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
96. Some times it blooms in fruits ripened by the solar heat, and at
others maturated by the burning fuel; some where it gives us the cold
and icy water; and at others the spring water which cannot be lasted.
97. Here it glows in luminous bodies, and there it shows itself of
impenetrable thickets and in accessible rocks; It shines as bright and
white in one place, and is as dark and blue in another; It sparkles in
the fire and dwindles in the earth, it blows in the air and spreads in
the water.
98. Being the all-pervading, omnipresent and omnipotent power itself,
it is the one in all and the whole plenum. It is therefore more subtile
and transparent, than the rarefied and translucent air.
99. As the intellect spreads out and contracts itself, in any manner
in any place or time; so it conceives and produces the same within and
without itself, as the agitation of waters produces both the little
billows and huge surges of the sea. (The intellect is the immanent
cause of all phenomena).
100. The intellect stretches itself in the various forms of ducks and
geese, of cranes and crows, of storks, wolves and horses also; it
becomes the heron and partridge, the parrot, the dog, the stag, the ape
and Kinnara likewise.
101. It is the abstract quality of the understanding, beauty and
modesty, and of love and affections also; it is the power of illusion
and the shadow and brightness of night and of moonlight likewise.
102. It stretches itself in these and all other forms of bodies, and is
born and reborn in all kinds and species of things. It roves and rolls
all about the revolving world, in the manner of a straw whirling in a
whirlpool.
103. It is afraid of its own desires, as the she-ass is seen to shudder
at its own brayings; and it has no one like itself. ([Sanskrit: mugva
bálá-calá-valá]).
104. I have told you already, O great sage! how this principle of the
living spirit, becomes vitiated by its animal propensities, and is
afterwards debased to the nature and condition of brute creatures.
105. The supreme soul receiving the appellation of the living soul or
principle of action, becomes a pitiable object, when it becomes subject
to error and illusion, and is subjected to endless pains and miseries.
106. The deluded soul is then overpowered by its connate sin, which
causes it to choose the wrong unreality--asat for itself, which being
frail and perishable, makes the active soul to perish with itself.
(This passage appears to allude to the original sin of man, which
became the cause of the death and woes of human life. The connate sin
is compared to the husk which is born with the rice, and not coming
from without. It is otherwise called the inborn sinfulness or frailty
of human nature--Man is to err &c.).
107. The soul being thus degraded from its state of endless felicity,
to the miserable condition of mortal life, laments over its fallen
state, as a widow wails over her fate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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