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Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 5: Upaśama-Khanda (On Quietism). Chapter 20 - Remonstration of Pāvana

Punya said- Who is our father and who our mother, and who are our friends and relatives, except our notion of them as such; and these again are as the dust raised by the gusts of our airy fancy?

The conceptions of friends and foes, of our sons and relations are the products of our affection and hatred to them; and these being the effects of our ignorance, are soon made to disappear into airy nothing, upon enlightenment of the understanding.

The thought of one as a friend, makes him a friend, and thinking one as an enemy makes him an enemy; the knowledge of a thing as honey and of another as poison, is owing to our opinion of it.

There being but one universal soul equally pervading the whole, there can be no reason of the conception of one as a friend and of another as an enemy.

Think my boy in your mind what you are, and what is that thing which makes your identity, when your body is but a composition of bones, ribs, flesh and blood, and not yourself.

Being viewed in its true light, there is nothing as myself or yourself; it is a fallacy of our understanding, that makes me think myself as Punya and you as Pāvana.

Who is your father and who your son, who your mother and who your friend? One Supreme-self pervades all infinity, whom call you the self, and whom the not self; ¹.

If you are a spiritual substance (Iinga śarīra), and have undergone many births, then you had many friends and properties in your past lives, why does not think of them also?

You had many friends in the flowery plains, where you had your pasture in your former form of a stag; why think not of those deer, who were once your dear companions?

Why does you not lament for your lost companions of swans, in the pleasant pool of lotuses, where you did dive and swim about in the form of a gander?

Why not lament for your fellow arbors in the woodlands, where you once stood as a stately tree among them?

You had your comrades of lions on the rugged craigs of mountains, why does not lament for them also?

You had many of your mates among the fishes, in the limpid lakes decked with lotuses; why not lament for your separation from them?

You had been in the country of Dasārna ², as a monkey in the grey and green woods: a prince had you been in land of frost; and a raven in the woods of Pundra.

You had been a elephant in the land of Haihayas, and an ass in that of Trigarta; you had become a dog in the country of Sālva, and a bird in the wood of sarala or sāl trees.

You had been a pīpal tree on the Vindhyan mountains, and a wood insect in a large oak (vat a) tree; you had been a cock on the Mandara mountain, and then born as a Brāhmana in one of its caverns; ³.

You was a Brāhmana in Kosala, and a partridge in Bengal; a horse had you been in the snowy land, and a beast in the sacred ground of Brahmā at Puskara.

You had been an insect in the trunk of a palm tree, a gnat in a big tree, and a crane in the woods of Vindhya, that are now my younger brother.

You had been an ant for six months, and lain within the thin bark of a bhugpetera tree in a glen of the Himalayan hills, that are now born as my younger brother.

You had been a millipedes in a dung-bill at a distant village; where you did dwell for a year and half, that are now become my younger brother.

You was once the youngling of a Pulinda ⁴, and did dwell on her dugs like the honey sucking bee on the pericarp of a lotus. The same are you now my younger brother.

In this manner my boy, were you born in many other shapes, and had to wander all about the Jambu-dvipa, for myriads of years: And now are you my younger brother.

Thus I see the post states of your existence, caused by the antecedent desires of your soul; I see all this by my nice discernment, and my clear and all-viewing sight.

I also remember the several births that I had to undergo in my state of (spiritual) ignorance, and then as I see clearly before my enlightened sight.

I also was a parrot in the land of Trigarta, and a frog at the beach of a river; I became a small bird in a forest, and was then born in these woods.

Having been a Pulinda hunts-man in Vindhya, and then as a tree in Bengal, and afterwards a camel in the Vindhya range, I am at last born in this forest.

I who had been a cātaka bird in the Himalayas, and a prince in the Paundra province; and then as a mighty tiger in the forests of the sahya hill, am now become your elder brother.

He that had been a vulture for ten years, and a shark for five months and a lion for a full century; is now your elder brother in this place.

I was a cakora wood in the village of Āndhara, and a ruler in the snowy regions; and then as the proud son of a priest named Sailācārya in a hiliy tract.

I remember the various customs and pursuits of different peoples on earth, that I had to observe and follow in my repeated transmigrations among them.

In these several migrations, I had many fathers and mothers, and many more of my brothers and sisters, as also friends and relatives to hundreds of thousands.

For whom shall I lament and whom forget among this number; shall I wail for them only that I lose in this life? But these also are to be buried in oblivion like the rest, and such is the course of the world.

Numberless fathers have gone by, and unnumbered mothers also have passed and died away; so innumerable generations of men have perished and disappeared, like the falling off of withered leaves.

There are no bounds, my boy, of our pleasures and pains in this sublunary world; lay them all aside, and let us remain unmindful of all existence; ⁵!

Forsake your thoughts of false appearances, and relinquish your firm conviction of your own egoism, and look to that ultimate course which has led the learned to their final beatitude.

What is this commotion of the people for, but a struggling for rising or falling ⁶; strive therefore for neither, but live regardless of both like in different philosopher; ⁷.

Live free from your cares of existence and in­existence, and then you shall be freed from your fears of decay and death. Remember unruffled your self alone, and be not moved by any from yourself possession by the accidents to life like the ignorant.

Know you have no birth nor death, nor weal or woe of any kind, nor a father or mother, nor friend nor foe anywhere. You are only your pure spirit, and nothing of an unspiritual nature.

The world is a stage presenting many acts and scenes; and try only play their parts well, who are excited neither by its passions and feelings.

Those that are indifferent in their views, have their quietude amidst all the occurrences of life; and those that have known the True One, remain only to witness the course of nature.

The knowers of God do their acts, without thinking themselves their actors; just as the lamps of night witness the objects around, without their consciousness of the same.

The wise witness the objects as they are reflected in the mirror of their minds, just as the looking glass and gems receive the images of things.

Now my boy, rub out all your wishes and the vestiges of your remembrance from your mind, and view the image of the serene spirit of God in your inmost soul. Learn to live like the great sages with the sight of your spiritual light, and by effacing all false impressions from your mind.

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