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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 29 - Pantheism or description of the world as full with the Supreme Soul

Vālmikī relates- Hearing this discourse of the sage, Rāma remained sedate with the coma (sama) of his mind, his spirits were tranquil, and his soul was full of rapture.

The whole audience also that was present at the place, being all quiet, calm and silent (comatose-upasānta), the sage withheld his speech for fear of disturbing their spiritual repose: ¹.

The sage stopped from distilling the drops of his ambrosial speech any more, after the hearts of the audience were lulled to rest by their draughts, as the clouds cease to rain drops, having penetrated into the hearts of ripened grains.

As Rāma ² came to be rose from their torpor after a while; the eloquent Vasistha resumed his discourse in elucidation of his former lecture. ³

Vasistha said- Rāma! you are now fully awakened to light, and have come to and obtained the knowledge of yourself; remain hence forward fixed to the only true object, wherein you must rely your faith, and never set your feet on the field of the false phenomenal world.

The wheel of the world is continually revolving round the centre of desire, put a pet to its axis, and it will stop from turning about its pole.

If you be slack to fasten he have (nābhi) of your mind, by your manly efforts (purusrātha); it will be hard for you to stop the wheel of the world, which runs faster as you slacken your mind.

Exert your manly strength (courage), with the aid of your mental powers and wisdom, stop the motion of your heart, which is the centre of the wheeling course of the world.

Know, that everything is obtainable by means of manly exertion, joined with good sense and good nature, and assisted by a knowledge of the śāstras; and whatever is not obtained by these, is to be had nowhere by any other.

Relinquish your reliance on destiny which is a coinage of puerile imagination; and by relying on your own exertions, govern your heart and mind for your lasting good.

The unsubstantial mind which appears as a substantiality, has had its rise since the creation of Brahmā; and taken a wrong and erroneous course of its own. ⁴

The unreal and erroneous mind, weaves and stretches out a lengthening web of its equally unreal and false conceptions, which it is led afterwards to mistake for the substantial world. ⁵

The wise man must not understand the pain or pleasure of the soul from the physiognomy of man, that a sorrowful and weeping countenance is the indication of pain; and a clear (cheerful) and tearless face is the sign of pleasure. ⁶

You see a man in two ways, the one with his body and the other in his representation in a picture or statues, of these the former kind is more frail than the latter; because the embodied man is beset by troubles and diseases in his fading and mouldering, decaying and dying body, whereby the other is not. ⁷

The fleshy body is assuredly doomed to die, notwithstanding all our efforts for its preservation; but a body in the portrait being taken good care of, lasts for ages with its undiminished beauty.

As the living body is sure to die in despite of all your care for it, the pictured body must be deemed far better, than the false and fancied fleshy body, produced by will of the mind (Sankalpa deha).

The physical body dies howsoever carefully it is raised. Hence pidined body is best is best than that of physical body.

The quality and stability which abide in a pictured body, are not to be found in the body of the mind; wherefore the living body of flesh, is more insignificant than its semblance in a picture or statue.

Think now, O sinless Rāma, what reliance is there in this body of flesh; which is a production of your long fostered desire, and a creature of your brain. ⁸

This body of flesh is more contemptible than those ideal forms, which our dreams and desires produce in our sleeping and waking states; because the creature of a momentary desire, is never attended with a long or lasting happiness or misery. ⁹

The bodies that are produced by our long desire, continue for a longer time, and are subjected to a longer series of mise rise in this world. ¹⁰

The body is a creature of our fancy, and is neither a reality or unreality in itself; and yet are the ignorant people fondly attached to it, for the prolongation of their misery only.

As the destruction of the portrait of a man, does no harm to his person; and as the loss of a fancied city is no loss to the city, so the loss of the much desired body of any one, is no loss to his personality in any wise.

Again as the disappearance of the secondary moon (halo), is no deprivation of the primary satellite (moon), and as the evanescence of the visionary world, is no annihilation of the, exter­nal world. ¹¹

As the disappearance of water in the sunny banks of rivers, is no deprivation of the river's water; so the creation of fancy which are no negative in their nature, cannot be destructive of what is positive, nor any damage done to the machine of the body, can ever injure the disembodied soul.

The body is a piece of work wrought by the architect of -the mind, in its dreaming somnambulation over the sleeping world; wherefore its decoration or disfigurement, is of no essential advantage or disadvantage to inward soul.

There is no end of the Intellect in its extent, nor any motion of the soul from its place; there is no change in the Divine spirit of Brahmā, nor do any of these decay with the decline of the body.

As the inner and smaller wheel, makes the outer and larger wheel to turn about it, so the inner annulus of the mind, sees in its delirium spheres over spheres revolving in empty air.

The mind views by its primitive and causeless error, the constant rotation of bodies both in the inside and outside of it; and some as moving forward and others as falling down, and many as dropped below.

Seeing the rise and fall of these rotatory bodies, the wise man must rely on the firmness of the mind, and not himself to be led away by these rotations in repeated succession.

Fancy forms the body and its error that makes the unreal appear as real; but the formation of fancy, and the fabrications of untruth, cannot have any truth or reality in them.

The unreal body appearing as real, is like the appearance of a snake in a rope; and so are all the affairs of the world quite untrue and false, and appearing as true for the time being.

Whatever is done by an insensible being, is never accounted as its action ¹²; hence all what is done by the senseless bodies (of man), is not recounted as done by it. ¹³

It is the will which is the active agent of its actions, and this being so, neither the inactive body nor the unchanging soul is the actor of any action. ¹⁴

The inert body being without any effort, is never the doer of any act, which is desired by its presiding soul; it is only a viewer of the soul, which witnesses it also. ¹⁵

As the lamp burns unshaken and with its unflickering flame, in the motionless air in itself only; so doth the silent and steady soul dwell as a witness, in all things and of all acts existing and going on in the world. ¹⁶

As the celestial and luminous orb of the day, regulates the daily works of the living world from his seat on high, so do you, O Rāma, administer of affairs of your state from your elevated seat on the royal throne.

The knowledge of one's entity or egoism, in the unsubstantial abode of his body, is like the sight of a spirit by boys in the empty space of a house or in empty air. ¹⁷

Whence comes this unsubstantial egoism in the manner of an inane ghost, and takes possession of the inner body under the name of the mind, is what the learned are at a loss to explain.

Never enslaves ourself, O wise Rāma! to this spectre of your egoism, which like the eginis fatuus leads you with limbo lake or bog of hell. ¹⁸

The mad and giddy mind, accompanied with its capricious desires and whims, plays its foolish pranks in its abode of the body, like a hideous demon dancing in a dreary desert.

The demoniac mind having made its way, into the hollow heart of the human body; plays its fantastic parts in so odd a manner that wise men­shut their eyes against the sight, and sit in their silent contemplation of the secluded soul. ¹⁹

After the demon of the mind, is driven out of the abode of the body, there is no more any fear for any one to dwell in it in peace; as no body is afraid of living in a deserted and desolate city.

It is astonishing that men should place any reliance in their bodies, and consider them as their own, when they had thousands of such bodies in their repeated births before, and when they were invariably infested by the demon of the mind.

They that die in the grasp and under the clutches of the cannibal of the mind, have their minds like those of the pisāca cannibals in their future births, and never of any other kind of being. ²⁰

The body which is taken possession of by the demon of egoism, is being consumed by the burning fires of the triple afflictions; occurring from local, natural and accidental evils, and is not to be relied upon as a safe and lasting abode of anybody.

Do you therefore desist to dance your attendance on, and follow the dictates of your egoism ²¹. Be of an extended and elevated mind, and by forgetting your egotism in your magnanimity, rely only on the supreme spirit.

Those hellish people that are seized and­possessed by the devils of Egotism; are blinded in their self-delusion and giddiness; and are unbefriended by their fellows and friends, as they are unfriendly to others in this world. ²²

Whatever action is done by one bewitched by egoism in his mind, the same grows up as a poisonous plant, and produces the fatal fruit of death. ²³

The ignorant man that is elated by his egoistic pride, is lost both to his reason and patience; and one who is attached to the former by his neglect of the latter, is to be known as approaching fast to his perdition. ²⁴

The simpletons that are seized by the devil of Egoism, is made as fuel to the fire of hell, ²⁵.

When the snake of Egoism hisses hard in the hollow heart of the tree of the body, it is sure to be cut down by the inexorable hand of death, who fells the noxious tree like a wood cutter to the ground.

O Rāma! that are the greatest among the great, never look at the demon of egoism, whether it may reside in your body or not; because the very look of it, is sure to delude any one.

If you disregard, deride or drive away the demon of egoism, from the recess of your mind, there is no damage or danger, that it can ever bring upon you in any wise.

Rāma! what though the demon of Egoism, may play all its freaks in its abode of the body, it can in no way affect the soul which is quite aloof of it. ²⁶

Egoism brings a great many evils, upon them that have their minds vitiated by its influence, and it requires hundreds of years, to count and recount their baneful effects.

Know Rāma, that it is the despotic power of egoism, that makes men to grow under its thraldom, and incessantly uttering the piteous exclamations, "Oh! we are dying and burning and such other bitter cries."

The soul is ubiquitous and free to rove every where, without its having any connection with the ego of any body; just as the ubiquity of the all pervading sky, is unconnected with everything in the world.

Whatever is done or taken in by the body, in its connection with the airy thread of life; know Rāma, all this to be the doing of egoism, which empties and impels the body to all its various actions.

Know thus quiescent soul impels also, to be the cause of all the exertions of the mind or mental operations, as the inactive vacuum is the material cause of the growth of trees. ²⁷

It is owing to the presence of the soul, that the mind develops itself in the form of the body and all its members; as it is the presence of the light, that makes the room display its contained objects to sight. ²⁸

Think now Rāma, on the relation between the ever unconnected soul and mind, to resemble the irrelation subsisting between the disconnected earth and sky, and -between light and darkness and between the intellect and gross bodies.

Those that are ignorant of the soul, view the quiet mind as such, after its motion and fluctuation are stopped by the restraint of respiration-Prānāyāma. ²⁹

But the soul is self-luminous and ever lasting, omnipresent and supereminent, while the mind is deceptive and egoism. It is situated in the heart with too much of its pride and vanity.

You are in reality the all-knowing soul, and not the ignorant and deluded mind; therefore drive afar your delusive mind from the seat of the soul, as they can never meet nor agree together.

Rāma! the mind has also, like a demon, taken possession of the empty house of the body, and has like an evil spirit, silenced and overpowered upon the intangible soul in it.

Whatever you are, remain but quiet in yourself, by driving away the demon of your mind from you; because it robs you of your best treasure of patience, and loads all kinds of evils upon you. ³⁰

The man that is seized by the voracious yaksa of his own mind, has no change of his release from his grasp, either by the lessons of the śāstras or by the advice of his friends, relatives and preceptors. ³¹

The man who has appeased the demon of his mind, is capable of being released from its clutches, by means of the dictates of śāstras, and the admonitions of his friends, as it is possible to liberate a deer from a shallow quagmire.

All things that are seen to be stored in this vacant city, of the vacuous world, are all of them polluted by the lickerishness of the mind, licking at them from inside the house of its body.

Say who is not afraid in this dreary wilderness of the world, which is infested in very corner of it by the demoniac mind. ³²

There are some wise men in this city of the world, who enjoy the abodes of their bodies in peace, having tranquilized the demon of their minds in them. ³³

Rāma! All the countries that we hear of in any part of the world, are found to be full of senseless bodies, in which the giddy demon of delusion are Raving (and Ranging) as the sepul­chral grounds. ³⁴

Let people rely on their patience, and redeem their souls by their own exertions; which are otherwise seen to be wandering about in the forest of this world, like lost and stray boys; ³⁵.

Men are wandering in this world, as herds of stags are roving in burning deserts; but take care Rāma, never to live contented with a grazing on the sapless grass, like a young and helpless deer.

Foolish men are seen to graze as young stags, in their pastures amidst the wilderness of this world; but you Rāma must stir yourself to kill the great Elephant of Ignorance, and pursue the leonine course of subduing every thing in your way.

Do not allow yourself, O Rāma, to ramble about like other men, who wander like senseless beasts in their native forests of the Jambu-dvīpa.

Do not plunge yourself like the foolish buffets, in the bog of your relatives and friends; it appears to you as a cold bath for a while, but daubs you with its mud and mire afterwards. ³⁶

Drive afar your desire of bodily enjoyments from you, and follow the steps of respectable men; and having well considered your sole object of the soul ³⁷, attend to yourself or soul only. ³⁸

It is not proper that you should plunge yourself, into a sea of intolerable cares the troubles, for the sake of your impure and frail body, which is but a trifle in comparison with the inestimable soul.

The body which is the production of one thing ³⁹, and is possessed by another ⁴⁰; which puts another one ⁴¹ to the pain of its supportance, and affords its enjoyment to a fourth one ⁴², as a complicate machinery of many powers to the ignorant. ⁴³

As solidity is the only property of the stone, so the soul has the single property of its entity alone; and its existence being common in all objects, it is impossible for any thing else to subsist beside it. ⁴⁴

As thickness is the property of stone, so are the mind and others but properties of the soul; and there being nothing which is distinct from the common entity of the soul, it is impossible for anything to have a separate existence.

As density relates to the stone, and dimension bears its relation to the pot; so the mind and other are not distinct from one common existence of the soul: ⁴⁵

Hear now of another view of spiritual light, for dispelling the darkness of delusion; as it was revealed to me of yore, in a cavern of mount Kailāsa. ⁴⁶

There is a mountain peak, bright as the collected mass of moon-beams, and penetrating the vault of heaven, where the god with the semi-circular moon on his forehead, delivered this doctrine to me for appeasing the miseries of the world.

This mountain peak is famed by the name of Kailāsa, on which the god Hara-the consort of Gourī, wearing the crescent moon on his head, holds his residence.

It was to worship this great god, that I had once dwelt on that mountain long ago; and constructed my hermit-cell on the bank of the holy stream of Ganges. ⁴⁷

I remained there in the practice of ascetic austereties, for the performance of my holy devotion; and was beset by bodies of adepts, discoursing on subjects of the sacred śāstras.

I made baskets for filling them with flowers for my worship, and for keeping the collection of my books in them; and was employed in such other sacred tasks, in the forest groves of the Kailāsa mountain.

While thus I had been passing my time, in discharging the austereties of my devotion; it happened to turn out once on the eighth day of the dark fortnight of the month of srāvana.

And after its evening twilight was over, and the sun light had faded in the face of the four quarters of the sky, that all objects became invisible to sight and stood rapt in their saint like silence.

It was then after half of the first watch of the night had passed away, there spread a thick darkness over the groves and wood lands, and required a sharp sword to sever it.

My intense meditation was broken at this instant, and my trance gave way to the sight of outward objects, which I kept looking upon for sometime; when I observed a flaming fire suddenly rising in the forest to my view. It was a bright as a big white cloud, and as brilliant as the shining orb of the moon.

It illumed the groves on all sides, and struck with amazement at the vision.

As I viewed it by the sight of my understanding, or the mental vision which was glowing in my mind; I came to see the god giva with the crescent of the moon on his forehead, standing on the table land and manifest to view.

With his hand clasping the hand of gaurī, he was led on ward by his brace attendant Nandī walking before him; when I after informing my pupils about it, proceeded forward with the due honorarium in my hand.

Led by the sight, I came to the presence of the god with a glad-some mind; and then I offered handfuls of flowers to the three eyed-god from a distance, in-token of my reverence to him.

After giving the honour (Arghya), which was worthy of him, I bowed down before the god, and accosted him; when he cast his kind look upon me, from his moon-bright and clear sighted eyes.

Being blest by his benign look, which took away all my pain and sin from me; I did my homage to the god that was seated on the flowery level land, and viewed the three worlds lying open before him.

Then advancing forward, I offered unto him the honorarium, flowers and water that I had with me, and scattered before him heaps of mandāra flowers, that grew there about.

I then worshipped the god with repeated obeisance's and various eulogiums; and next adored the goddess gourī with the same, kind of homage together with her attendant goddesses and demigods.

After my adoration was over, the god having the crescent moon on his head, spoke to me that was seated by him, with his speech as mild as the cooling beams of the full-moon.

Say O Brāhman, whether your affections are at peace within yourself, and have found their rest in supreme spirit, and whether your felicitous feling are settled in the true object of divine essence.

Whether your devotion is spading unobstructed by the demons of your passions, and whether felicity attends on you.

Have you obtained the obtainable one, that is alone to be obtained, and are you set above the fears, that incessantly hunt after all mankind?

After the Lord of gods and the sole cause of all created beings, had spoken in this manner; I replied to him submissively in the following words.

O Lord! there is nothing unattainable, nor is there anything to be feared by any one, who remembers the three eyed god at all times in his mind; and whose hearts are filled with rapture by their constant remembrance of you.

There is no one in the womb of this world, in any country or quarter, or in the mountains or forests, that does not bow down his head before you.

Those whose minds are entirely devoted to their remembrance of you, get the rewards of the meritorious acts of there past lives; and water the trees of their present lives, in order to produce their manifold fruit in future births and lives.

Lord! your remembrance expands the seed of our desire, you are the jar of the nectar of our knowledge, and you are the reservoir of patience, as the moon is the receptacle of cooling beams.

Your remembrance, Lord! is the gate way to the city of salvation, and it is your remembrance which I deem as the invaluable gem of any thoughts.

O Lord of creation! Your remembrance sets its foot on the head of all our calamities ⁴⁸. ⁴⁹. Having said this to the very much pleased Śiva.

I said thus far, and then bowing down lowly before the complacent deity, I addressed him, O Rāma, in the manner as you shall hear from me.

Lord! it is by your favour that I have the fullness of my heart's content on every sides; yet as there is one doubt lurking in my mind, I will request you to explain it fully to me.

Say with your clear understanding, and without hesitation and weariness, regarding the manner of the adoration of gods, which removes all our sins and confers all good unto us. ⁵⁰

The god replied- Hear me, O Brāhman, that are best acquainted with the knowledge of Brahmā; tell you about the best mode of worshipping the gods, and the performance of which is sure to set the worshipper free. ⁵¹

Tell me first, O great armed Brāhman, if you know at all who is that god, whom you make the object of your worship, if it be not the lotus-eyed Visnu or the three-eyed Śiva neither.

It is not the god born of the lotus Brahmā, nor he who is the lord of the Tridaśa ⁵² - the great Indra himself; it is not the god of winds-Pavana, nor the god of fire, nor the regents of the sun and moon.

The Brāhman ⁵³ is no god at all, nor the king called the shadow of god, is any god likewise, neither I or you- the ego and tu ⁵⁴ are gods; nor the body or any embodied being, or the mind or any conception or creation of the mind is the true god also.

Neither Laxmī the goddess of fortune, nor Sarasvatī the goddess of intelligence and true goddesses, nor is there any one that may be called a god, except the one unfactitious god, who is without beginning and end, that is the true god. ⁵⁵

How can a body measured by a form and its dimensions, or having a definite measure be the immeasurable deity! it is the in-artificial and unlimited Intellect, that is known as the Śiva or the felicitous one.

It is that which is meant by the word god­-Deva-Deus and that is the object of adoration; that is the only ens or on, est or Este or Esten, out of which all other beings have proceeded and in which they have their existence, and wherein they subsist with their formal parts.

Those unacquainted with the true nature of the falitous Śiva, worship the formal idols and images; as a weary traveller thinks the distance of a mile, to be as long as the length of a league.

It is possible to have the reward of one's adoration of the Rudras and other gods; but the reward of the meditation of the true god, is the unbounded felicity of the soul.

He who forsakes the reward of true felicity, for that of fictitious pleasures; is like one who quits a garden of mandara flowers, and repairs to a furze of thorny karañja plants.

The true worshippers know the purely intellectual and felicitous Śiva, to be the only adorable god; to whom the understanding and tranquility and equanimity of the soul are, the most acceptable offerings than wreaths of flowers.

Know that to be the true worship of god, when the Deity of the spirit ⁵⁶, is worshipped with the flowers of the understanding and tranquility of the spirit. ⁵⁷

The soul is of the form of consciousness, ⁵⁸, by forsaking the adoration of idols; Those that are devoted to any form of fictitious cult, are subject to endless misery.

Those knowing the knowable one are called as saints; but those who slighting the meditation of the soul, betake themselves to the adoration of idols, are said to liken little boys playing with their dolls.

The Lord Śiva is the spiritual god, and the supreme cause of all; He is to be worshipped always and without fail, with the understanding only. ⁵⁹

You should know the soul as the intellectual and living spirit, undecaying as the very nature herself; there is no other that is to be worshipped, the true pūjā is the worship of the spirit. ⁶⁰

Vasistha said- The soul being of the nature of intellectual void, as this world is an empty void also; please tell me, my lord, how the Intellect could become the living soul Ect, as you have declared.

The god replied- There being an only vacuous Intellect in-existence, which is beyond all limit; it is impossible for unintelligible object to exist anywhere which may continue to all eternity. ⁶¹

That which shines of itself, is the self shining Being; and it is the self or spontaneous agitation of that Being, which has stretched out the universe.

Thus the world appears as a city in dream before the intellectual soul, and this soul is only a form of the inane intellect, and this world is but a baseless fabric.

It is altogether impossible for aught of the thinkables and visibles, to exist anywhere except in the empty sphere of the intellect, and whatever shone forth in the beginning in the plenitude of the Divine intellect, the same is called its creation or the world from the first.

Therefore this world, which shows itself in the form of a fairy land in dream, is only an appearance in the empty sphere of the intellect; and cannot be any other in reality.

The Intellect is the human speech, and the firmament that supports the world; the intellect becomes the soul and the living principle, and it is this which forms the chain of created beings. ⁶²

Tell me, what other thing is there that could know all things in the beginning and before creation of the universe, except it were the Intellect which saw and exhibited everything, in heaven and earth as contained in itself.

The words sky, firmament, and the vacuum of Brahmā and the world, are all applicable to the Intellect, as the words arbour and tree are but synonymous expressions for the same thing.

And as both our dreams and desires arise in us by our delusion, so it is our illusion only which makes us perceive the existence of the outer world; in the empty space of the intellect.

And as it is our empty consciousness, that shows the sight of the external world in our dream; so it is that very thing that shows us the same, in the waking dream of ourselves.

As it is not possible for the city in a dream, to be represented any where except in the hollow space of our intellect; so it is impossible for the waking dream of the world, to be shown elsewhere except in the emptiness of the same.

As it is not possible for any thing that is thinkable to exist anywhere except in the thinking mind, so it is impossible for this thinkable world to exist any other place beside the divine mind.

The triple world rose of itself at the will and in the empty space of the supreme Intellect, as it was a dream rising and setting in the self same mind, and not as any thing other than it, or a duality beside itself.

As one sees the diverse appearances of ghatas and patas pots and painting in his dream and all lying within the hollowness of his mind; so the world appears of itself, in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect, at the beginning of creation.

As there is no substantiality of anything in the fairy land of one's dream, except his pure consciousness of the objects; so there is no substantiality of the things which are seen in this triple world, except our consciousness of them.

What ever is visible to sight, and all that is existent and in-existent, in the three times of the prefent, past and future; and all space, time and mind, are no other than appearances of vacuous ­intellect ⁶³.

He is verily the god of whom I have told you, who is supreme in the highest degree; ⁶⁴. Who is all and unbounded and includes me, you and the endless world in Himself.

The bodies of all created beings, of yours mine, and others, and of all in this world, are all full with the intellectuality of the supreme soul and no other.

As there is nothing, O sage, except the bodies that are produced from the vacuous intellect or intellectual vacuity of Brahmā, and resembling the images produced in the fairy land of one's dream; so there is no form or figure in this world, other than what was made in the beginning of creation.

Footnotes

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