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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 73 - Description of the Person of Virāt the God of Nature

Rāma said: Sir, you have said at length regarding our bondage and liberation, and our knowledge of the world as neither a reality nor an unreality also; and that it neither rises nor sets, but is always existent as at first and ever before.

I have well understood Sir, all your lectures on the subjects, and yet wish to know more of these, for my full satisfaction with the ambrosial drops of your speech.

Tell me sir, how there is no truth nor any untruth, either in erroneous view of the creation as a reality, or its view as a mere vacuum.

In such a case, I well understand what is the real truth; yet I want you to tell more of this, for my comprehension of the subject of creation.

Vasistha replied: All this world that is visible to us, with all its moving and unmoving creatures; and all things with all there varieties, occasioned by difference of country and climate.

All these are subject to destruction, at the great dissolution of the world; together with Brahma, Indra, Upendra, Mahendra and the Rudras at the end.

Then there remains something alone, which is unborn and increate and without its beginning; and which is eve calm and quiet in its nature. To this no words can reach, and of which nothing can be known.

As the mountain is larger and more extended than a mustard seed, so is the sky much more than that; but the entity of vacuity is the greatest of all.

Again as the dusts of the earth, are smaller than the great mountain; so the stupendous universe, is a minute particle in comparison with the infinite entity of the vacuity of God.

After the long lapse of unmeasured time, in the unlimited space of eternity, ¹; and after the dissolution of all existence in the transcendent vacuum of the Divine Mind ².

At this time the great vacuous intellect, which is unlimited by space and time, and is quite tranquil by being devoid of all its desire and will; looks in itself by its reminiscence, the atomic world in aeriform state, ³.

The intellect reconnoitres over this unreality within itself, as it were in its dream; and then it thinks on the sense of the word Brahma or enlargement, and beholds the dilation of these minutiae in their intellectual forms: ⁴.

It is the nature of the intellect to know the minute ideas, which are contained in its sensory; and because it continues to look upon them, it is called their looker. ⁵

⁶; As a man sees himself as dead in his dream, and the dead man sees his own death; so does the intellect see the minute ideas in itself. ⁷

Hence it is the nature of the intellect, to see its unity as a duality within itself; and to remain of its own nature, as both the subjective and objective by itself.

The intellect is of the nature of vacuum, and therefore formless in itself; and yet it beholds the minute ideas to rise as visible before it, and thereby the subjective viewer becomes the duality of the objective view also.

It then finds its minute self, springing out distinctly in its own conception; just as a seed is found to sprout forth in its germ. ⁸

It has then the distinct view of space and time, and of substance and its attributes and actions before its sight; but as these are yet in their state of internal conceptions, they have as yet received no names for themselves.

Wherever the particle of the intellect shines ⁹; is called the place ¹⁰, and whenever it is perceived the same is termed as time, and the act of perception is styled the action.

Whatever is perceived ¹¹, the same is said as the object; and the sight or seeing thereof by it, is the cause of its perception, just as the light of a luminary, is the cause of ocular vision.

Thus endless products of the intellect appear before it, as distinct from one another by their time, place, and action; and all these appearing as true, like the various colours of the skies in the sky.

The light of the intellect shines through different parts of the body, as the eye is the organ whereby it sees; and so the other organs of sense for its perception of other objects. ¹²

The intellect particle, shining at first within itself, bears no distinct name except that of tanmātra or its inward perception; which is as insignificant a term as empty air.

But the shadow of the atomic intellect falling upon the empty air, becomes the solid body; which shoots forth into the five organs of sense, owing to its inquest into their five objects of form and the rest.

The intellectual principle, being then in need of retaining its sensations in the sensorium, becomes the mind and understanding, ¹³.

Then the mind being actuated by its vanity, takes upon it the denomination of egoism, and is inclined to make imaginary divisions of space and time.

Thus the minute intellect comes to make distinction of time, by giving them the different denomination of the present, past and future.

Again with regard to space, it denominates one place as upper and another as lower; and goes on giving different appellation of sides ¹⁴, to one invariable space in nature.

It then comes to understand the meanings of words, and invent the terms signifying time and space, action and substance.

Thus the intellect bearing a vacuous form in the primordial vacuum, became the spiritual or lingdeha of its own accord, until its was diffused all over the world; ¹⁵.

Having long remained in that state as it thought, it took upon it the completely concrete material from through which it was transfused.

Though formed originally of air in the original air, and was perfectly pure in its nature; yet being incorporated in the false corporeal form, it forgot its real nature; as the solar-heat in conjunction with sand, is mistaken for water.

It then takes upon itself and of its own will, a form reaching to the skies; to which it applied to the sense of the word head to some part, and that of the word feet to another. ¹⁶

It applied to itself the sense of the words breast, sides and to other parts, by adopting their figurative sense and rejecting the literal ones. ¹⁷

By thinking constantly on the forms of things, as this is a cow and that is a horse etc., as also of their being bounded by space and time; it became conversant with the objects of different senses.

The same intellectual particle, saw likewise the different parts of its body; which it termed its hands, feet &c, as its outward members; and the heart etc., as the inner members of the body.

In this manner is formed the body of Brahma, as also those of Visnu and the Rudras and other Gods; and so also the forms of men and worms are produced from their conception of the same.

But infect there is nothing, that is really made or formed; for all things are now, as they have been ever before. All this is the original vacuum, and primeval intelligence; and all forms are the false formations of fancy.

Virāt is the seed producing the plants of the three worlds, which are productive of many more, as one root produces many bulbs under it. Belief in the creation, puts a bolt to the door of salvation; and the appearance of the world, is as that of a light and fleeting cloud without any rain.

This Virāt is the first male, rising unseen of his own will. He is the cause of all actions and acts.

He has no material body no bone or flesh, nor is he capable of being grasped under the fist of anybody.

He is as quiet and silent, as the roaring sea and cloud, and the loud roar of lions and elephants, and the din of battle, is unheard by the sleeping man.

He remains neither as a reality, nor entirely as an unreality; but like the notion of awaking man of a warrior seen to be fighting in his dream. ¹⁸

Although his huge body stretches to millions of miles, yet it is contained in an atom with all the worlds that lie hid in every pore of his body. ¹⁹

Though thousands of worlds and millions of mountains compose the great body of the unborn Virāt, yet they are not enough to fill it altogether, as a large quantity of grain, is not sufficient to fill a winnowing basket.

Though myriads of worlds are stretched in his body, yet they are but an atom in comparison with its infinity; and the Virāt is represented to contain all in his body, yet it occupies no space or place, but resembles a baseless mountain in a dream.

He is called the self-born and Virāt also, and though he is said to be the body and soul of the­world, yet he is quite a void himself.

He is also named as Rudra and Sanatana, and Indra and upendro also; he is likewise the wind, the cloud and the mountain in his person.

The minute particle of the Intellect, like a small spark of fire, inflates and spreads itself at first; and then by thinking its greatness, it takes the form of citta or the thinking mind, which with its self-consciousness becomes the vast uni­verse.

Then being conscious of its afflation, it becomes the wind in motion; and this is the aeriform body of Virāt.

Then it becomes the vital breath, from the consciousness of its inspiration and expiration in the open air.

It then imagines of an igneous particle in its mind, as children fancy a ghost where there is none; and this assumes the forms of luminous bodies ²⁰ in the sky.

The vital breath of respiration, are carried by turns through the respiratory organs into the heart; whence it is borne on the wings of air to sustain the world, which is the very heart of Virāt.

This Virāt is the first rudiment of all individual bodies in the,world, and in their various capacities forever.

It is from this universal soul, that all individual bodies have their rise, and according to their sundry desires; and as these differ from one another in their outward shapes, so they all are different also in their inward natures and inclinations.

As the seed of Virāt sprang forth at first, in the nature and constitution of every individual being; it continues to do so in the same manner in the heart of every living, agreeably to the will of the same causal principle.

The sun, moon and the winds, are as the bile, phlegm in the body of Brahma; and the planets and stars, are as the circulating breath and drops of the spittle of phlegm of that deity.

The mountains are his bones, and the clouds his flesh; but we can never see his head and feet, nor his body and skin.

Know, O Rāma, this world to be the body of Virāt, and an imaginary form by his imagination only. Hence the earth and heaven and all the contents, are but the shadow of his Intellectual vacuity.

Footnotes

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