Ashtavakra Gita

There is no path, no destination, and no traveler, once it is truly seen that the self was never anywhere but here

The chapter's closing move dissolves the very framework of spiritual seeking, since a path implies distance and a destination implies something still missing.

Spiritual traditions typically describe a path from where you are now to where you're trying to get, with the traveler somewhere in between. In its closing verses, chapter eighteen dismantles all three pieces of that picture at once: there is no path because there was no actual distance to cross, no destination because nothing needed to be reached, and no traveler because the self doing the seeking was itself the very thing being sought. This isn't a rejection of the practices that came before in the text — it's the logical endpoint they were always pointing toward. The teaching closes not with an arrival but with the recognition that no journey was ever actually necessary.

Ashtavakra Gita