Ashtavakra Gita

The chains of the mind are only thought; break them by seeing directly what you already are, and enjoy the world as it is

Explains that psychological bondage is not an external condition but a self-maintained habit of clinging and aversion that dissolves the instant it is seen through clearly.

Chapter 8 of the Ashtavakra Gita is often titled "Bondage and Liberation," and it defines both terms with unusual precision: bondage is simply the mind's habit of craving one thing and recoiling from another, while liberation is nothing more than the absence of that grasping and refusing. Ashtavakra does not ask Janaka to renounce the world or acquire any new state — he points out that the so-called chains were never made of anything but thought itself. Because thought is what fashions the prison, a single act of direct seeing, not years of practice, is enough to show there was never a wall. This is characteristic of the text's uncompromising position: liberation is not achieved, only recognized, and the world can then be enjoyed rather than escaped.

The Ashtavakra Gita is usually dated somewhere between the 1st century BCE and the 8th century CE, of uncertain authorship, and stands out among classical Vedanta texts for teaching instantaneous rather than gradual liberation.

Ashtavakra Gita