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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 7 - Description of the Seed of the Arbor of World

Bhuśunda replied: Having heard the aforesaid holy speech of the Vidyādhara, I answered to what he asked in plain words as follows.

Well said, O chief of the Vidyādharas, and it proves you to be awakened to your good fortune for your edification, that you do after so long desire to be raised, out of the dark pit and dungeon of the world.

Your holy intentions shine as bright as the blazing clouds in the midday light; and as pure liquid gold melted down by the fire of right reasoning.

Your clear mind will be able to grasp the meaning, of my admonition to you with ease; as the clean mirror is capable of receiving the reflexion of every object set before it. ¹

You must give your assent to what I say, by uttering the syllable Om-yes to the same; as you can have no doubt to take for certain truth, what I have come to know by my long research.

Know well and by giving up your ignorance, that what you feel within you ², is not your very self; and it is hard to have it ³, notwithstanding your long search after the same.

Know it for certain that there is no egoism or tuism ⁴, nor even this phenomenal world, that may be called the real entity; but all this is the blissful God, who is no cause of either your happiness or misery ⁵.

Whether this world is a creation of our ignorance, or whether it is ignorance itself, is what we cannot ascertain by our reasoning; because there being but one simple entity alone, there is no possibility of the co-existence of the duality ⁶.

The world appears as the water in the mirage; it is unsubstantial and though appearing as something real, it is in reality nothing at all. The phenomenon that appears to view, is himself and nothing otherwise.

The world being as the water in the mirage ⁷; there is neither its existence nor its in-existence neither, there can be no reflexion of it either ⁸; and therefore it must be but God himself.

The seed of the world is the Ego or the subjective self, and the Tu or the objective world, is to be known as derived from the subjective self or egoism. Such being the case, the visible world with all its lands and seas, its mountains and rivers and gods also, is the huge tree growing out of the same seminal source of egoism.

The great arbor of the worlds, grows out of the particle of egoism; the organs of sense are the succulent roots of this tree; and the far overspreading orbs of the sky, are the many divergent branches of the main arbor of the mundane world.

The starry frame in the sky, is the netted canopy over this arbor on high; and the groups of constellations, are bunches of blossoms of this tree; the desires of men are as the long fibres and lengthening filaments of the tree, and the lightsome moons are the ripe fruits thereof.

The many spheres of heaven, are the hollows of this large and great tree; and the Meru Mandara and other mountains, are its protuberant boughs and branches.

The seven oceans are the ditches of water, dug at the foot and root of this tree; and the infernal region is the deep pit underlying the root of this tree; the yugas and cycles of periods are its knots and joints, and the rotation of time over it, is as the circle of worms sucking up its juice for evermore.

Our ignorance is the ground of its growth, and all peoples are as flights of birds hovering upon it; its false apprehension forms its great trunk, which is burnt down by the conflagration of nirvāna or our knowledge of the utter extinction of all things.

The sights of things, the thoughts of the mind, and the various pleasures of the world, are all as false as a grove or forest in the sky; or as silver in the face of the hoary clouds, or in the coating of conch and pearl shells.

The seasons are its branches ⁹; and the ten sides of the air are its smaller boughs; because they spread themselves in all directions; self-consciousness is the pith and marrow of this tree ¹⁰, and the wind of the air is the breath of life, that fluctuates in every part of this tree of the world.

The sun-shine and moon-beams, are the two flowers of this tree; their rising and setting represent the opening and closing of blossoms; and the daylight and darkness of night, are as butterflies and humble bees fluttering over them.

Know at last, that one all pervading ignorance, extends all over this tree of the world; stretching from its root in the Tartarus, on all sides of the compass and its top in the heavens above. It is all an unreality appearing as real existence, and egoism which is the seed of this fallacy, being burnt up by the fire unegoism, it will no more vegetate in the form of this arbor of the world; nor put forth itself in future births and continuous transmigrations in this visionary world.

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