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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 193 - Mental Torpor or Tranquillity

Rāma rejoined: There is the only One alone whom neither the gods nor the rsis know or comprehend; He is without beginning, middle and end, and it is that being that thus shines himself, without this world and these phenomena.

It is useless to us to mind the difference, between the unity and duality, and to be led to the doubts created by the misleading verbiology of erroneous doctrines; without relying in the state of one tranquil and unvarying Spirit.

The world is as clearly a vacuous body, appearing in the womb of vacuity; as the string of pearls and the aerial castles, that are seen in the open sky.

The world is attached in the same manner, to the solidity of the invisible intellect; as vacuity is inherent in vacuum, rapidity in the stone, and fluidity in water.

Though the world, appears to be spread on all sides of space; yet it is no more than an empty vacuity, lying calm and quiet, in the hollow womb of the great intellect.

This world appearing so fair and perspicuous, to the sight of ignorant people; vanishes as a phantom into nothing, at the sight of the boundless glory of the transcendent god,

The impression of difference and duality, existing between the creator and creation, among worldly men; vanishes upon reflection, like waves into the waters of the sea.

The existence of the world, together with all our miseries in it, before the light of our liberation; as the darkness of night flies away at sunrise, and the light of the day disappears, before the gloom of night.

Whether in plenty or poverty, or in birth, death or disease; or in the troubles and turmoils of the world, the wise man remains unshaken, though he may be overpowered by them.

There is no knowing nor error in this world, nor any pain or pleasure, or distress or delight in it; but they are all attributes of the deity, whose pure nature is unsullied by them.

I have come to know, that this existence is the immaculate Brahma himself; and is the want of our knowledge, which says anything to be beside the spirit of the Great God.

I am awakened to, and enlightened in divine knowledge; and find external existence cease to exist in any presence.

Perfect knowledge tells us, all these worlds to be but Brahma himself; but want of this knowledge says, I was no Brahma before, but have now becomes so by my knowledge.

The known and the unknown, the dark and the bright are all but Brahma, as vacuity and unity, and brightness and blueness, do all appertain to the one and same sky.

I am extinct in the deity ¹, and sit dauntless of anything; I am devoid of all desire, with my leaning in perfect blessedness; I am as I am, ravished in my infinite bliss, without my sensibility of what or which.

I am wholly that one and sole entity, which is naught but perfect tranquility; I see nothing but a calm and quiet, which utterly absorbs and enrapts me quite.

Knowing the knowable ² is to unknown one's self and ignore the visible; as this cognition continues to dawn in the soul, the whole cosmos sinks into oblivion and seems a block of stone, without the name and sign of anything being known.

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