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Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 5: Upaśama-Khanda (On Quietism). Chapter 83 - On the necessity of Avoiding all bodily and worldly cares, and Abiding in intellectual delights

Vasistha continued- Hear now Rāma, how that great sage of enlightened under-standing, remonstrated in silence with his refractory senses.

I will tell you the same openly what he admonished in secret to his senses; and by hearing these expostulations of him, you will be set above the reach of misery.

O my senses, said he, I know your special essences to be for our misery only; and therefore I pray you, to give up your intrinsic natures for the sake of my happiness.

My admonitions will serve to annihilate your actualities, which are no more than the creatures of ignorance.

The amusement of the mind with the exilition of its sensitivity, is the cause of its fury and fever heat, as the kindlings of fire is for burning one's self or others in its flame. ¹

The mind being disturbed and bewildered, makes the restless feelings and sensations, flow and fall to it, with the fierceness of boisterous rivers falling into the sea, which it breaks out and runs in the form of many a frith and firth into the land, ².

The sensitive minds burst forth in the passions of their pride and egoism, clashing against one another like the conflicting clouds; and fall in showers of hailstorms on the heads of others. ³

The cares of prosperity and adversity, are the tormenting cankers in their breasts, and they pierce and perforate the heaves to such a degree, as they are intent upon uprooting them from their innermost recesses. ⁴

They are attended with hiccoughs and hard breathings in the chest, with groaning and sobbing in the lungs, like hooting owls in the hollow of withered trees; weather covered with tufts of moss on their tops, or resembling the hoary hair ėd heads on the dried trunks of old and decayed bodies. ⁵

The cavities of the heare inside the body, are perplexed with crooked cares resembling the folds of snakes, hoary hairs likening hoax frost over hanging the head, and the apish wishes lurk about in the caves within the bosom.

Avarice is as a dancing stork, clattering her pair of sharp bills (to entice men towards her); and then pull off their eyes from their decayed frames, as also the intestinal cords of the body. ⁶

Impure lust and lawless concupiscence, symbolized as the filyour cock, scratches the heare as his dung-hill, and sounds as shrill on this side and that ⁷.

During the long and gloomy nights of our ignorance we are disturbed by the fits of frenzy, bursting as the hooting owl from the hollow of our heares; and infested by the passions barking in our bosoms like the Vetāla demons in the churned vaults and funeral grounds.

These and many other anxieties, and sensual appetites disturb our rest at nights, like the horrible Pisāca ogres appearing in the dark.

But the virtuous man who has got rid of his gloom of ignorance, beholdš every thing in its clear light, and exults like the blooming lotus in the dawning light of the day.

His heare being cleared of the cloud of ignorance, glows as the clear sky unclogged by fogs and mists; and a pure light envelopes it, after the flying dust of doubts has been driven from it.

When the doubts have ceased to disturb the mind with the gusts of dubiety and uncertainty; it becomes as calm and still as the vault of the sky, and the face of a city after the conflicting winds have stopped to blow.

Mutually amity or brotherly love, purifies and cheers the heare of every body; and grows the graceful trees of concord and cordiality, as the plants forth their beautiful blossoms and anthers in spring.

The minds of ignorant and unskillful men, are as empty as a barren waste; and are shriveled with cares and anxieties, as the lotus-bed is withered under the shivering cold and ice. ⁸

After the fog and frost of ignorance, is dissipated from the atmosphere of the mind; it gains its glaring luster, as the sky gets the sunshine, after the dispersion of clouds in autumn. ⁹

The soul having its equanimity, is as clear and cheerful and as deep and undisturbed, as the deep and wide ocean, which regains its calm and serenity, after the fury of a storm has passed over it.

The mind is full within it with the ambrosial draught of everlasting happiness, as the Vault of heaven is filled with the nectarous moon-beams at night. ¹⁰

The mind becomes conscious of the soul, after the dispersion of its ignorance; and then it views the whole world in its consciousness, as if it were situated in itself.

The contented mind finds its body to be full of heavenly delight, which is never perceived by those living souls which are ensnared by their desires of worldly enjoyments. ¹¹

As trees burnt by a wildfire, regain their verdure with the return of spring; so do people tormented by the troubles of the world, and wasted by age and burden of life, find their freshness in holy asceticism.

The anchorites resorting to the woods, are freed from their fear of transmigration; and are attended by many joys which are beyond all description. ¹²

Think, O insatiate man! either your soul to be dead to your charnel desires or your desires to be dead in your soul; in both cases you are happy, whether in possession or extinction of your mind. ¹³

Delay not to chose whatever you thick more felicitous for yourself; but better it is to be in possession of your mind and kill your cares and desires, than kill your mind with your trouble­some desires and anxieties.

Mind the nullity of that which is painful to you, because it is foolishness to pare with what is pleasant to yourself; and if you hast your inward understanding at all, remain true to yourself by avoiding the false cares of the world.

Life is a precious treasure, and its loss is liked by no body; but I tell you, in truth this life is a dream, and you are naught in reality. ¹⁴

Yet be not sorry that you livest in vain, because you hast lived such a nullity from before, and your existence is but a delusion. ¹⁵

It is unreasonable to think yourself as so and so, because the delusion of self existence of one's self, is now exploded by right reason.

Reason points the uniform entity of the self­same Being at all times; it is sheer irrationality that tells you of your existence, at it is the want of true light that exhibits this darkness unto you.

Reason will disprove your entity as light removes the darkness; and it was in your irrationality, my friend, that you have passed all this time in vain idea of your separatė existence.

It is because of this irrationality of yours, that your gross ignorance has grown so great, as to be sad because of your calamities only; and your delusive desires have subjected you to the devil, as boys caught by their fancied demons and ghosts.

After one has got rid of his former states of pain and pleasure, and his transitory desires in, this temporary world; he comes to feel the delight of his soul, under the province of his right reason.

It is your reason that has wakened you from your dullness, and enlightened your soul and mind with the light of truth; therefore should we bow down to reason above all others, as the only enlightener of our heares and souls.

After the desires are cleared from your heare, you shall find yourself as the great lord of all; and you shall rejoice in yourself, under the pure and pristine light of your soul. (Svarūpa).

Being freed from your desires, you are set on the footing of the sovran lord of all; and the unreasonableness of desires growing in your ignorance, will do away under the domain of reason.

And whether you like it or not, your desires will fly from your mind under the dominion of your reason; as theldeep darkness of night, flies at the advance of day light.

The thorough extinction of your desires, is attended with your perfect bliss; therefore rely on the conclusion of your nullity by every mode of reasoning ¹⁶.

When you have lorded over your mind and your organs, and think yourself extinct at all times, you have secured to your spirit every felicity forever.

If your mind is freed from its disquiet, and is set at rest, and becomes extinct in your present state, it will not be revivified in future; when you shall have your anaesthesia forever. ¹⁷

When I remain in my spiritual state, I seem to be in the fourth or highest heaven in myself; hence I discard my mind with its creation of the mental world from me forever. ¹⁸

The soul only is the self-existent being, beside which there is nothing else in existence; I feel myself to be this very soul, and that there is nothing else beside myself.

I find myself to be ever present everywhere with my intelligent soul, and beaming forth with its intellectual light. This we regard as the Supreme soul, which is so situated in the translu­cent sphere of our inward heares. ¹⁹

This soul which is wiyout its counter-pare is beyond our imagination and description; therefore I think myself as this soul, not in the form of an image of it, but as a wave of the water of that profound and unlimited ocean of the Divine soul.

When I rest in silence in that soul within myself, which is beyond the knowables, and is self same with my consciousness itself; I find also all my desires and passions, together with my vitality and sensibility, to be quite defunct in me.

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