Chapter one — Instruction on Self-Realisation
1.1
Janaka said: How is knowledge to be acquired? How is liberation to be attained? And how is dispassion to be reached? Tell me this, O Lord.
1.2
Ashtavakra said: If you wish to be free, my child, shun the objects of the senses as you would poison, and turn your attention to forgiveness, sincerity, kindness, contentment, and truth.
1.3
You are neither earth, water, fire, air, nor space. In order to attain liberation, know the Self as the witness of all these, as consciousness itself.
1.4
If you separate yourself from the body and rest in consciousness, you will at once be happy, peaceful, and free from bondage.
1.5
You do not belong to any caste or stage of life. You are not anything that the eye can see. You are unattached, formless, the witness of all. Be happy.
1.6
Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain, are of the mind, not of you. You are neither the doer nor the enjoyer. You are always free.
1.7
You are the one witness of all. You are always completely free. The cause of your bondage is that you see the witness as something other than this.
Chapter two — The Joy of Self-Realisation
2.1
Janaka said: Truly, I am spotless and at peace, the consciousness beyond nature. All this time I have been deluded, deceived by illusion.
2.2
As I alone illuminate the body, so do I illuminate the world. Therefore the whole universe is mine, or alternatively nothing is.
2.3
Now, having renounced the body and the universe, by some good fortune I have come to see the supreme Self.
[ A representative selection from the opening chapter. The dialogue continues across twenty short chapters, each turning the same recognition over from a different angle. The complete Shastri 1949 edition is at the source linked above. ]