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
23. Who though full of intelligence, appears to stand as an unconscious
huge rock before us; and who though quite subtile in his nature, seems
as some gross body to our conception: such is the form of the Supreme
soul (that you want to know).
24. That which encompasses the inside and outside of every thing, and
assumes the name and nature of the very thing to itself, is verily the
form of the Supreme (that you want to know).
25. As light is connected with sunshine and vacuity with the firmament
and as Omnipresence is present with every thing and every where: such
is the form of the Supreme spirit (that you want to know).
26. Ráma asked:—But how are we to understand that He who bears
the name and nature of absolute and infinite reality should yet be
compressed within any thing visible in the world, which is quite
impossible to believe?
27. Vasishtha replied:—The erroneous conception of the creation of
the world, resembles the false impression of colours in the clear sky;
wherefore it is wrong, O Ráma! to take a thing as real, of which there
is an absolute privation in nature.
28. It is the knowledge of Brahma that constitutes his form, or else
there is no act of his whereby he may be known to us (the universe
being but a development of himself). He is entirely devoid of any
visible form, and therefore there is no better course for any one than
to know him as truth.
29. After an absolute negation of the visibles comes to be known
(_i.e._ after disappearance of the traces of phenomenals from the
mind), there remains a pre-eminent object of conception, which is
inborn and manifest of itself.
30. This concept (of the Super-eminent) has oftentimes no reflexion,
owing to its having no visible appearance; and at others it is not
without its reflexion on the mirror of the mind (which has received its
image).
31. No body has ever conceived this transcendent verity in himself, who
has not at the same time been convinced of the impossibility of the
existence of the visible world. (_i.e._ Conviction of the nullity of
the phenomenal alone, leads to the perception of the Reality).
32. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me, O sage! how the existence of so many
extensive worlds composing the visible Universe, can be thought of as
unreal, or comprised in the _chinmátram_ (or minutiae of the divine
mind), as the mount Meru in the sesamum seed.
33. Vasishtha replied:—If you will but stay a few days in the company
of holy men, and study the sacred Sástras with a steady mind with me:
34. Then I will purge away this false view of the visibles from your
understanding, like the delusive mirage from one’s sight. This absence
of the view will extinguish your sense of being the viewer, and restore
you to your intelligence alone.
35. When the viewer is united with the view, and the view with the
viewer, there then turns out an unity of the duality, and the duality
blends into an inseparable unity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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