The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 4 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)Valmiki
Religion
The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 4 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)
Valmiki
Hinduism -- Doctrines -- Early works to 1800; Religious life -- Hinduism -- Early works to 1800
4. How came you to see the ocean in the breast, which never exists
therein, and how did you see the conflagration in the heart and the
tornado in the bowels, which are never to be found in any of those
places.
5. You said you saw the earth and sky, and the rivers and mountains and
many other things in the mind; but how can these and the world itself,
be in any manner situated therein.
6. The sage replied:--All these things and the world also are mere
non-entities, as there was no pre-existent material cause for the
production of the world, before its coming to existence; therefore
neither the term creation nor its sense, is in any way applicable to
this world or it is seen by us. (It is therefore but the mere phantasm
of an everlasting dream).
7. Hence the world creation and its meaning, proceed from ignorance of
the supreme soul, which is immutable in its nature; and it is ignorance
of this truth (lit. true knowledge), that produces the fallacy (lit.
the false knowledge) of creation. (Therefore the world (_i.e._ the idea
of the world), is ever present in the Divine mind).
8. Therefore I say, O thou fortunate one, that after you come to your
knowledge in this respect (_i.e._ of the nature of God), and your
ignorance of His supremely pure nature is removed:--
9. You will no more believe like myself, the false impression of
your consciousness (of the existence of the world); but must come to
know that, this causeless and uncreated world, is only the expanded
reflexion of your own mind.
10. Where is the body and the heart, and where are these elements
of water &c.; what is this dream and what are these conceptions and
perceptions, and what is life or death or anything else? (All which are
nothing in reality).
11. There is but one transpicuous Intellect everywhere, before which
the subtile ether is opalescent, and the biggest mountain is but a mite.
12. It is of its own nature that this intellectual vacuity, reflects on
something in its thought; and sees the same as its aeriform body; and
this it is what is called the world.
13. As it is our intellect alone, which reflects itself in various
forms in our dream; and as there is nothing besides it that then
presents itself to our view, so this world is no other than the aerial
form of the intellect only.
14. This universe is a quiet vacuity without any stir or shadow of
anything in it; and it is the dimness of the purblind eye of the
intellect, that presents these false shapes to sight, as blind men see
black spots in the clear sky.
15. To my sight the world is neither an entity nor a non-entity, nor is
it a mere void or the shadow or reflexion of anything; but the formless
infinity of the vacuous intellect only: (or the infinite vacuity of the
formless intellect only).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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