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
79. Though we have a clear conception of the world, yet it is a false
sight together with that of its beholder--the living soul; it is as
false as the dream of one’s own death in his sleep, and his hearing the
wailing of his friend at his demise.
CHAPTER CLXXVI.
BRAHMA GÍTA. ACCOUNT OF BRAHMÁNDA OR MUNDANE SYSTEM.
Argument:--The world resembling a dream and an atom of the Divine
mind, and Brahmá’s account of it.
Ráma rejoined:--There <are> innumerable worlds in the universe, many of
which have gone before, many are in existence, and many as yet to be;
how then is it sir, that you persuade me to the belief of their nullity.
2. Vasishtha replied:--you well know, Ráma, the relation which the
world bears to a dream, in that they both mean a passing scene; and
this sense of it, can be denied by no one of this audience.
3. The words which are spoken by the wise, who know their application
and sense; are neither understood nor received in the hearts of common
people, though they are in common use.
4. When you will come to know the knowledge <of> One, then you will
discern the three times clearly and behold them as present before you.
5. As it is the intellect alone, that displays itself in the form of
the world in our dream; so doth the Divine Intellect also, exhibit the
worlds in itself, in the beginning of creation; and there is no other
cause of their production.
6. Hence there are innumerable worlds, revolving like atoms in the
infinite space of air; and there is no one who can count their number,
and descry their modes and natures.
7. It was of old that my venerable sire--the lotus-born Brahmá, and
all besmeared with the fragrant dust of that flower, has delivered a
discourse on this subject, which I will now relate unto you.
8. It was of old that my sire Brahmá, told me about the number of
worlds, and their respective situations in the heavens, whence they
thus appear unto us. To this he said (as follows).
9. Brahmá said:--O sage, all this is Brahma, that is manifested as the
world; it is infinite entity of the Deity in its abstract essence; but
viewed in the concrete, the world is a nonentity.
10. Attend to this narration of mine, which is as felicitous to the
soul, as it is pleasant to the ear; it is called the narrative of <the>
mundane egg, or of the mundane body or mass.
11. There is in the infinite vacuum, a vacuous substance known as the
vacuity of the Intellect, in the form of a minute atom only. (Such as
the grain of the mind is, in the hollow cerebrum of the head).
12. It saw as in a dream in itself, of its being as the living soul,
resembling the oscillation of the wind in empty air. (The living
principle or spirit, is a breath of air).
13. The Lord thus became the living being, with forsaking its vacuous
form; and thought itself to become the ego, in its aeriform form.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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