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
9. You have already heard, O wise monarch, the narration of Bhása the
minister of Vipaschit; and shall now hear of his liberation in his
living state.
10. It is likely that he will come to be acquainted with truth from
some other source or discourse, and then he will be liberated in his
life time; by being freed from his ignorance.
11. And because this ignorance or Avidyá, is ever accompanied with
Intellect of the Lord himself, it is for this very reason, that the
unreality is erroneous by taken for the reality itself.
12. If this ignorance--_avidyá_--nescience, be an attribute of
God, then it is no other than the very God; and the unknown or the
mysterious nature, is not otherwise than the inscrutable nature of God.
13. This ignorance is infinity (in the infinity of created things), and
is productive of endless shoots like the sprouts of spring, some of
which are insipid and others sapid, some are luscious, while others are
mellow and inebriating.
14. Some growing as thorny plants, all hollow within and hollow
without, while others are straight and herbaceous as the succulent
reeds or sugar cane.
15. Some of them are unfruitful and unprofitable, and others are
attractive of the heart by their untimely blossoming, which is
predicative of evil only and no desirable good. (Early blossoms are
ominous).
16. Avidyá or Nescience has no form nor shape, save that of its
shapeless bulk, which fills all worlds; it is a long and broad mass of
darkness, and infested by demons and devils (that take in the dark and
at night).
17. Like false light and phantasms in the open air, and like the linked
and twisted motes of light curling about in the sky; do all these
visibles appear to our view in the clear firmament, and are in reality
but fallacies of our vision.
18. The variegated views which are stretched all about the empty air,
without any connecting chain or link between them; are as the many
coloured rainbows of heaven, which are described by the falling rains
and melt into the empty air.
19. The world resembles a rainy river, with all its orbs appearing
as the countless waves of water, with the dirty and foaming froths
floating over it; and the fearful eddies and whirlpools, resembling the
revolving planetary bodies.
20. The world is a vast and dreary desert, ever exhibiting the waters
of mirage on its surface; while in reality but a body of dust, and
filled with the ashes of dead bodies.
21. As a man wandering in the fairyland of his dream, finds no terminus
of his journey; so have I been roving forever in the land of my waking
dream, without finding any end to my travelling.
22. The web of desires that I have been fondly weaving so long, proved
at last to be fragile and frail; hence men of firm minds learn betimes,
to abandon their desires for the whole range of visible objects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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