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Válmiki
Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 5: Upaśama-Khanda (On Quietism). Chapter 80 - Investigation of the Phenomenals
Vasistha continued- I will now describe to you that pensive excogitation, which keeps the reasoning mind, from attending to objects placed in its presence.
The eyes are for seeing only, and the living soul is for bearing the burthen of pain and pleasures alone; they are like the eyes and bodies of a beast, or like bull of burden, which sees and carries a load of food, wiyout being able to taste it.
The eyes being confined to the visible phenomena, can do no harm to the soul residing in the body; as an ass fallen into a pit, is but a slight loss to its owner.
Do not O base man, regale your eyes; with the dirty stuff of the sight of visibles; which perish of themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and put it to peril also 1.
The acts which are deemed as one's own deeds and beings, and whereby the acutely intelligent man thinks himself to be living, and by which he counts the duration of his lifetime, 2; these very acts, turn at last, against him, for his accountableness of them.
Do not rely your eyes on visible objects, which are unreal in their nature, and are produced to perish soon after, and to please your sight for a moment only. Know them as destroyers of your otherwise indestructible soul.
O my eyes! that are but witnesses of the forms, which are situated in the soul; it is in vain that ye flash only to consume yourselves, like the burning lamps after a short while.
The vision of our eyes is as the fluctuation of waters, and its objects are as the motes that people the sun-beams in the sky. Whether these sights be good or bad, they are of no matter to our minds.
Again there is that little bit of egoism beating in our minds, like a small shrimp stirring amidst the waters; let it throb as it may, but why should we attribute it with the titles of "I, you or he or this or that"?
All inert bodies and their light appear together to the eye, the one as the container of the other; but they do not affect the mind, and therefore do not deserve our notice.
The sight of objects and the youghts of the mind, have no connection with one another, 3; And yet they seem to be related to each other, as our faces and their reflexions in the mirror. 4
Such is their inseparably reciprocal relation in the minds of the ignorant; but the wise who are freed from their ignorance, remain aloof from the visibles with their mental meditations alone.
But the minds of the vulgar are so closely connected with the visibles, as the sacrificial wood with the lac dye?
It is by deligent study, that the chain of mental youghts are severed from the visibles; in the like manner, as our wrong notions are removed by means of right reasoning.
After dispersion of ignorance, and the connexion of the visibles from the mind, there will be nor more a blending of forms and figures and their reflexions and youghts in it.
The sensible impressions which have taken possession of the inner mind, are to be rooted out from it as they drive out a demon from the house.
O my mind! says the intelligent man, it is in vain that you delude me, who have known your first and last as nothing; and if you are so mean in your nature 5 you must be so as nothing even at present.
Why dost you display yourself in your five fold form of the five senses unto me? Go make your display before him who acknowledges and owns you as his. 6
Your grand display of the universe yields me no satisfaction, since I am convinced, O vile mind, all this to be no better than a magic play.
Whether you abide in me or not it is of no matter to me; because I reckon you as dead to me as you are dead to reason. 7
Your are a dull unessential thing, erroneous and deceitful and always reckoned as dead, the ignorant alone are misled by you and not the reasonable. 8
It was so long through our ignorance, that we had been ignorant of you; it is now by the light of reason, that we find you as dead as darkness, under the light of a lamp. There is always an impervious darkness under the lighted lamp.
You have long taken possession of this mansion of my body, and prevented me, O wily mind, from associating with the good and wise.
You lie as dull as dead body at the door of this bodily mansion, against the entrance of any worshipped guests 9 to it.
O the gigantic monster of the world! which has its existence in no time. Are you not ashamed, O my mind, to assume to yourself this deceitful form the world, and appear before me in this hideous shape?
Go out of this abode of my body, you demoniac mind, with the train of your female fiends of avarice and her companions, and the whole host of your devilish comrades of rage, wrath and the like.
Seeing the advance of reason to the temple of the body, the demon of the mind flies from it, as the savage wolf leaves its den at the approach of the hunter.
O pity for these foolish folks! that are so subdued by this dull and deceitful mind, as the unwary people are spell-bound by the magic wand.
What is your boast and might in subduing the ignorant rabble, exercise your power upon me, that defy your power to prevail over the unity or my belief.
I need not try to defeat the power of my foolish mind, after I have already baffled its attempts against me, and laid it to dust.
I had ere long taken you for a living thing, and passed many a live-long life, and day and night, with your company in this dreary world.
I have now come to know the nullity of the mind, and that it is put to death by my power; I have hence given up my concern with it, and betaken to my reliance in the ever existent soul only.
It is by good luck, that the living liberated men come to know the demise of their minds; and cease to spend their lives under the illusion of its existence.
Having driven away the deceitful demon of the mind, from the mansion of my body; I am situated at rest wiyout any troublesome yought or turbulent passion in me.
I smile to think in myself the many follies, to which I was led for a long time under the influence of my demoniac mind.
It is by my good fortune, that the gigantic demon of my mind, is at last vanquished by the sword of my reason, and driven out of the mansion of my body.
It is by my good fortune also, that my heare is after all purified from its evil inclination, by the suppression of my demoniac mind; and that my soul now rests alone in peace, in the abode of my body.
With the death of the mind, there is an end of my egoism and all my troublesome youghts and cares; and the expulsion of the ogres of evil passions from my breast, by the breath or mantra or reason, has made it a place of rest for my soul.
What is this mind with its egoism and eager expectations to me, than a family of intractable inmates, of whom I have fortunately got rid by their wholesale deaths.
I hail that pure and ever prosperous soul, which is self same with my inward soul, and identic with the immutable intellect; 10.
I hail that ego in me, which is yet not myself nor I nor any other person, nor is it subject to sorrow or error.
I hail that ego in me, which has no action nor agency, nor any desire nor worldly affair of its own. It has no body nor does it eat or sleep 11.
This ego is not myself nor any other, and there is nothing as I or anybody else. The ego is all in all, and I bow down to that being. 12
The ego is the first cause and support of all, it is the intellect and the soul of all worlds. It is the whole wiyout pares; I therefore bow down to that ego.
I prostrate to the self-same Ego of all, which is eternal and immutable, which is the sole immense soul and wiyout its pares. It is all, in all and abides at all times.
It is wiyout any form or designation, and is manifest as the immense spirit. It abides in itself, and I bow down to that ego.
It is the same in all things in its too minute form and is the manifester of the universe. It is the essence of my existence and abiding in me, in which state I bow down to it.
It is the eareh and ocean with all their hills and rivers, which are not the ego, nor they are the ego itself. I bow to the self same ego which comprises the world with all its contents.
I bow to that undecaying and indestructible Lord, which is beyond yought, and is ever charming and ever the same. Who manifests the endless universe with all its worlds and many more yet invisible and unformed bodies. He is unborn and andecaying, and his body is beyond all attributes and dimensions.
Footnotes
1. by the diseases and difficulties which they load upon you
2. according to the saying, that our lives are computed by our acts, and not by the number of our days
3. because the sight is related to the eye, and the youghts bear relation with the mind
4. The retina of the eye receive the reflexions, and convey them to the sensory of the cranium, in the form of reflections or youghts, and hence their mutual relations
5. as the progeny of barren woman
6. As for me I own the intellect and not the mind
7. As the mind is perverse to reason, so are reasonable, men averse to it. The mind is all along used in the sense of the sentient mind, and not the superior intellectual faculty-cit, which is distinct from citta, synonymous with manas the mind.
8. It is hard to determine what the attributes of the mind may mean. It is said to be dead, because it is kept in mortification and subjection
9. of good virtues
10. and not with the changeful mind
11. but it is as itself
12. There is no direct evidence as what the ego is, but is pointed by mere indirect and negative evidences as what it is not
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