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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction). Chapter 95 - The anaesthetic platonism of Sikhidhwaja

Sikhidhwaja said- If the view of the whole universe is but a phantom, and our knowledge of myself, yourself and of this and that, is but an error of our mind, then why is it that should be concerned about or sorry for anything.

Kumbha replied- The erroneous impression of the existence of the world, has so firmly laid hold of the minds of men; as the frozen water appearing as crystal, is believed as dry land by people.

It is said by the learned, that the knowledge of gross matter is lost with the dispersion of ignorance; and that there is no other way of getting rid of this long contracted prejudice, without our riddance from ignorance.

It is the acuteness of the understanding, which is the only means of our coming to the knowledge of truth; that the creation and dissolution of the world, are dependent on the will and causality of the Supreme Being.

He whose understanding becomes, is sure to loose hiš rooted prejudice by degrees; and come to the knowledge of the nihility of the material world.

In this way of refining your mind from its prepossession of gross ideas, you will come to find the erroneous conception of a prime male (ādipurusa), as that of Brahmā ¹ as the first creative power, to be as false as the water in the mirage.

The great grandfather of the world being a nullity, the creation of all creatures by him ²; is likewise as false and null, as it is absurd for an impossibility to come into being.

The perception of a thing enesse, is as false as the conception of water in the mirage; a little reflexion is enough to remove this error, like the mistake of silver in cockles and conch-shells.

Any work which appears to exist without its cause, is only a phantom of fallacy, and has no essential form whatever in reality.

Whatever is done by once erroneous knowledge or mistake of a thing, comes to be of no use to him; as the attempt to fell a pot with the water of the mirage, proves to be utterly vain.

Sikhidhwaja said- Why can't we call the supreme Brahmā, to be the cause of Brahmā-the first creator of the world who is called the son of God, the one unborn and without end, and the inexpressible and everlasting.

Kumbha replied- The God Brahmā, being neither the cause nor the effect of any action, is but an invariable unity and transcendent spirit, and is never the cause or effect of anything.

How can the incomprehensible and unknowable Brahmā, be designated as the creator, when he is not predicable by any of the predicates of the creator or created or as the instrument or cause of anything.

The world having no separate cause, is no separate product of any causality whatever; it is no duality but one with the unity, without its beginning or end, and co-eternal with the eternal one. ³

He that is inconceivable and unknowable, is perfect felicity, tranquility and ever undecaying, and can never be the active or passive agent of anything, on account of the immutability of his nature.

Hence there is nothing as a creation, and the visible world is but a nihility, and the Lord God is neither an active nor passive agent, but quite still and full of bliss.

There being no causal power, the world is not the production of anybody; it is our error only that this world as a production without any assignable cause.

The uncaused world is the product of nothing, and therefore nothing in itself; for if it be the production of nobody, it is a nullity like its cause also.

The non-existence of anything or the not being of everything ⁴, proved as a certain truth; we can have no conception of anything, and the absence of such conception, it is in vain to suppose the existence of an egoism or tuism.

Sikhidhwaja said- Sir, I now perceive the truth, and find the reasonableness of all that your have said; I see now that I am the pure and free soul, and quite aloof of any bondage or its liberation from bonds.

I understand Brahma as no cause of anything, for his entire want of causality; and the world is a nullity for its want of a cause, and therefore there is no being whatever which we reckon as a category.

Thence there is no such category as the mind or its seed, nor its growth nor decay; I therefore bow down to myself of which alone I have a consciousness in me.

I am alone conscious of myself, existence in myself and have no real knowledge of any else beside me, and which appear as fleeting clouds in the womb of the sky.

The distinct knowledge of the different categories of time, place, action in the world, is now entirely blended in the knowledge of the unity of the tranquil spirit of Brahmā ⁵.

I am tranquil, calm and quite and settled in the spirit of God; I do not rise nor fall from nor move about this prop. I remain as you do in immovable spirit of god, which is all quiet, holiness and felicity in itself.

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