crest
kanake (कनके) = in[to] gold/gilt
kaṭakam (कटकम्) = bracelet/ornament
yathā (यथा) = as/just as ॥ 2-10॥

COMMENT:
The names-and-form denoted by the words 'clay', 'water' and 'ornaments' in the verses refer to conventional designations assigned by our culture based on commonly agreed upon linguistic precepts. One realizes that these words form an aspect of language that does not refer to actual entities and things, but instead is a self-referential framework of customs, habits, usage patterns and syntax that strives to create a common and convenient basis for communication. That is all there is - there is no 'clay-spirit' or 'water-essence' or 'ornament-nature' hidden behind these words - there is nothing enduring nor permanent about these concepts. All of our thinking, reasoning, logic and ideations within our respective linguistic frameworks presupposes two fundamental categories that lead us into confusedly assigning an inherent basis to the words themselves - firstly, the imputed category of 'identity' denoting 'of the entity' to the word and the duality=based-category of 'difference' denoting 'not of that entity'. On deeper analysis, these categories are irrational and lack any underlying antecedent foundational substrate. In this sense 'clay', 'water' and 'ornaments' are ideations developed by us and of use only to us. They lack any inherent essential substratum. Just as clay, water and ornaments referred to in the verse subsume into their elemental formulations of earth, water and gold respectively, Janaka joyously proclaims that the universe itself that has materialized for him in terms of names and forms of a similar nature subsumes within himself.

It helps me to visualize the non-dual nature conveyed by this verse in terms of the following examples: the verse states (“so too the universe, ...will coalesce into me”) - firstly, from an elemental perspective, we are all structurally created out of elements created in the original creation of the Big Bang - we are that - every portion of our bodies was forged in the furnace like crucibles within the hearts of stars and supernovae - we are that!. Secondly, from a perspective of pure awareness, it is said that the distance and the perspective between our material bodies and the universe always tends to a minimal value (some say zero even!) on deeper introspection; while that statement itself might sound 'new-agey' to some, it is said that certain peak-flow* experiences lead the individual to a station within their self-being where the perception of time, the understanding of space, form and size occupied by our material bodies, their internal locational tracking systems, our sense that we sense itself - all of this tends to fall away and one transcends into a seamless union with the larger reality. I have not had the fortune to experience this, but I have understood from first-hand accounts of seers and seekers who seem to have reached these states - albeit briefly - but, ever so life-changing..

*From Bowers, J. Flow and peak experiences (G. R. Elkins (Ed.), Handbook of medical and psychological hypnosis: Foundations, applications, and professional issues (pp. 559-563). New York, NY, US: Springer Publishing Company): "Flow is an experience that occurs when a person is performing at his or her most effective in regards to mental energy. People who have entered a flow state are intrinsically motivated and enjoy the experience. This peak experience involves a state of absorption where one experiences a balance between his expected challenge in the task and his ability level. There are currently nine identified components of flow: challenge-skill balance, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, action-awareness merging, concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time, and the autotelic experience. Entering a flow state can be of benefit to people in many fields and many stages of life. Research suggests that older adults can benefit from flow as well as many students and performers from pianists, to golfers, to video-gamers. Currently, hypnosis has been used to help create triggers for flow in athletes so that they may be able to pair previous flow states and recall them using the trigger. Using hypnosis can be a productive way to help patients enter a flow state and experience peak performance in many areas of their lives, improving motivation and enjoyment".

AVG 2.9

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 9
अहो विकल्पितं विश्वमज्ञानान्मयि भासते ।
रूप्यं शुक्तौ फणी रज्जौ वारि सूर्यकरे यथा ॥ २-९॥

PURPORT:
Oh!, the universe appears within me
from incomprehension, just as
silver appears within nacre, as
a snake appears within coiled rope,
and a mirage appears at the bright horizon.

TRANSLITERATION:
अहो विकल्पितम् विश्वम् अज्ञानात् मयि भासते ।
aho vikalpitam viśvam ajñānāt mayi bhāsate ।
रूप्यम् शुक्तौ फणी रज्जौ वारि सूर्यकरे यथा ॥ २-९॥
rūpyam śuktau phaṇī rajjau vāri sūryakare yathā ॥ 2-9॥

MEANING:
aho (अहो) = oh wow! [an exclamation of being pleasantly surprised]
vikalpitam (विकल्पितम्) = imagined/fancied/conjectured
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
ajñānāt (अज्ञानात्) = through ignorance/from incomprehension
mayi (मयि) = in me/within me
bhāsate (भासते) = appears/to be conceived or imagined ।
rūpyam (रूप्यम्) = wrought silver or gold
śuktau (शुक्तौ) = within the nacre (nacre is an organic-inorganic composite material produced by some mollusks as an inner shell layer)/within the mother of pearl
phaṇī (फणी) = snake/serpent
rajjau (रज्जौ) = within a rope [as in mistaking the form of a snake within the shape of coiled rope]
vāri (वारि) = water/fluid [reference to mirage like water is the intent here]
sūryakare (सूर्यकरे) = in the sunbeam/in the rays of the sun [reference to the bright horizon of a desert where one might run into a mirage is the intent here]
yathā (यथा) =  just as/as ॥ 2-9॥

COMMENTS:
All of reality is interaction. Interaction that manifests as reality is the mechanism whereby dependent processes act in concert and conjunction to give rise to emergent phenomena that may themselves serve as the causal conditions for the arising of still others. Phenomena at the smallest scales (quarks) to the biggest scales (superclusters of galaxies) are manifested in a similar manner. Sentient beings like ourselves see patterns and entities within such dependent interactions and label (assign name and form) them accordingly. In addition to seeing the patterns, we are also conditioned to seeing connections and causal relations between such patterns (regardless of whether such causal relations exist or not) and our immediate tendency is to name and label such connections.
Over time, our collective selves become more and more attuned and accustomed to labeling and naming and we tend to lose semblance of the underlying reality. The labels, heuristics, names and shortcuts that were supposed to aid us in getting to the nature of the underlying reality now becomes an illusionary reality overlaid on the underlying reality.
It is important at this juncture to clearly understand that the world and the universe is not an illusion. Many of us are caught up in this semantic turn of phrase and then tend to discount conversations that involve the words 'world' and 'illusion' in one sentence. The world and universe is NOT an illusion. The world and the universe is LIKE an illusion. This is what the verses also eloquently state here ("silver appears within nacre, snake appears within coiled rope, and a mirage appears at the bright horizon").
The illusion engendered can be clarified by a spiritual-scientific discipline combined with concentrative awareness and contemplative reflection. Understand that world and the universe being LIKE an illusion is primarily due to two fundamental reasons:  our conditioning and cognitive biases in not seeing things the way they are in truth and secondly, the process of 'thinking' itself taking a primal position as light of consciousness crowding out the underlying awareness rooted within oneself.
As a final note, there is a word 'maya' in Sanskrit that beautifully describes this the concept of illusion: Maya (माया / māyā), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In ancient Vedic literature, Māyā literally implies extraordinary power and wisdom. In later Vedic texts and modern literature dedicated to Indian traditions, Māyā connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem". Māyā is also a spiritual concept connoting "that which exists, but is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal", and the "power or the principle that conceals the true character of spiritual reality". Maya simply means that all matter is an illusion of the mind.

NOTES:
From section XLIV (On the Nature of Maya) from the Lankavatara Sutra (translated from Sanskrit by D T Suzuki):
Said the One: "Further, Mahamati, Maya is not an unreality, because it has the appearance of reality; and all things have the nature of Maya."
Said Mahamati: "Is it, that all things are like Maya because Maya is something imagined and clung to as having multitudinousness of individual forms? Or is it due to the incorrect imagining of individual forms? If all things have the likeness of Maya because Maya is something imagined and clung to as having multitudinousness of individual forms, then things are not like Maya. Why? Because forms are seen in the multitudinousness of individual signs not without due causes. If they ever appear without due causes, assuming the multitudinousness of individual signs and shapes, then they would be like Maya. For this reason, things are like Maya is not because they are both alike in being imagined and clung to as having multitudinousness of individual signs.
Said the One: "It is not, Mahamati, that all things are Maya because they are both alike in being imagined and clung to as having multitudinousness of individual signs, but that all things are like Maya because they are unreal.. ..Mahamati, all things assume individuality and generality according to the discrimination [of the Mind] itself. When the state of imagelessness is recognized, objects which are imagined and clung to as in possession of individual signs cease to assert themselves. Thus it is said: Maya is not without reality, because it has something resembling it; the reality of all things is talked of in a similar manner; they are unreal like a lightning-flash [appearing and disappearing] quickly, and therefore they are regarded as resembling Maya."

AVG 2.8

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 8
प्रकाशो मे निजं रूपं नातिरिक्तोऽस्म्यहं ततः ।
यदा प्रकाशते विश्वं तदाहंभास एव हि ॥ २-८॥

PURPORT:
Light is my elemental nature, and
I am not disparate from light.
When the universe manifests,
then, truly, it is I that shine.

TRANSLITERATION:
प्रकाशः मे निजम् रूपम् न अतिरिक्तः अस्मि अहम् ततः ।
prakāśaḥ me nijam rūpam na atiriktaḥ asmi aham tataḥ ।
यदा प्रकाशते विश्वम् तदा अहंभासः एव हि ॥ २-८॥
yadā prakāśate viśvam tadā ahaṃbhāsaḥ eva hi ॥ 2-8॥
MEANING:
prakāśaḥ (प्रकाशः) = light/lustre/brightness
me (मे) = my/mine
nijam (निजम्) = innate/intrinsic/elemental
rūpam (रूपम्) = nature/appearance/form/mode
na (न) = not
atiriktaḥ (अतिरिक्तः) = different from/distinct from/disparate to
asmi (अस्मि) =  am [as in ‘I am’]
aham (अहम्) = I
tataḥ (ततः) = from that/from that/due to that/therefore/therefrom।
yadā (यदा) = when
prakāśate (प्रकाशते) = become evident or become manifest/make noticeable
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
tadā (तदा) = then
ahaṃbhāsaḥ (अहंभासः) = I will shine/I will show lustre [as in ‘I that shines’]
eva (एव) = alone
hi (हि) = surely/verily/truly ॥ 2-8॥

COMMENTS:
In these verses, Janaka continues in his happy state of understanding his own-self and tells Ashtavakra that he realizes that his innate nature is a form of awareness that he metaphorically juxtaposes with light - an illuminating, radiant form of clarity that enlightens and enlivens the very core of his being. He is conscious awareness and conscious awareness is him - a seamless union of awareness and the one who possesses it (as the verse beautifully lays out with the line "light is my elemental nature and I am not disparate from light"). This form of awareness allows for Janaka to participate in the universe of designated names and imputed forms fully cognizant of the underlying reality that lacks inherent essence. Janaka understands that for him to intelligently navigate a world that is conventionally designated by labels, patterns and conventions, he will need to reconcile his deeper understanding of reality (the idea of selflessness and the lack of any foundational essence) with everyday conventional reality. To this end, he understands that he will need to harmonize conventional truths, representational designations and everyday dualities that we are constantly confronted with. The knowledge that the designations and concepts like reality, self, spirit or soul all have their importance, legitimacy and efficacy when they are applied within an internal frame of reference that encompasses the latent impermanence of all such entities as well as the lack of inherent essence within any entity.

NOTES:
On the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness: A concept developed within the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead where one commits the fallacy of misplaced concreteness when one mistakes an abstract belief, opinion, or concept about the way things are for a physical or "concrete" reality. Mr. Whitehead says that this is an error, but, it is merely the accidental error of mistaking the abstract for the concrete. Whitehead proposed the fallacy in a discussion of the relation of spatial and temporal location of objects. He rejects the notion that a concrete physical object in the universe can be ascribed a simple spatial or temporal extension, that is, without reference to its relations to other spatial or temporal extensions. Very similar to notions and concepts presented here where the foundational essence behind any one entity cannot be detected; instead, one can only perceive the dependent arising of existents and entities via the contingent interrelationships of constituent portions.

REFERENCES:
Alfred North Whitehead: Process and Reality, An essay in cosmology, Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28
Full essay here: https://archive.org/details/AlfredNorthWhiteheadProcessAndReality

AVG 2.7

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 7

आत्माज्ञानाज्जगद्भाति आत्मज्ञानान्न भासते ।

रज्ज्वज्ञानादहिर्भाति तज्ज्ञानाद्भासते न हि ॥ २-७॥

PURPORT:

The world appears to be perceived so

due to a poverty of self-awareness;

the impression disappears when

there is knowledge of the self.

Similarly, the snake is perceived so

due to non-cognition of the rope; and

disappears with its recognition.

TRANSLITERATION:

आत्म अज्ञानात् जगत् भाति आत्मज्ञानात् न भासते ।

ātma ajñānāt jagat bhāti ātmajñānāt na bhāsate ।

रज्ज्व् अज्ञानात् अहिः भाति तज्ज्ञानात् भासते न हि ॥ २-७॥

rajjv ajñānāt ahiḥ bhāti tajjñānāt bhāsate na hi ॥ 2-7॥

MEANING:

ātma (आत्म) = the self-model/the self-awareness/self

ajñānāt (अज्ञानात्) = from the ignorance of [referring to the self here]

jagat (जगत्) = universe

bhāti (भाति) = appears to be/perception of/knowledge of

ātmajñānāt (आत्मज्ञानात्) = from the knowledge of the self-model/from the knowledge offered by the awareness of the self

na (न) = not

bhāsate (भासते) = to occur to the mind/to appear to the mind ।

rajjv (रज्ज्व्) = rope/cord

ajñānāt (अज्ञानात्) = from the non-cognizance of/stemming from the ignorance of [referring to the rope here]

ahiḥ (अहिः) = snake

bhāti (भाति) = appears to be/perception of/knowledge of

tajjñānāt (तज्ज्ञानात्) = from the recognition of that/from the awareness of that [referring to the rope here] [compound of tat meaning ‘that’ and jñānāt meaning ‘from the recognition/awareness/perception of’]

bhāsate (भासते) = to occur to the mind/to appear to the mind

na (न) = not

hi (हि) = indeed/certainly/verily ॥ 2-7॥

COMMENT:

These verses further pry at the nature of reality, our awareness of reality and the self-model generated by our minds in response to conditioning, phenomenal interactions and sensory inputs. The very first line ('world appears to be perceived so due to a poverty of self-awareness') expertly teases out the indeterminacy as it applies to 'reality'. An indeterminacy of the metaphysical kind where, on analysis, entities neither exist nor not exist. Conventional reality that we encounter in everyday phenomenological processes clearly indicate that it will be absurd to posit that entities within objective reality are non-existent - the chair that I sit on right now is a solid wooden structure that supports my physical form - to characterize the chair as otherwise will lead to charges of incipient idiocy. On the other hand, it is seen that entities do not exist (in the deepest sense of that metaphysical term ‘exist’) when entities are analyzed as being devoid of any inherent existence and as lacking any form of 'true foundational essence' - a chair is only a chair since we classify, categorize and designate it so and our conditioned minds are habituated to characterize the article of furniture thus - there is no enduring quality or essence behind the concept of 'chairness' to be found within this universe, however hard one might look for such a quality (the same way there is no enduring inherent quality of selfhood, godliness, soul, creator or spirit). Yet, the self-model we generate over our formative years hardens and lends itself to a substantialist and essentialist perspective to our phenomenological experiences. It is this process of assigning substantiality and essentiality that leads to identification with the ego, the resultant attachment and the manifested possessiveness. Our awareness of reality is clouded by these factors.

Even as we understand that the small sliver of objective reality that we encounter (the part that we call conventional reality - eg. the chairs of the world) is but a poor and partial representation of objective reality, it is clear that the representation generated thus is exquisitely tuned by our evolutionary forces for us to continue to engage in two of the most fundamental activities that all sentient beings in this universe strive towards: procreation of the species and homeostasis to maintain various internal equilibria. Even as we understand that the full panoply of reality might itself never be knowable, we continue to actively believe and engage with the active hallucination created for us by our minds so that these two overarching objectives of sentient beings are accomplished. The evolutionary forces are thus tuned to mesh the twin objectives of procreation and homeostasis to the organisms inherent 'drive to stay alive'. This drive is reinforced every second by the mind actively engaging the organism in the following hypothetical feedback cycle: “there is a future state of being out there extrapolated from present state of sensory inputs; that future state contains 'you'; this 'you' will continue to breathe, live and exist in that future state; let me use all of the conventional reality made interrogable by the sense organs to construct this state of continuity; let me update this every second so that a semblance of continuity within conventional reality is achieved”; or, in other words, a state of active hallucination maintained and propagated every second of our waking and dreaming lives.

The continual flux of self-generated mental activity* that occurs within the mind in terms of recycling thoughts, emotions and memories help to further reinforce the active hallucination carried out by the mind by additionally embellishing the active narrative generated with appropriate strands of memories, emotional attachments (to memories) as well as learning and conditioning. This is a continuous process that happens from the time we are infants to the time we pass on to our elemental basics. Evolutionarily, I am of the view that the prefrontal mind (the thinking, planning and strategizing part of our brains) developed this model to counter the overwhelming feeling of impermanence that constantly assails the pre-frontal from all sides. Impermanence in terms of the continual decay that visits every existent entity to the flux that entities undergo up until the eventual dissolution of all entities (sentient or otherwise) to elemental basics.

Given this background of the generated self-model and the mind-wandering aspects of our phenomenological being, how do we attain a measure of equanimity? The overarching philosophy behind Janaka's lines here and the process (in my perspective) is to develop a specific contemplative mode - a mode that allows one to consciously experience the world from an inherently selfless perspective. The mode where one understands phenomena and our own actions by removing the self from the subjective and objective aspects of our being. I have seen the phrase ‘seeing out of emptiness’, observing without an observer’ and ‘impartial insight from choice-less awareness’ in this regard – all are good to describe this state of being. A mental posture of discernment and recognition where the observer neither increases nor decreases anything from what is present based upon the observers conditioning; instead, the observer indulges in a form of targeted examination of ‘thusness’ within the backdrop of inter-connectedness and impermanence. The observer in this mode will not act as an ‘agent of action’; instead the observer will only be what the word says and means – an OBSERVER who clearly understands that things experienced are neither real nor are unreal. Almost akin to the concept of turning the contemporary idea of eidetic reduction** on its head – where one works to eidetically reduce phenomena to a place where the reduction process leads one to an empty, essence-less awareness of reality (instead of finding an underlying essence). So, back to where we started, as Janaka alludes to – understanding the nature of reality as indeterminacy of the metaphysical kind where, on analysis, said entities neither exist nor not exist.

NOTES:

*The waking mind is often occupied with self-generated mental activity that are minimally inhibited by events in the present moment. These self-generated thoughts (called mind-wandering) allow us to connect our past and futures together, help with long-term planning and a source of creative inspiration. Although self-generated thoughts may be disruptive to the tasks of the moment, it is seen that autonomous self-generation of thought allows for the freedom to move from the here and now to a planned future state and thus reflects an evolutionary adaptation that allows the mind to perform actions that are not simply a reflexive response to the outside world.

** Eidetic reduction is a technique in the study of essences in phenomenology whose goal is to identify the basic components of phenomena. Eidetic reduction requires that a phenomenologist examine the essence of a mental object, be it a simple mental act, or the unity of consciousness itself, with the intention of drawing out the absolutely necessary and invariable components that make the mental object what it is. This reduction is done with the intention of removing what is perceived, and leaving only what is required. Eidetic reduction is a form of imaginative variation by which one attempts to reduce a phenomenon into its necessary essences. This is done by theoretically changing different elements (while mentally observing whether or not the phenomenon changes) of a practical object to learn which characteristics are necessary for it to be it without being something else. If a characteristic is changed, and the object remains unchanged, the characteristic is unnecessary to the essence of the object, and vice versa. That which cannot be eliminated is part of the example's essence.

REFERENCES:

Thomas K. Metzinger: Why Is Virtual Reality Interesting for Philosophers?

Thomas K. Metzinger: Are you sleepwalking now?

Thomas K. Metzinger: Minimal Phenomenal Experience The ARAS-model theory: Steps toward a minimal model of conscious experience as such.

AVG 2.6

Chapter 2 (The Seekers Joy at Self-Cognizance): Verse 6
यथैवेक्षुरसे क्लृप्ता तेन व्याप्तैव शर्करा ।
तथा विश्वं मयि क्लृप्तं मया व्याप्तं निरन्तरम् ॥ २-६॥

PURPORT:
Just as sugar produced from the sugarcane
is thoroughly infused within its juice;
similarly so, the universe is produced in me, and
is wholly permeated by me uninterruptedly.

TRANSLITERATION:
यथा एव इक्षुरसे क्लृप्ता तेन व्याप्ता एव शर्करा ।
yathā eva ikṣurase klṛptā tena vyāptā eva śarkarā ।
तथा विश्वम् मयि क्लृप्तं मया व्याप्तम् निरन्तरम् ॥ २-६॥
tathā viśvam mayi klṛptaṃ mayā vyāptam nirantaram ॥ 2-6॥

MEANING:
yathā (यथा) = as
eva (एव) = just
ikṣurase (इक्षुरसे) = in the juice of the sugar-cane (compound of ikṣu (इक्षु) meaning 'sugarcane' and rase (रसे) meaning 'within the juice')
klṛptā (क्लृप्ता) = produced
tena (तेन) = with that (as in within that juice)
vyāptā (व्याप्ता) = pervaded/spread through/infused/permeate
eva (एव) = thoroughly/utterly
śarkarā (शर्करा) =  sugar ।
tathā (तथा) = similarly/so
viśvam (विश्वम्) = universe
mayi (मयि) = in me
klṛptaṃ (क्लृप्तं) = produced/created
mayā (मया) = by me
vyāptam (व्याप्तम्) = pervaded
nirantaram (निरन्तरम्) = without interval/continuously/through and through ॥ 2-6॥

COMMENT:
This verse is a beautiful illustration of Janaka's supreme feeling of oneness with the universe where he maintains that there is no divergence between his own perceptual awareness of the universe that is generated by his self-model and the fact that the same universe is wholly permeated by him without interruption. The metaphor used to drive this point home is lucid and commonsensical in its clarity of vision - that of the sweetness of the sugar produced from the sugarcane juice utterly permeating all of the juice distilled from the sugarcane.
Looking back, it is now clear that the last three verses dealt with the concept of oneness; starting with the foam, bubbles, waves and water to the metaphor of the woven thread forming the fabric to the implied comparison using sugar cane juice and sugar.
In each of these three verses, the over-riding theme is one of a seamless inter-mixing of the observer (Janaka) and the perceived (the universe as generated by the self-model of the observer). Using these implicit correlations and metaphors, Janaka understands that all manifest phenomena are (at the end of the day) emergent complexity that arises in a dependent manner based upon prior inter-related processes, states and conditions. The emergent universe thus can be construed to have been erected upon an inter-dependent network of parts that are contingent upon each other (of which Janaka himself is but an interdependent moiety).
The additional motif that colors all three of these verses is the illusory and probabilistic nature of manifest reality and the simple truth is that one cannot make absolute statements about any phenomena whatsoever (be it the universe or the aurora in the skies or the purported soul within us). The traditional understanding that whatever we experience in our interactions with the world (and universe at large) has some underlying reality and a concrete existence independent of our observations/experiences is not true. It is now understood that the phenomena that we are observe are directly affected by the very process of our observing them (cue the Uncertainty Principle). This means that our observations are not objective and independent but relative. Put another way, one cannot make any statement and refer to the same an absolute fact – every statement, every sentence, every word stands contingent upon a framework of understanding that is built up in a dependent manner – this is the case with linguistics or with any other field of enquiry. This may be said about time and space too; the thinking that time and space are absolute universal phenomena and that the passing of time and the idea of space is the same for all people under all circumstances is untrue. It is now clear that the rate of passing of time is relative to its observer and space is curved by the presence of mass (cue the Theory of Relativity here). Indeed, at the level of subatomic events, causality itself, one of the fundamental planks upon which the erstwhile world-view was constructed become absurd. At this level, we can no longer speak of individual events and their causes. All we can do is to measure groups of events and assign probabilities of interaction and dependence to them. Thus we find causality being replaced by probability of interaction. We find that the nature of reality is not absolute in any sense of the word, but is relative in every sense of the word. The maxim that all reality is interaction is indeed true.

NOTES:
"What we normally call the mind is the deluded mind, a turbulent vortex of thoughts whipped up by attachment, anger, and ignorance. This mind, unlike enlightened awareness, is always being carried away by one delusion after another. ...Yet, however strong these thoughts may seem, they are just thoughts and will eventually dissolve back into emptiness. Once you recognize the intrinsic nature of the mind, these thoughts that seem to appear and disappear all the time can no longer fool you. Just as clouds form, last for a while, and then dissolve back into the empty sky, so deluded thoughts arise, remain for a while, and then vanish into the voidness of mind; in reality nothing at all has happened. When sunlight falls on a crystal, lights of all colors of the rainbow appear; yet they have no substance that you can grasp. Likewise, all thoughts in their infinite variety - devotion, compassion, harmfulness, desire - are utterly without substance. There is no thought that is something other than voidness; if you recognize the void nature of thoughts at the very moment they arise, they will dissolve. Attachment and hatred will never be able to disturb the mind. Deluded emotions will collapse by themselves. No negative actions will be accumulated, so no suffering will follow." – Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche from the book "The Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones"

REFERENCES:
Momen, Moojan: Relativism: A Basis For Bahá'í Metaphysics
Schaffer, Jonathan: Monism: The Priority of the Whole