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
Argument:--Description of liberation, as heedlessness of the past
and future, ignorance of the knowables, and thoughtlessness about
the thinkables.
Vasishtha continued:--Gaining the knowledge of knowables, is called our
bondage in this world; but it is our release from the bonds of knowable
objects, that is termed our liberation from it.
2. Ráma rejoined:--But how can it be possible, sir, to get our escape
from the knowledge of the knowables, and how can our rooted knowledge
of things, and our habitual sense of bounden to them, be removed from
us.
3. Vasishtha replied:--It is the perfection of our knowledge, and
feeling of it as such, that removes our misjudgment; and then we get
our liberation from error, after disappearance of our inborn bias.
4. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, what is that simply uniform feeling,
and what is called that complete and perfect knowledge said to be,
which releases the living soul entirely, from its fetters of error.
5. Vasishtha replied:--The soul is full with its subjective knowledge
of intuition, and has no need of the objective knowledge of the
knowables from without; and perfect knowledge is our inward sense of
the same, and not expressible in words.
6. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, whether the knowableness of knowledge,
that is whether the internal knowledge of the knowing soul, is the same
or separate from itself; and whether the word _jnána_ or knowledge, is
taken in its instrumental or abstract sense (_i.e._ whether it is used
to mean the power by means of which we derive our knowledge, or the so
derived knowledge itself).
7. Vasishtha replied:--All perception is knowledge, and this term
is denotative of its causality also (as we say, my knowledge is my
guide, _i.e._ the instrumentality of my guidance). Hence there is no
difference between knowledge and the known or the knowable, as there is
none between the air and its ventilation.
8. Ráma rejoined:--If it be so (that there is no difference between
them); then tell me, whence arises the error of difference in
our conception of them; the conception of the materiality of the
perceptible or objective world, must be as erroneous as that of the
horns of a hare, which had never been _in esse_, nor are likely to be
at any time in future.
9. Vasishtha replied:--The error of the reality of external objects,
gives rise to the error of the reality to our knowledge of them also;
but there is no inward object of thought, nor of the outward senses,
has ever any reality in it.
10. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me, O sage, how can you deny the existence of
those objects, which are evident to the senses of mine, thine and all
others alike; and which are ever present in their thoughts in the minds
of sensible beings.
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