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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 53 - Admonition of Arjuna

The Lord said- Arjuna, you are not the killer ¹, it is a false conceit of yours which you must shun; the soul is ever lasting and free from death and decay.

He who has no egoism in him, and whose mind is not moved ², is neither the killer of nor killed by anybody, though be may kill everyone in the world. ³

Whatever is known in our consciousness, the same is felt within us; shun therefore your inward conscious of egoism and meity, as this is I and these are mine, and these are others and theirs.

The thought that you are connected with such and such persons and things, and that of your being deprived of them, and the joy and grief to which you are subjected thereby, must affect your soul in a great measure.

He who does his works with the parts or members of his body, and connects the least attention of his soul there with; becomes infatuated by his egoism and believes himself as the doer of his action. ⁴

Let the eyes see, the ears hear, and your touch feel their objects, let your tongue also taste the relish of a thing, but why take them to our soul and where is your egoism situated these?

The minds of even the great, are verily employed in the works that they have undertaken to perform, but where is your egoism or soul in these, that you should be sorry for its pains. ⁵

Your assumption to yourself to any action, which has been done by the combination of many, amounts only to a conceit of your vanity, and exposes you not only to ridicule, but to frustrate the merit of your act. ⁶

The yogis and hermits do their ritual and ordinary actions with attention of their minds and senses, and often times with the application of the members and organs of their bodies only, inorder to acquire and preserve the purity of their souls.

Those who have not subdued their bodies with the morphia of indifference, are employed in the repetition of their actions, without ever being healed of their disease ⁷.

No person is graceful whose mind is tinged with his selfishness, as no man however learned and wise is held in honour, whose conduct is blemished with unpoliteness and misbehaviours.

He who is devoid of his selfishness and egotism, and is alike patient both in prosperity and adversity, is neither affected nor dejected, whether he does his business or not.

Know this, O son of Pandu as the best field for your martial action; which is worthy of your great good, glory and ultimate happiness. ⁸

Though you reckon it as heinous on the one hand and unrighteous on the other; yet you must acknowledge the super excellence and imperiousness of the duties required of your martial race, so do your duty and immortalize yourself.

Seeing even the ignorant stick fast to the proper duties of their race, no intelligent person can neglect or set them at naught; and the mind that is devoid of vanity, cannot be ashamed or dejected, even if one fails or falls in the discharge of his duty.

Do you duty, O Arjuna, with your yoga or fixed attention to it, and avoid all company ⁹. If you do your works as they come to you by yourself alone, you will never fail nor be, foiled in any, ¹⁰.

Be as quiet as the person of Brahmā, and do your works as quietly as Brahmā does leave his result ¹¹ to Brahmā, ¹².

Commit yourself and all your actions and objects to God, remain as unaltered as God himself, and know him as the soul of all, an be thus the decoration of the world. ¹³

If you can lay down all your desires, and become as even and cool mind as a muni-monk; if you can join your soul to the yoga of sannyāsa or contemplative coldness, you can do all your actions with a mind unattached to any.

Arjuna said- Please lord, explain to me fully, what is meant by the renunciation of all connections, commitment of our actions to Brahmā; dedication of ourselves to God and abdication of all concerns.

Tell me also about the acquisition of true knowledge and divisions of Yoga meditation, all which I require to know in their proper order, for the removal of my gross ignorance on those subjects.

The Lord replied- The learned know that as the true form of Brahmā, of which we can form no idea or conception, but which may be known after the restraining of our imagination, and the passification of our desires.

Promptitude after these things constitutes our wisdom or knowledge, and perseverance in these practices is what is called Yoga. Self dedication to Brahmā rests on the belief that, Brahmā is all this world and myself also.

As a stone statue is all hollow both in its inside and outside, so is Brahmā as empty, tranquil and transparent as the sky, which is neither to be seen by us nor is it beyond our sight.

It then bulges out a little from itself, and appears as something, other than what it is. It is this reflexion of the universe, but all as empty as this inane vacuity.

What is again this idea of your egoism, when every thing is evolved out of the Supreme Intellect, of what account is the personality of anybody, which is but an infinite seal part of the universal soul.

The Egoism of the individual soul, is not apart from the universal spirit, although it seems to be separate from the same; because there is possibility of exclusion or separation of anything from the Omnipresent and all comprehensive soul of God, and therefore a distinct egoism is a nullity.

As it is the case with our egoism, so is it witti the individuality of a pot and of a monkey also. ¹⁴ None of which is separate from the universal whole. All existences being as drops of water in the sea, it is absurd to presume an egoism to anybody.

Things appearing as different to the conscious soul, are to be considered as the various imageries represented in the self- same soul, ¹⁵.

So also is the knowledge of the particulars and species, lost in the idea of the general and the sum mum genus. Now by sannyasa or renunciation of the world is meant, the resig­nation of the fruition of the fruits of our actions. ¹⁶

Unattachment signifies the renunciation of all our worldly desires, and the intense application of the mind to the one sole God of the multifarious creation, and the variety of his imaginary representations.

The want of all dualism in the belief of his self existence as distinct from that of God, constitutes his dedication of himself to God; it is ignorance that creates the distinction, by applying various names and attributes to the one intellectual soul.

The meaning of the word intelligent soul, is undoubtedly that it one with the universe; and that the Ego is the same with all space, and its contents of the worlds and their motions.

The Ego is the unity of Eternity, and the Ego is duality and plurality in the world, and the variety of its multifarious productions. Therefore be devoted to the sole Ego, and drown your own egoism in the universal Ego. ¹⁷

Arjuna said- There being two forms of the Deity, the one transcendent of spiritual and the other transpicuous or material; tell me to which of these I shall resort for my ultimate perfection.

The lord replied- There are verily two forms of the all pervading Visnu, the esoteric and the other esoteric; that having a body and hands holding the conch-shell, the discus, and the mace and lotus, is the common form for public worship.

The other is the esoteric or spiritual form, which undefined and without its beginning and end; and is usually expressed by the term Brahmā-great.

As long as you are unacquainted with the nature of the supreme soul, and are not awakened to the light of the spirit; so long should you continue to adore the form of the God with its four arms. ¹⁸

By this means you will be awakened to light, by your knowledge of the supreme; and when you come to comprehend the Infinite in yourself, you shall have no more to be born in any mortal form.

When you are acquainted with the knowledge of the knowable soul, then will your soul find its refuge in eternal soul of Hari, who absorbs all souls in him.

When I tell you that this is I and I am that, mind that I mean to say that, this and that is the Ego of the supreme soul, which I assume to myself for your instruction.

I understand you to be enlightened to truth, and to rest in the state of supreme felicity; and now that you are freed from all your temporal desires, I wish you to be one with the true and holy spirit.

View in yourself the soul of all beings and those beings themselves; think your own-self or soul as the micros of the great universe, and tolerant and broad sighted in your practice of Yoga. ¹⁹

He who worships the universal soul that resides in all beings, as the one self same and undivided spirit; is released from the doom of repeated births, whether he leads a secular or holy life in this world.

The meaning of the word "all" is unity ²⁰, and the meaning of the word "one" is the unity of the soul; as in the phrase "All is one" it is meant to say that the whole universe is collectively but one soul. ²¹

He who shines as light within the minds of all persons, and dwells in the inwards consciousness or percipience of every being, is no other than the very soul that dwells within myself also.

That which is settled in shape of savour in the waters all over the three worlds. ²²; and what gives flavour to the milk, curd and the butter of the bovine kind, and dwells as sapidity in the marine salt and other saline substances, and imparts its sweetness to saccharine articles, the same is this savoury soul, which gives a gust to our lives, and a good taste to all the objects of our enjoyment.

Know your soul to be that percipience, which is situated in the hearts of all corporeal beings, whose rarity eludes our perception of it, and which is quite removed from all perceptible, and is therefore ubiquitous in every thing and omnipresent everywhere.

As the butter is inbred in all kinds of milk, and the sap of all sappy substances is inborn in them, so the supreme soul is intrinsically and immanent in everything.

As all the gems and pearls of the sea, have a lustre inherent in them, and which shines forth both in their inside and outside; so the soul shines in and out of everybody without being seated in any part of it, whether in or out or where about it.

As the air pervades both in the inside and outside of all empty pots, so the spirit of God is diffused in and about all bodies in all the three worlds. ²³

As hundreds of pearls are strung together by a thread in the necklace, so the soul of God extends through and connects these millions of beings, without its being known by any. ²⁴

He who dwells in the hearts of everybody in the world, commencing from Brahmā to the object grass that grows on the earth; the essence which is common in all of them, is the Brahmā the unborn and undying.

Brahmā is a slightly developed form of Brahmā, and resides in the spirit of the great Brahmā, and the same dwelling in us, makes us conceive of our egoism by mistake of the true Ego.

The divine soul being manifest in the form of the world, say what can it be that destroys or is destroyed in it; and tell me, Arjuna, what can it be that is subject to or involved in pleasure or pain.

The divine soul is as a large mirror, showing the images of things upon its surface, like reflexions on the glass; and though these reflexions disappear and vanish in time, yet the mirror of the soul is never destroyed, but looks as it looked before.

When I say I am this and not the other ²⁵, I am quite wrong and inconsistent with myself; so is to say, that the human soul is the spirit or image of God, and not that of any other being, when the self­same Divine spirit is present and immanent in all. ²⁶

The revolutions of creation, sustentation and final dissolution, take place in an unvaried and unceasing course in the spirit of God, and so the feelings on surface of the waters of the sea. ²⁷

As the stone is the constituent essence of rocks, the wood of trees and the water of waves; so is the soul the constituent element of all existence.

He who sees the soul ²⁸ in all substances, and every substance , ²⁹ in the soul; and views both as the component of one another, sees the uncreating God as the reflector and reflexion of Himself.

Know Arjuna, the soul to be the integrant part of every thing, and the constituent element of the different forms and changes of things; as the water is of the waves, and the gold is of jeweleries. ³⁰

As the boisterous waves are let loose in the waters, and the jewels are made of gold; so are all things existent in and composed of the spirit of God.

All material beings of every species, are forms of the Great Brahmā himself; know this one as all, and there is nothing apart or distinct from him.

How can there be an independent existence, or voluntary change of anything in the world; where can they or the world be except in the essence and omnipresence of God, and wherefore do you think of them in vain?

By knowing all this as I have told you, the saints live fearless in this world by reflecting on the supreme Being in themselves; they move about as liberated in their lifetime, with the equanimity of their souls.

The enlightened saints attain to their imperishable states, by being invincible to the errors of fiction, and unsubdued by the evils of worldly attachment; they remain always in their spiritual and holy states, by being free from temporal desires, and the conflicts of jarring passions, doubts and dualities.

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