The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol 4 (of 4), Part 1 (of 2)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol 4 (of 4), Part 1 (of 2)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
16. Give out the words from your lungs, like a sounding reed from its
hollow pipe; and clear your mind from its thoughts, by keeping your body
intact from busy affairs, and employing no other member of it after them
(except your tongue).
17. Touch the tangibles as they come to thee without thy desiring them;
and remain in thy solitary cell without thy wishing for or minding about
them, or grieving at their want.
18. You may relish the various flavours, which are offered to you; and
take them to your mouth in the manner of a spoon without wishing for or
taking a delight in their sweet taste.
19. You may see all sights, that appear before you; without your
desiring for or delighting in them.
20. You can smell the sweet perfumes and flowers, that fall in your way
without your seeking them, take the scents only to breathe them out, as
the odoriferous winds scatter the flowers all around.
21. In this manner if you go on to enjoy the objects of sense with utter
indifference to them, and neither longing after or indulging yourself in
any; you shall in that case have nothing to disturb your peace and
content at any time.
22. But whoso finds a zest for the poisonous pleasures of life,
increasing in himself day by day; casts his body and mind to be consumed
in their burning flame, and loses his endless felicity.
23. Want of desire in the heart, is said to constitute the obtuse
insensibility of the soul, called _samadhána_ by dispassionate sages;
and there is no other better lesson to secure the peace of mind, than
the precept of contentment (lit. absence of desire).
24. The increasing desire is as painful, as one’s habitation in hell
fire; while the subsidence of desires in the mind, is as delightsome as
his residence in heaven.
25. It is desire alone, which constitutes the feelings of the heart and
mind; and it is this, which actuates mankind to the practice of their
austerities and penances, according to the sástras.
26. Whenever a man allows his desire, to rise in any manner in his
heart; even then he scatters a handful of the seeds of affliction, to
sprout forth in the fair ground of his mind. (The more desire the more
pain).
27. As much as the craving of one is lessened by the dictates of this
reason, so much do the pain of his avaricious thoughts cease to molest
them. (Nothing to desire nothing to fear).
28. The more doth a man cherish his fond desire in his mind, the more
does it boil and rage and wave in his breast.
29. If you do not heal the malady of your desire, by the medicine of
your own efforts; then I think you will never find a more powerful
balsam to remedy this your inveterate disease.
30. Should you be unable to put a check to your desire altogether, you
must still try to do it by degrees, as a passenger never fails to get
his goal even by slow paces in time.
31. He who does not try to diminish his desires day by day, is reckoned
as the meanest of men, and is destined to live in misery every day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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