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. Whether when engaged in action or not, I see naught but the one
soul in my enlightened and clear understanding; what then, am I that
very self, and is it my own self? (The yogi, when enrapt in holy light,
loses the sense of his own personality. So lost in Divine light, the
saints themselves forget).
17. Whence comes this error of my personality, why does it grow up
and where does it subsist (in the body or in the mind)? It cannot
consist in the gross body which knows not itself and is ignorant of
everything. Surely I am not this body, and my egoism lies beyond my
corporeality.
18. The error then rises in the mind and grows from boyhood to old
age, to think one's self as lean or fat as if he were the very body.
Again it is usual to say I act, I see &c., as if the personality of
one consists in his action; but the acts of the bodily organs, being
related with the body, are as insensible and impersonal as the dull
body itself.
19. The part is not different from the whole, nor is the product of the
one otherwise than that of the others. (As the branch and the tree are
the same thing, and the fruit of the one the same as that of the other.
Hence the actions of both the outward and inward organs of the body,
are as passive and impersonal as the body itself).
20. The mind moves the body as the bat drives the ball, and therefore
it must be dull matter also, being apart of the material body, and
differing from it in its power of volition only. (The mind is called
the _antah-karana_ or an inward organ of the material body, and also
material in its nature).
21. The determination of the mind impels the organs to their several
actions, as the sling sends the pebble in any direction; and this
firmness of resolution is no doubt a property of matter. (Like the
solidity of current).
22. The egoism which leads the body forward in its action, is like the
channel that carries the current of a stream in its onward course.
This egoism also has no essence of its own and is therefore as inert
and inactive as a dead body. (The ego [Sanskrit: aham] is subjective
and really existent in Western philosophy). But egoism or egotism
[Sanskrit: ahamkára] is the false conception of the mind as the true
ego.
23. The living principle (Jíva or zoa) is a false idea, as the phantom
of a ghost; the living soul is one principle of intelligence and
resides in the form of air in the heart. (That life is a produce of
organism, acted by external physical stimuli).
24. The life or living principle lives by another inner power, which
is finer and more subtile than itself, and it is by means of this
internal witness (the soul), that all things are known to us, and not
by means of this gross animal life. (Because there is a brute life,
and a vegetable life also, which are as insensible as dull matter.
Hence there is a distinct principle to direct vitality to all vital
functions).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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