The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 1 (of 4)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
12. This great self-existence is afterwards attributed with the
titles of Reality (_Rita_), self (_Átma_), Supreme (_Param_), Immense
(_Brahma_), Truth (_Satyam_) and so forth by the wise, as expressions
for the Great Spirit (_mahátman_) for popular use. (Vide Gloss for
definitions of these terms).
13. This self-same spirit next shows itself in another form, which
is called the living soul (_Jívátmá_), and comes afterwards to be
understood in the limited sense of life. (Jíva, Jív, Zeu or Zeus; Ji
and Ján; Zoa Protozoa &c.). (But it is the undivided and universal soul
of which the divided, individual and particular souls are but parts and
particles. Gloss).
14. This inert living principle (Jíva-Life or the Protozoa), becomes
according to its literal signification the moving spirit (_ákulátma_),
which afterwards with its power of thinking (_manana_) becomes the
Mind, and lastly the embodied soul (Bhútátmá). (So says the Sruti;
_Etasmát Jáyate pránah_, _manah_, _sarvendriyánicha_, _Kham_,
_Váyurúp_, _Prithiví_ _&c._ (_i.e._ From Him—the Spirit, is derived
the life, mind and the organs of sense or body, whence he is styled the
Living, Thinking and All acting Deity)).
15. Thus the mind is produced and changed from the quiescent nature of
the Great Supreme Spirit to a state of restlessness (_asthirákára_)
like that of a surge, heaving itself in the (Pacific) Ocean (_i.e._
the restful spirit of God-Brahma is transformed to the restless state
of the Mind, personified as Brahmá or Hiranyagarbha, called the
Atmabhu—the son of the spirit of God or God the Son, Demiurge).
16. The mind soon evolves itself as a self-volitive power which
exercises its desires at all times whereby this extensive magic
scene of the world is displayed to our view. This scene is figured
as _Virájmúrti_, or manifestation of the desires of the will of
Divine mind, and represented as the offspring of Brahmá in the Indian
Theogony. (_Vide_ Manu on Genesis, chap I).
17. As the word golden bracelet signifies no other thing than a
bracelet made of gold, so the meaning of the word world is not
different from its source—the Divine will. (The difference is formal
and not material, and consists in form and not in the substance, the
divine will being the substratum of the formal world).
18. Again as the word gold bears the idea of the substance of which the
bracelet is made, so the word Brahma conveys the meaning of immensity
which contains the world in it; but the word world contains no idea of
Brahma nor bracelet that of gold. (The substance contains the form as a
stone does the statue, but the form does not contain the substance, as
the statue may be of earth or metal or of wood).
19. The unreality of the world appears as a reality, just as the heat
of the sun presents the unreal mirage in the moving sands of the desert
as real waves of the sea. (So the phantasm of the mind-Brahmá, presents
the phantasmagoria of the world (Viswarúpa) as a sober reality).
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