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
13. Ráma said:--All this is true, and I have seen this large stone
of sálgráma in my travels; and I remember it to be placed in the
shrine of Vishnu, amidst a bed of lotus flowers. (The sálgráma stone
is perforated by the vajra-kíta, and contains many marks inside it,
resembled to the map of the world in the mundane egg of the divine
mind. See vajra-kíta in the works of Sir William Jones).
14. Vasishtha replied:--You say truly, that you have seen that great
stone and know its inside also; but do you know the unperforated and
hollowless stone of the divine mind, that contains the universe in its
concavity, and is the life of all living beings (and not the dull,
lifeless and hollow sálagráma stone which they worship as an emblem of
the divine mind).
15. The stone of which I have been speaking to you, is of a marvelous
and supernatural kind; and contains in its voidless bosom all things as
nothing. (_i.e._ the ideas and not substances of things).
16. It is the stone like intellect of which I have spoken to you,
and which contains all these massive worlds within its spacious
sphere. It is figuratively called a stone from its solidity, cohesive
impenetrability and indivisibility like those of a block.
17. This solid substance of the intellect, notwithstanding its density
and unporousness, contains all the worlds in itself, as the infinite
space of heaven is filled with the subtile and atmospheric air. (The
divine mind like external nature, is devoid of a vacuity in it,
according to the common adage: "Nature abhors a vacuum").
18. The mind is occupied with all its various thoughts, as the world is
filled by the earth and sky, the air and atmosphere, and the mountains
and rivers on all sides, there is not hole or hollow, which is not
occupied by some thing or other in it.
19. The solid soul of God which resembles this massive stone, contains
in it all these worlds which are displayed (to our deluded sight), as
so many beds of lotuses in their blooming beauty; and yet there is
nothing so very pure and unsullied as this solid crystalline soul. (The
soul like a crystal, reflects its light in various forms).
20. As it is the practice of men to paint blocks of stones, with the
figures of lotuses, conch shells and the like images; so it is the
tendency of the fanciful mind, to picture many fantastic of all times
in the solid rock of the soul. (The soul like a crystal stone is wholly
blank in itself, it is only the imaginative mind, that tinges it in
different shades and colours).
21. All things in the world appear to be situated exactly in the
same state, as the various figures carved on the breast of a stone,
seem to be separate though they are bellied in the same relief. (All
distinctions blend in the same receptacle).
22. As the carved lotus is not distinct from the body of the stone, so
no part of existence is set apart from the substantiality of the divine
intellect; which represents its subtile ideas in their condensed forms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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