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
Vasishtha continued:--Therefore this world with all its moving and
unmoving beings is nothing (or no being at all). There is nothing that
has its real being or entity, except the one true _Ens_ that thou must
know. (all beings are not being except the one self-existing Being. So
says Sadi. All this is not being and thyself art the only being. _Haman
nestand anchi hastitue_, so also the sruti _Toam asi nányadasti_. _Tu
est nullum est_).
2. Seek him O Ráma! who is beyond our thought and imagination, and
comprises all entity and non-entity in himself, and cease to seek any
living being or any thing in existence. (In Him is all life and every
thing, that is or is not in Being and he is the source of life and
light).
3. I would not have my heart to be enticed and deceived by the false
attachments and affections of this world; all which are as delusive, as
our misconception of a snake in a rope. (All our earthly relations with
our relatives and properties, are deception that are soon detected by
our good sense and reason, and they vanish as soon as our mistake of
the snake in rope. Therefore let no worldly tie bind down thy heart to
this earth).
4. Ignorance of the soul is the cause of our error of conceiving the
distinctions of things; but the knowledge of the selfsame soul puts
an end to all distinctions of knowledge of the reality of things,
distinctive knowledge of existences--bheda jnána is erroneous; but
their generalization--abheda jnána leads to right reasoning.
5. They call it ignorance _avidyá_, when the intellect is vitiated
by its intellection of the intelligibles or chetyas, but the
intelligibles being left out, it comes to know the soul which is free
from all attributes.
6. The understanding only is the embodied soul _purusha_, which is lost
upon the loss of the understanding; but the soul is said to last as
long as there is understanding in the body, like the _ghatambare_ or
air in the pot lasts with the lasting of the pot, and vanishes upon the
loss or breaking of the vessel. (The soul lasts with the intellect in
the body, but flies away upon the intellect's desertion of it. This is
maintained by sruti).
7. The wandering intellect sees the soul to be wandering, and the
sedate understanding thinks, it to be stationary, as one perceives his
breath of life to be slow or quick, according as he sits still or runs
about. In this manner the bewildered understanding finds the soul to
be distracted also. (The temperament of the mind is attributed to the
soul, which is devoid of all modality).
8. The mind wraps the inward soul with the coverlet of its various
desires, as the silkworm twines the thin thread of its desires round
about itself; which its wants of reason prevent it from understanding.
(The word in the text is _bálavat_ boyishness, which is explained in
the gloss to mean _nirvivekatwa_ or want of reason, and applied to the
mind, means puerile foolishness).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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