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
Arguments--The causes of the feelings of Pleasure and Pain, and
Happiness and Misery in this world, and the modes and means of their
prevention and avoidance.
The lord continued:--Listen moreover, O mighty armed Arjuna, to the
edifying speech, which I am about to deliver unto you, for the sake of
your lasting good and welfare.
2. Know O progeny of Kunti, that the perception of the senses, or the
feelings conveyed to our minds by the organic sense, such as those of
cold and heat and the like, are the causes of our bodily pleasure and
pain; but as these are transitory, and come to us and pass away by
turns, you must remain patient under them.
3. Knowing neither the one nor the other to be uniform and monotonous,
what is it thou callest as real pleasure or pain? A thing having no
form or figure of its own, can have no increase or decrease in it.
4. Those who have suppressed the feelings of their senses, by knowing
the illusory nature of sensible perceptions; are content to remain
quiet with an even tenor of their minds, both in their prosperity and
adversity; are verily the men that are thought to taste the ambrosial
draught of immortality in their mortal state.
5. Knowing the soul to be the same in all states, and alike in all
places and times; they view all differences and accidents of life with
indifference, and being sure of the unreality of unrealities, they
retain their endurance under all the varying circumstances of life.
6. Never can joy or grief take possession of the common soul, which
being ecumenical in its nature, can never be exceptional or otherwise.
7. The unreal has no existence, nor is the positive a negative at any
time; so there can be nothing as a positive felicity or infelicity
either in any place, when God himself is present in his person every
where. (They are all alike to God and Godly soul).
8. Abandon the thoughts of felicity or infelicity of the world (nor
be like the laughing or crying philosopher with your one sided view
of either the happiness or misery of life), and seeing there is no
such difference in the mind of God, stick fast in this last state of
indifference to both.
9. Though the intelligent soul, and the external phenomena, are closely
situated in the inside and outside of the body; Yet the internal soul
is neither delighted nor depressed, by the pleasure or pain which
environ the external body.
10. All pleasure and pain relating the material body, touch the mind
which is situated in it; but no bodily hurt or debility affects the
soul, which is seated beyond it.
11. Should the soul be supposed to participate, in the pleasure or pain
which affect the gross body, it is to be understood as caused by the
error, rising from our ignorance only.
12. The gross is no reality, and its feelings of pain or pleasure
are never real ones, as to touch the intangible soul; for who is so
senseless, as not to perceive the wide separation of the soul from the
body?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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