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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 70 - The Words of the Creator of Worlds In the Mundane Stone

The Brāhmana related: Now as the world is approaching to its end, and I am going to take my rest in the formless void of the intellect ¹; it is for this reason that this divinity of worldly desires, is drowned in deep sorrow.

And as I am about to forsake her forever, it is for this very reason, O sage, that she is so very sorry and sick at her heart.

Being myself of an aerial fours, when I become one with the supreme spirit ²; then there takes place the great dissolution of the world with the end of all my desire.

Hence she with deep sorrow pursues my way, for who is there so senseless, that does not fellow after the giver of her being.

Now the time is come for the termination of the Kaliyuga, and of the -rotation of the four ages; and the dissolution of all living beings, Manus, Indras, and the Gods, is near at hand.

Today is the end of the kalpa and great kalpa age, and this day puts an end to my energy and will, and makes me mix with the eternal and infinite vacuity.

It is now that this personification of my desire, is about to breathe her last; just as the lake of lotuses being dried, the breath of lotus flowers also is lost in the air.

The quiet soul like the calm ocean, is always at a state of rest; unless it is agitated by its fickle desires, as the sea is troubled by its fluctuating waves.

The embodied being ³, has naturally a desire to know the soul, and to freed from its dungeon.

Thus this lady being fraught with spiritual knowledge, and long practiced in yoga meditation; has seen the world you inhabit, and the four different states of its inhabitants. ⁴

She traversing through the regions of air, has come to the sight of the aforesaid ethereal stone above the polar mountain, which is our celestial abode and the pattern of your world.

Both that world of yours and this abode of ours, rest on a great mountain, which bears upon it many other worlds ⁵.

We also donot see them with our discriminating eye sight, of descening them separately from one another; but we behold them all commingled in one, in our abstract view of yoga meditation. ⁶

There are numberless worlds of creations, in earth, water and air and in everything under the sky, as if they are compress or carved in the body of a huge block of stone.

What you call the world is a mere fallacy, and resembles your vision of a fairy city in dream; it is a false name applied to an object, existing nowhere beyond the intellect ⁷.

They who have come to know the world, as no other than an airy vision of the mind, are verily called as wise men, and not liable to fall into error.

There others who by their application to and practice of yoga contemplation, come to attain their desired object, as this lady has succeeded to gain your company ⁸.

Thus, the illusory power of the intellect, display these material worlds before us; and thus the everlasting Divine omnipotence manifest itself ⁹.

There is no action nor any creation, that is ever produced from anything or ever reduced to nothing; but all things and actions are the spontaneous growth of the intellect only; togeth­er with our ideas of space and time.

Know the ideas of time and space, of substance and action, as well as of the minds and its faculties, are the lasting figures and marks on the stone of the intellect, and are ever salient in it, without their setting or being shaded at anytime.

This intellect is the very stone ¹⁰, and is either at rest or rolling on as roller or wheel; the worlds appertain to it as its appurtenances, and accompany it as motion does the wind.

The soul being replete with its full knowledge of all things, is considered as the solid world itself; and though it is infinite in time and space, yet it is thought as limited, owing to its appearance in the form of the bounded and embodied mind.

The unbounded intellect appears as bounded, by its limited knowledge; and although it is formless, yet it appears in the form of the mind, representing the worlds in it.

As the mind views itself in the form of aerial city in its dream, so does it find itself in the form of this stone, with the worlds marked upon it in the daytime. ¹¹

There is no rolling of the orbs in this world, nor the running of streams herein, there is no object subsisting in reality any where; but they are all mere representations of the mind in empty air.

As there are no kalpa and great kalpa ages in eternity, nor the substantiality of anything in the vacuity of our consciousness; and as there is no difference of the waves and bubbles from the waters of the sea; ¹².

The worlds appearing to be inesse or existent in the mind and before the eyes; are in reality utterly in-existent in the intellect, which spreads alike as the all pervading and empty vacuum every where. And as all empty space in every place is alike and same with the infinite vacuity; so the forms of things appearing to the limited understanding, are all lost in the unlimited intellect.

Now Vasistha, go to your place in your own world; and have your peace and bliss in your own seat of samādhi-devotion. Consign your aerial worlds to empty air, while I myself to the supreme Brahma do repair.

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