Philosophy and Religion / Yoga Vāsistha / Yoga-Vāsistha (6.2): Nirvāna-Prakarana

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 1 - On Unintentional Acts and Actions

Rāma rejoined- The renunciation of the notion of one's personality or egoism in his own person, being attended by its attendant evil of inertness and inactivity ¹, it naturally bangs on a premature decay and decline, and the eventual falling off of the body in a short time: how then is it possible sir, for an indifferent person of this kind, to practice his actions and discharge the active duties of life, ².

Vasistha replied- It is possible Rāma, for the living person to resign his false ideas and not for one that is dead and gone; ³. Hear me now to expound this truth, and it will greatly please your ears: ⁴.

The idea of one's egoism ⁵, is said to be an idealism by idealists; but it is the conception of the signification of the word air or vacuity ⁶, that is represented as­the repudiation of that erroneous notion.

The idealists represent the sense of all substances, as a creation of the imagination while it is the idea of a pure vacuum, which they say to be the resignation of this erroneous con­ception. ⁷

The idea of anything in the world as something in reality, is said to be mere imaginary by the best and wisest of men; but the belief of all things as an empty nothing, displaces the error of thought from the mind. Since all things are reduced to and return to nothing, it is this alone which is the ever lasting something.

Know your remembrance of anything, is your imagination of it only, and its forgetfulness alone is good for you; therefore try to blot out all your former impressions from your mind, as if they were never impressed on it.

O intelligent one! efface from your mind the memory of all you have felt or unfelt ⁸, and remain silent and secluded like a block after your forgetfulness of all things whatsoever.

Continue in the practice of your continuous actions, with an utter oblivion of the past; ⁹; because your habit of activity is enough to conduct you through all the actions of your life, as it is the habit of a half sleeping baby to move its limbs ¹⁰. ¹¹

It requires no design or desire on the part of an actor to act his part, where to he is led by the tenor of his prior propensities ¹²; as a potter's wheel is propelled by the pristine momentum, without requiring the application of continued force for its whirling motion. So O sinless Rāma! mind our actions to be under the direction of our previous impressions, and not under the exertion of our present efforts.

Hence inappetency has become the congenial tendency of your mind, without its inclination to the gratification of its appetites. The leanings of men to particular pursuits, are directed by the current of their previous propensities. The predisposition of the mind, is said to be the cause of the formation of the character and fortune of a man in his present state, ¹³ which runs as a stream in wonted course, and carries all men as straws floating along with its tide.

I am proclaiming it with a loud voice and lifted arms, and yet no body will hearken to me when I say that, want of desire is our supreme bliss and summum bonum, and yet why is it that none would perceive it as such?

O the wondrous power of illusion! that it makes men to slight their reason, and throw away the richest jewel of their mind, from the chest of their breast wherein it is deposited.

The best way to inappetence, is the ignoring and abnegations of the phenomenal which I want you to do; and know that your disavowal of all is of the greatest boon to you, as you will be best able to perceive in yourself.

Sitting silent with calm content, will lead you to that blissful state, before which your possession of an empire will seem insignificant, and rather serving to increase your desire for more. ¹⁴

As the feet of a traveller are in continued motion, until he reaches to his destination; so are the body and mind of the avaricious in continual agitation, unless his inappetence would give him respite from his incessant action.

Forget and forsake your expectation of fruition of the result of your actions, and allow yourself to be carried onward by the current of your fortune, and without taking anything to your mind; as a sleeping man is insensibly carried on by his dreams.

Stir yourself to action as it occurs to you, and without any purpose or desire of yours in it, and without your feeling any pain or pleasure therein; let the current of the business conduct you onward, as the current of a stream carries down a straw in its course.

Take to your heart no pleasure or pain, in the discharge of the work in which you are employed; but remain insensible of both like a wooden machine which works for others. ¹⁵

Remain insensible of pleasure or pain, in your body and mind and all the organs of senses; like the sapless trees and plants in winter, when they bear their bare trunks without the sensitiveness of their parts.

Let the sun of your good understanding, suck up the sensibility of your six external senses, as the solar rays dry up the moisture of winter plants; and continue to work with the members of your body, as an engine is set to work. ¹⁶

Restrain your intellectual pleasures from their inclination to sensual gratifications, and retain your spiritual joy in yourself, for the support of your life; as the ground retains the roots of trees in it very carefully in winter for their growth in the season of spring.

It is the same whether you continually gratify of not the cravings of your senses, they will continue insatiate notwithstanding all your supplies, and the vanities of the world will profit you nothing.

If you move about continually like a running stream, or as the continuous shaking of the water in an aerostatic or hydraulic engine, and be free from every desire and craving of your mind, you are then said to advance towards your endless felicity; ¹⁷.

Know this a transcendent truth, and capable of preventing all your future transmigrations in this world, that you become accustomed to the free agency of all your actions, without being dragged to them by your desires.

Pursue your business as it occurs to you, without any desire or purpose of your own towards its object; but continue to turn about your callings, as the potter's wheel revolves round its fulcrum.

Neither have in,view the object of your action, nor the reward of your action; but know it to be equally alike whether you refrain from action, or do it without your desire of fruition.

But what is the use of much verbiology, when it can be expressed in short and in a few words, that the desire of fruition is the bondage of your soul, and your relinquishment of it is fraught with your perfect freedom.

There is no business whatever for us in this world, that must be done or abandoned by us at any time or place; every thing is good that comes from the good God, therefore sit you quiet with your cold indifference as before the occurrence of any event.

Think your works as no works, and take your abstinence from action for your greatest work, but remain as quiet in your mind in both your action and inaction, as the Divine Intellect is in ecstasies amidst the thick of its action.

Know the unconsciousness of all things to be the true trance-yoga, and requiring the entire suppression of the mental operations. Remain wholly intent on the Supreme spirit, until you are one and the same with it.

Being identified with that tranquil and subtile spirit, and divested of the sense of dualism or existence of anything else; nobody can sorrow for ought, when he is himself absorbed in his thought, in the endless and pure essence of God.

Let no desire rise in your indifferent mind, like a tender germ sprouting in the sterile desert soil; nor allow a wish to grow in you, like a slender blade shooting in the bosom of a barren rock.

The unconscious and insensible saint, derives no good or evil by his doing or undoing of any deed or duty in his living state, nor in his next life. ¹⁸

There is no sense of duty nor that of its dereliction neither, in the minds of the saintly Yogis, who always view the equality of all things and acts; and never consider their deeds as their own doings, nor think themselves as the agents of their own actions.

The consciousness of egoism and the sense of meiety of selfishness, will never release a man from the miseries of life; it is his unconsciousness of these, that can only save him from all sorrow, wherefore it lies in the option of every body, to choose for him either of these as he may best like.

There is no other ego or meiety excepting that of the one self existent and omniform Deity; and besides the essence of this transcendent being, it is hard to account anything of the multifarious things that appear to be otherwise than Himself.

The visible world that appears so vividly to our sight, is no more than the manifestation of the One Divine Essence in many, like the transformation of gold in the multiform shapes of jewels; but seeing the continual decay and disappearance of the phenomenal, we ignore their separate existence. We confess the sole existence of the One that lasts after all and for ever.

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