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
11. It is not by our understanding this bliss, nor can we have any
knowledge of it by our percipience; neither is there any knowledge
whereby we may know, the unknown one which is alone to be known. (Here
is a pun and play of the word bódha or knowledge, which is explained in
the gloss to a great length).
12. It is a knowledge that rises of itself, and a waking of the soul
resembling its somnolence; it throws a light as that of the midday sun
in the inmost soul, and is neither confined in or absent from any place
or time. (_i.e._ The full blaze of spiritual light, fills the soul at
all times and places or as Pope says: It wraps my soul, and absorbs me
quite).
13. It is after the subsidence of all desire within, and desistance
from all actions without accompanied with one’s desistance from all
wishes, that this stillness attends upon the enlightened soul.
14. The saint of awakened understanding, that is confined in himself,
and absorbed in his meditation; is neither inclined to the prurience of
any thing, nor to the avoidance of aught whatever. (“Have what I have,
and dare not leave, enamoured of the present day.” Young).
15. In this state of rapture, the mind of the saint, though in full
possession of its mental faculties; remains yet as fixed and inactive,
and unmindful of all worldly things and bodily actions; as a burning
taper, that consumes itself while illumes others, without any
shaking or motion of its own. (_i.e._ Thoughtful and inactive).
16. The soul becomes as Viswarúpa or incorporated with the world, in
its condition of thoughtfulness, when it is called the Viswátma or
the mundane soul; or else it is said to be situated in the state of
the immense void of Brahma, when it is devoid of and unoccupied with
its thoughts. Hence creation and its cessation, both appertain to the
Divine Intellect, in its states of activity or thoughtfulness and its
wants or stupor.
17. He who is enrapt in divine ecstasy, and settled in his belief of
the identity of the Deity with his excogitation of him, remains closely
confined in himself with his rapture and secure from distraction of his
mind (and perturbation of worldly thoughts).
18. He who relies only in the cogitation of his self, regardless
of all other things in the world; comes to find the reality of his
self-cognition alone, and else beside, to be as _nil_ as empty air.
(Literally: as empty air is not distinct from vacuity).
19. The man of enlarged understanding, has an unbounded store of
knowledge in himself; but this ultimately ends in the knowledge of the
unspeakable one. (The end of all knowledge is the knowledge of God).
20. It is therefore in our quietism, that we feel the very best entity
of our consciousness, to be either dormant or extinct; and this state
of tranquility of the mind, is unutterable in words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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