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

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 140 - Workings of Imagination

The Hunts-man said: Tell me sir, how a sage as yourself, could be exposed to that state ¹; and why were you not delivered from your meditation.

The sage replied: At the end of the Kalpa age, all kinds of beings meet with their destruction; namely, there is a termination of the erroneous forms of the worlds, and a cessation of the luminous bodies in the heaven.

Sometimes the dissolution takes place gradually at the end of a kalpa; and at others it comes on all on a sudden, with a simultaneous turmoil and disorganization on all sides.

So when there was an outbreak of waters on every sides, and the gods were repark to Brahma the first cause of all for redress from the impending danger, they were all swept away by the overflowing tide.

Moreover, O forester! know time to be the most mighty destroyer of all things; and every thing must occur in its time, as it is predestined at the beginning. ²

The time of one's dissolution being night, there ensues a detriment in the strength, intellect and prowess of everybody riot excepting even the great. ³

I have told you also, O fortunate forester! that all that is seen in a dream is mere dreaming; and nothing of it, comes to take place in reality herein.

The forester responded: Sir, if the dream is a mere falsity and error of imagination; then what was the good of your relating all this, that know well what is good and useful for mankind.

The sage replied: There was much use of my relating all this to you, O intelligent hunts-man, for improvement of your understanding; and as you have come to know, that the visible are all as false as the sights in sleep, you shall now know what is real and true.

Now as long as the waters of deluge lasted, I remained seated in the heart of the said medium, and saw some other false sights in his dream.

I saw the waters of the deluge, to recede to the unknown region from where they had overflown; and the huge waves disappeared altogether, as when the winged mountains fled away for fear of the thunders of Indra. ⁴

I was borne aloft by my good fate to some distant shore, where I was seated as firmly as upon the elevated peak of a high and solid mountain.

Thence I saw the waters to subside in their basins, and the stars of heaven shining upon them, like the sparkling particles of their splashing billows, or as their foaming and floating froths.

The reflexions of the stars in water, seemed as the shining gems in the bosom of the ocean; and the stars that shone above in the firmament, appeared as the nightly flaming bushes on the tops of mountains. ⁵

The firmament studded with lustrous stars, and had the appearance of an island beaming with gold; and the azure sky seemed wrapt over with the blue garments of celestial dames.

The blue diluvian clouds that floated in the sky, resembled a bed of cerulean lotuses in the ethereal lake; and the lightning that flashed in their bosoms, likened the yellow farina of flow­ers, flying all about the midway sky.

Masses of mountain like clouds flushed with frost, and poured down showers of rain on all sides; the floods of the deluge rolled down with their reflexions, as bearing the huge Kalpa forests in their bosom.

Afterwards the basin of the universal ocean was dried up, and turned to an empty and dry hollow on all around; and the mountain of the Mandāra and Sahya hills, that had been drowned under the waters were found to be melted down to mud or washed away by the receding flood.

Here the sun and moon were found to be sunk in the slough, and there the gods Yama and Indra to be hid under the soil; some where the serpents and taksakas were rolling n the mire, and elsewhere the kalpa woods were lay buried with their tops and branches underneath the mud.

In some places the heads and hands of people were scattered over the ground; and looked like lotus buds and flowers torn from their stalks and strew about the bare and barren land.

There were the Vidyādhara females drowned up to their necks in the slime, and crying in their piteous rhymes in one place; and there were the big bodied buffaloes of Yama laying in another, and resembling the huge bodies of dead elephants appearing in dream. ⁶

In some place the bulky body of Garada, bulging out like the huge mountain of the gods; and in others the embankments were swept away; as if they were slashed by the mace of Yama fallen upon the ground.

There were the remains of the dead hansa of Brahma, muddled in the mire somewhere, and the relics of Indra's elephant were huddled in the mud in another place.

In the mean while I found a flat land in one spot, where I resorted for rest from my weariness; and was there overtaken by sound sleep, that insensibility stole upon me.

Then waking from my sound sleep, I found myself seated in the heart of the hunter; and retaining the possession of my sensibility. I was lead by my innate desire to see the similar sights of desolation as before.

I beheld upon my waking, the said flat land to lie in the very heart of the hunter where I was situated; and was seized with greater grief and sorrow at my sight of the spectacle. ⁷

I saw, therefrom the rising of the bright and beautiful sun on the next day; and by means of the solar light, I came to the sight of the worlds and the sky, of this earth and its hills, which presented themselves to my view.

But I soon found that, the earth and sky, the air and all its sides, together with the hills and rivers, were all but the reproduction of my, mind, ⁸; as the leaves shoot forth from the trees. ⁹

Then on seeing the things, as they were exposed to my sight on the earth; I began to manage with them in a manner as I had somewhat forgotteu their right and proper use. ¹⁰

After my birth I passed sixteen years at that spot, and had the knowledge of this person as my father, and that one as my mother, and this spot as my dwelling place, and all this knowl­edge rising spontaneously from my self-­cogitation.

I then saw a village and the hermitage of a Brāhmana at that place; and there I beheld a house and found a friend there, and many more other places.

Thus I remained in the society of my friends, in the village huts and hamlets; and passed many days and nights, in the states of repeated watchfulness and returning sleep.

Remaining thus in company with these, I came to lose in course of time and light of the understanding I had attained before, and forgot myself as one of them by my habitual mode of thinking, as the man forgot himself to a flash: ¹¹.

In this manner, I remained as a village Brāhmana ¹² for a long time; relying only in my body as begotten by a Brāhmana, and quite forgetful of other.

I believed my material body only to constitute my person, and my wife alone as my co-partner; I understood my desires only to be the essence of a my soul, and thought that riches only were the sole object of gain in life.

I had an old cow only for my treasure, and the greens of my garden as my only provision; my collection were only the sacred fire and sacrificial animals, and my utensil an only water pot. ¹³

My hopes were as frail as perennial plants, and my conduct the same with that of other men; and the state of my living was as mean, as of the mud and mire about my dwelling.

I passed my days in pruning and weeding the garden of my greens; and in performing my daily ablutions, in the rills and rivulets reckoned as holy by men.

I was employed in providing my food and drink, and in procuring the fuel and cow-dung for fire; and remained, entangled in the snare, of scrutinizing about what was right or wrong for daily observance.

In this way a whole century of my life time, passed away at that place, when it happened on a time that a holy hermit passed by that way from a great distance, and became my guest in my humble abode.

Being welcomed and honoured by me, he entered in my dwelling, and took his rest after washing and bathing himself. Then after his meal he sat on his bed, and began to tell his fate at the approach of night.

He spoke of many climes and countries, and of many lands and mountains; and talked of their different customs and manners, which were pleasant to hear, and related to various subjects.

All these he said, are the display of the One Intellect, which is infinite and immutable in its nature; and manifests itself in the form of cosmos, which is for ever present with it as it is now seen to be.

Being thus enlightened by him, I was filled as it were with a flood of light, and remained listening to him with attention, all whatever he said on this and other subjects.

I heard also my own tale from him, and learning that the person which contained me within its womb, is no less than the body of Virāt himself, I was eager to come out of the same.

So long as I was not aware, that its mouth is the only door way for my exist of that body; I kept moving through it, as if I were wandering amidst the vast extent of the earth and oceans.

I then left that spot, beset as it was by my friends and relations; and entered into his vital part, in order to make my egress with the vital breath.

Intending then to see both the inside and outside of the Virāja's body, in which I resided I continued to mark well the process, of its outer movements as also of its inner thoughts.

I fixed my attention to my consciousness, and remained settled at my station without changing its spot; and then breathed out with his breath, as the fragrance of flowers accompanies the wind.

The rising with his respiration, I reached the cavity of his mouth; and mounting afterwards on the vehicle of the wind, I went on forward, and beheld all that lay before me.

I observed there the hermitage of a sage, situated in the grotto of a mountain at a distance; and found it full with anchorites, and myself sitting in my padmāsana among them. ¹⁴

These anchorites stood before me as my pupils, and were employed in their duty of taking care of my person in its state of anesthesia.

After a while that man was seen among them, in whose heart I had been residing; and he appeared as lying flat and at ease upon his back, after taking some food which he got in the adjacent village.

Seeing this wonder I remained quiet, and did not speak any thing about it to any body waiting upon me; I then re-entered that body for my own amusement.

I got to region of vitality which was situated within the heart, and was by my lasting desire to see the friends I had before, and I left behind.

As I was looking around, I was the end of the world approaching with its direful aspect; and changing the course of nature, together with the positions of the world.

The mountains appeared altered and changed to another state, the sky presented another face, and the whole world seemed be dislocated from its place.

I could find no trace of my former friends or habitation nor mark the situation of that tract of land, nor find the direction where it lay before; all these seemed to be swept away by the winds, nor could I know where they were taken.

I then found the world appearing in another form, and presenting a sight altogether different from what it had been before, and quite a new to view.

I saw the twelve suns of the twelve signs of the zodiac, shining all at once and burning in all the quarters of heaven and melting down the high mountains, like snows and ice-bergs to water.

The volcanic fire spread from mountain to mountain, and the fire of conflagration flew from forests to forests; the earth was parched with all the gems in her bowels, so that there remained no vestige of them save in the memory of men.

The seas were dried up, and the earth was full of burning embers on all sides; and there rose a strong gale, which wafted the ashes all away.

Subterranean, terrestrial and ethereal firs, began to issue forth in flames and flash on all sides; and the face of the whole universe flushed with a blaze, glistening like the glowing clouds of the evening sky.

I entered amidst this burning sphere, as a flying moth falls into a flame; and was confined within its cave, as the roving bee is closed up in the calyx of the shutting lotus, and was quite unscorched and unscathed by the burning flame.

I then flew amidst the flames as freely as air, and flickered as the flash of fleet lightning in the cloud; and something hovered over the burning fire, as the light, winged butterfly flies upon the lotus of the lands (sthala Padma).

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