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
54. It is the bright picture of the Divine Mind, that exhibits its form
in the vacuity of the Great Intellect; and so the ideal appearance as
the visible creation, like the fairy land in dream (and the airy castle
of imagination). (The word cháya--shadow means both the glory of God,
as also the darkness of illusion. Gloss).
55. From the impossibility of the appearance of the world, by any means
as it is conjectured by different schools, and from its want of a prior
cause; it must be that the intellect saw itself thus exhibited in its
own vacuity.
56. In the beginning of creation, the formless void of the Intellect,
showed itself in this visible and intangible form; and represented
itself as a picture of its mind or dream or its imagination.
57. Like the dream it was a blank and without any attribute; it is
changeable but not frangible, and although it was the substance of
intellectual voidness, yet it was vitiated with the stain of our
misapprehension of it, called _avidyá_. (The world is purely of an
intellectual form, and it is our ignorance which imputes a gross form
to it).
58. Like the dream, it seems to possess some properties in its
appearance; but is wholly devoid of any in its substance; it is never
different from the spiritual nature of the Lord, though it appears
otherwise to our misconception of it.
59. The phenomenal world likens a mountain seen in dream, and is
inseparable from the soul wherein it resides; therefore the visibles
appearing in the vacuity of the Intellect, are more vacuous than the
vacuum of the firmament.
60. That which is the supreme soul; and devoid of all form; the very
same and of the same nature is all this, that we call the visible world.
61. Whatever conception we have in our dream, the same is the display
of our intellect; so the cities and castles that we see in the dreams,
are no real existences; but appearances presented unto us by the
intellect.
62. As the recognizance of our acquaintances in dream, and the
remembrance of the impressions in our memory, are altogether
unsubstantial (owing to the absence of their prototypes in us); so the
sight of the visibles and the perception of perceptibles quite unreal
also (because none of those things are present in us).
63. Therefore leaving <these> unrealities of our recognitions,
perceptions and remembrances, which are so much relied upon by the
ignorant; we should take them in the light of the direct manifestations
of the Deity in those forms.
64. As the waves of the sea, continue to roll incessantly on the
surface of the waters; so innumerable worlds that are continually
revolving, on the surface of the supreme soul, are of the same nature
with itself.
65. All laws and their anomalies, as well as all varieties and
complexities unite in harmony in the Divine nature. (There all discord
is concord, and all partial evil is universal good).
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