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
3. The god replied--When the omnipotent God (sad), remains as one unity
of immensity (Eka Brahma); it is then of course absurd, to speak of his
duality or plurality, and of the manifestation of a part or minim of
himself. (The whole cannot be a part).
4. Taking the monad for a duad, is to ascribe duality to unity; and
the imputation of dualism or bipartition to the simple intellect,
is wholly futile from its nature of indivisibility. (So says the
sruti: The one is no dual nor a bipartite thing. In Him there is no
plurality, diversity or any particularity whatever. [Sanskrit: natu
taddvitíyamasti tati-nya hvibhaktam | nanuneha nánástikincana.])
5. The want of the number one, causes the absence both of unity,
duality; because there can be no dual without the singular, nor a
single one unless there be the number two above it. (_i.e._ There can
be no duality without the prime and preceding unity; nor even the unity
unless it is followed by duality; because the prime number would be
indefinite and indetermined without the succeeding ones).
6. The cause and its effect being of one nature (or essence), they are
both of the same kind, as the fruit and the seed contained in it. The
difference which is attributed to them from the change of one thing to
the other, is a mere fiction of imagination.
7. The mind itself evolves in its thoughts at its own will; the changes
occurring in itself, are no way different from its own nature; as the
mutual productions of seed and fruit, are of the same nature, the same
fruit produces the same seeds, and these again bring forth the same
fruits &c. (So the mind and its thoughts, are the same things and of
the self-same nature).
8. Many modifications incessantly rise in the infinite mind of the
almighty Maker as its eternal will, and these taking place in actu in
positive existences, and substantive forms bear the relation of causes
and their effects in this world.
9. These productions are likened to the waves of waters in the sea, and
mirage to the progeny of a barren woman, and the horns of a hare--all
which are _nil_ and not in being. They are all as negative as the
water on the mountaintop, and as the barley corn growing on the head
of a hare. (In all these instances the producer or container is a
reality; but the produced or contained waves etc. are false; and so is
Brahma the producer and container of all as positive entity, but the
production of the world is null and void).
10. Herein enquiring into the real truth, we must refrain from
logomachy; and find that though all things tend to stablish the unity,
yet it is difficult even in thought to do away with the difference of
things, as that of words and their senses. (that is to say, though
unity is the result of right reason, yet duality is inseparable from
common sense).
11. The essence of divine omnipotence, is not divisible into portions
or their fractions, like the waves of the sea, that are broken into
bubbles and particles of waters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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