“The avadhuta represents the pinnacle of spiritual evolution; none is superior to him. avadhuta means “one who is immortal” (akshara), and who has totally discarded worldly ties. He is verily Brahman himself. He realizes himself to be pure intelligence. He is unmindful of the six infirmities of human birth, namely: sorrow, delusion, old age, death, hunger and thirst. He has shaken off all bondage of the experimental world, and moves about freely like a child, a madman or one possessed by spirits.

He may be with or without clothes. He does not wear any distinct emblem of any order. He has no desire to sleep, beg or bathe. He views his body as a corpse and subsists on food which comes to him from all classes. He does not interpret the shastras or the Vedas. For him nothing is righteous or unrighteous, holy or unholy.

He is free of karma. The karmas of this life and past lives are all burnt away, and due to the absence of kartritva (doership) and bhoktritva (desire for enjoyment), no future karmas are created. Only the prarabdha (unalterable) karmas which have already begun to operate will affect his body, helping to sustain it, but his mind will remain unaffected. He will live in this world until the prarabdha karmas are worked out, after which his body will fall off. Then he is said to attain videhamukti (state beyond body consciousness).

Such a liberated soul never returns to the embodied state. He is not born again; he is immortal. He has achieved the final aim of taking birth in this world.”

Brihad-avadhuta Upanisad, thus: “The Avadhuta is so called because he is immortal ; he is the greatest ; he has discarded worldly ties ; and he is indicated in the meaning of the sentence “Thou art That,”

The word avadhuta refers to one who has shaken off from himself all worldly feeling and obligation. He does not care for social conventions, particularly the varnashrama-dharma, i.e., he is quite eccentric in his behavior.

“The Avadhuta Gita is a text of Vedanta representing extreme Advaita or Nondualism. It is ascribed to Dattatreya, who is looked upon as an Incarnation of God. Unfortunately we possess no historical data concerning when or where he was born, how long he lived, or how he arrived at the knowledge disclosed in the text.

Avadhuta means a liberated soul, one who has “passed away from” or “shaken off” all worldly attachments and cares and has attained a spiritual state equivalent to the existence of God. Though avadhuta naturally implies renunciation, it includes an additional and yet higher state which is neither attachment nor detachment but beyond both. An avadhuta feels no need of observing any rules, either secular or religious. He seeks nothing, avoids nothing. He has neither knowledge nor ignorance. Having realized that he is the infinite Self, he lives in that vivid realization.”

The Avadhuta Upanishad is number 79 of the Muktika canon of Upanishads. It is a Sanyasa Upanishad associated with the Black Yajurveda.

“One who had crossed the varanashrama system and who is always established in himself, that yogi, who is above the varanashrama divisions, is called Avadhuta.” Avadhutopanisad (2)