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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 32 - On the sustaintion and dissolution of the Body

The god continued- Hear me, holy sage! now relate to you, how the active and oscillating principle of the intellect, acts on the human body and actuates it to all its actions, whereby it receives the noble title of its active agent. ¹

But the mind of man which is impelled by its former (or pristine) propensities, prevails over the (good) intellect; and being hardened in its vicious deeds, pursues its changeful wishes and desires. ²

The mind being strengthened by illusion (māyā), the intellect becomes dull and stultified as stone; and this power of delusion growing stronger by divine dissension, displayed the universe to view. ³

It is by the good grace of this power, that the intellect is allowed to perceive sometimes, the fallacy of the aerial city of this world, and at others to think it as a reality. ⁴

The body remains as dumb as stone, without the presence of the intellect, the mind and its egoism in it; and it moves about with their presence in it, as when a stone is flung in the air.

As the dull iron is made to move, by its contiguity to or attraction of the load-stone; so doth the living soul jīva act its parts, by the presence of the omnipresent soul in it. ⁵

It is by the power of the all pervading soul, that the living principle shoots out in infinity forever, as the germs of trees sprout forth the seed in all places. And as the recipient mirror receives the reflexion of objects situated at a distance from it, so the living soul gets the reflex or image of the distant supreme spirit in itself. ⁶

It is by forget-fullness of its own and real nature, that the living soul contracts its foul gtoss object, as a legitimate twice born man, mistakes himself for a sudra by forgetting his birth by such error or illusion.

It is by unmindfulness of its own essence, that the intellect is transformed to the sensuous mind; as some great souls are deceived to believe their miserableness in the distractedness of their intellect percipience. ⁷

It is the intellect which moves the dull and inert body, as the force of the winds shakes the waters of the deep to roll and range about in chains and trains of waves.

The active mind which is always prone to action, leads the machine of the body together, with the passive and helpless living soul at random, as the winds drive about in different directions, together with the inert stones (ballast) contained in it. ⁸

The body is the vehicle, and god has employed the mind and the vital,breath, as the two horses or bullocks for driving it. ⁹

Others say, that the rarefied intellect assumes a compact form, which becomes the living soul; and this riding on the car of the mind, drives it by the vital airs as its racers. ¹⁰

Sometimes the intellect seems as something born and to be in being, as in its state of waking and witnessing the objects all around; at others it seems to be dead and lost as in the state of its profound sleep. Again it appears as many, as in its dreaming state; and at last it comes to know itself as one and a unit, when it comes to the knowledge of truth and of its identity with the sole unity.

Sometimes it seems to be of a different form, without forsaking its own nature; as the milk becomes the butter and card Ect. and as the water appears in the shape of a billow or wave or of its foam or froth. ¹¹

As all things depend upon light, to show their different forms and colours to view, so the mental powers and faculties, do all of them depend upon the intellectual soul for their several actions. ¹²

Again the Supreme Spirit being situated in the mind within the body, the animal soul has its life and action; as all things appear to sight, while the lighted lamp shines inside the room. ¹³

The ungoverned mind gives rise to all diseases and difficulties, that rise as fastly and thickly, as the perturbed waters rise in waves, which foam out with thickening froth.

The living soul dwelling like the bee in the lotus-bed of the body, is also subject to diseases and difficulties as the bee to the rains and flood; and it is as disturbed by the casualties of life, as the calm sea-water are perturbed to waves by the blowing winds.

The dubitation that, "the divine soul is omnipotent, and the living soul is impotent and limited in its powers; and therefore the human soul is not the same with the Divine; is the cause of our woe, and serves to darken the understanding; as the clouds raised by the sunlight, serve to obscure the solar disk: ¹⁴.

The sentient soul passes under many transmigration in its insensibility, and in utter want of its self consciousness; like one subdued to dull obtuseness by some morphic drug, which makes him insensible of the pain inflicted upon his own person. ¹⁵

But as it comes to know itself afterwards by some means or other, it recovers from its dull insensibility, and regains its state of original purity; as a drunken or deluded person turns to his duty, after he comes to remember himself. ¹⁶

The sentient soul that fills the body, and is employed in enlivening all its members, does not strive to know the cause of its consciousness; as a leper never attempts to make use of any part of his body, which he is incapable to raise. ¹⁷

When the soul is devoid of its consciousness, it does not enable the tube of the lotus-like heart to beat and vibrate with the breath of respiration; but makes it as motionless as a sacrificial vessel unhandled by the priest.

The action of the lotiform heart having ceased, the motion of the vital breaths is stopped also; as the fanning of the palm-leaf fan being over, there is no more the current of the outer air.

The cessation of the vital air in the body, and its flight to some other form, sets the life to silence and sink in the original soul; just as the suspension of the blowing winds, sets the flying dusts to rest on the ground.

At this time, O sage, the mind alone remains on its unsullied state and without its support; until it gets another body, wherein it rests as the embryonic seed lies in the earth and water.

Thus the causes of life being deranged on all sides, and the eight principles of the body inert and extinct ¹⁸; the, body droops down and becomes defunct and motionless. ¹⁹

Forgetfulness of the intellect, the intelligible (truth) and intelligence, produces the desires of them to vibrate; these give to remembrances of the past, and their want buries them to oblivion.

The expansion of the lotus-like heart, causes the puryastaka body to expand also; but when the organ of the heart ceases to blow and breathe, the body ceases to move.

As long as the puryastaka elements remain in the body, so long it lives and breathes; but these elementary powers being quiet and still, the body becomes inert and is said to be dead.

When the contrary humours, the feelings and passions and sensible perceptions, and the outward wounds and strokes, cause the inward action of the organic heart to stop:-

Then the puryastaka forces are pent up in the cavity of the heart, as the force of the blowing winds, is lost in the hollow of a pair of blowing bellows.

When a living body has its inward consciousness, and becomes inert and motionless in its outer parts and members, it is still alive by the action of breathing in the inner organ of the heart.

Those whose pure and holy desires never forsake their hearts, they live in one quiet and even state of life, and are known as the living liberated and long living seers. ²⁰. ²¹.

When the action of the lotus like machine of the heart has ceased, and the breath ceases to circulate in the body, it loses its steadiness, and falls, unsupported on the ground as a block of wood or stone.

As the octuple body mixes with the air in the vacuum of the sky, so is the mind also absorbed in it at the same time.

But being accompanied with the thoughts, to which it has been long accustomed, it continues to wander about in the air, and amidst the regions of heaven and hell, which it has long believed to await on its exit from the body.

The body becomes a dead corpse, after the mind has fled from it in the air; and it remains as an empty house, after its, occupant has departed from it.

The all pervading intellect, becomes by its power of intellection both the living soul as well as the mind; and after passing from its embodied form (of puryastaka), it assumes its spiritual (ātivāhika) nature afterwards.

It fosters in its bosom the quintessence (panca tan mātram) of the subtile elemental mind, which assumes a grosser form afterwards, as the thoughts of things appear in dream.

Then as the intensity of its thoughts, makes the unreal world and all its unrealities, appear as real before it, comes to forget and forsake its spiritual nature, and transform itself to a gross body.

It thinks by mistake the unreal body as substantial, and believes the unreal as real and the real as unreal. ²²

It is but a particle of the all pervading Intellect, that makes the living soul, which reflects itself afterwards in the form of the intelligent mind. ²³. The mind then ascends on the vehicle of the octuple body, and surveys the phenomenal world as a sober reality. ²⁴

The intellect is the prime mobile power, that gives force to the octuple material (puryastaka) body to move itself; and the action of the breath in the heart which is called life, resembles the spiritual force of a ghost raising an inert body. ²⁵

When the aerial mind flies into the vacuous air, after the material frame is weakened and worn-out; then the lifeless body remains as a block of wood or stone, and is called a dead mass by those that are living.

As the living soul forgets its spiritual nature, and becomes decayed in course of time and according to the frail nature of material things; so it fades and falls away in the manner of the withered leaves of trees.

When the vital power forsakes the body, and the action of the pericardium is stopped; the breath of life becomes extinct, and the animated being is said to die away.

As all beings that are born and have come to life, fade away in time like all created things in the world; so do human bodies also fade and fall away in time, like the withered leaves of trees.

The bodies of all embodied beings, are equally doomed to be born and die also in their time; as the leaves of trees, are seen to be incessantly growing and falling off at all seasons; why then should we lament at the loss of what is surely to be lost.

Look at these chains of living bodies, which are indiscriminately and incessantly rising and falling like bubbles and billows, in the vast ocean of the divine Intellect, and there is no difference of any one of them from another; why then should the wise make any distinction between objects that are equally frail in their nature, and proceed from and return to the same source.

The all-pervading intellect reflects itself only in the mind of man, and no where else; as it is the mirror only that receives the reflexions of objects, and no other opaque substance besides.

The acts and fates of men are all imprinted in the spacious and clear page of the Divine intellect, and yet are all embodied beings loud in their cries and complaints against the decrees of Heaven xhich is owing to their ignorance, and tending to their better grief and vain lamentation.

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