Philosophy and Religion / Yoga Vāsistha / Yoga-Vāsistha (6.2): Nirvāna-Prakarana

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 19 - Description of the Form of Virāt or the all Comprehending Deity

Rāma said: Tell me sir, regarding the nature of the living soul, and the manner of its assuming its different forms; and tell me also its original form, and those which it takes at different times and places.

Vasistha replied: The infinite intelligence of God, which fills all space and vacuum; takes of its own will a subtile and minute form, which is intelligible under the name of Intellect; and it is this which is expressed by the term living soul-­jīva or zoa.

Its original form is neither that of a minute atom, nor a bulky mass; not an empty vacuity, nor anything having its solidity. It is the pure intellect with consciousness of itself, it is omnipresent and is called the living soul. ¹

It is the minutest of the minute, and the hugest of the huge; it is nothing at all, and yet the all, which the learned designate as the living soul. ²

Know it as identic with the nature, property and quality, of any object whatever that exists any where; It is the light and soul of all existence, and self same with all, by its engrossing the knowledge of everything in itself. ³

Whatever this soul thinks in any manner, of anything at any place or time, it immediately becomes the same by its motion thereof; ⁴. ⁵

The soul possesses the power of thinking, as the air has its force in the winds; but its thoughts are directed by the knowledge of things, ⁶; and not by the guidance of anyone, as the appearance of ghosts to boys.

As the existent air appears to be in-existent, without the motion of the wind; so the living soul desisting from its function of thinking, is said to be extinct in the Supreme Deity.

The living soul is misled to think of its individuality as the ego, by the density or dullness of its intellect; and supposes itself to be confined within a limited space of place and time, and with limited powers of action and understanding. ⁷

Being thus circumscribed by time and space, and endowed with substance and properties of action etc., it assumes, to itself an unreal form or body, with the belief of its being or sober reality. ⁸

It then thinks itself to be enclosed in an ideal atom; as one sees himself in his dream to be involved in his unreal death.

And as one finds in its mind his features and the members of his body, to another form in his dream; so the soul forgets her intellectual entity in her state of ignorance, and becomes of the same nature and form, as she constantly thinks upon. ⁹

Thinking itself to be thus transformed to a gross and material form, as that of Virāt the macrocosm, ¹⁰; it views itself as bright and spotted, as the disk of the moon with the black spot upon it.

It then finds in its person resembling the lunar disk, the sudden union of the five senses of perception, appearing in him of themselves.

These five senses are then found to have the five organs of sensation for their inlets, by which the soul perceives the sensation of their respective objects.

Then the Purusa or first male power known as Virāt, manifests, himself in five other forms said to be the members of his person; and these are the sun, the sides, water, air and the land, which are the objects of five senses said before. He then becomes of endless forms according, to the infinity of objects of his knowledge: ¹¹. He is thus manifested in his objective forms, but is quite unknown to us in his subjective or causal form, which is unchangeable and undecaying.

He sprang up at first from the supreme being, as its mental energy or the mind; and was manifest in the form of the calm and clear firmament, with the splendour of eternal delight.

He was not of the five elemental form, but was the soul of the five element, he is called the Virāt Purusa-the macrocosm of the world, and the supreme lord of all. ¹²

He rises spontaneously of himself, and then subsides in himself; he expands his own essence all over the universe, and at last contracts the whole in himself.

He rose in a moment with his power of volition, and with all his desires in himself; he rises of his own will at first, and after lasting long in himself, dissolves again in himself.

He is the self-same one with the mind of God, and he is the great body of the material world; and his body is called the puryasataka or container of the eight elementary principles, as also the ativāhika or of the spiritual-form.

He is as the subtile and gross air, manifest as the sky, but invisible as he, subtile ether; he is both within and as well as without everything, and is yet nothing in himself.

His body consists of eight members, viz-the five senses, the mind, the living principle and egoism, together with the different states of their being and not being, ¹³; ¹⁴.

He ¹⁵, sang at first the four Vedas with his four mouths; he determined the significations of words, and it was he who established the rules of conduct, which are in vogue to this time.

The high and boundless heaven, is the crown of his head; and the lower earth is the footstool of his feet; the unbounded sky is his capacious belly, and the whole universe is the temple over his body.

The multitudes of worlds all about, are the members of his body on all sides; the waters of seas are the blood of the scars upon his body; the mountains are his muscles, and the rivers and streams are the veins and arteries of his body.

The seas are his blood vessels, and the islands are the ligatures round his persons; his arms are the sides of the sky, and the stars are the hairs on his body.

The forty-nine winds are its vital airs, the orb of the sun is its eye-ball, while its heat is the fiery bile inside its belly.

The lunar orb is the sheath of his life, and its cooling beams are the humid humours of his body; his mind is the receptacle of his desires, and the pith of his soul is the ambrosia of his immortality.

He is the root of the tree of the body, and the seed of the forest of actions; he is the source of all existence, and he is as the cooling moon-light diffusing delight to all beings by the heating beams of that balmy planet osadhīsa.

The orb of the moon, is said in the śruti as the lord of life, the cause of the body and thoughts and actions of all living beings; ¹⁶.

It is from this moon like Virāt, that contains all vitality that all other living beings in the universe take their rise; hence the moon is the container of life, mind, action and the sweet ambrosia of all living beings.

It is the will or desire of Virāt, that produced the gods Brahmā, Visņu and Śiva from himself; and all the celestial deities and demons, are the miraculous creation of his mind.

It is the wonderful nature of the intelligent Intellect, that whatever it thinks upon in its form of an infinitesimal atom, the same appears immediately before it in its gigantic form and size.

Know Rāma, the whole universe to be seat of the soul of Virāt; ¹⁷, and the five elements to compose the five component parts of his body. ¹⁸

Virāt that shines as the collective or universal soul of the world, in the bright orb of the moop, diffuses light and life to all individuals by spreading the moon-beams which produces the vegetable food for the supportance and sustenance of living beings.

The vegetable substances, which supply the animal bodies with their sustenance; and thereby produce the life of living beings; produce also the mind which becomes the cause of the actions and future births of persons by its efforts towards the same.

In this manner a thousand Virāts and hundreds of Mahā-kalpa periods have passed away; and there many such still existing and yet to appear, with varieties of customs and manners of peoples in different ages and climes.

The first and best and supremely blest virāt-­the male Deity, resides in this manner of our conception of him, and indistinct in his essence from the state of transcendent divinity; with his huge body extending beyond the limits of space and time. ¹⁹

Footnotes

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