Philosophy and Religion / Yoga Vāsistha / Yoga-Vāsistha (6.1): Nirvāna-Prakarana

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 100 - Continuation of the Same Subject

Sikhidhwaja said- If is it so, O most intelligent sir, that the work is alike the nature of its maker; and therefore the world resembles Brahmā in every respect.

Kumbha replied- Where there exists a causality, there is an effectuality also accompanied with it; so where there is no cause whatever, there can be no effect also following the same.

Therefore there is no possibility of any cause or its effect in this world, which is manifest before us, the self-same essence of the ever tranquil and the unborn spirit of god.

The effect that comes to pass from a cause, is of course alike to the nature of its causality; but what similarity can there exist between one, which is neither the cause nor effect of the other?

Say how can a tree grow which has no seed for its growth, and how can God have a seed whose nature is inscrutable in thought, and inexpressible in words.

All things that have their causality at any time or place, are of course of the nature of their causal influence; but how can there be a similarity of anything with God who is never the cause of an effect?

Brahmā the uncausing uncaused cause of all, has no causality in him; therefore the meaning of the word world, is something that has no cause whatever. ¹

Therefore think yourself as Brahmā, according to the view of the intelligent; but the world appears as some thing extended in the sight of men of imperfect understandings.

When the word is taken as one and the same with the tranquil intellect of god, it must be viewed in the light of the transparent spirit of Brahmā. ²

Any other notion, Oh prince, which the mind may entertain about the nature of god, is said by the intelligent, to be the destruction of the right concept of the Deity.

Know O prince, that the destruction of the mind ³, is tantamount to the destruction of the soul; and slight forgetfulness of the spirit, is hard to be retrieved in a whole kalpa. ⁴

Now sooner you are freed from your personality, than you find yourself to full of Divine knowledge, and your false personality fly away from for your consummation in spirituality.

If you think the world to be existent from the meaning of the word viswa or all, then tell me how and whence could all this come into existence.

How can you call one to be a Brāhman, who lifts up his arms and proclaims himself about to be a sudra?

He who cries himself saying that he is dead, after the sinking of his pulsation; take him for the dead, and his living to be mistaken for life.

All these erroneous appearances, that present themselves before us, are as false as a circle described by the whirling flame of a torch; and as delusive as the water in the, mirage, a secondary moon in the mist, and the spectre of boys.

What then is the true name of this erroneous substance, misleading us to the wrong, which is commonly designated as the mind, and is wrapped in ignorance and error.

The mind is another name for ignorance, and an unreality appearing as a real entity. Here ignorance takes the name of the mind, and unreality passes under the title of reality. Ignorance is the want of true knowledge, as knowledge is the privation of ignorance.

Ignorance or false knowledge, is driven by our knowledge of truth; as the error of water in the desert, is dispelled by the knowledge of mirage.

As the knowledge of mirage removes the error of water in the sandy desert, so the knowledge of the mind as gross ignorance, removes the erroneous mind from the inward seat of the heart. ⁵

The knowledge of the want of a mind, serves to root out its prejudice at once; as the knowledge of the rope as no snake, removes the fear of the reptile in the rope.

As the knowledge of the privation of the snake in the rope, removes its bias from the mind; so the knowledge of the want of the mind, removes this offsprings of error and ignorance from within us.

The knowledge of there being no such thing as the mind, removes its false impressions from the heart; because the mind and our egoism, are the brood of our ignorance only.

There is no mind nor egoism, seated in us as we commonly believe to be; there is one pure intelligence only both with and without us, which we can hardly perceive.

You who had so long the sense of your desire, your mind and your personality from your ignorant only; are quite set free from all of them at this moment, by your being awakened to the light of knowledge.

All the troubles that you have to meet with, owing to your fostering the inborn desire of your heart; are all driven away by your want of desire, as the wind disperses the flaming conflagration of the forest.

It is the dense essence of the Divinity that pervades the whole universe, as it is this circumvent ocean which surrounds all the continents of the earth.

There is nothing in existence as I, you, this, or that or any other; there is no mind nor the senses, nor the earth nor sky; but they are all as the manifestations of the Divine spirit.

As the visible, appear in the forms of the frail pot and other fragile bodies on earth; so the many false invisible things appear to us in the forms of the mind, egoism and the like.

There is nothing, that is either born or dies away in all these three worlds; it is only the display of the Divine intellect, that gives rise to the ideas of existence and non-existence.

All these are but representations of the supreme soul, now evolved and now spread out from it; and there is no room for unity or duality, nor any error or fallibility in its nature.

Mind, O friend, that you are the true one, in the shape of your senses; and these will never be burnt at your cremation, nor will you be utterly destroyed by your death.

No part of yourself is ever increased or annihilated at any time, the entirety of your pure self is immortal, and must remain entire forever.

The powers of your volition and nolition, and the other faculties of your body and mind, are attributes of yourself; as the beams of moon, are the significant properties of that luminary. ⁶

Always remember the nature of your soul, to be unborn and increate, without its beginning and end, never decaying and ever remaining the same; it is indivisible and without parts, it is the true essence, and existing from the beginning and never to have its end. ⁷

Footnotes

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE