The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
16. The fleshy body is assuredly doomed to die, notwithstanding all our
efforts for its preservation; but a body in the portrait being taken
good care of, lasts for ages with its undiminished beauty.
17. As the living body is sure to die in despite of all your care for
it, the pictured body must be deemed far better, than the false and
fancied fleshy body, produced by will of the mind (sankalpa deha).
18. The quality and stability which abide in a pictured body, are not
to be found in the body of the mind; wherefore the living body of
flesh, is more insignificant than its semblance in a picture or statue.
19. Think now, O sinless Ráma, what reliance is there in this body
of flesh; which is a production of your long fostered desire, and a
creature of your brain (Your mind makes it seem as such).
20. This body of flesh is more contemptible than those ideal forms,
which our dreams and desires produce in our sleeping and waking
states; because the creature of a momentary desire, is never attended
with a long or lasting happiness or misery. (Because the products of
the variable will, are of short duration, and so are their pains and
pleasures also).
21. The bodies that are produced by our long desire, continue for
a longer time, and are subjected to a longer series of miseries in
this world. (So it is said, a "long life is a long term of woes and
calamities").
22. The body is a creature of our fancy, and is neither a reality or
unreality in itself; and yet are the ignorant people fondly attached to
it, for the prolongation of their misery only.
23. As the destruction of the portrait of a man, does no harm to his
person; and as the loss of a fancied city is no loss to the city,
so the loss of the much desired body of any one, is no loss to his
personality in any wise.
24. Again as the dis-appearance of the secondary moon (halo), is no
deprivation of the primary satellite (moon), and as the evanescence
of the visionary world, is no annihilation of the external world. (So
there is no loss of the soul, as the loss of the shadow, is no loss of
the substance).
25. As the dis-appearance of water in the sunny banks of rivers, is
no deprivation of the river's water; so the creations of fancy which
are not negative in their nature, cannot be destructive of what is
positive, nor any damage done to the machine of the body, can ever
injure the dis-embodied soul.
26. The body is a piece of work wrought by the architect of the mind,
in its dreaming somnambulation over the sleeping world; wherefore
its decoration or disfigurement, is of no essential advantage or
dis-advantage to inward soul.
27. There is no end of the Intellect in its extent, nor any motion of
the soul from its place; there is no change in the Divine spirit of
Brahma, nor do any of these decay with the decline of the body.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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