The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 2 (of 4), Part 1 (of 2)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 2 (of 4), Part 1 (of 2)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
3. After the magician had gone and done his work, I with the other
courtiers, was respectfully requested by the king Lavana, to explain to
him the cause (of the dream and its circumstances).
4. After I had pondered the matter and clearly seen its cause, I
expounded the meaning of the magician’s spell, in the way as I shall now
relate to you, my Ráma!
5. I remembered that all the performers of Rájasúya sacrifice, were
subjected to various painful difficulties and dangers, under which they
had to suffer for a full dozen of years.
6. It was then that Indra, the lord of heaven had compassion for Lavana,
and sent his heavenly messenger in the form of the magician to avert his
calamity.
7. He taxed the Rájasúya sacrificer with the inflictment of the very
many hardships in his dream, and departed in his aerial journey to the
abode of the gods and Siddhas.
8. (Prose) Thus Ráma! it is quite evident and there is no doubt in it.
The mind is the active and passive agent of all kinds of actions and
their sequences.
(_a_). Therefore rub out the dirt of your heart, and polish the gem of
your mind; and having melted it down like the particle of an icicle, by
the fire of your reason, attain to your chief good _summum bonum_ at
last.
(_b_). Know the mind as self-same with ignorance (avidyá), which
presents these multitudes of beings before you, and produces the endless
varieties of things by its magical power.
(_c_). There is no difference in the meanings of the words ignorance,
mind, understanding and living soul, as in the word tree and all its
synonyms.
(_d_). Knowing this truth, keep a steady mind freed from all its
desires; and as the orb of the clear sun of your intellect has its rise,
so the darkness of your _nolens_ and _volens_ flies away from you.
(_e_). Know also this truth, that there is nothing in the world which is
not to be seen by you, and which can not be made your own, or alienated
from you. Nothing is there that does not die or what is not yours or
others. All things become all at all times. (This dogma is based on a
dictum of the Vedánta given in the Madhu Bráhmana. That nothing is
confined in any place or person at all times, but passes from one to
another in its turn and time).
9. The multitudes of existent bodies and their known properties, meet
together in the substantiality (of the self-same Brahma); as the various
kinds of unburnt clay vessels, are melted down in the same watery
substance.
10. Ráma said:—You said sir, that it is by weakening the desires of our
mind, that we can put an end to our pleasures and pains; but tell me
now, how is it possible to stop the course of our naturally fickle
minds.
11. Vasishtha replied:—Hear, O thou bright moon of Raghu’s race! the
proper course that I will tell thee for quieting the restless mind; by
knowing this thou shalt obtain the peace of thy mind, and be freed from
the actions of thy organs of sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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