The Yoga-Vasishtha-Maharamayana of Valmiki · 173 of 665

Book III: Utpatti Prakarana (Origin of the World): Chapter CXXII: Ascertainment of the Self or Soul

Argument. Description of the grounds of knowledge, vanity of fears and sorrows, and the natures of the intellect and soul.

Vasishtha said (Prose). After the birth of a man and a slight development of his understanding, he should associate the company of good and wise men.

2. There is no other way except by the light of Sástras and association with the good and wise, to ford over the river of ignorance, which runs in its incessant course flowing in a thousand streams.

3. It is by means of reasoning that man is enabled to discern what is good for him, and what he must avoid to do.

4. He then arrives to that ground of reason which is known as good will, or a desire to do what is good and keep from what is bad and evil.

5. Then he is led by his reason to the power of reasoning, and discerning the truth from untruth, and the right from wrong.

6. As he improves in knowledge, he gets rid of his improper desires, and purifies his mind from all worldly cares.

7. Then he is said to have gained that stage of knowledge, which is called the purity of his soul and mind and of his heart and conduct.

8. When the yogi or adept attains to his full knowledge, he is said to have arrived at his state of goodness—satva.

9. By this means and the curtailing of his desires, he arrives to the state called unattachment or indifference to all worldly matters (anásakta), and is no more subjected to the consequence of his actions.

10. From the curtailment of desires, the yogi learns to abstract his mind from the unrealities of the world.

11. And whether sitting inactive in his posture of Samádhi meditation, or doing anything for himself or others, he must fix his mind to whatever is productive of real good to the world. His soul being cool by the tenuity of his desires, is habituated to do its duties, without the knowledge of what it is doing. (He neither fondly pursues anything nor thinks with ardour of any. His want of desire makes him indifferent to all, and like a man waking from his sleep, he takes himself to the discharge of his duties).

12. Verily, he who has subdued his mind, has reached to the contemplative stage of yoga meditation.

13. Thus one having his mind dead in himself, learns by practice of years, to perform his duties, by refraining from his thoughts of external objects. Such a one is said to have attained the turya or fourth stage of his spiritual elevation, and to have become liberated in his life-time.

14. He is not glad to get anything, nor sorry to miss it. He lives without fear of accidents, and is content with whatever he gets.

15. Thou hast O Ráma! known whatever is to be known by man; and thou hast certainly extirpated thy desire in all thy actions through life.

16. Thy thoughts are all spiritual, and transcend the actions of the corporeal body, though thou art in thy embodied state. Do not give up thy self to joy or grief, but know thyself to be free from decay and defect.

17. Spiritually thou art a pure and bright substance, which is ubiquious and ever in its ascendancy. It is devoid of pleasure and pain, and of death and disease.

18. Why dost thou lament at the grief or loss of a friend, when thou art so friendless in thyself. Being thrown alone in this world, whom dost thou claim as a friend of thy soul?

19. We see only the particles of matter of which this body is composed; it exists and passes away in its time from its place; but there is no rising or falling of the soul.

20. Being imperishable in thyself, why dost thou fear to fall into naught? And why think of the destruction of thy soul, which is never subject to death?

21. When a jar is broken in twain from its upper part, its vacuity is not lost, but mixes with the air; so the body being destroyed, the indestructible soul is not lost with it (but unites with its original source).

22. As the sunlight causing the appearance of a river in the mirage, is not lost at the disappearance of the phenomenal river; so the immortal soul does not perish upon dissolution of the frail body.

23. There is a certain illusion, which raises the false appetites within us; otherwise the unity of the soul requires the help of no duality or secondary substance, in order to be united with the sole unity.

24. There is no sensible object, whether visible, tangible, audible or of taste or smelling (which relate to the particular senses and brain), that can affect the unconnected soul.

25. All things and their powers, are contained in the all-powerful and all-comprehensive soul; these powers are displayed throughout the world, but the soul is as void as the empty air.

26. It is the mental deception, O Rághava, that presents before it the phenomena of the triple world, representing diverse forms according to the triplicate nature of man (the satva, rajas and tamas).

27. There are threefold methods of dispelling this delusion of the mind, namely: by the tranquility of the mind, by destroying its desires, and by abandonment of acts (which lead only to errors in our repeated regenerations).

28. The world is a crushing mill, with its lower and upper stones of the earth and heaven; our desires are the cords that incessantly drag us under it: therefore Ráma, break off these ropes (and you will escape the danger of being crushed by it).

29. Our unacquaintance with spiritual knowledge, is the cause of all our errors; but our acquaintance of it, leads us to endless joy and ultimately to Brahma himself.

30. The living being having proceeded from Brahma, and travelled over the earth at pleasure, turns at last to Brahma by means of his knowledge of Him.

31. Ráma! all things have sprung from one Being, who is perfect felicity itself, inconceivable and undecaying in its nature; and all these are as the rays of that light, or as the light of that everlasting fire.

32. These are as lines on the leaves of trees, and as the curls and waves on the surface of waters. They are as ornaments made of that gold, and as the heat and cold of that fire and water.

33. Thus the triple world subsists in the thought of the Divine mind. It has thus sprung from the mind of God, and rests in its self-same state with the all-comprehending mind.

34. This Mind is called Brahma, who is the soul of all existence. He being known the world is known also (i.e., the world is known through him); and as he is the knower of all, he gives us the knowledge of all things. (Thus the Sruti:—There is no knowing of anything but by the knowledge that He imparts to us).

35. This all-pervasive Being is explained to us by the learned, by the coined epithets of the soul, intellect and Brahma, used both in the sástras as in the popular language.

36. The pure notion that we have of an everlasting Being, apart from all sensible ideas and impressions, is called the Intellect and soul.

37. This Intellect or Intelligent soul, is much more transparent than the etherial sky; and it is the plenum, that contains the plenitude of the world, as a disjoined and distinct reflexion of itself.

38. The knowledge of the separate existence of the unreal reflexion of the world, apart from that real reflector, is the cause of all our ignorance and error; but the view of their subsistence in the mirror of the supreme soul, blends them all to myself also (who are the same soul).

39. Now Ráma, that hast a bodiless soul of the form of pure intellect, thou canst have no cause to fall into the error, of being sorry for or afraid of the vanities of the world.

40. How can the unembodied soul be affected by the passions and feelings of the body? It is the ignorant and unintelligent only, that are subject to vain suspicions about unrealities.

41. The indestructible intellect of the unintelligent even, is not destroyed by the destruction of their bodies, how then should the intelligent be afraid of their dissolution?

42. The intellect is irresistible in its course, and roves about the solar path (ecliptic); it is the intellectual part that makes the man, and not the outward body. (Puri sete purushah; it is the inner soul that is called man).

43. The soul called the purusha or inner person, whether it abideth in the body or not, and whether it is intelligent or otherwise (rational or irrational), never dies upon the death of the body.

44. Whatever miseries you meet with, Ráma! in this transient world, all appertain to the body, and not to the intangible soul or intellect.

45. The intellectual soul being removed from the region of the mind (which is but an inward sense, and of the nature of vacuity, and not the grains of the brain composing the mind), is not to be approached by the pleasures and pains affecting the body and mind.

46. The soul that has curbed its earthly desires, flies to its seat in the spirit of Brahma, after the dissolution of its prison house of the body; in the same manner as the bee lying hid under the coverlet of the lotus petals in the darkness of the night, takes to its heavenward flight by the dawning light of the day.

47. If life is known to be frail, and the living state to be a transient scene, then say, O Ráma! what it is that is lost by loss of this prison-house of the body, and what is it that you mourn for?

48. Think therefore, O Ráma! on the nature of truth; and mind not about the errors of ignorance. Be freed from your earthly desires, and know the sinless soul to be void of all desires.

49. The intellectual soul being tranquil and transparent, and a mere witness of our doings, without any doing or desire of its own, receives the reflexion of the undesirous God, as a mirror reflects the images of things.

50. The soul being, as said before, a translucent particle, reflects the images of all worlds in itself; as a polished gem reflects the rays of light in its bosom.

51. The relation of the indifferent soul with the world, is like that of the mirror and its reflexions; the difference and identity of the soul and the world, are of the same kind.

52. As the activities of living beings, have a free play with the rising sun; so the duties of the world, are fully discharged by the rising of the intellect.

53. No sooner you get rid of your error of the substantiality of the world, than you shall come to the consciousness of its being a vacuum, resting in the spirit of God (which is the receptacle of infinite space, and whatever there appears in it).

54. As it is the nature of a lighted lamp to spread its lustre all around, so it is the nature of mental philosophy, to enlighten us with the real state of the soul.

55. The essence of the supreme soul gave rise to the mind (will) at first, which spread out the universe with its net work of endless varieties. It was as the sky issuing out of the infinite vacuity, and assuming the shape of the blue atmosphere which is also a nullity.

56. Privation of desires melts down the mind, and dissolves the mist of ignorance from the face of the intellect. Then appears the bright light of the one infinite and increate God, like the clear firmament of autumn after the dispersion of clouds.

57. The mind sprouts out at first from the supreme soul with all its activities, and takes upon it the nature of the lotus-born Brahmá by its desire of creation. It stretches out a variety of worlds by its creative will, which are also as the fancied apparitions, appearing before the imaginations of deluded boys.

58. Non-entity appears as an entity before us, it dies away at death, and reappears with our new birth. The mind itself takes its rise from the divine intellect, and displays itself in the substance of the Divine Soul, as the waves play about on the surface of the waters of the deep.

FOOTNOTES:

Footnote 1:

The reader is referred to the following passage in the story of Rip Van Winkle in Irving’s Sketch-Book. “To him the whole twenty years, had been but as one night”. The strange events that had taken place during his torpor were, that there had been a revolutionary war, when his country had thrown off the yoke of old England, and that instead of being a subject of George the third, he was now a free citizen of the United States, pp. 32-33.

Footnote 2:

The intuition of his existence, is the best proof of the same. Sruti. So says the mystic sufi:—I sought him everywhere but found him nowhere; I then looked within myself, and saw him there—as his seat was there.

Footnote 3:

Activity is attended with the pleasure of enjoyment, with the pain of bondage; and inactivity with the pleasure of freedom, and the pain of poverty. The insensible are fond of fruition at the expense of their freedom; but the wise prefer their liberty with poverty, as it is said in the Upanishad:—

श्रयोहि पुंसामाधकं बृणोते । प्रयोमन्दीयोग क्षेमादधिकं बृणोते ।

Footnote 4:

The black Rákshasas were believed to have been a colony of African Negroes in southern India and Ceylon. The Rakhs is Rax, as Sycorax of Shakespeare.

Note:—The whole story of the fiendish Súchí is an allegory of the human mind, and its rapacity. The transformation of the huge to the thin pinnate body, and again its assumption of the big form, are allegorical of the change of the corporeal and spiritual bodies—the Sthúla and Súkshma saríras, in the course of the repeated transmigrations of the soul from its gross to subtle forms by the desire of the mind. Tired of the world the mind forsakes the gross body upon death, and assumes the finer spiritual form, but being soon dissatisfied with it reverts to its former gross form again. It is also explained to be the two states of animá and garimá, the minuteness and bulkiness, which the Yogi attains by his yoga.

Footnote 5:

It is a curious fact in the theological works of Vedánta, that princes and ladies, employed themselves much more to the cultivation of their minds, and to the investigation of mental and spiritual Philosophy, than other persons and tribes. So we see Surúchi, Lílá, Visúchí and Sarasvatí were all female interlocutors in this work and some Upanishads also, though female education was subsequently abrogated by law.

Footnote 6:

Samvitti is the superior or subjective consciousness personified as Viráj, and samvid or inferior consciousness of the objective as received in the personification of Viswa. Here Schelling says:—The absolute infinite cannot be known in personal or objective consciousness; but requires a superior faculty called the intuition.

The joint knowledge of the subjective and objective is had by Ecstasy, which discerns the identity of the subject and object in a series of souls which are as the innumerable individual eyes, which the infinite World-spirit behold, in it-self, Lewis Hist. Phil. II. 580.

Footnote 7:

So says a spiritualistic philosopher. Think you this earth of ours is a lifeless and unsentient bulk, while the worm on her surface is in the enjoyment of life? No, the universe is not dead. This life—jíva, what is it but the pervading afflux of deific love and life, vivifying all nature, and sustaining the animal and vegetable world as well as the world of mind? These suns, systems, planets and satellites, are not mere mechanisms. The pulsations of a divine life throb in them all, and make them rich in the sense that they too are parts of the divine cosmos. Should it be objected that it proves too much; that it involves the identity of the vital principle of animals and vegetables, let us not shrink from the conclusion. The essential unity of all spirit and all life with this exuberant life from God, is a truth from which we need not recoil, even though it bring all animal and vegetable forms within the sweep of immortality. Epes Sargent.

Footnote 8:

The unity of all phenomena was the dream of ancient philosophy. To reduce all this multiplicity to a single principle, has been and continues to be the ever recurring problem. To the question of a unity of substance the Greek science, repeatedly applied itself; and so did the sophists of Persia and India. It was the craving for unity, which led the white men of Asia, the ancient Aryan race, to the conception of God as the one substance immanent in the universe. At first they were polytheists, but with the progress of thought their number of gods diminished, and became the authors of Veda. At last arrived to the conception of a unity of forces, of a divine power as the ultimate substratum of things. They regarded the beings of the world, as in effect, composed of two elements; the one real and of a nature permanent and absolute, and the other relative, flowing and variable and phenomenal; the one spirit and the other matter, and both proceeding from an inseparable unity, a single substance. Ibid. According to Vásishtha this single substance is the chit or divine intelligence, which produces the Mind, which is conversant with matter.

Footnote 9:

Note. The powers of the Intellect are, perception, memory, imagination and judgment. Ego is the subject of thoughts, or the subjective and really existent being. The personal God Brahmá is an emanation of God according to the Gnostics, and is like the Demiurgus of Plato next to God and soul of the world. Plotinus.

Footnote 10:

The allegory of the three spheres, means no more than the triple state of man, as a spiritual, an intellectual and a physical or corporeal being. The intellectual state in the text, is properly the spiritual and highest state of a human being. The mental is next to the intellectual or midmost state of man, and the physical or corporeal state, is the lowest condition, in which the elevated nature of humanity is subjected like an inferior animal, to grovel upon the earth.

Footnote 11:

Compare the adventure of the prince Tájul Malur in Guli Bakáwalí, and his bearing the burthen of his children by the Negro wife on his shoulders.

Footnote 12:

The Text uses the terms jnána and ajnána, which literally signify knowledge and ignorance, and mean to say that, we know the subjective ourselves only (as-ego-sum) and are ignorant of the true nature of the objective, as whether they are or not and what they are. Though it would be more appropriate to use the words nischaya and anischaya or certainty and uncertainty, because we are certain of our own existence, and are quite uncertain of every thing besides, which we perceive in our triple states of waking, dreaming and sound sleep, which incessantly produce and present before us a vast variety of objects, all of which lead us to error by their false appearances.

Footnote 13:

All things existent in the Divine mind in their eternally ideal state, present the same ideas to our minds also, which are of the similar nature and substance with the Divine.