Ashtavakra Gita 18.59
Ashtavakra Gita 18.59 is a verse from chapter 18 (Peace in a hundred verses). The sage Ashtavakra speaks it to King Janaka. In plain English it says: "At ease he sits, at ease he sleeps, at ease he comes and goes, at ease he speaks, at ease he eats. Calm-minded, he is at ease even in daily dealings."
Ashtavakra, to King Janaka
सुखमास्ते सुखं शेते सुखमायाति याति च ।सुखं वक्ति सुखं भुङ्क्ते व्यवहारेऽपि शान्तधीः ॥
sukhamāste sukhaṃ śete sukhamāyāti yāti ca |sukhaṃ vakti sukhaṃ bhuṅkte vyavahāre'pi śāntadhīḥ ||
At ease he sits, at ease he sleeps, at ease he comes and goes, at ease he speaks, at ease he eats. Calm-minded, he is at ease even in daily dealings.
What to notice
The word sukham, at ease, appears six times in two lines.
Word by word
- sukham
- at ease, happily
- āste
- sits
- śete
- sleeps
- āyāti
- comes
- yāti
- goes
- vakti
- speaks
- bhuṅkte
- eats
- vyavahāre api
- even in everyday dealings
- śānta-dhīḥ
- one whose mind is calm
Reading the verse
After many verses of paradox and negation, chapter 18 offers this picture of ordinary life. At ease he sits, at ease he sleeps, at ease he comes and goes, at ease he speaks, at ease he eats. The word sukham opens each phrase, and the repetition is the meaning: the same ease runs through every activity. The last phrase is vyavahāre 'pi, even in vyavahāra, which means business, transactions, the give and take of daily life. The calm-minded person needs no quiet cave. He stays calm while paying bills and talking to neighbours. The Advaita reading treats this as the mark of a jīvanmukta, one free while living. Freedom shows itself in how a person eats lunch and answers questions. A reader can use the verse as a check during an ordinary day. Sitting, walking, speaking, eating: is there ease in it? The verse does not ask for different activities, only for a different quality in the same ones.
Same thread in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita 5.8Krishna says the one who knows the truth thinks 'I do nothing' while seeing, hearing, walking, sleeping and breathing.Chapter 18, Peace in a hundred verses: The longest chapter, a third of the text, contrasting the confused who strive with the steady who are already at rest.
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Sources and method
Sanskrit from the common text of the Ashtavakra Gita, also called the Ashtavakra Samhita. Where our source had obvious typing errors we restored the standard reading and listed each change in our review notes. IAST is generated from the Devanagari. The English, the word meanings and the notes are Wisdom's own, written in the Advaita tradition of Shankara's school, the line followed by commentators such as Swami Nityaswarupananda and Swami Chinmayananda, with Lala Baij Nath's public-domain translation of 1907 as a reference.
Wisdom translation, edited by Ankur Shukla. Commentary AI-drafted, human review pending.