Philosophy and Religion / Yoga Vāsistha / Yoga-Vāsistha (4): Sthiti-Prakarana

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 4: Sthiti-Prakarana (On Ontology or Existence). Chapter 36 - Description of the Intellectual Sphere

Rāma said- Tell me, O Brāhmana! how the mundane system subsists in the extra mundane immaterial soul, for the sake of my advancement in knowledge.

Vasistha replied : - The worlds having no separate existence (before or after their formation) except in the Supreme mind, they are all situated in the Divine Intellect, like the unheaving and unseen would be waves of the sea.

As the all-pervading sky in not to be seen owing to its extreme tenuity; so the undivided nature of the all-pervasive intellect, is not to be perceived on account of its rarity.

As the gem has its brilliancy in it, whether it is moved or unmoved by any body, so the unreal world has its potential existence in the Divine Spirit, both in its states of action and inactivity. ¹

As the clouds abiding in the sky, do not touch the sky or have a tangible feeling of its vacuity; so the worlds subsisting in the receptaclė of the Intellectual soul, have no contact with the extraneous (parā) intellect, which is unconnected with its contents.

As the light residing in the waters of the sea or a pot of water, is not connected either with the water or pot, nor is it felt by us but by its reflexion; so the intangible soul abides unconnected in its receptacle of the body, and reflects itself to our knowledge only.

The intellect is devoid of every desire and designation; it is the indestructible soul, and is named by our intelligence of it as (Cetya) intelligible; or from some one of our intelligible ideas as the living soul etc.

It is clearer than the translucent air, and finer than it by a hundred times; it is known as an undivided whole by the learned; who view it as identic with the whole undivided world, which it comprehends within itself.

As the sea water shows itself in various forms in all its waves, so the intellect does not differ from it, in showing us its various representations of its own motion.

The diversities of our subjective and objective knowledge of myself and yourself and these ², are like the varieties of waves and billows in the ocean of the intellect these are but erroneous notions, since they are representations of the same element, and the very same intellect.

The various states of the intellect (Cit), intellection (Cintā), intelligence (Cittam) and intellegibles (Cetyas), all appertain to the main principle of the soul. They are differently conceived by the learned and ignorant, but the difference is a mere conceit (Kalpanā).

The intellect presents its two different aspects to the wise and unwise people; to the ignorant, it shows its unreal nature in the realistic conception of the world, while to the learned it exhibits its luminous form in the identity of all things (with God).

The intellect enlightens the luminous bodies of the sun and stars, by its internal (intellectual) light; it gives a relish to things by its internal taste; and it gives birth to all beings from its inborn ideas of them.

It neither rises nor sets, nor gets up nor sits; it neither proceeds nor recedes to or fro, it is not here nor is it no where. ³

The pure and transpicuous intellect which is situated in the soul, displays in itself the phantasmagoria which is called the world.

As a heap of fire emits its flame, and a luminous body blazes with its rays; and as the sea swells in surges and breaks in with its arms, so the intellect bursts out in its creations. ⁴

Thus the intellect which is self-manifest and omnipresent of its own nature, develops and envelopes the world by its own manifestation and occultation, and by its acts of integration and segregation (sāmhāra and nirhāra); or the acts of accretion and secretion.

It is led by its own error and of its own accord, to forget and forsake its state of infinitude; and then by assuming its individual personality of egoism (that I am), it is converted to an ignoramus. ⁵

It falls from its knowledge of generals to that of particulars, by its act of specialization; and comes to the discrimination of the positive, and negative, and of inclusion and exclusion ⁶.

It strives and struggles within the confines of the sensuous body (owing to its degradation from spirituality); and it multiplies in these bodies like the weeds sprouting out of the bosom of the earth. ⁷

It is the intellect that stretches the spacious vacuum, to make room for the subsistence and growth of everything; and makes the all and ever moving air and the liquid water, for the vitality and nourishment of all.

It makes the firm earth (terrafirma) and the light-some fire and the fixed worlds all around; and employs time by its injunctions and prohibitions, ⁸.

It gives fragrance to flowers, and grows by degrees their filaments and pistils; and it makes the moisture of the porus ground, to grow vegetables on earth.

The rooted trees fructify with fruits, by their juicy saps from beneath; and they produce their fruitage, and display their foliage with lineaments in them, as their veins and arteries.

It renovates the forest with its gifts of various hues, and dies them with the variety of colours in the rainbow of Indra.

It bids the foliums, fruits and flowers to wait on the flowery season of Spring; and then brings their fruitage to perfection, under the heat of the summer sun.

It makes the dark blue clouds of heaven, to wait on the approach of the rainy weather; and causes the harvest of fields, to follow in the train of autumn.

The cold season is decorated with its smiling frost, in its faces of the ten sides of the sky; and the dewy weather is made to waft its icicles of dew drops, on the pinions of the chilling winds of winter.

It makes the ever moving time, to revolve in its rotation of years and cycles and Yuga ages; and causes the tide of creation to roll on in its waves of worlds, on its bosom of the ocean of eternity.

Its decrees remain fixed with a wonderful stability, and the earth (terra or dhara), continues firm (dhīra or sthira), with its quality of containing all things. ⁹

It made the universe, teem with fourteen kinds of beings in its as many worlds of the chaturdasa-bhuvanas; and these are as different in their modes of life as in their forms and figures. ¹⁰

These are repeatedly produced from and reduced to nothing, and move in their wonted courses forever, as bubbles in the waterless ocean of eternity.

Here the miserable multitudes, moving mad in vain struggles after their desired objects, and in their imbecility under the subjection of disease and death. They are incessantly coming to life and going away in their exists, remaining in their living states and acquiring their ends, and forever running to and fro, in their repeated births and deaths in this world.

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