The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, vol. 3 (of 4) part 2 (of 2)-23

RÁMA said:—Tell me sir, what became of the many forms,

which the mendicant saw in his dream; and whether the

several forms of Jívata, the Brahman, the gander and others

return to themselves, or remained as Rudras for ever more.

2. Vasishtha replied:—They all remained with Rudra, as

parts and compositions of himself; and being enlightened by

him, they wandered all about the world, and rested contented

with themselves.

3. They all beheld with Rudra, the magic scenes which

were displayed before them; till at last they were dismissed

from his company, to return to their own states and places.

4. Rudra said:—Go you now to your own places, and there

enjoy your fill with your family; and return to me after some

time, having completed the course of your enjoyments and

sufferings in the world.

5. You will then become as parts of myself, and remain

as my attendants to grace my residence; till at last we return

to the supreme at the end of time, and be absorbed in last

Omega of all.

6. Vasishtha said:—So saying, the Lord Rudra vanished

from their sight, and mixed in the midst of the Rudras, who

viewed all the worlds in their enlightened intellects. (These

are celestial and angelic beings).

7. Then did Jívata and others return to their respective

residences, where they have to share their shares of domestic

felicity in the company of their families, during their allotted

times.

[Pg 364]

8. Having then wasted and shuffled off their mortal coil, at

the end of their limited periods, they will be promoted to the

rank of Rudras in heaven, and will appear as luminous stars

in the firmament.

9. Ráma rejoined:—All those forms of Jiváta and others,

being but creations of the empty imagination of the mendicant;

I cannot understand, how they could be beings, as there is no

substantiality in imaginary things.

10. Vasishtha replied:—The truth of the imagination lies

partly in our consciousness, and partly in our representation

of the image; though the imagery or giving a false shape to

anything, is as untrue as any nihility in nature. But what we

are conscious of must be true, because our consciousness comprehends

everything in it.

11. Thus what is seen in the dream, and represented to us

by imagination, are all impressed in our consciousness at all

times and for ever. (Therefore neither is our consciousness nor

the images we are conscious of are untrue, though the imagery

and the work of imagination are utterly false).

12. As a man when going or carried from one country to

another, and there again to some other place, has no knowledge

of the distance of his journey, unless he is conscious of its

length and duration in space and time; so we are ignorant of

the duration of our dream, and our passing from one dream to

another, without our consciousness of it in our sleeping state.

13. Therefore it is our consciousness that contains all things,

that are represented to it by the intellect; and it is from our

intellection that we have the knowledge of everything, because

the intellect is full of knowledge and pervades everywhere.

14. Imagination, desire and dream, are the one and same

thing, the one producing the other and all lodged in the cell of

the intellect. Their objects are obtained by our intense application

to them. Desire produces imagination which is the

cause of dream; they are the phenomena of mind, and their

objects are the results of deep meditation.

15. Nothing is to be had without its practice and meditation

of it, and men of enlightened minds gain the objects by[Pg 365]

their Yoga or meditation of them alone. (These are the Yoga

siddhas or adepts in Yoga as Siva &c).

16. These adepts view the objects of their pursuit in all places,

such as the god Siva and others of the Siddha Yogis, such was

my aim and attempt also, but it was not attended with success.

17. I was unsuccessful in want of my fixed resolvedness, but

failed in both for my attending to both sides. It is only the

firm resolution of one in one point, that gives him success in

any undertaking.

18. As one going in southerly direction, cannot arrive at his

house in the north, so it is the case with the pursuers after their

aims; which they well know to be unattainable without their

firm determination in it.

19. Whoever is resolved to gain his desired objects, must

fix his view on the object before him; the mind being fixed

on the object in view, brings the desire into effect. (So says

Hafiz: If thou want the presence of the object, never be

absent from it).

20. So the mendicant having the demi God Rudra, for the

sole object in his view, became assimilated to the very form of

his wish; because whoso is intent on one object, must remove

all duality from before him. (So says the mystic Sadi:

I drove the duality from my door, in order to have the unity

alone before my view).

21. The other imaginary forms of the mendicant, were all

different persons in their different spheres; and had obtained

their several forms, according to their respective desires from

one state to another (as said before).

22. They did not know or look on one another, but had all

their thoughts and sights fixed on Rudra alone; because those

that are awakened to their spiritual knowledge, have their sight

fixed on their final liberation, while the unenlightened mortals

are Subjected to repeated births, by the repetition of their

wishes (to be born in some form or other).

23. It was accordingly to the will of Rudra, that he took

this one form and many others upon him, such as he wills to become

a Vidhyadhara in one place and a pandit in another.

[Pg 366]

24. This instance of Rudra serves for an example, of the

efficacy of intense thought and practice of all men; who may

become one or another or many more, as also learned or ignorant,

agreeably to their thought and conduct. (One to be many, means

the versatility of parts, to act as many).

25. So one has his manhood and Godhead also (i.e. acts

as a man and a God likewise), by his manly and Godlike actions

at different times and places; and to be both at the one

and same time, requires much greater ability and energy both

of the mind and body (as it is seen in the persons of deified

heroes).

26. The living soul being one with the Divine, has all the

powers of the same implanted in it; the infinite being ingrafted

in the finite, It is of the same nature by innate nature.

27. The living soul has its expansion and contraction in its

life and death, as the Divine soul has its evolution and involution;

in the acts of creation and dissolution; but the Divine

soul destroys no soul, because it is the soul of souls and the

aggregate of all souls; therefore any one that would be godly,

must refrain from slaughter.

28. So the yogis and yoginís continue in the discharge of

their sacred rites, as enjoined by law and usage, and either remain

in this or rove about in other worlds at large at the free will

and liberty.

29. A yogi is seen in several forms at once, both in this

world and in the next, according to his desert and the merit

of his actions; as the great yogi and warrior Karta Vírya Arjuna,

became the terror of the world as if he were ubiquitous,

while he remained quite at home. (i.e. though confined in one

place, yet he seemed to be present every where).

30. So also doth the god Vishnu appear in human forms

on earth, while he sleeps at ease in the milky ocean; and the

yoginis of heaven hover over animal sacrifices on earth, while

they reside in their groups in the etherial sphere.

31. Indra also appears on earth, to receive the oblations of

men, when he is sitting in his heavenly seat on high, and Náráyana[Pg 367]

takes the forms of a thousand Rámas upon him, in his conflict

with the myriads of Rakhasa legions.

32. So did one Krishna become a hundred, to receive the

obeisance of his reverential princes; and he appears as a thousand

in the company of many thousand monarchs in the Kuru

assembly.

33. So the god became incarnate in many forms, with parts

and particles of his own spirit for the preservation of the world;

and the one lord became many in the company of his mistresses

in a moment. (This was the company of milk maids in the

rásalílá sport of Krishna).

34. In this manner did the forms of Jívata and others,

which were the creatures of the mendicant's imagination, retire

at the behest of Rudra, to the particular abodes of their own and

respective desires.

35. There they enjoyed all their delights for a long time,

until they entered the abode of Rudra; where they became the

attendants of the demigod, and remained in his train for a great

length of time.

36. They remained in the company of Rudra, dwelling

in the groves of the evergreen and ever blossoming Kalpa

creepers of paradise, blooming with clusters of their gemming

florets; and roving at pleasure to different worlds, and to the

celestial city of Siva on the Kailása mountain, and sporting in

the company of heavenly nymphs, and bearing the crowns of

immortality on their heads. (This is the description of the

heaven of Hindus).

[Pg 368]

CHAPTER LXV.

Ráma's Wonder at the Error of Men.

Argument.—Application of the mendicant's case to all men, who are

equally mistaken in their choice.

VASISHTHA Continued:—As the mendicant saw this transient

scene of error in his mind; so it is the case with all

living beings, to look on their past lives and actions apart from

themselves, and in the persons of other men.

2. The past lives, actions and demise of all reflective souls,

are as fast imprinted in them, as any thought is preserved in

the retentive mind and vacuous intellect.

3. Distant and separate things are mingled together, in the

present sphere of one's soul; and all persons appear as distinct

figures in the dream.

4. And the human soul, though it is a form of the divine,

yet being enclosed in its frail and mortal body, is doomed to

misery until its final liberation from birth and body. Thus I

have related to you the fate of all living souls, in the state and

tale of the mendicant Bhikshu.

5. Now know, O Ráma! that the souls of all of us like that

of the mendicant, are vibrated and moved by the impulse of

the supreme spirit; and are yet fallible in their nature, and

falling from error to error every moment (as we find in our

dreams).

6. As a stone falling from a rock, falls lower and lower to

the nether ground; so the living soul once fallen from its height

of supreme spirit, descends lower and lower to the lowest pit.

7. Now it sees one dream, and then passes from it to

another; and thus rolling for ever in its dreaming sleep, it

never finds any substantiality whatsoever.

8. The soul thus obscured under the illusion of errors,

happens some times to come to the light of truth, either by

the guidance of some good instructor, or by the light of its own[Pg 369]

intuition; and then it is released from the wrong notion of its

personality in the body, and comes to the true knowledge of

itself.

9. Ráma said:—O! the impervious gloom of error that

ever spreads on the human soul, causes it to rely in the

mist of its errors, as a sleeping man enjoys the scenery of his

dreams.

10. It is shrouded by the thick darkness of the night of

erroneous knowledge, and falls into the pit of illusion which

over spreads the world (máyá or error is the fruit of the forbidden

tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world,

while knowledge is the fruit of the tree of immortality, which

liberates the soul from the bonds of birth and death).

11. O the egregious error of taking a thing for our own,

which in reality belongs to no body but the lord and master

of all.

12. It behoves you, sir, to explain to me, whence this error

takes its rise, and how the mendicant with his share of good

and right understanding, could fall into the error (of wishing

himself to become another, that was as frail and mortal as himself).

Tell me also that knowest all, whether he is still living

or not.

13. Vasishtha replied:—I will explore into the regions of

the three worlds in my samádhi meditation this night, and tell

you tomorrow morning, whether the mendicant is living or not,

and where he may be at present.

14. Válmíki said:—As the sage was saying in this manner,

the royal garrison tolled the trumpet of the departing day

with beat of drum; which filled the sky with the loud roar of

diluvian clouds.

15. The princes and the citizens assembled in the court,

threw handfuls of flowers at his feet, as the trees drop

down their flowers in the ground, wafted by the odoriferous

breeze.

16. They honoured the great sages also, and rose from

their respective seats; and the assembly broke afterwards, with

mutual salutations to one another.

[Pg 370]

17. Then all the residents of the earth and air, went to

their respective residences with the setting sun; and discharged

their duties of the departing day, in obedience to the ordinance

of the sástras.

18. They all performed their services as prescribed in their

liturgies, in which they placed their strong faith and veneration.

(This shows the division of caste and creed even in the

heroic age of Ráma; which being more marked in later ages, prevented

the people from participating in a common cause).

19. All the mortals and celestials, that formed the audience

of "Vasishtha", began now to reflect on the lecture of

the sage, and the night passed as short as a moment with some,

and as long as an age with others. (Gloss. They that took

the subject for study, found time too short for their deep

meditation of it, while those that were light minded and eager

to hear more, felt time to roll on heavily on them. A very

good lesson for lightening time by the practice of patient enquiry,

and avoiding the troublesomeness of impatience).

20. As the morning rose with the returning duties of men,

and employed all beings of heaven and earth to discharge their

matin in services; the court reopened for the reception of the

audience, who assembled there with mutual greetings and

salutations to their superiors.

[Pg 371]

CHAPTER LXVI.

The wanderings of the mendicant.

Arguments:—The wanderings of men agreeably to their pursuits,

described in the character of the mendicant.

VÁLMIKI related:—After the sages Vasishtha and Viswámitra

had taken their seats in the court hall, there met

the groups of celestials and siddhas of air, and the monarch of

earth and chiefs of men.

2. Then came Ráma and Lakshmana with their companions

in the court; which shone as a clear lake of lotus-beds unshaken

by the gentle breeze, and brightened by the moonbeams

glistening amidst it.

3. The sire of sages opened his mouth unasked by any

body, and not waiting for the request of any one; because wise

men are always kind hearted, and ready to communicate their

knowledge to others of their own accord. (Here the sage spoke

impromptu, to keep his promise of answering to Ráma's query

in the preceding chapter, on a future occasion. Gloss).

4. Vasishtha said:—O. Ráma! that art the moon in the

sphere of Raghu's family, I have yesternight came to see the

mendicant, with the all seeing eye of my intellectual vision after

a long time.

5. I revolved over in my mind, and wandered wide and

afar to find out where that man was, and so I traversed through all

the continents and islands, and passed over all the hills and

mountains on earth.

6. I had my head running upon the search, but could not

meet anywhere a mendicant of that description; because it is

impossible to find in the outer world, the fictions of our air

built castle.

7. I then ran in my mind at the last watch of the night,

and passed over the regions on the north, as the fleet winds

fly over the waves of the ocean.

[Pg 372]

8. There I saw the extensive and populous country of Jina

(China) lying beyond the utmost boundaries of Valmika

(Bhalika or Bulkh); where there is a beautiful city, called as

Vihara by the inhabitants.

9. There lives a mendicant, named Dírgha drik or foresighted

whose head was silvered over with age, and who continues

in his close meditation confined in his homely and lovely

cottage.

10. He is used to sit there in his meditative mood, for

three weeks together at a time, and keep the door of his cell

quite fast, for fear of being disturbed in his silent devotion, by

the intrusion of outsiders.

11. His dependants are thus kept out of doors for the time,

that he is absorbed in meditation.

12. He thus passed his three weeks of deep meditation in

seclusion, and it is now a thousand years, that he has been sitting

in this manner, in communion with his own mind only.

13. It was in olden times, that there had been a mendicant

of his kind, as I have already related unto you; this is the

living instance of that sort, and we know not where and when

a third or another like this may be found to exist.

14. I was long in quest like a bee in search of flowers, to

find such another, in the womb of this lotus like earth, with all

possible inquiry on my part.

15. I passed beyond the limit of the present world, and

pierced through the mist of future creations, and there I met

with what I sought of the resemblance of the present one.

16. As I looked into the world lying in the womb of

futurity, and deposited in the intellectual sphere of Brahma;

I met with a third one resembling to Brahmá in his conduct.

17. So passing through many worlds one after another, I

saw many things in futures, which are not in esse in the

present world.

18. There I beheld the sages that are now sitting in this

assembly, and many more Brahmans also, that are of the

nature of these present, as also different from them.

[Pg 373]

19. There will be this Nárada with his present course of

life, as also differing from the same; so likewise there will be

many others also, with their various modes of life.

20. So likewise there will appear this Vyása and this Suka;

and these Saunaka, Pulaha and Krutu, will reappear in future

creations, with their very same natures and characters. (This

doctrine of reappearance in a future world, is disbelieved in the

sense of the transmigration of souls, but it is taken as strict

article of faith by all Christians and Moslems, in the name of

regeneration and resurrection which imply the same thing).

21. The same Agastya and Pulastya and the self-same

Bhrigu and Angirasa, all of them and all others, will

come to re-existence, with their very forms and traits of character.

(The dead will rise again in their very bodies &c. Gospel).

22. They will be born and reborn sooner and later, so long

as they are under the subjection of this delusion of regeneration

and resuscitation; and will retain their similar births and

modes of life, like all others to be reborn in this or the future

world. (As a Brahman who is twice born on earth, retains his

habits as before).

23. So the souls of men revolve repeatedly in the world,

like waves rolling for ever in the waters of the sea; some of

which retain their very same forms, while others are very

nearly so in their reappearance.

24. Some are slightly altered in their figures, and others varying

entirely in their forms, never regain their original likeness;

so doth this prevailing error of regeneration, delude even the

wise to repeated births (from which can never get their liberations).

(The desire of revivification or regeneration, is so

deeply implanted in all living souls, that no body wants to die

but with desire to live again in some future state. "Ye shall

not die." Gospel).

25. But what means the long meditation, of twenty days

and nights of the mendicant, when a moment's thought of ours,

and the results of our bodily actions, are productive of endless

births and transformations.

[Pg 374]

26. Again where is the reality of these forms, which are

mere conceptions of the mind; and these ideas and reflexions,

growing ripe with their recapitulation, appear as full blown

flowers to sight; and resemble the water lily at morn, beset

by the busy murmur of humming bees.

27. The gross form is produced from pure thought (i.e. the

material from the immaterial mind); as a pile of flaming fire

is kindled by a minute spark or a ray of sun beam. Such is the

formation of the whole fabric of the world.

28. All things are manifest as particles of divine reflexion,

and each particle exhibiting in it a variety of parts (in its

atoms and animalcules); nor are these nor those together are

nothing at all, but they all exist in the universal, which is the

cause of all cause, and the source of all sources.

[Pg 375]

CHAPTER LXVII.

Unity of God.

Argument.—The liberation of the mendicant's soul and destruction of

his body, and the application of this instance in the cases of the confinement

and liberation of all souls in and from the bondage of their bodies.

DASARATHA said:—O great sage, let these attendants of

mine, repair immediately to the cells of the mendicant,

and having roused him from his hypnotism, bring him hither

in my presence.

2. Vasishtha replied:—Great king! the body of that

mendicant, is now lying lifeless on the ground; it is now pale

and cold and daubed with dirt, and has no jot of its vitality

left in it.

3. His life has fled from his body, like odour from the lotus

of the lake; he is now liberated from the bond of this life, and

is no more subject to the cares of this world.

4. It is now a whole month that his servants have opened

the latch of his door, and standing at a distance looking at his

emaciated frame.

5. They will afterwards take out the body and immerge it

in water, and then having anointed it, they will place it for their

adoration, as they do a deified idol. (The bodies of saints are

sanctified by their votaries among all nations, and their tombs

are visited with religious veneration).

6. The mendicant being in this manner freed from his body,

cannot be brought back to his senses, which have entirely

quitted their functions in his mortal frame.

7. It is hard to evade the enchanting delusion of the world,

so long as one labours under the darkness of his ignorance;

but it is easily avoided by one's knowledge of truth at all times.

8. The fabrication of the world is untrue, as the making of

ornaments from gold; it is the error of taking the form for the

substance, that appears as the cause of creation.

[Pg 376]

9. This delusion of the world, appears to be so situated in

the supreme soul, as the rows of waves are seen to roll upon the

surface of the calm waters of the sea. So it is said in the very

words of the Vedas, that the moving worlds are as the fluctuation

of the Divine Soul.

10. The intelligent soul, taking the form of the living or

human soul, sees the phenomenal world, as one sees one dream

after another, but all these vanish away upon his waking to sense

and right reason.

11. As every man of understanding sees the original in its

image, so the man of reason views the archetype of the soul in

its representation of the creation; while the ignorant man that

sees the world as a thorny bush or confused jungle, can have no

idea of the all designing framer of his frame work of the

universe. (Right reason points out to spiritual source of the

world).

12. The world is represented to the view of every living

being, as it was seen in the vision of the dreaming mendicant, in

the form of the undulations of the supreme spirit, like the fluctuation

of waves on the surface of the sea.

13. As the world appeared to be presented at first in its

visionary form, before the view of the universal or collective

mind of the creative Brahmá; so does it rise in its shadowy

form in the opacous minds of all individual persons. (The

world appears in its unspiritual form, to the minds of the great

Brahmá and all other living beings).

14. But to the clear mind this world appears as an evanescent

dream, as it appeared to Brahmá at first; and the multitudes

of worlds that are discovered one after the other, are no more

than the successive scenes of passing dreams in the continuous

sleep of ignorance.

15. So do all living beings in their various forms, are subject

to the error of believing the unreal world as a reality,

though they well know it in their minds, to be no better than

a continuous dream or delusion. (The varieties of living souls

are included under the unintelligible terms of universal and

individual:—general and particular &c.).

[Pg 377]

16. The animal soul, though possessed of intellego (or the

property of the intellect); is yet liable to transgress from its

original nature (of holiness and purity); and thereby becomes

subject to decay, disease and death and all kinds of awe. (It is

the chyuty of the fall of man from his primary purity, that

brought on him all his miseries on earth).

17. The godly intellect frames the celestial and infernal

regions in our dreams, by the slight vibration of the mind at

its pleasure; and then takes a delight in rambling over and

dwelling in them.

18. It is this divine intellect, which by its own motion,

takes the form of living soul upon itself; and wanders from itself

to rummage over the false objects of the deceptive senses.

19. The mind also is the supreme soul, and if it is not so

it is nothing; the living and embodied is likewise a designation

of the same, likening to the shadow of the substance.

20. So the supreme Brahma is said to reside in the universal

Brahmá, according to the distinct view of men, with regard

to the one Brahma, in whom all these attributes unite,

like the water with water and the sky with air. (All these

attributive words apply to and unite in the unity of Brahma).

21. Men residing in this mundane form of Brahma, and

yet think it otherwise than a reflexion of the deity; just as a

child looking at its own shadow in a glass, startles to think it

as an apparition standing before it.

22. It is the wavering understanding that causes these differences,

which disappear of themselves, after the mind resumes

its steadiness in the unity of the Deity, wherein it is lost at

last, as the oblation of butter is consumed in the sacred fire.

23. There is no more any vacillation or dogmatism, nor

the unity or duality, after the true knowledge of the deity is

gained; when all distinctions are dissolved in an indistinct

intellect, which is as it is and all in all.

24. When it is known from the sum and substance of all

reasoning, that it is the one Intellect, which is the subject of

all appellations which are applied to it; there remains no more[Pg 378]

any difference of religious faith in the world. (That is one and

all, is the catholic religion of all).

25. Difference of faith, creates difference in men; but want

of distinction in creed, destroys all difference, and brings on the

union of all to one common faith in the supreme being.

26. Ráma, you see the variety from your want of understanding,

and you will get rid of the same (and recognise their identity),

as you come to your right understanding; ask this of any

body and you will find the truth of what I say and be fearless

at any party feeling and enmity. (Confession of faith in one

Divinity, that is acknowledged and adored by all alike, is the

root of catholicity, and brings on unity in philosophy of religion).

27. In that state of fearlessness, the Brahmavádí finds no

difference in the states of waking, dreaming, sound sleep or the

fourth stage of devotion; nor in his earthly bondage or liberation

from it, all which are equal to him. (So says the sruti:—The

Brahmavádí is ever blest and is afraid of nothing in any state

of life, in all of which he sees the presence of his God).

28. Tranquillity is another name of the universe, and God

has given his peace to everything in the world; therefore all

schisms are the false creations of ignorance, as none of them

has ever seen the invisible God.

29. The action of the heart and the motion of the vital air,

cannot move the contented mind to action; because the mind

which is devoid of its desire, is indifferent about the vibrations

of his breath and heart strings.

30. The intellect which is freed from the dubitation of

unity and duality, and got rid of its anxious cares and desires;

has approached to a state, which is next to that of the deity.

31. But the pure desire which subsists in the intellect, like

the stain which sticks to the disk of the moon; is no speck

upon it, but the coagulation of the condensed intellect. (As the

fluid water is congealed in the forms of snow and ice).

32. Do you, Ráma! ever remain in the state of your collected

intellect, because it concentrates (the knowledge of) everything

(that is sat) in itself, and leaves nothing (that is not asat)[Pg 379]

beyond it. (This is the most faultless undefective form of

faith, that I have abstracted from all religions).

33. The moon like disk of the intellect, having the mark of

inappetency in it, is a vessel of ambrosia, a draught of which

drowns the thoughts of all that is and is not (in esse—et non-esse)

into oblivion. (Contentment is the ambrosial draught for

oblivion of all cares).

34. Refer thy thoughts of whatever thou hast or wantest,

to the province of thy intellect (i.e. think of thy intellectual

parts and wants only); and taste thy inward delight as

much as thou dost like. (Pleasure of intellectual culture, is

better than physical enjoyments).

35. Know Ráma, that the words vibration and inaction,

desire and inappetency and such others of the theological

glossary, serve only to burden and mislead the mind to error;

do you therefore keep yourself from thinking on these, and

betake yourself to your peace and quiet, whether you attain to

your perfection or otherwise.

[Pg 380]

CHAPTER LXVIII.

On the virtues of Taciturnity.

Argument:—Four kinds of Reticence, and their respective qualities.

VASISHTHA said:—Ráma! remain as taciturn as in

your silent sleep, and shun at a distance the musings of

your mind; get rid of the vagaries of your imagination, and

remain firm in the state Brahma.

2. Ráma said:—I know what is meant by the reticence of

speech, and the quietness of the organs, and the muteness of a

block of wood; but tell me what is sleep like silence, which you

well know by practice.

3. Vasishtha replied:—It is said to be of two kinds, by

the mute like munis and the reserved sages of old; the practiced

by the wood like statues of saints, and the other observed

by those that are liberated in their life time (jívan mukta).