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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 146 - Disquisition of Sound Sleep

The Hunts-man said: Tell me, O great sage, what did you do and saw afterwards, from your seat in the erroneous spirit of that person.

The sage replied: Hear me tell you next, what I did and saw afterwards, by my union with and my situation in the spirit of that infatuated person.

As I resided in the dark cave of his heart, in the confusion of the last doomsday; there arose me thought a hurricane, which blew away the mountains as straws, on the day of the final desolation of the world.

It was soon followed by out pouring of rain water from the mountain tops; which bore away the woods and hills in the torrent.

As I dwelt in that cavity and in union with the vitality of the individual, I perceived even in that state of my spiritual minuteness, the falling rains and hailstones from the mountain tops.

I was then folded in the chyle of that person, and fell into a state of sound sleep, and felt a deep darkness enveloping me all over.

Having laid down in my sleep for some time, I was gradually raised from my sleepy state; as the closed lotus of the night, unfolds its petals in the morning.

Then as a man lying in darkness, comes to see some circular disks appearing to his sight; so I saw some flimsy dreams flying about and hovering upon me.

Being released from the chain of sleep, I fell to a chain of dreams; and saw a hundred shapes of things, arising in my spirit, as the shapes of unnumbered waves and billows, rise in the bosom of the sea.

Very many forms of visible things, appeared in the cell of my consciousness; as a great many flying things are seen to be volitant in the still and motionless air.

As heat is inherent in fire, and coldness is innate in water, and as fluidity is characteristic of liquids, and pungency is immanent in pepper etc; so is the world inborn in Brahma.

The nature of the Intellect being uniform and self-same in itself; the phenomenal world is ingrained in it, as the dreams of a new born child, presents itself to the sight of a sleeping man.¹

The Hunts-man rejoined: Tell me sir, how is it possible for the Intellect to have the sight of anything in its state of sound sleep, since dreams never occur in the mind except in the state of slight and light sleep.

Again in the state of sound sleep both of yourself, as also of the person in whose heart you dwelt; how could the sight of the creation appear to you ².

The sage replied: Know that certain is expressed by the words, viz. jāyate is born, bhāti appeared, and kacati shines; and are applied indiscriminately to all material things, as pots and pictures as well as to the world also; all these words are used to express a duality ³, by men whose brains are heated with dualism, or the notion of a duality ⁴.

Know that the word jāta or born means only being (sattva), and its synonyms are prādurbhāva- manifestation, which is derived from the root bhū to be.

Now the meaning of Bhū is being, which expresses the sense of being born also, and the sarga meaning production or creation, it is same with being also.

With us learned men, there is nothing as jāyāti or what is made or may be said to be born or destroyed; but all is one calm and quiet unborn being only.⁵

The whole and soul of this entity, is the one Brahma alone ⁶; and the totality of existence, is the Cosmos, macrocosm or the world. Say then what hypos­tasis or insubstantiality is there that can be positively affirmed or denied of it, which is of them alike.

That which is called śakti, or the active energy of god, resides literally in the Divine spirit, but not as a free or separate power of itself; because all power subsists in Omnipotence, which is self­same with Brahma, and not as an attribute or part of him.⁷

The properties of waking, sleep and dreaming, do not belong to the nature of god, according to the cognition of men learned in divine Knowledge; because God never sleeps nor dreams, nor does he wake in the manner of His creature.⁸

Neither sleep nor the airy visions of dreaming, nor also anything that we either know or have any notion of, can have any relation to the nature of the Inscrutable One; any more than the impossibility of our having any idea of the world before its creation. So the Persian mystic Berun Zātash, aztohmate chunan to chunin. His nature is beyond our comprehension and presumption of it as so and such).

It is the living soul which sees the dream, and imagines the creation in itself; or else the pure intellect is quite unintelligible in its nature, and remains as clear as either in the beginning of creation.

The Intellect is neither the observer nor enjoyer⁹; it is something as nothing, perfectly quiet and utterly unspeakable in its nature.

In the beginning there was no cause of creation, or creative agent of the world; it is only an ideal of the Divine Mind, and exists forever in the same state, as a vision in the dream or an airy castle of imagination.

It is thus that the individual Intelligence, is apprehended as a duality by the unwise, but never by the intelligent; because ignorant men like silly infants are afraid of the tiger or snake that is painted upon their own person; but the intelligent knowing them too well to be marked upon their own bodies, never suspect them as anything otherwise than their own person.

The One invariable and translucent soul, which is without its beginning, middle and end, appears as varying and various to the unreflecting dualist and polytheist; but the whole appearing so changeful and conspicuous to sight, is all a perfect calm and quiet and serene prospect in itself.

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