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
26. Ah! where shall I go, and what can I get from this ungodly world,
which is ever prone to unrighteousness; it is an unsubstantial sight,
and passes for substantial, and yet no body understands that it is
Brahma the very god, that exhibits himself in this mode and manner.
27. It is no production nor reflexion, neither the archetype nor its
ectype; what then are these phenomenals, and how and from where? All
these that appear to view, are of the vacuity of Brahma, who exhibits
himself in this manner (in all shapes).
28. As a gem shines itself of its own lustre, and not derived from
without; so does the vacuous Intellect shine of its own splendour,
shown forth in the creation, which is selfsame with itself.
29. It is in that calm and quiet vacuity, that this sun shines with all
his glory; or rather a spot of that vacuum shines in the shape of the
sun, which is but a _modicum_ or molecule of it, and nothing beside.
30. Though situated therein, yet neither does the sun nor the moon
shine of itself; it is that God that illumes those luminaries, neither
of whom can illumine that transcendent Being the supreme Lord unto us.
31. It is his lustre, that enlightens this visible (the mundane)
sphere; and it is he alone that is the enlightener of the sun, moon,
and stars and fire as also of all other shining bodies, that shine with
their borrowed light from him.
32. Whether He is formless or fictile, bodiless or embodied, is the
verbal disquisition of the ignorant only at all times; whereas it is
well known to the learned, that any supposititious form of Him, is as
unreal as the potentiality of a sky flower growing in empty air. (Here
are _ákás-latas_--sky-plants or orchids in air, but no _ákás-pushpa_ or
sky-flower, which must grow on the plant and not in the air.)
33. As a ray of sunbeams, a particle of sand or sunstone, shine
brightly in sunshine; but the sun and moon also do not shine even as
conspicuously as those particles, before the great glory of their
Maker. (The sun is a grain of sand, and the moon a molecule, before the
glory of the Great God).
34. The shining sun, moon, and stars being but offshoots, of the
flaming gem of the vacuous Intellect of the Deity; say how can they be
otherwise than flashes of the same gem, from which they are emitted.
(The flash is not separate from the gem).
35. The divine state or _hypostasis_ being divested of intellectuality,
and being devoid of its voidness also, becomes deprived of its
essentiality, as also destitute of all quality; being thus drained of
all its properties and attributes, it becomes full of the _plenum_ and
totally of all existences.
36. The earth and all elemental bodies reside in it, in a manner as
they are absent therein, and all living beings living by it, do not
abide in the same. (All these opposites meet in its nature).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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