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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 43 - On Rest and Tranquility

Vasistha said- I well understand what the god said, and you too, O Rāma! know very well the course of the world.

When the false world appears in a false light to the fallacious understanding of man, and all proves to be but vanity of vanities, say what thing is there that may be called true and good and what as untrue and bad. ¹

As the alternative of something is not that thing itself, so the optional form of the soul, thought not the soul itself, yet it serves to convey some idea of the soul. ²

As fluidity is the nature of liquids, and fluctuation is that of the winds, and as vacuity is the state of the sky, so is creation the condition of the spirit or divine soul.

I have ever since ³, be taken myself to the worship of the spirit in spirit; and have since then, given up my eagerness for the outward adoration of gods.

It is by this rule that I have passed these days of my life, though I am tamely employed in the observance of the prescribed and popular ritual.

I have worshipped the Divine spirit, in all modes and forms and offering of flowers, as they presented of themselves to me; and notwithstanding the interruptions, I have uninterruptedly adored my god at all times, both by day and night.

All people in general, are concerned in making their offerings acceptable to their receiver (god), but it is the meditation of the yogi, which is the true adoration of the spirit.

Having known this, O lord of Raghu's race, do you abandon the society of men in your heart, and walk in your lonely path amidst the wilderness of the world, and thereby remain without sorrow and remorse.

And when exposed or reduced to distress, or aggrieved at the loss or separation of friends, rely on this truth, and think on the vanity of the world.

We should neither rejoice nor regret, at the acquisition or loss of friends and relations; because all things almost are so frail and unstable, in this transitory world.

You well know, Rāma! the precarious state of worldly possessions and their pernicious effects also; they come and go away of their own accord, but overpower on the man in both states ⁴.

So uncertain are the favours of friends and fortune, and so unforeseen is their loss also, that it is no way possible for any body to account for them. ⁵

O sinless Rāma! such is the course of the world, that you have no command over it nor is it ever subject to you; if the world is so insubordinate to you, Why is it then that you should be sorry for so unmanageable a thing?

Rāma! mind your spiritual nature, and know yourself as an expanded form of your intellect. See how you are pent up in your earthly frame, and forsake your joy and grief at the repeated reiterations and exist of your corporeal body.

Know my boy, that you are of the form of your intellect only, and inherent through out all nature; therefore there is nothing that you can resume to or reject from you in the world.

What cause of joy or grief is there in the vicissitudes of things in the world, which are occasioned by the revolutions of the mind on the pivot of the intellect; and resemble the whirling waters of the sea, caused by an eddy or vortex in it.

Do you, Rāma! betake yourself to the forth stage of susupta or hypnotism henceforth, as the even tenor of the intellect, is attended by its trance at the end.

Be you as cold and composed with your placid countenance and expanded mind, as the quiet spirit of god is diffused and displayed through out all nature; and remains as full as the vast ocean, in the contemplation of that soul, whose fullness fills the whole.

You have heard all this already, Rāma! and are fraught with the fullness of your understanding, now if you have any thing else to ask with regard to your former question, you can propose the same. ⁶

Rāma said- Sir, my former doubts are all dispersed at present, and I have no thing more to ask you regarding the same ⁷.

I have known all that is to be known, and felt a heart felt satisfaction at this, and now I am free from the foulness of the objective, and of dualism and fictions. ⁸

The foulness of the soul, proceeds from ignorance of the soul; and this ignorance ⁹, which had darkened my soul, is now removed by the light of spirituality.

I was under the error ¹⁰, which I have now come to understand, is neither foul matter, nor is it born or dies at any time. ¹¹

I am now confirmed in my belief, that all this is Brahmā diffused through out nature ¹²; and I have ceased from all doubts and questions on the subject, nor have I the desire of knowing any thing more about it. ¹³

My mind is now as pure, as the purified water of filtering machine; and am no more in need of learning any thing, from the preachings and moral lessons of the wise.

I am unconcerned with all worldly affairs, as the mouth Sumeru is insensible of the golden ores in its bosom and having all things about me, I am quite indifferent to them; because I have not what I expect to have, nor do I possess the object of my fond desire.

I expect nothing that is desirable, nor reject anything which is exceptionable; nor is there a mean in the interim of the two in this world, because there is nothing that is really acceptable or avoidable in it, nor anything which is truly good or bad herein.

Thus, O sage, the erroneous thought of these contraries, is entirely dissipated from me; wherefore I neither care for a seat in heaven, nor fear the terrors of the infernal regions.

I am as fixed in the self same spirit, as the mount Mandāra is firmly seated amidst the sea, and which scatters its particles throughout the three worlds, as that mountain splashed the particles of water in its state of churning the ocean.

I am as firm as the fixed Mandāra, while others are wandering in their errors of discriminating the positive and negative and the true and false, in their wrong estimation.

The heart of that man must be entangled with the weeds of doubts, who thinks in his mind the world to be one thing, and the Divine spirit as another. ¹⁴

He that seeks for his real good in anything in this world, never finds the same in the unsubstantial material world, which is full of the confused waves of the eternity.

It is by your favour, O venerable sir, that I have got over the boisterous ocean of this world; and having the limits of its perilous coasts, have come to the shore of safety and found the path of my future prosperity.

I am no more wanting in that supreme felicity, which is the summum bonum of all things; and am full in myself as the lord of all, And I am quite indomitable by anybody, since I have defeated the wild elephant of my covetousness.

Being loosened from the chain of desire, and freed from the fetters of option, I am rich and blest with the best of all things, and this is the internal satisfaction of my soul and mind, which gives me a cheerful appearance in all the triple world.

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