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
8. The triple world is only a reflexion, and like the sight of something
in dream, it is but an airy nothing; it is the empty air which becomes
thus (diversified), and is entirely bodiless, though seeming to be
embodied in our waking state.
9. It is inventive imagination of men, that is ever busy even in the
hours of sleep and dreaming; and presents to us with many creations that
were never created, and many unrealities appearing as real ones.
10. The universe appears as an extensive substantiality, implanted in
the bosom of endless vacuity; but this huge body, with all its mountains
and cities, is in reality no other than the original vacuum.
11. The howling of the sea, and clattering of clouds on mountains,
though they are so very tremendous to the waking; are yet unheard by the
sound sleeper by his side. (So the pomp of the world, is unseen by the
blind).
12. As a widow dreams her bringing forth a son in her sleep, and as a
man thinks to be ever living, by forgetfulness of his past death, and
being reborn again; so are men unmindful of their real state.
13. The real is taken for the unreal and unreal for the real; as the
sleeping man forgets his bed room, and thinks himself else where; so
every thing turns to be otherwise, as the day turns to night and the
night changes to day.
14. The unreal soon succeeds the real, as night—the want of light
succeeds the light of the day; and the impossible also becomes possible,
as when a living person sees his death, or thinks himself as dead in his
sleep.
15. The impossible becomes possible, as the supposition of the world in
the empty void; and the darkness appears as light, as the night time
seems to be daylight to the sleeping and dreaming man at night.
16. The daylight becomes the darkness of night, to one who sleeps and
dreams in the daytime (as it is to owls and bats and so to cats and
rats); the solid ground seems to be hollow, to one who dreams of his
being cast into a pit.
17. As the world appears to be a nullity in our sleep at night, and so
it is reality even in our waking state, and there is no doubt of it. (It
is doubtful that the world exists, but no doubt in its inexistence).
18. As the two suns (of yesterday and today), are the one and same with
one another, and as two men are of the same kind; so it is doubtless
that the waking and sleeping states are alike to another.
19. Ráma rejoined:—That of course cannot be admissible and reliable as
true, which is liable to objection and exception; the sight of a dream
is but momentary and falsified upon our waking; wherefore it cannot be
alike to the waking state.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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