Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

25. 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. 26. The anchorites resorting to the woods, are freed from their fear of transmigration; and are attended by many joys which are beyond all description. (No words can describe the spiritual joys of the soul). 27. Think, O insatiate man! either thy soul to be dead to thy carnal desires or thy desires to be dead in thy soul; in both cases, thou art happy, whether in possession or extinction of thy mind (i.e. having a mind without desires, or desires without the mind). 28. Delay not to choose whatever thou thinkest more felicitous for thyself; but better it is to be in possession of thy mind and kill thy cares and desires, than kill thy mind with thy troublesome desires and anxieties. 29. Mind the nullity of that which is painful to thee, because it is foolishness to part with what is pleasant to thyself; and if thou hast thy inward understanding at all, remain true to thyself by avoiding the false cares of the world.

30. Life is a precious treasure, and its loss is liked by no body; but I tell thee, in truth this life is a dream, and thou art naught in reality. (And this is the Verdict of the Sruti and no dictum of mine). Gloss. 31. Yet be not sorry that thou livest in vain, because thou hast lived such a nullity from before, and thy existence is but a delusion. (Think they living in the only living God, and not apart from Him). 32. It is unreasonable to think thyself as so and so, because the delusion of self-existence of one’s self, is now exploded by right reason. 33. Reason points the uniform entity of the selfsame Being at all times; it is sheer irrationality that tells thee of thy existence, as it is the want of true light that exhibits this darkness unto thee. 34. Reason will disprove thy entity as light removes the darkness; and it was in thy irrationality, my friend, that thou hast passed all this time in vain idea of thy separate existence.

35. It is because of this irrationality of thine, that thy gross ignorance has grown so great, as to be sad because of thy calamities only; and thy delusive desires have subjected thee to the devil, as boys are caught by their fancied demons and ghosts. 36. 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. 37. It is thy reason that has wakened thee from thy dulness, and enlightened thy soul and mind with the light of truth; therefore should we bow down to reason above all others, as the only enlightener of our hearts and souls. 38. After the desires are cleared from thy heart, thou shalt find thyself as the great lord of all; and thou shalt rejoice in thyself, under the pure and pristine light of thy soul. (Swarúpa). 39. Being freed from thy desires, thou art set on the footing of the sovran lord of all; and the unreasonableness of desires growing in thy ignorance, will do away under the domain of reason.

40. And whether thou likest it or not, thy desires will fly from thy mind under the dominion of thy reason; as the deep darkness of night, flies at the advance of day light. 41. The thorough extinction of thy desires, is attended with thy perfect bliss; therefore rely on the conclusion of thy nullity by every mode of reasoning. (i.e. Be persuaded of thy impersonality, and the desires will be extinct of themselves). 42. When thou hast lorded over thy mind and thy organs, and thinkest thyself extinct at all times, thou hast secured to thy spirit every felicity for ever. 43. If thy mind is freed from its disquiet, and is set at rest, and becomes extinct in thy present state, it will not be revivified in future; when thou shalt have thy anaesthesia for ever. (The mind being killed in this life, will never be reborn any more.—Mindlessness is believed to be the Summum bonum or supreme bliss and beatitude). 44. 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 for ever. (The third heaven is the Empyrean, and the fourth is full with the presence of God alone).

45. 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. 46. 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 hearts. (The heart is regarded as the seat of the soul, and the mind as nothing). 47. This soul which is without its counter-part, 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. 48. 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.

THE MENTAL OR IMAGINARY WORLD OF THE SAGE. Argument. Hybernation of the Sage in a subterraneous cell, and the revery of his dominion over aerial spirits. Vasishtha continued:—The Sage Vítahavya having thus reflected in his mind, renounced all his worldly desires, and sat in his hypnotic trance in a cave of the Vindhyan mountains. 2. His body became motionless and devoid of its pulsations, and his soul shot forth with its intellectual delight; then with his calm and quiet mind, he sat in his devotion, as the still ocean in its calmness. 3. His heart was cold and his breathings were stopped; and he remained as an extinguished fire, after its burning flame had consumed the fuel. 4. His mind being withdrawn from all sensible objects, and intensely fixed in the object of his meditation; his eye-sight was closed under the slight pulsations of his eyelids. 5. His slight and acute eye-sight was fixed on the top of his nose, and had the appearance of the half opening bud of the lotus. (The lotus is the usual simile of the eye, and the opening bud of the half opened eye). 6. The erect structure of the head and neck and body of the meditative sage, gave him the appearance of a statue hewn upon a rock (in bas relief).

7. Sitting in this posture with his close attention to the supreme soul in the Vindhyan Cave; he passed there the period of thrice three hundred years as half a moment (close attention shortens the course of time, for want of the succession of thoughts by which time is reckoned). 8. The sage did not perceive the flight of this length of time, owing to the fixedness of his mind in his soul; and having obtained his liberation in his listless state, he did not lose his life in his obstipated devotion. 9. Nothing could rouse him all this time from his profound hypnotism, nay not even the loud roar of the rainy clouds, could break his entranced meditation yoga-nidra. 10. The loud shouts and shots of the soldiers and huntsmen on the borders, and the cries and shrieks of beasts and birds, and the growling and snarling of the tigers and elephants on the hills (could break his sound repose). 11. The loud roaring of lions, and the tremendous dashing of the water falls; the dreadful noise of thunder-claps, and the swelling clamour of the people about him (could shake his firmness).

12. The deep howling of furious Sarabhas, and the violent crackling of earthquakes; the harsh cracking of the woods in conflagration, and the dashing of waves and splashing of torrents upon the shore (could move him from his seat). 13. The rush of terraqueous waters falling on rocky-shores, and the clashing off the torrents dashing on each other; and the noise and heat of wild fires, did not disturb his repose:—samádhi—sang froid. (Such was the firmness of dying martyrs and living yogis, as it was witnessed in the case of the yogi, brought to this town from the jungles). 14. He continued only to breathe at his will to no purpose, as the course of time flows for ever to no good to itself; and was washed over on all sides of his cave by currents of rain water, resembling the waves of the Ocean. (The recent yogi was drowned under the flood of the river, and came out alive afterward). 15. In the course of a short time he was submerged under the mud; which was carried upon him by the floods of rain water in the mountain cave of his devotion. (Yogis are said to live both under water and earth, as it was witnessed in the case of the Hatha yogi of Lahore).

16. Yet he continued to keep his seat amidst that dreary cell, buried as he was by the mud up to his shoulders. (The fact of the Fakir of Lahore who lay buried underneath the ground is well known to many, and his head was raised like a stone on the cold and stiff rock of his body). 17. The long period of three centuries passed over him in this way, when his soul was awakened to light under the pain of the rains of his mountain cell. 18. The oppressed body then assumed its intellectual or spiritual form lingadeha; which was a living subtile body as air or light but without its acts of breathing the vital air. (The aerial spirit has vitality, without inhaling or exhaling the vital air). 19. This body growing by degrees to its rarefied form by its imagination, became of the form of the inner mind, which was felt to reside within the heart. (But the mind is seated in the brain, and not in the heart). 20. It thought in itself of having become a pure and living liberated seer or sage, in which state it seemed to pass a hundred years under the shade of a Kadamba tree, in the romantic grove of the Kailása mountain (a peak of the Himalayas).

21. It seemed of taking the form of a Vidyádhara for a century of years, in which state it was quite free from the diseases of humanity. It next thought of becoming the great Indra who is served by the celestials, and passing full five Yuga ages in that form. 22. Ráma said:—Let me ask you, Sir, how could the mind of the sage conceive itself as the Indra and Vidyádhara, whom it had never seen, and how could it have the ideas of the extensive Kailása and of the many ages in its small space of the cell, which is impossible in nature. 23. Vasishtha replied.—The Intellect is all comprehending and all pervading, and wherever it exerts its power in any form, it immediately assumes the same by its own nature. Thus the undivided intellect exhibits itself in various forms throughout the whole creation.

24. It is the nature of the intellect to exhibit itself in any form, as it represents itself in the understanding; and it is its nature to become whatever it pleases to be at any place or time. (It is the nature of the finite heart to be confined in the finite cell of the body, but the nature of the infinite intellect grasps all and every thing at once in itself, as it ranges through and comprehends the whole and every part of the universe within it). 25. So the impersonal sage saw himself in various forms and personalities in all the worlds, in the ample sphere of his consciousness within the narrow space of his heart. (The heart is said to be the seat of the soul. And so says Pope. “As full and perfect in a hair as heart”). 26. The man of perfect understanding, has transformed his desires to indifference; and the desires of men like seeds of trees, being singed by the fire of intelligence; are productive of no germ of acts. 27. He thought to be an attendant on the god (Siva), bearing the crescent of the moon on his forehead, and became acquainted with all sciences, and the knowledge of all things past, present and future.

28. Every one sees every thing in the same manner on his outside as it is firmly imprest in his inward mind; but this sage being freed from the impression of his personality in his life time, was at liberty to take upon him whatever personality he chose for himself. (It is possible for every person and thing to become another, by forgetting and forsaking their own identity and individuality). 29. Ráma said:—I believe, O chief of sages! that the living liberated man who sits in this manner, obtains the emancipation of his soul, even though he is confined in the prison house of his body; and such was the case of the self-liberated sage Vítahavya. (The body may be confined in a single spot, but the soul has its free range everywhere).

30. Vasishtha answered:—How can Ram! the living liberated souls, have the confinement of the body, when they remain in the form of Brahm in the outward temple of his creation, which is pure and tranquil as air. (The gloss says: the ideal body like the ideal world cannot be the living or divine soul, any more than it is for a burnt vesture to invest the body. Hence Nature which is said to be the body of God, has no power over the spirit whose reflexion it is). 31. Wherever the empty and airy consciousness represents itself in any form, it finds itself to be spread out there in that form. (Hence it is that the conscious spirit assumes any form it likes, and rejects it at will without being confined within or by the same). 32. So there appears many ideal worlds to be present before us, which are full with the presence of the all pervading spirit of God. (Because all these worlds are ideas or images or reflexions of God). 33. Thus Vítahavya, who was confined in the cave and submerged under the mire; saw in the intellect of his great soul, multitudes of worlds and countless unformed and ideal creations.

34. And he having thought himself at first as the celestial Indra, conceived himself afterwards as an earthly potentate, and preparing to go on a hunting excursion to some forest. 35. This sage who supposed himself as the swan of Brahmá at one time, now became a chief among the Dása huntsmen in the forests of Kailása. 36. He who thought himself once as a prince in the land of Surástra (Surat in Bombay), had now became as a forester in a village of the Andhras in Madras. 37. Ráma said:—If the sage enjoyed heavenly bliss in his mind, what need had he of assuming these ideal forms to himself? (since no body would even in thought, like to exchange his spiritual delight for corporeal enjoyment). 38. Vasishtha replied:—Why do you ask this question, Ráma, when you have been repeatedly told that this world is a false creation of the divine mind, and so were the creations of the sage’s mind also (neither of them being anything in reality). 39. The universe which is the creation of the divine intellect, is as unsubstantial as empty air; and so the ideal world of the human mind, being but a delusion, they are both alike.

40. In truth, O Ráma! neither is that world nor is this other any thing in reality; nor have I or thou any essentiality in this nonessential world, which is filled only with the essence of God. 41. The one is as the other at all times, whether past, present or future; all this visible world is the fabric of the mind which is again but an ectype of the Intellect. 42. Such is the whole creation, though appearing as otherwise; it is no other than the transcendental vacuum, although it seems to be as firm as adamant. (Vasishtha resolves every thing to his prime essence and unity of vacuity). 43. It is its ignorance that the mind exhibits itself in the forms of the production, growth and extinction of things; all which are like the rise and swinging and sinking of waves, in the ocean of eternal vacuity. 44. All things are situated in the vacuous sphere of the intellect, and are perceived by its representative of the mind, in the form of the firm and extended cosmos, though it has no extension in reality.

THE SAGE’S SAMÁDHI OR ABSORPTION IN THE DIVINE SPIRIT. Argument. Lecture on Samádhi Yoga or complete concentration of the Mind in God. Ráma said:—Now tell me Sir, what became of this sage in his mansion of the cavern; how he lifted his body from it, and what did he accomplish by his austere and intense devotion? 2. Vasishtha said:—At last the mind of the sage was as extended as the divine mind, and he beheld the Divine soul in its full glory in his own soul. 3. He saw the primeval or dawning light of the intellect in his meditation, which exhibited to his remembrance the scenes of his former states of existence. 4. He then beheld the various forms of the bodies, through which he had passed in his former lives; as also those things which had passed and gone and those living with his present body in the cell. 5. He found his living body lying in the cave as an insect, and had a mind to raise it above the surrounding mud and mire. 6. This body of Vítahavya which was confined in the cave, was covered over with the dirt, carried by the rain waters and collected over its back.

7. He saw his body pent up in the prison house of the cave, with loads of clay on its back, and fettered in its limbs by the shrubs, carried into it by the torrents of rain. 8. He thought in his clear understanding, of raising his incarcerated body out of the cave; and made repeated efforts by force of his breathings, to extricate it from its confinement. 9. With all his efforts, he found it impossible for his bodily powers, to eliminate himself and walk upon the ground; whereupon he exerted his spiritual power (which he had obtained by his devotion), to raise his spirit to the orb of the sun. 10. He thought either of being raised upward by the golden rays of the sun, or of obtaining his disembodied liberation, by the disengagement of his soul from the bondage of his body. 11. He thought in his elevated mind; “I lose nothing by the loss of my bodily exertions and exercise; but rather loosened myself from my bonds, and repairing to my state of blessedness.” 12. Then remaining for some time in his thoughtful mood on earth, he said; “neither is the leaving or having of this body, of any good or loss to me”.

13. For as we forsake one body, so we betake to another: the difference consisting on the size and bulk of the one, and the minuteness and lightness of the other. (These are the garimá of the corporeal, and laghimá or animá of the spiritual body). 14. Let me then mount on this golden ray—pingala, of the sun and fly in the open air; and borne by the vehicle of light, I will enter into the body of the sun. (“Lo! I mount, I fly.” Pope’s Dying Christian to his soul). 15. I will enter in the form of my shadow in the etherial mirror of the sun, and this my aerial breath will conduct me to that orb. (The spiritual body resembles the shadow of the material frame, and is reflected in the luminaries of heaven as in their mirrors. The departing breath of the dying person, is the conductor of his soul to upper worlds). 16. He ascended with his puryashtaka or subtile and spiritual body upon the air, as the heat of fire passes out through the hollow of a pair of bellows; and the mindful sun saw a great sage in this state within his breast. (The sun is said to be a muni or mindful; i.e. having a mind as any animated being).

17. On seeing the sage in this state, the high minded sun, called to his mind the former acts of his devotion, and remembered his body lying in the cell of the Vindyan region. 18. The sun traversing amidst the etherial regions, came to know the actions of the sage; and beheld his body lying insensible in the cave, covered under the grass and stones. 19. He ordered his chief attendant to lift up the body of the sage, whose soul had now assumed its spiritual form. 20. The aerial form of the sage, now saluted the adorable sun with his reverential mind; and was then recognized and received by him with due honour. 21. He entered into the body of the solar attendant—Pingala, who was now proceeding from heaven to the cell amidst the delightful groves of the Vindhyan range. 22. Pingala entered the Vindhyan grove in the form of a cloud, which assuming the shape of a big elephant, removed the earth from the surface of the cave, with the long nails of his toes. 23. He then brought out the body of the sage with his trunk, as a stork pulls up a lotus stalk from amidst the mud; and then the spiritual body of the muni, fled from the form of Pingala to his own.

24. The sage after his long wanderings in the regions of ether, like a bird in the sky; found at last his own body, into which it entered as its nest, and took his leave of Pingala with mutual salutations. 25. They then hurried to their respective callings with their refulgent forms; the one fled into the air, and the other repaired to a lake to cleanse his body. 26. It shone as a star in the limpid lake, and as sun beams under the water; and then it appeared above it, as a full blown lotus on the surface of waters. (The effect of devotion is said to brighten the body also). 27. He rose out of the water as a young elephant, after its sport in some dirty pool; and then offered his adoration to the sun, who had restored his body and mind to their luminous states. 28. Afterwards the sage passed sometime on the bank of the Vindhyan lake, fraught with the virtues of universal benevolence, fellow feeling and kindness, and joined with the qualities of his peace and tranquility, his wisdom and internal bliss, and above all his seclusion and retirement from society, and unconcernedness with the concerns of the world.

GOVERNMENT OF BODILY ORGANS. Argument. Necessity of controul over senses for concentration of the Mind. Vasishtha resumed:—The muni thought again to resume his accustomed meditation, and entered a spacious cave in the Vindhya at the end of the day. 2. He continued in the investigation of the soul, with his command over the sensible organs, and he reflected on the reality and unreality of things in his mind. 3. I find, said he, these organs of sense which were under my subjection before, are now set at liberty in the exercise of their various functions (tending to the destruction of the mind from its fixed attention). 4. I will now cease to think concerning the existence and inexistence of substances, and will recline solely (with my steady posture on that Being to whom the being and not being of things is truly known like that of a mountain peak).

5. I will remain wakeful inwardly, appearing as I were dead and asleep outwardly; and yet sensible in my insensibility, as the quiet and living soul, and thus continue both with the vigilance and supineness of my spirit in the state of my quietism (i.e. appearing as a dead block before the ignorant, but as thinking and vivacious in the eye of the intelligent. Or the wise appear as fanatics before the foolish worldlings). 6. Waking as if asleep and sleeping as awake, I will remain in my torpor of turíya, which is neither dead nor quick (and neither the corporeal nor spiritual state. Gloss). 7. I will remain retired as a rock from all things, and even apart from my mind, and dwell in the bosom of the all pervading soul; I will abide with the universal spirit in my tranquility, and having ease from all disease. 8. Having mused in this manner, he sat at his meditation for six days and nights; after which he was roused as a passenger wakes after his short nap on the way. 9. Then this great devotee having obtained the consummation of his devotion, passed his long life in the state of his living liberation. (Or living apart from all cares and concerns of the world).

10. He took delight in nothing nor hated anything; he felt no sorrow for aught nor any pleasure in naught (i.e. he had his stoic indifference to every thing, whether good or bad). 11. Whether walking or sitting, he was thoughtless of every thing; his heart was void of cares, and he conversed with his mind alone at pleasure. 12. Behold! he said to his mind, O lord of my senses! the unsullied and undecaying joy that thou dost enjoy in the tranquility; and say if there is a greater felicity than this to be found on earth. (For true felicity, according to the Vedántist, consisted not in the possession, but renunciation of earthly cares and concerns, so Hafiz: “Dáadduniáoáhilhá.” Abandon the world and all its people). 13. Therefore O my mind! that art the fleetest of all things, repress thy flight and excitability; and rely on thy cool composure for thy lasting happiness. 14. O my roguish senses, and O ye my perverted organs, ye have nothing to do with me. (The senses are related with the mind, and bear no relation to the soul).

15. The stiffness of the outer organs, is the cause of their failure; and the volition of the mind, is the cause of its disappointment; and neither of these have the power to protect me from evil. 16. Those that believe the senses, as same with the soul, are as deluded as they, that mistake the rope for a snake. 17. To take what is not the self for self, is equal to the taking of an unreality for reality; want of reason produces this mistake, but right reason removes the fallacy. 18. You my senses and thou my mind, and my living soul, are different things, and quite separate from the unity of Brahma. The mind is the active principle, and the intellect is passive, and so no one related to the other. (All these have their different functions to perform). 19. But it is their union, that serves to produce the same effect, as the wood that grows in the forest, the rope that is made of flax or hide, the axe made of iron, and the carpenter that works for wages, do all combine in the building of a house.

20. Such is the accidental conjunction of different things, that becomes the efficient cause of producing certain effects, which could never result alone, as in the case of house building just mentioned. 21. So also in the causation of the various acts of the body, as speech and all other works; which are effected by the accidental and simultaneous union of the different organs of the body and mind, without the waste or impairing of any of them. 22. Thus when the forgetfulness of death and sleep, are buried in oblivion, and reminiscence is awakened upon revivification and waking, the inactualities are again brought to the position of actuality (i.e. the inaction is changed to action, by combination of mental and bodily activities, which are again productive of their purposed results). 23. In this manner that great devotee, went on with his cogitations for many years, in that solitary cell of Vindhya mountain. 24. Freed from ignorance and afar from temptation, he remained there in perfect felicity, and ever contemplating on the means of preventing the metempsychosis of his soul.

25. Seeing the natures of things in their true light, he avoided all that presented a false appearance; and for fear of being misled by appearances, he resorted to the shelter of meditation (of the intrinsic natures and properties of things). 26. Having his option of choosing what he liked from whatever he disliked, he was indifferent to both of them, and his apathetic mind was elevated from all that is desirable or detestable in life. 27. And having renounced the world, and all its connections and the society of mankind; and setting himself beyond the bonds of repeated births and actions of life, he became one with the incorporeal unity, and drank the ambrosial draughts of spiritual delight. 28. He seemed to sit in his lonely abstraction, in the golden grotto of the Sahya mountain; and looked on the entangled paths of the world below, without any desire of walking in it, or mixing in its perfidious society. 29. Then sitting in his erect posture, he said to himself; “Be passionless, O my impassioned heart, and rest at peace my intolerant spirit.” 30. I bid you farewell, O ye enjoyments of the world, that have tempted me to taste your bitter pleasures in innumerable births and transmigrations.

31. Ye pleasures that have deluded me so long like the indulgences of boys; behold me now placed above your reach, by the absence of desire in my state of holy and heaven-born nirvána anaesthesia. 32. I hail thee, O spiritual delight, that madest me forget my past pleasures; and I thank you ye pains! that have led me to the inquiry of the soul with so much ardour. 33. It is by thee, O sour misery! that this blissful state is revealed to me; and thou art to be thanked for bringing me under the cooling umbrage of heavenly delight. 34. I thank thee Adversity! that hast revealed to me the felicity of my soul; and I bless thee, my friend! for thy making the vanity of worldly life known unto me. 35. O my body! that art so intimately united with myself, I see thy union to be but a temporary one; and like the short lived amity of interested men, who forsake their beneficient friends in a moment. 36. Thus am I forsaken by all my bodies, in my various by gone births; and so hath my soul, forsaken them all, in its repeated transmigrations in different forms of living bodies.

37. Even in my present state, my body brings its own ruin on itself; by its being slighted by the soul, upon its advancement in spiritual knowledge. (Spiritualism is deteriorative of physical powers). 38. It is no fault of mine, that the body is discontented at my contentment; or that it should be impaired by my abstinence, and broken down by my indigence. (i.e. The practice of austerities is a preventive of bodily growth). 39. Grieve not my churlish avarice, that I have grown averse to gain; and you must pardon me, O my fond desires, that I have become so devoid of my wishes, and betaken myself to the virtue of Vairágya or insouciance. 40. I have now betaken myself to my indifference, and want to thrive therein; and pray of thee, O thou restless concupiscence! to have no more any concern with me. 41. And I bid my last farewell to thee, O thou deity of piety and pious deeds! that I may no more engage myself to the performance of acts (because acts are attended with temporary and no lasting resultants).

42. I am lifted from the pit of hell and placed in heaven, and bid adieu to the arbour of pleasures, growing in the soil of wicked acts, and bearing as its fruits the torments of hell. 43. I bid farewell to the tree of sin, bearing the flowers of our punishment, whereby I was doomed to repeated transmigrations in lower births. (Does the passage allude to the forbidden tree, which brought death on earth, and its sequence of repeated births in endless misery?) 44. I bow down to that unseen form of delusion, which uttered the sweet voice of a sounding bamboo, and covered itself with a garment of leaves. (Does it mean the deluded Adam hiding his nudity under the leaves of trees?) 45. I bow to thee my holy cell, that art my associate in this devout devotion; and art the only refuge of this weak body of mine, after its weary journey in the rugged paths of the world. 46. Thou wast my kind companion, and remover of all my desires; and hast been my only shelter, after I fled from all the dangers and difficulties of the world.

47. And thou my pilgrim’s staff, that wast the support of my aged body and arm; I have found my best friend in thee, for thy relieving my fatigue, and guiding my footsteps in this dangerous and cavernous retreat. 48. I thank thee also, O my aged body! that art the prop of my life, even in this old age of thine; when thou art reduced to thy ribs, covering thy bloodless entrails, and thy shrivelled veins and arteries. 49. Depart now my dilapilated body, with the pith and marrow that there yet remain in thee; and away ye excrements that were in need of my repeated ablutions and purifications. 50. I bid adieu to all my acts and dealings in the world, which had been the destined causes and my connate companions, in all my transmigrations in this world. (Human actions being causes of their repeated births, for the sake of reaping their proper retributions). 51. I next bid you farewell, O my vital airs! who kept company with me through all my various births, and from whom I (i.e. my soul) will soon fly away.

52. How oft have I passed with you to foreign parts, and reposed in the dales and groves of mountainous tracts; how long have we sported about the cities, and how often have we dwelt in mountain retreats. (i.e. The soul with its subtile body, is sempiternal and ubiquious). 53. How many times have we run to different directions, and were engaged in various avocations of life. In fact there was no time and place in the space of the universe, when and where we did not live together. 54. In truth I have never done nor seen, nor given nor taken anything apart from you; and now I bid you adieu my friend, as I must soon part from you. 55. All things in the world have their growth and decay, and are destined to rise and fall by turns; and so also are the union and separation of things, the unavoidable course of nature. 56. Let this light which is visible to sight, reenter in the sun whence it proceeds, and let these sweet scents which come to my smelling, mix with the flowers from which they are breathed and blown.

57. Let my vital breath and oscillation, join with the etherial air; and let all the sounds I hear, return from my ears to the vacuous sphere. (Lit. Let me lose my audibility in vacuity which is receptacle of sounds). 58. Let my taste or sapidity, revert to the orb of the moon whence it has sprung; and let me be as quiet as the sea after its churning by the Mandara mount; and as the cool hour of the evening after the sun has set. (Gustation or flavour—rasa comes from the moon. Sruti. Dinánta-ramya the cooling evening. Kalidása). 59. Let me be as silent as the dumb cloud in autumn, and as still as the creation, after the great deluge at the end of a Kalpa; let me remain thoughtless, as when the mind is concentrated in the dot of om or on, and when my soul rests in supreme soul. Let me be as cold as when the fire is reduced to ashes, and as extinct as the extinguished and oilless lamp. 60. Here I sit devoid of all actions, and removed from the sight of all living beings; I am freed from the thoughts of worldly things, and am resting in the peace of my soul, which is seated in my cranium.

TERM. THE one IN VARIOUS TERM. Argument. The manner in which the sage obtained his Bodiless Liberation after his Death. Vasishtha continued:—Then repeating aloud the sacred syllable Om, and reflecting on the Universe contained in it; the sage obtained his internal peace, after he had got rid of his thoughts and was freed from his desires. (The meditation of Om or on presented all existence to his mind, and it is shown in the definition of that word in the Introduction of this book). 2. He cogitated on the several mátrás or moments, which compose the utterance of that mystic syllable; but leaving aside all its attributes, he meditated only on the reality of the pure and imperishable One. 3. He abstracted his mind from his internal and external organs, as also from his grosser and finer feelings and the sensibilities of his heart and body. He dismissed of whatever there is in the three worlds and converted all his desires to indifference. 4. He remained unmoved in his body, and as the thoughtful Platonic (chintámani), rapt in his abstraction; He was full in himself as the full moon, and as still as the mount Mandara after its churning was over.

5. He was as the motionless wheel of the potter’s mill, and as the calm ocean undisturbed by waves and winds. 6. His mind was as the clear firmament, without its sun shine and darkness; and his heart was bright, without the light of the sun, moon and stars. His intellect was unclouded by the fumes, dust and cloud of ignorance, and his soul was as clear as the autumnal sky. (The gloss points out the combination of many figures in this tetrastich sloka). 7. Then raising his voice from the ventricle, to the topmost pranava in the cranium of his head; his mind transcended the region of the sensations, as the wind oversteps the area of fragrance (which remains below.) 8. His mental darkness then fled from his mind, as the gloom of night is dispelled by the dawning light of morn, and as the percipience of sapience, puts down and extinguishes the sparks of anger in the bosom. 9. He then beheld the reflexion of a flood of light within himself, which he found to be ceaseless in its brightness; and unlike the light of the luminaries, which is repeatedly succeeded by darkness.

10. Having attained to that state of ineffable light, and inextinguishable effulgence; he found his mental powers to be quickly burnt down by its glare as the straws are consumed by the touch of fire. 11. In a short time he lost his consciousness of that light, as a new born child loses in no time, its knowledge of whatever it perceives by any of its sensible organs. 12. It was in a twinkling or half of that time, that this sedate sage stopped the course of his thought, as the current wind stops its motion in a moment. 13. He then remained as fixed as a rock, with his inattentive and mute gaze on what passed before him; and retained his vitality like a motionless dreamer in his sleep. (Pasyanti in the text means a patient spectator). 14. He was next lost in his Susupta-hypnotism, as in the insensibility of his profound sleep; and thereby attained his ultimate felicity of turíya, in the retention of his absolute felicity only. 15. He was joyous in his joylessness, and was alive without his liveliness; he remained as something in his nothingness, and was blazing amidst obscurity. (His soul shone forth amidst the gloom of his mind).

16. He was intelligent in his spirit, without the intelligence of the senses; and was as the Sruti says, neither this nor that nor the one or the other. He therefore became that which no words can express. 17. He became that transparent substance, which is transcendentally pure and purifying; and was that all pervasive something, which is corporate with nothing. 18. He was the vacuum of Vacuists, and the Brahma of the Brahmists; he was the Knowledge of gnostics, and omniscience of scientists. 19. He became like the Purusha or spirit of the Sánkhya materialists, and the Íswara of Yoga philosophers; he was alike the Siva of the Sivites, bearing the mark of the crescent moon on their foreheads, and as the Time of Timeists. 20. He was the same with the soul of souls of the Psychologists, and as no soul of Physicists; he was similar to the Midst or Midmost of the Mádhyamikas (i.e. having no beginning nor end), and the All of the even-minded Pantheists. 21. He was identified with the main Truth of every religion, and the essence of all creeds; and was self-same with the All essential and Universal Reality.

22. He was identic with the pre-eminent and unimpaired light, which is seen in all lightsome bodies; and was one with the inward light, which he perceived to be glowing within himself. 23. He became the very thing which is one and many, and which is all yet nothing. Which is simple and combined with all, and which is that which is Tat Sat—Al Ast. (Or I am that which I am). 24. In short he remained as the one undecaying and without its beginning, which is one and many, and simple without its parts. Which is purer than the pure ether, and which is the Lord God of all.

A DISCOURSE ON YOGA MEDITATION. Argument. The Liberated Sage’s suspension of breathing in his breast, the emaciation of his body and absorption of his senses. Vasishtha Continued:—After Vítahavya had passed beyond the bounds of nature, and crossed over this ocean of misery; he pacified also the fluctuations of his mind (after he had restrained the actions of his bodily actions). 2. Being thus becalmed, and brought to the state of perfect inertness; he was absorbed in his ultimate supineness, as a drop of rain water and the particles of waves, mix in the main ocean. 3. Sitting continually in his torpid state; his body became thin and lean, without its food and functions, and it decayed fastly like the fading lotus in winter, without the supply of its proper moisture of water. 4. His vital breaths fled from the tree of his body (i.e. from his lungs and arteries), and entered into the cavity of the heart, like birds let loose from the net, and flying to their nests (concentration of vital airs into the heart). 5. His corporeal body which was composed of flesh and bones and the organs of sense, remained of course beneath the shady branches of the woodland retreat; but his spirit roved beyond the bounds of the elemental worlds above.

6. His individual intellect was absorbed in the ocean of the Universal Intellect; as the particles of metallic substances are fused together in the same metal. So the soul of the sage found its rest in its intrinsic nature of the supreme soul. 7. Thus have I related to you, O Ráma! regarding the rest of the sage in his torpid quietism; all this is full of instruction, and you must consider well the hidden meaning which is contained therein. (The Gloss speaks a good deal about the mysticisms of yoga and the mysterious meanings of the words tanmaya and kaivalya, which are too long to be given in this place). 8. And know, O Ráma, that by your good gifts of these things, and perfections, you will be able to attain to that state of beatitude. 9. Consider well, O Ráma! all that I have told you already, and what I will at present and in future expound to you. 10. As I have myself known and well considered all these things in my long life, and by my experience of the past, and my knowledge of present and future events, so will you be also. (i.e. As he was a sage by his long experience, and a seer by his prescience).

11. Therefore have the clear sight or clair-voyance of the sage, as I have shown to you, and know that it is by means of your transcendental knowledge alone, that you can have your emancipation in both worlds. (i.e. Perfect liberation in the present life, ensures the freedom of the next; and bondage in this state, leads to perpetual bondage in future). 12. The light of knowledge dispels the darkness of ignorance, and destroys the mist of false fears and woes; and knowledge alone is the cause of that consummation, which nothing else can bring about. 13. See how the sage Vítahavya destroyed all his desires, by means of his knowledge; and how he cleared the mountain of his mind, from all its poisonous plants of worldliness.

14. Again his conscious knowledge or clair-voyance of other spheres, led the seer to penetrate into the solar orb of his desire on the wings of his rays; and thence return (by his reminiscence) to redeem his buried body from cave of earth. (So the soul of Jesus ascended to heaven after his crucifixion, and returned to redeem his dead and buried body from the grave after three days. It is also recorded of many Yogis to revivify their bodies, as it is predicted in the holy writ, of the resurrection of all dead bodies on the last day of judgment or Quiámat, when the rotten bones will stand up (quama), at the sound of the last trumpet of the Angel. This sort of resurrection is analogous to the daily resuscitation (jágara or waking) of animal bodies, after their susupta and swapna or sleeping and waking states of every body. But the relinquishment and reanimation of the body, was a voluntary act of the Yogi and entirely dependant on his free will and option. Hence the modern Yogis and Jugis, are known to bury their dead bodies, and not to burn them like Hindus. And all this depends on the knowledge of yoga philosophy as it is said here in the text).

15. This sage was the personification of the mind, and it is the mind which is personified in the sensible or visible forms of I, thou, he and this other. (Because the mind being the essential part of man makes his personality, and not the body which is but an appendage to the mind). The mind is also this world which consists in it, and without which it is not known to subsist. (The mind makes the world and is identified with it, wherefore Brahmá the mind of God, is represented as the maker and identic with the world). 16. By knowing this transcendent truth, and being freed from the faults of passions and feelings, and far removed from the foibles and frailties of the world; the silent sage followed the dictates of his mind, and attained thereby the endless blissfulness of his soul:—the summum bonum of human life.

A LECTURE ON RATIONALISTIC MEDITATION. Argument. On Freedom from Desires and Delusions, and Aerial flights of yogis, and the Indestructibleness of their bodies. Vasishtha said:—Ráma! you must have to imitate this sage, in order to know the nature of the soul, and all that is knowable and worth knowing. And in order to know these things, you must be passionless, and without the emotions of fear and perturbation of your spirit at all times. 2. As this sage seemed to pass the course of many millions of years, in his cheerful meditation; so you shall have to habituate yourself to your silent contemplation, without the discontentedness of your mind. 3. There have been many more sages of great minds in their times and places, who have had their perfection in the same way; and who are worthy of your imitation for the consummation of your object. 4. Knowing the soul to be inaccessible by pain and pleasure at all times, and as everlasting and ubiquitous in all places; no one, O mighty prince! has any cause to be sorry for it (or mourn for the loss of what is immortal in its nature).

5. There are many persons living in this world, who are well acquainted about the nature of the soul; but no body is so sorry for the misery of human souls like yourself (as it is related in the beginning of this work). 6. Remain quiet and in good cheer, with the magnanimity and equanimity of thy mind; and know thyself to be imperishable, and without any change or regeneration. 7. No living liberated man like yourself, is ever subject to sorrow or mirth at the vicissitudes of life; as the brave lion is never moved from his sedateness like the changeful peacock (at the change of seasons like the weather-cock). 8. Ráma said:—Sir, this discourse of yours, gives rise to a doubt in me, which I want you to disperse like an autumnal cloud. (The doubt is resembled to a thick rainy cloud, and its form is likened to that of a flimsy mist in autumn). 9. Tell me Sir, that art best acquainted with spiritual knowledge, why the bodies of living liberated persons, are not to be seen to mount to the skies.

10. Vasishtha replied:—Know Ráma, the powers of mounting to the sky and flying in the air, belong naturally to volant bodies (as the fowls and flies of the air). (And the mounting to the sky is the property of igneous and etherial beings, as those of the flame of fire and aerial spirits). 11. All the various motions that are seen to act in different directions, are according to the natural tendencies of bodies, and are never desired by the spiritualist (who would derive no good or benefit whatever by his bodily movements). 12. Volitation is no way desirable to the living liberated soul, when the volant power is easily acquired by the unspiritual and unliberated ignorant people, by many physical and artificial powers, derived by application of proper means, mantras and other practices. (Such as, the flight of winged ants before the rains, the aerostatics of balloons and pyrotechnics, the aerostation of magical mantras, and the volant power acquired by some practical Yogis, who practise the swinging of their bodies in air, by means of the suppression of their breath).

13. Volitation or flying is no business of the spiritualist, who is concerned with his knowledge of the soul only; he is content with his spiritual knowledge and union with the Supreme soul, and does not meddle with the practices of the ignorant practitioners of false yoga. 14. Know all earthly contrivances to be the offspring of worldliness, and the progeny of spiritual ignorance. Say then what spiritualist is there, that will be so foolish as to plunge himself in this gross ignorance. 15. He who pursues the path of spiritual ignorance, by his meditations and contrivances for his temporal welfare; must be blind to the future welfare of his soul, against the course of the holy sage and saint. 16. It is possible for the wise as well as the unwise, to acquire the power of his flying in the air, by the continued practice of yoga, or some other of the aforesaid arts and expedients of mantras and the like. 17. But the spiritual man remains quite aloof and afar from these, and has no desire for any such thing; he is content with himself, and finds his rest in the supreme soul, beside which he has nothing in view.

18. He has neither the aerial journey, nor any supernatural power or worldly enjoyment for his object; and neither is earthly glory or honour in his view, nor does he desire to live nor fear to die. 19. He is ever content and quiet in his soul, and is devoid of desires and affections in his mind; he is of the form of empty air, and remains with his spiritual knowledge as the idol of his soul. 20. He is unapprehensive of adversity or calamity, and unaffected by feelings of pleasure and pain; he has full satiety in his privation of everything, and is unconcerned about his life and death, by remaining himself as the living dead. 21. He remains unmoved at all evens and odds, as the Ocean is at a stand still with all the outpourings of the rivers; and he continues to meditate on, and adore the divine spirit in his own spirit. 22. He has no need of acquiring or amassing any wealth for himself, nor is he in need of asking anything of any body for his supportance.

23. The unspiritual man who aims at the acquisition of supernatural powers, must sacrifice the means of his consummation to the acquirement of such powers. (i.e. He must give up the seeking of his perfection in pursuit of those powers. Or, he who wants to wax rich and great, may become so at the loss of his peace and content and honesty). 24. All things are accomplished by application of their proper means, and what is thus ordained to take place, can not be undone even by the three-eyed God Siva himself. (It is believed that some mantras and gems are possessed of the power, of lifting living bodies in the air). 25. Thus volitation depends on the application of proper means, and not on one’s volition only; and nothing can alter the nature of things, as that of the coolness of moon-beams. 26. Whether one is all-knowing or much-knowing, and all-powerful or much powerful as a Hari or Hara; yet there is no body that has the power of setting aside the destined law of nature (as for the terrestrials to fly in air, and the celestials to walk on the earth).

27. Thus it depends on the nature of things, Ráma! and the combination of times and circumstances, as also the application of proper means and mantras, that causes a mortal to fly in the air, and an immortal to descend on earth. 28. So it is the property of some drugs, gems and mantras, to destroy the destructive power of poison; and of wine to intoxicate the wine-bibber; and so of emetics to cause vomiting. 29. Thus all things have naturally the power of producing some effect, according to its proper application and the mode and manner of it. 30. Hence no one that is unacquainted with these things, is able to effect his flight in the air; and he that is fraught with his spiritual knowledge, has no need of these practices. 31. All knowledge relating to the properties of things, and their application in proper mode and manner for the bringing on of certain ends, is of no good to the spiritualist for his attaining to spirituality. 32. He who wishes to have supernatural powers, may gain them by his long practice; but what need has the theosophist of these practices or powers for himself?

33. It is after his freedom from the net of his desires, that the spiritualist attains to his spiritual state; how then can he entertain any desire which is opposed to it? 34. Every one endeavours to present in the course, to which he is led by the desires rising in his heart; and whether he is learned or not, he reaps the reward of his endeavours in due time. 35. Vítahavya never endeavoured to acquire any supernatural power; all his endeavours aspired to the gaining of spiritual perfection, which he obtained by his devotion in the forest. 36. It is not impossible or hard, to effect the acquisition of supernatural powers; should one persist in the course of practicing and applying the proper means to those ends. 37. The success which attends on any body in the consummation of his object, is entirely owing to his personal exertion, and may be called the fruit of the tree of his own labour. 38. But these successes and consummations, are of no use to those great minded men, who have known the Knowable One in himself: and who have made an end of their worldly desires.

39. Ráma said: Sir I have yet another question for your explanation and it is this, why did not the ravenous beasts of the desert, devour the deadlike body of the devoted sage, and why did it not moulder under the earth, by which it was covered? 40. And again how the bodiless and liberated soul of the sage, which was absorbed in the sunlight, return to resume its dilapidated body, which was buried in the mountain cave. 41. Vasishtha replied:—The conscious soul that believes itself to be embodied with its mortal body, and beset by the coils of its desires and the bonds of its affections, is here subjected both to the feeling of pleasure and the pangs of pain. 42. But the intelligent soul which relies on its pure consciousness, and is freed from the net of its desires, remains only with its subtile spiritual body (which no beast or bird can devour, nor any dust or rust can destroy). So says the Gítá:—It is indivisible and unconsumable, and neither does it moulder nor dry up at any time. 43. Hear now, Ráma, the reason why the body of the Yogi, is not subject to the accidents of disjunction or corruption for many hundreds of years (under the influence of heat and cold and other casualties).

44. Whenever the mind is occupied with the thought of any thing, it is immediately assimilated into the nature of that object, and assumes the same form on itself. 45. Thus upon seeing or thinking of an enemy, the mind turns to enmity, at the very sight or thought of its foe; as it assumes the nature of friendliness, on the visit and remembrance of a friend. 46. So on seeing a hill or tree or passenger, that bears no enmity or friendship to it, the mind remains equally indifferent towards the same, and without any change in its disposition as it is perceived by us. 47. Again the mind is sweetened (pleased) on relishing the sweets, and embittered by tasting the bitter. It becomes fond of the sweet, and averse to whatever is sour and bitter and unpalatable. 48. So when a ravenous beast comes in the sight of a dispassionate Yogi, its envious nature is changed to dispassionateness, and it desists from doing him any injury. (So says Patanjali, “Good company turns the wicked to goodness”).

49. The malicious being freed from his malice, in the company of the even minded stoic, desists from the doing of any harm, to any one; as the indifferent wayfarer has no business to break the straggling branches and trees growing on the way side, which the rude rustics are apt to lop off and cut down (for the making of their fuel). 50. But the savage beast being removed from the side of the Yogi, resumes its ravenous nature again, in the company of the rapacious and wild beasts of the forest. 51. Hence it was that the envious beasts of the forest, the tigers, lions and bears; as also the reptiles and creeping insects of earth, did not molest the sedate body of the sage, so long as they lurked and crept about it. 52. The reason why the body was not reduced to the dust of the earth is, because the silent conscience that there dwells in common, in all existent bodies of animals, vegetables and minerals, and abides in them as in the person of a dumb creature; would not allow them to injure the innocent body of the sage lying flat on the ground.

53. The spiritualised body of the Yogi, is seen to move about on earth, like the shadow of something floating on the water. 54. Therefore the spiritual body of the sage, which was rarefied above the elemental bodies by virtue of his spiritual knowledge, became quite incorruptible in its nature. 55. Hear me tell you another reason, Ráma! that it is the want of oscillation which is the cause of destruction, as it is the vibration or breathing of the heart which is the cause of life. 56. It is the breathing of vital breaths, which causes the vibration of the arteries, and this being stopped, the body becomes as still as a stone. 57. He who has lost the pulsations of his heart and vital breaths, has lost also both his vitality and mortality, and become as stones (which are neither dead nor alive). 58. When the internal and external pulsations of the body are at a stop, know, O well-informed Ráma! the intestinal parts are not liable to any change. 59. The motion of the body being stopped, and the action of the heart having ceased; the humours of the body become as stiff and inert, as the solid mountain of Meru.

60. So the want of fluctuation, is seen to cause the steadiness of all things in the world; and hence the bodies of sages are known to be as quiet, as the blocks of wood and stone. 61. The bodies of Yogis therefore, remain entire for thousands of years; and like clouds in the sky and stones underneath the water, are neither soiled nor rotten at any time. 62. It was in this manner that this sage, who knew the truth, and was best acquainted with the knowledge of the knowable, left his earthy body, in order to find the rest of his soul in the Supreme Spirit. 63. Those men of great minds who are dispassionate, and know what is chiefly to be known above all others; pass beyond the bounds of this earth and even of their bodies, to assume an independent form of their own. 64. They are then perfect masters of themselves, whose minds are well governed by their right understanding; and are not affected by the influence of their destiny or the acts of their past lives, nor moved by their desires of any kind.

65. The minds of consummate Yogis, are of the nature of destiny; because they can easily effect whatever they think upon, as if they were the acts of chance as in Kákatálíya Sanyoga. 66. So it was with this sage, who no sooner thought of the renovation of his body, than he found it presented before his sight, as if it were an act of chance (or the kákatálic accident). 67. When the soul forsakes its earthly frame, after the fruition of the fruits of its passed actions is over; it assumes a spiritual form, which is the state of its disembodied liberation, and when it enjoys its perfect liberty in its independent state. 68. The mind being freed from its desires, is released from all its bonds, and assumes the spiritual form of the pure soul; it then effects instantly all that it wishes to do, and becomes all-powerful as the great Lord of all.

ADMONITION ON THE MIND AND ITS YOGA MEDITATION. Argument. The Two ways of subduing selfishness; by Universal Benevolence and want of Personality. Vasishtha said:—After the sage Vítahavya, had subdued his heart and mind by his rationality, there arose in him the qualities of universal benevolence and philanthropy (for want of his selfishness). 2. Ráma asked:—How do you say, Sir, that the quality of benevolence sprang in the mind of the sage, after it had been wholly absorbed in itself by its rationality? (since the total insensibility of one if himself, cannot have any regard for others). 3. Tell me Sir, that art the best of speakers, how can the feelings of universal love and friendliness, arise in the heart which is wholly cold and quiet, or in the mind which is entranced in the divine spirit? 4. Vasishtha replied:—There are two kinds of mental numbness, the one being its coma in the living body; and the other its deadliness after the material body is dead and gone. (The one is swarúpa and the other arúpa; the first having its formal existence, and the other being a formless one).

5. The possession of the mind is the cause of woe, and its extinction is the spring of happiness; therefore one should practise the abrasion of the essence of his mind (or personality), in order to arrive to its utter extinction. 6. The mind that is beset by the net of the vain desires of the world, is subject to repeated births, which are the sources of endless woes. (The world is a vale of tears, and worldlimindedness is the spring of misery). 7. He is reckoned as a miserable being, who thinks much of his person, and esteems his body, as the product of the good deserts of his past lives; and who accounts his foolish and blinded mind as a great gift to him. (Human life is usually esteemed as the best of all living beings; and the Sástra says “the human body is the best gain after millions of transmigrations in other forms”). 8. How can we expect the decrease of our distress, as long as the mind is the mistress of the body? It is upon the setting down of the mind, that the world appears to disappear before us. (As the setting sun hides the world from our sight).

9. Know the mind to be the root of all the miseries of life, and its desires as the sprouts of the forest of our calamities. 10. Ráma asked:—Who is it, Sir, whose mind is extinct, and what is the manner of this extinction; say also how its extinction is brought on, and what is the nature of its annihilation? 11. Vasishtha replied:—O support of Raghu’s race! I have told you before of the nature of the mind; and you will hear now, O best of inquirers! the manner of extinguishing its impulses. 12. Know that mind to be paralysed and dead, which is unmoved from its steadiness by pleasure and pain; and remains unshaken as a rock at the gentle breath of our breathing. (i.e. the man that lives and breathes, but moves not from his purposes). 13. Know also that mind, to be as dull as dead, which is devoid of the sense of its individuality from others; and which is not degraded from the loftiness of its universality, to the meanness of its personality.

14. Know that mind also, to be dead and cold, which is not moved by difficulties and dangers; nor excited by pride and giddiness, nor elated by festivity nor depressed by poverty and penury; and in short which does not lose its serene temperament at any reverse of fortune. 15. Know, gentle Ráma! this is what is meant by the death of the mind, and the numbness of the heart; and this is the inseparable property of living liberation (of those that are liberated in their lifetime). 16. Know mindfulness to be foolishness, and unmindedness is true wisdom; and it is upon the extinction of mental affections, that the pure essence of the mind appears to light. 17. This display of the intrinsic quality of the mind, after the extinction of its emotions; and this temperament of the mind of the living liberated persons, is said by some to be the true nature of the mind. 18. The mind that is fraught with the benevolent qualities, has its best wishes for all living beings in nature; it is freed from the pains of repeated births in this world of woe, and is called the living liberated mind (Jívan-mukta manas).

19. The nature of the living liberated mind is said to be its intrinsic essence, which is replete with its holy wishes, and exempted from the doom of transmigration. 20. The Swarúpa or personal mind, is what has the notion of its personality as distinct from its body; and this is the nature of the mind of those, that are liberated in their lifetime. (This is the nature of the individual and unembodied mind). 21. But when the living liberated person loses the individuality of his mind; and becomes as gladsome as moonbeams within himself, by virtue of his universal benevolence; it then becomes as expanded and extended, as it appears to be present everywhere at all times. 22. The living liberated person being mindless of himself, becomes as cold hearted as a plant growing in a frigid climate, where it blooms with its mild virtues, likening the blossoms of the winter plant. 23. The Arúpa or impersonal mind of what I have told you before, is the coolness of the disembodied soul, that is altogether liberated from the consciousness of its personality. 24. All the excellent virtues and qualities, which reside in the embodied soul, are utterly lost and drowned in the disembodied soul, upon its liberation from the knowledge of its personality.

25. In the case of disembodied liberation, the consciousness of self personality being lost, the mind also loses its formal existence in Virúpa or formlessness, when there remains nothing of it. 26. There remains no more any merit or demerit of it, nor its beauty or deformity; it neither shines nor sets any more, nor is there any consciousness of pain or pleasure in it. 27. It has no sense of light or darkness, nor the perception of day and night; it has no knowledge of space and sky, nor of the sides, altitude or depth of the firmament. 28. Its desires and efforts are lost with its essence, and there remains no trace of its entity or nullity whatever. 29. It is neither dark nor lightsome, nor transparent as the sky; it does not twinkle as a star, nor shines forth as the solar and lunar lights. And there is nothing to which it may resemble in its transparency. 30. Those minds that have freed themselves from all worldly cares, and got rid from the province of their thoughts also; are the minds that rove in this state of freedom, as the winds wander freely in the region of vacuum.

31. The intelligent souls that are numb and sleepy, and are set in perfect bliss beyond the trouble of rajas and tamas; and which have assumed the forms of vacuous bodies, find their rest in the supreme felicity, in which they are dissolved in the unity of the Deity.

ON THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BODY AND CONSCIOUSNESS. Argument. Of Desire and Breathing as the two seeds, producing the Plant of Human Body, bearing the fruits of Worldliness. Ráma said:—I see the stupendous rock (Brahma) filling the infinite vault of vacuum, and bearing the countless worlds as its vast forests, with the starry frame for its flowers and the gods and demigods for its birds and fowls. 2. The flashing of lightnings are its blooming blossoms, and the azure clouds are the leaves of the forest trees; the seasons and the sun and moon fructify these arbors with good looking fruits. 3. The seven seas are the aqueducts at the foot of this forest, and the flowing rivers are its channels; and the fourteen worlds are so many regions of it, peopled with various kinds of beings. 4. This wilderness of the world, is beset by the wide spreading net of cupidity; which has overspread on the minds of people, as the creeping vine fills the vineyard ground. 5. Disease and death form the two branches of the arbor of the world (Sansára Mahíruha), yielding plentifully the fruits of our weal and woe; while our ignorance serves to water and nourish this tree to its full growth.

6. Now tell me, sir, what is seed that produced this tree, and what is the seed of that seed also. Thus tell me what is the original seed of the production of the mundane tree. 7. Explain to me all this in short, for the edification of my understanding; and also for my acquirement of the true knowledge with which you are best acquainted. 8. Vasishtha answered:—Know Ráma! the corporeal body to be the seed or cause of this arbour of the world. This seed is the desire which is concealed in the heart of the body, and shoots forth luxuriantly, in the sprouts of good and bad acts and deeds. 9. It is full of boughs and branches, and luxuriant in the growth of its fruits and flowers; and it thrives as thickly and fastly, as the paddy fields flourish in autumn. 10. The mind which is the seed of the body, is subject to and slave of all its desires. Its treasure house consists of alternate plenty and poverty, and its casket contains the gems of pleasure and pain. 11. It is the mind which spreads this net-work of reality and unreality; as it stretches the fretwork of truth and falsehood in dreams and visions.

12. As the dying man sees in his imagination, the messengers of death appearing before him; so doth the mind, present the figure of the unreal body as a reality. 13. All these forms and figures, which appear to our view in these worlds, are the formations of the mind, as the pots and toys are the works of clay. (The mind being the same with Brahmá; is the formal cause of all existences). 14. There are two kinds of seeds again which give rise to the arbor of the mind, which is entwined by the creepers of its faculties; one kind of these is the breathing of the vital breath, and the other is thinking or the train of its thoughts. (The text has the words dridha-bhávana or the certainty of the knowledge of its reality). 15. When the vital air vibrates through the lungs and arteries, the mind then has the consciousness of its existence. 16. When the vital breath ceases to circulate through the lungs and wind pipes, there ensues the insensibility of the mind and the circulation of the heart-blood is put to a stop.

17. It is by means of the vibrations of breath and the action of the heart, that the mind perceives the existence of the world which is as false as the appearance of the blue sky, in the empty space of vacuum. 18. But when these vibrations and actions fail to rouse the sleeping mind, it is then said to enjoy its peace and quiet; otherwise they merely move the body and mind, as the wires move the dolls in the puppet show. 19. When the body has its sensibility, caused by the breathing of the vital air, it begins to move about like a doll dancing in its giddy circle in the Court yard, by artifice of the puppet player. 20. The vibrations of breath awaken also our self-consciousness, which is minuter than the minutest atom; and yet all pervasive in its nature, as the fragrance of flowers, which is blown afar in the air by the breath of the wind.

21. It is of great good, O Ráma! to confine one’s consciousness in one’s self (as it is to shut the fragrance of the flower in its seed vessel; and it is effected by stopping the breathing by means of the practice of pránáyáma or suppression of breath; as the diffusion of odours is prevented by shutting out the current air). 22. By restraining our self-consciousness we in ourselves succeed to refrain from our consciousness of all other things because the knowledge of endless objects (particulars), is attended with infinite trouble to the mind. (All knowledge is the vexation of the spirit. Solomon’s Proverbs). 23. When the mind comes to understand itself, after it is roused from its dormancy of self-forgetfulness (by being addicted to the thoughts of external objects); it gains what is known to be the best of gains, and the purest and the holiest state of life. 24. If with the vacillation of your vital breaths, and the fluctuation of your wishes, you do not disturb the even tenor of your consciousness, like the giddy part of mankind, then you are likened to the great Brahmá himself (who lives and does what he likes, without any disturbance of his inward intuition).

25. The mind without its self-consciousness or conscience, is a barren waste; and the life of man with its knowledge of truth, is as a mazy path, beset with traps and snares of errors and dangers. 26. The meditative Yogi is practised to the suppression of his breath for the peace of his mind, and conducts his pránáyáma or restraint of respiration, and his dhyána or intense meditation, according to the directions of his spiritual guide and the precepts of the sástras. 27. Restraint of breath is accompanied by the peace of mind, causing the evenness of its temperament; and it is attended with health and prosperity and capacity of cogitation to its practiser. 28. Learn Ráma, another cause of the activity of the mind, which is considered by the wise as the source of its perpetual restlessness; and this is its restless and insatiable concupiscence. 29. Now this concupiscence is defined as the fixed desire of the mind, for the possession of something, without consideration of its prior and ultimate conditions. (i.e. Whether it is worth having or not, and whether its gain will be productive of the desired object in view).

30. It is the intensity of one’s thought of getting something that produces it before him; in utter disregard of the other objects of its remembrance. (The gloss gives a mystic sense of this passage; that reminiscence which is the cause of the reproduction of prior impressions, is upset by the intensity of the present thought in the mind). 31. The man being infatuated by his present desire, believes himself as it depicts him to be; and takes his present form for real, by his forgetfulness of the past and absent reality. (The present unreal appears as real, and the past reality passes away as an unreality, as in the case of prince Lava’s believing himself a chandála during his dream, and so it is with us to take ourselves as we think us to be). 32. It is the current of our desire, that carries us away from the reality; as the drunkard sees everything whirling about him in his intoxication. 33. Men of imperfect knowledge, are led to like errors by their desires, as a man is driven to madness by the impulse of passions. 34. Such is the nature of the mind, that it leads to the imperfect knowledge of things, so as to view the unreal as real, and the unspiritual as spiritual.

35. It is the eager expectation of getting a thing, which is fixed and rooted in the heart, that impels the restless mind to seek its desired object, in repeated births and transmigrations. 36. When the mind has nothing desirable or disgusting to seek or shun, and remains apart from both, it is no more bound to regeneration in any form of existence. 37. When the mind is thoughtless about anything, owing to its want of desire of the same; it enjoys its perfect composure, owing to its unmindfulness of it and all other things. 38. When there is no shadow of anything, covering the clear face of consciousness, like a cloud obscuring the face of the sky; it is then that the mind is said to be extinct in a person, and is lost like a lotus-flower, which is never seen to grow in the expanse of the sky. 39. The mind can have no field for its action, when the sphere of the intellect is drained and devoided of all its notions of worldly objects.

40. Thus far have I related to you, Ráma, about the form and features of the mind; that it is only the entertaining of the thought of something with fond desire of the heart. (Here the mind is identified with the fond thought or wish of a man). 41. There can be no action of the mind, when the sphere of the intellect is as clear as the empty sky, and without the thought of any imaginary or visible object moving before it as the speck of a cloud. 42. It is called unmindedness also, when the mind is practised to its Yoga, or thoughtlessness of all external objects, and remains transfixed in its vision of the sole essence of God. 43. When the mind has renounced the thought of everything within itself, and remains in its perfect coolness of cold-heartedness (sang froid) of Yogis; such a mind, though exercising its powers and faculties, it is said to be nil and extinct. 44. He whose want of desires, has chilled his ardour for anything, and made him impassionate, is said to have become extinct, and reduced like a rag to ashes (leaving the form without its substance).

45. He who has no desire of gain to cause his repeated birth and death, is called the living liberated; though he should move about in his busy career like a potter’s wheel (which is insensible of its motion). 46. They are also styled the living liberated, who do not taste the pleasure of desire; but remain like fried seeds, without regerminating into the sprouts of new and repeated births. 47. Men attaining to spiritual knowledge in their earthly lives, are said to have become mindless in this world, and to be reduced to vacuity (the summum bonum of vacuists) in the next. 48. There are, O Ráma! two other seeds or sources of the mind, namely, the vital breath and desire; and though they are of different natures, yet the death of either occasions the extinction of both. 49. Both of these are causes of the regeneration of the mind, as the pond and the pot (or pipes), are the joint causes of water supply. (Wherein the want of the one, is tantamount to the loss of the other also).

50. The gross desires of men are the causes of their repeated births, as the seeds are causes of the repeated growth of trees; and the germ of regeneration is contained in the desire, as the future plant is contained in the seed, and the oily juice is inbred in the sesamum seed. 51. The conscious mind is the cause of all things in the course of time, and the source of all its pleasure and pain, which rise and fall in itself, and never grow without it. (Avindbhavin). 52. As the union of the breath of life with the organs, produces the sensations; so these being united with desire, are productive of the mind. (Hence the living and sensitive plants which are devoid of desire, are devoid of mind also). 53. As the flower and its fragrance, and the sesamum seed and its oil are united together; so is animal life inseparably connected with its desire. (Hence extinction of desire is tantamount to living death). 54. The desire being the active principle of man, and subversive of his passive consciousness; it tends to unfold the seed of the mind, as moisture serves to expand the sprouts of vegetable seeds.

55. The pulsation of the vital breath, awakens the senses to their action, and the vibrations of sensation touching the heart strings, move the mind to its perception of them. 56. The infant mind being thus produced by the fluctuating desires, and the fluctuations of vital breaths, becomes conscious of itself, as separate and independent of its causes. 57. But the extinction of either of these two sources of the mind, is attended with the dissolution of the mind; and also of its pains and pleasures, which resemble the two fruits of the tree of the mind. 58. The body resembles a branching tree, beset by the creepers of its acts; our avarice is as a huge serpent coiling about it, and our passions and diseases are as birds nestling in it. 59. It is beset by our erroneous senses, resembling the ignorant birds setting upon it; and our desires are the cankers, that are continually corroding our breasts and minds. 60. The shafts of death are felling down the trees of our minds and bodies; as the blasts of wind toss the fruits of trees upon the ground; and the flying dusts of our desires have filled all sides, and obscured the sights of things from our view.

61. The loose and thick clouds of ignorance overhang on our heads, and the pillars of our bodies, are wrapped around by the flying straws of our loose desires. 62. The small bark of our body, gliding slowly along in quest of pleasure, falls into the eddy of despair; and so every body falls into utter gloom, without looking to the bright light that shines within himself. 63. As the flying dust is allayed by the setting down of the winds, so doth the dust of the mind subside, by subsidence of the force of our vital airs and desires. (The two moving forces of the mind). 64. Again it is intelligence or Samvedya, which is the seed or root of both of these; and there being this intelligence within us, we have both our vitality and our desires also. (The word Samvedya in the text is explained as Chaitanya, which is the same with intelligence). 65. This intelligence springs from Samvid or consciousness; by forsaking its universality, and retaining its individuality; and then it becomes the seed both of vitality and velleity. (Samvid the consciousness of the impersonal self, being vitiated to the knowledge of one’s personality, produces the mind and its selfish desires).

66. Know then your intelligence as the same with your consciousness, and resembles the seed of the mind and its desires, both of which quickly die away with their root, like a rootless or uprooted plant and tree. 67. The intelligence never exists without consciousness, and is ever accompanied with it, as the mustard seed and its oil. (Or rather, as the oil is contained in the mustard seed). 68. The wakeful conscience gets its intelligence from its desire, as the waking consciousness of men, views their death and departure to distant lands in dream, from their thoughts of the same. 69. It is owing to our curiosity only, that our consciousness has its intelligence of the intelligible (God); as it is the desire of knowing any thing, that leads the conscious soul to the knowledge of it. (It means simply that, understanding combined with the desire of knowing a thing, becomes the knowledge itself. Here is a play of the paronyms, Samvid, Samitti, Samvedya, Samvedana and the like). 70. This world is no more than a net work of our imagination, as the boys imagine a goblin to be hidden in the dark. (So Bacon: Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark (for fear of demons)).

71. It is as the stump of a tree, appearing as a man in the dark; and like the streaks and particles of sunbeams and moonlight, issuing through the chink of a window or wall, appear as fire: and so are all the cognizables of our cognition (but deceptions of our senses). 72. The objects of our knowledge are as deceptive, as the appearance of a moving mountain, to a passenger in a boat. All appearances are the presentations of our error or ignorance, and disappear at the sight of right knowledge. 73. As the fallacy of the snake in the rope, and the appearance of two moons in the sky, vanish before the keen sightedness of the observer; so the representation of the triple world, disappears in like manner, from before the penetrating understanding. 74. The inward certitude of the illusion of the world, is what is called the perfection of knowledge by the wise; and the knowledge of all things whether seen before or not, is equally a delusion of the mind. 75. It is therefore right, to rub out the impressions of consciousness with diligence; because the preservation of those vestiges, is the cause of our bondage in the world.

76. The erasure of these marks from the mind, is tantamount to our liberation; because the consciousness of these impressions, is the sore cause of repeated transmigrations in this world of woe. 77. The uninert consciousness, which is unconscious of the outward world, but preserves the consciousness of the self, is attended both with present felicity, and want of future regeneration also. Be therefore unconscious of the externals, and conscious of the internal bliss of your soul; because the wakeful soul that is insensible of the externals, is blessed with the sensibility of its inward blissfulness. 78. Ráma asked:—How is it possible sir, to be both unconscious and yet uninert; and how can unconsciousness be freed from and get rid of its unavoidable supineness? 79. Vasishtha replied:—That is called the unsluggish or sensible unconsciousness, which having its existence, dwells on nothing beside itself; and which though it is living, is insensible of everything else (and yet quite sensible of its own existence). 80. He is called both the unconscious and yet uninert, who has no visible object in his consciousness; and who discharges his duties and all the affairs of his life, without attaching his mind to them.

81. He is said to be unslumbering and yet unconscious, whose mind is insensible of the sensible objects of perception; but yet clear with the impressions of the knowable objects of intellectuality: and such a person is said to be the living liberated also (who is removed from the material to the spiritual world, has his ajadá asamvid or unslumbering unconsciousness). 82. When the indifferent soul thinks of nothing in itself, but remains with its calm and quiet composure, like a young child or a deaf and dumb person, in possession of his internal consciousness:— 83. It becomes then possest of its wisdom, and rests in full knowledge of itself without its dullness; and is no more liable to the turmoils of this life, nor to the doom of future births. 84. When the adept rests in his state of sedate hybernation, by forsaking all his desires; he perceives a calm delight to pervade his inmost soul, as the blueness overspreading the sky. 85. The unconscious Yogi remains with the consciousness of his unity with that Spirit; which has no beginning nor end; and in which he finds himself to be utterly absorbed and lost.

86. Whether moving or sitting, or feeling or smelling, he seems to abide always, and do everything in the Holy spirit; and with his self-consciousness and unconsciousness of aught besides, he is dissolved in his internal delight. 87. Shut out these worldly sights from your mind, with your utmost endeavours and painstaking; and go across this world of woes, resembling a perilous ocean, on the firm bark of your virtues. 88. As a minute seed produces a large tree, stretching wide in the sky; so doth the minute mind produce these ideal worlds, which fill the empty space of the universe, and appear as real ones to sight. (The word sankalpa in the text, is used in the triple sense of imagination, reminiscence and hope, all of which are causes of the production of things appearing both as real and unreal). 89. When the conscious soul entertains the idea of some figure in itself, by its imagination, reminiscence or hope; the same becomes the seed of its reproduction, or its being born in the very form which the soul has in its view. 90. So the soul brings forth itself, and falls into its deception by its own choice; and thus loses the consciousness of its freedom, by the subjection to the bondage of life.

91. Whatever form it dotes upon with fondness, the same form it assumes to itself; and cannot get rid of it, as long it cherishes its affection for the same; nor return to its original purity, until it is freed from its impure passions. 92. The soul is no god or demigod, nor either a Yaksha nor Raksha, nor even a Nara—man or Kinnara—manikin; it is by reason of its original delusion—máyá, that it plays the part of a player on the stage of the world. 93. As the player represents himself in various shapes, and then resumes and returns to his original form; and as the silkworm binds itself in the cocoon of its own making, and then breaks out of it by itself; so doth the soul resume its primal purity, by virtue of its self-consciousness. 94. Our consciousness is as the water in the great deep of the universe, encompassing all the four quarters of the world, and the huge mountains within it. (As the sea hides the rocks under it). 95. The universal ocean of consciousness, teems with the heaven and earth, the air and the sky, the hills and mountains and the seas and rivers, and all things encompassed by the sides of the compass; as its surges, waves and billows and eddies.

96. It is our consciousness that comprises the world, which is no other beside itself; because the all comprehensive consciousness comprehends all things in itself (in its conscious ideas of them). 97. When our consciousness has its slight pulsation and not its quick vibration, it is then said to rest in itself; and is not moved by the action of outward objects upon it. 98. The seed or source of our consciousness, is the Divine Spirit, which is the inbeing of all beings; and which produces our consciousness, as the solar heat produces the light, and as the fire emits its sparks. 99. This Inbeing in us exhibits itself in two forms within ourselves; the one is our self-consciousness, and the other is our consciousness of many things lying without us: the former is uniform and the latter is of mutable form. 100. This two fold division of the one and same soul, is as the difference of ghata and pata or of the pot and painting, and like that of I and thou, which are essentially the same thing, and have no difference in their in-being. 101. Now do away with this difference, and know the true entity to be a pure unity, which is the positive reality remaining in common with all objects.

102. Forsake the particulars only, and seek the universal one which is the same and in common with all existence. Know this Unity as the totality of beings, and the only adorable One. 103. The variety of external forms, does not indicate any variation in the internal substance; change of outward form, makes a thing unknowable to us as to its former state; but outward and formal differences, make no difference in the real essence. 104. Whatever preserves its uniform and invariable appearance at all times, know that to be the true and everlasting inner essence of the thing (and not its changeful external appearance). 105. Ráma! Renounce the doctrines which maintain the eternal subsistence of time and space, of atoms and generalities and the like categories; and rely in the universal category of the one Being in which all others are reducible. (All varieties blend into the Unity of Brahma). 106. Though the endless duration of time, approximates to the nature of the Infinite Existence; yet its divisions into the present, past and future, makes it an ununiform and unreal entity.

107. That which admits of divisibility, and presents its various divisions; and what is seen to diverge to many, cannot be the uniform cause of all (hence time being ever changeful and fleeting, cannot be the unchanging cause of all). 108. Think all bodies as appertaining to one common essence, and enjoy thy full bliss by thinking thyself as the same, and filling all space. 109. He who is the ultimate pause or end of all existence in common, know, O wise Ráma! that Being to be the source and seed of the whole universe, which has sprung from Him. 110. He who is the utmost limit of all things in common, and is beyond description and imagination; He is the first and beginning of all, without any beginning of his own, and having no source or seed of himself. 111. He in whom all finite existences are dissolved, and who remains without any change in himself; knowing Him in one’s self, no man is subjected to trouble, but enjoys his full bliss in Him. 112. He is the cause of all, without any cause of his own; He is the optimum or best of all, without having anything better than himself.

113. All things are seen in the mirror of his intellect, as the shadow of the trees on the border of a river, is reflected in the limpid stream below. 114. All beings relish their delight in him, as in a reservoir of sweet water; and anything delicious which the tongue doth taste, is supplied from that pure fountain. 115. The intellectual sphere of the mind, which is clearer than the mundane sphere, has its existence from his essence; which abounds with the purest delight, than all dulcet things in the world can afford. 116. All these creatures in the world, rise and live in him; they are nourished and supported by him, and they die and are dissolved in him. 117. He is the heaviest of the heavy and the lightest of all light bodies. He is the most ponderous of all bulky things, and the minutest of the most minute. 118. He is the remotest of the most remote, and the nearest of whatever is most propinqueous to us; He is the eldest of the oldest and the youngest of the most young. 119. He is brighter far than the brightest, and obscurer than the darkest things; He is the substratum of all substances, and farthest from all the sides of the compass.

120. That being is some thing as nothing, and exists as if he were non-existent. He is manifest in all, yet invisible to view; and that is what I am, and yet as I am not the same. 121. Ráma! Try your best to get your rest, in that supreme state of felicity; than which there is no higher state for man to desire. 122. It is the knowledge of that holy and unchangeable Spirit, which brings rest and peace to the mind; know then that all-pervasive soul, and be identified with the pure Intellect, for your liberation from all restraint. (And the way to this state of perfect liberation, is to destroy by degrees the seeds of our restraints to the same. Namely:—To be regardless of the body, which is the seed of worldliness; and then to subdue the mind, which is the seed of the body; and at last to restrain the breathings and desires, which are the roots of sensations and earthly possessions; and thus to destroy the other seeds also, until one can arrive to his intellectual, and finally to his spiritual state).

MEANS OF OBTAINING THE DIVINE PRESENCE. Argument. Divine knowledge and want of desires and feelings, forming the Trivium of salvation. Ráma said:—Of all, the seeds which you have spoken, say sir, which of these is the most essential one to lead us to the attainment of the supreme Brahma. 2. Vasishtha replied:—It is by the gradual demolition of the seeds and sources of woe, which I have mentioned one after the other, that one is enabled to attain his consummation in a short time. 3. You can relinquish by your manly fortitude, your desire for temporal objects; and endeavour to seek that which is the first and best of beings:— 4. And if you remain in your exclusive and intense meditation on the Supreme Being, you are sure to see that very moment the Divine light, shining in full blaze in and before you. 5. If it is possible for you to think of all things in general, in your well developed understanding; you can have no difficulty to elevate your mind a little higher, to think of the universal Soul of all. 6. O sinless Ráma! If you can remain quietly with meditating on your conscious soul, you can find no difficulty in the contemplation of the Supreme soul, by a little more exertion of your intellect.

7. It is not possible, O Ráma! to know the knowable Spirit at once in your understanding, unless you think of it continually in your consciousness. (The Divine Spirit is knowable in our spirits and consciousness and by own intuition only). 8. Whatever thou thinkest and wherever thou goest and dost remain, is all known to thee in thy consciousness; and so it is the conscious soul which is the seat of God, and wherein He is to be sought and seen. (So says Maulana Rumi:—I sought him everywhere and found him nowhere; I looked within myself and found him there). 9. If you will but strive, Ráma, to renounce your earthly appetites; you will get yourself loosened from all its bonds and diseases and dangers. 10. Of all others which have been said before, it is the most difficult task to get rid of one’s earthly desires; and it is impossible to root them out of the mind, as it is to uproot the mount Meru from its basis. 11. As long as you do not subdue the mind, you cannot get rid of your desires; and unless you suppress your desires, you can not control your restless mind. (They are so interwoven together).

12. Until you know the truth, you cannot have the peace of your mind; and so long as you are a stranger to your mental tranquility, you are barred from knowing the truth. 13. As long you do not shun your desires, you cannot come to the light of truth; nor can you come to know the truth, unless you disown your earthly desires. 14. Hence the knowledge of truth, subjection of the mind, and abandonment of desires, are the joint causes of spiritual bliss; which is otherwise unattainable by the practice of any one of them singly. 15. Therefore, O Ráma! the wise man should betake himself, to the practice of all these triple virtues at once; and abandon his desire of worldly enjoyments, with the utmost of his manly efforts. (Because it is weakness to be a dupe to pleasure, and true bravery consists in contemning them). 16. Unless you become a complete adept, in the practice of this triplicate morality; it is impossible for you to attain to the state of divine perfection, by your mere devotion during a whole century. (Because the mendicant Yogis, that are devoid both of their divine knowledge and disinterestedness, are never blessed with their spiritual rapture).

17. Know ye, O highminded Muni! that it is the simultaneous attainment of divine knowledge, in combination with the subjection of the mind and its desires, that is attended with the efficacy of Divine presence. 18. The practice of any one of these, in disjunction from the others, is as fruitless as imprecations of one’s death or derangement of understanding (i.e. no one’s curse, can effect any evil on another). 19. Though the adept may be long inured in the practice of these virtues; yet none of them will help him singly to approach to the Supreme; as no single soldier or regiment can dare advance before the adverse host. (Here is pun of the word, param signifying both the Supreme and the enemy). 20. These virtues being brought under the practice of the wiseman, by his undivided attention and vigilance; will break down every obstacle on his way, like the current of a confluence of three streams, carrying away a rock from the coast. 21. Accustom yourself with diligence, to destroy the force of your mind and its desires and feelings; and habituate your intellect to the acquisition of knowledge with equal ardour, and you will escape from every evil and error of the world.

22. Having mastered these triple virtues; you will cut asunder your heart strings of worldly affections; as the breaking of the lotus-stalk severs its interior fibres. 23. The reminiscence of worldliness, which is inherited and strengthened in the long course of a hundred lives (or transmigrations of the soul), is hard to be removed with the assiduous practice of these triple virtues. 24. Continue to practice these at all times of your life; whether when you sit quiet or move about; or talk or listen to another or when you are awake or asleep; and it will redound to your greatest good. 25. The restraining of respirations also, is tantamount to the restraint put upon your desires; then you must practise this likewise, according to the directions of the wise. 26. By renunciation of desire, the mind is reduced to an insensible and dead block; but by restraining your breathing, you can do whatever you like. By the practice of the pránáyáma, the yogi identifies himself with the Supreme, and can do all things as the Deity. 27. By the protracted practice of restraining the breathing, according to the directions given by the guru; and by keeping the erect posture, and observing the rules of diet &c. one must restrain his respiration.

28. By right observation of the nature of things, we can have no desires for any thing (which is so frail and false); and there is nothing which is the same or remains unchanged from first to last, except the unchangeable nature of the Deity, which must be the only desirable object. 29. It is the sight and knowledge of God, that serve to weaken our worldly desires; and so will our avoidance of society and worldly thoughts (will put an end to our earthly desires). 30. Seeing the dissolution of human bodies, we cease to desire our worldly goods; and so also the loss of desired objects, puts a check to our desiring them any more. 31. As the flying dust is set on the ground, after the gust of the wind is over; so the flying thoughts of the mind are stopped, when our breathings are put to a stop: they being the one and the same thing. (Swedenborg saw the intimate connection between thought and vital life. He says “thought commences and corresponds with vital respiration. A long thought draws a long breath, and a quick one is attended with rapid vibrations of breath”).

32. From this correspondence of the motion of thoughts with the vibrations of breath, there is heaved a large mass of worldly thoughts resembling heaps of dust on earth. Let therefore the intelligent men try their utmost to suppress their breath (in order to stop the assemblage of their thoughts also). 33. Or do away with this process of the Hatha Yogis (if it be hard for you to suppress your breath), and sit quietly to suppress your fleeting thoughts only at all times. 34. If you want to keep your control over the mind, you will be able to do so in the course of a long time; because it is not possible to subdue the mind without the discipline of strict reason. 35. As it is impossible to restrain the infuriate elephant without its goading; so it is not possible for you to curb your indomitable mind, without the help of spiritual knowledge, and association with the wise and good. 36. The abandonment of desires and suppression of breathing, in the manner as hereinafter inculcated, are the most efficient means of subduing the mind. (The mind dwells in the brain which shares the various fortunes of breathing; therefore the suppression of breath tends also to the subjection of the mind. Swedenborg).

37. There are milder means of pacifying the mind, as the cooling showers of rain set down the dust of the earth; and yet the Hatha-Yoga, attempts to restrain it by stopping the breath, as it were to prevent the rising of dust, by means of a breathless calm. 38. Ignorant men who want to subdue the mind, by prescriptions of the Hatha-Yoga or bodily restraints; are like those silly folks, who want to dispel the darkness by black ink instead of a lighted lamp. (Painful bodily practice, is no part of Rája or spiritual Yoga). 39. Those who attempt to subdue the mind by bodily contortions, strive as vainly as they, who wish to bind the mad elephant with a rope of grass or straws. 40. Those rules which prescribe bodily practices, instead of mental reasoning and precepts, are known as the patterns of Hatha-Yoga, and misleading men to dangers and difficulties. (Because the mind alone governs the mind, and bodily austerities have ruined many bodies and killed many men also; and the correspondence between the states of the mind and lungs, has not been admitted in science). 41. Wretched men like beasts have no rest from their labour, but wander in dales and woods, in quest of herbs and fruits for their food.

42. Ignorant men who are infatuated in their understandings, are timid cowards like timorous stags; and are both dull-headed and weak-bodied, and languid in their limbs (by incessant toil). 43. They have no place of confidence anywhere, but stagger as the distrustful deer in the village; their minds are ever wavering between hopes and fears, as the sea water rising and falling in waves. 44. They are borne away like leaves fallen from a tree, by the current of the cascade gliding below a water-fall; and pass their time in the errors of sacrificial rites and religious gifts and austerities, and in pilgrimages and adoration of idols. 45. They are subject to continued fears, like the timid deer in the forest, and there are few among them, who happen by chance to come to the knowledge of the soul. (Most men are betaken by the exoteric faith). 46. Being broiled by outward misery and internal passions, they are rarely sensible of their real state; and are subjected to repeated births and deaths, and their temporary habitation in heaven or hell. (There is no everlasting reward or punishment, adjudged to the temporal merit and demerit of human actions).

47. They are tossed up and down like play balls in this world, some rising up to heaven, and others falling to hell-torments while they are even here. (The gloss represents higher births as heaven, and the lower ones as hell-torments; and since the Hindu idea of bliss is idleness, he deems the idle life of the great his heaven. Otia cumdignitate). 48. These men roll on like the incessant waves of the sea; therefore leave off the exterior view of the exoteric, and sink deep into the spiritual knowledge for your everlasting rest. (The Hatha-Yoga is deemed like the other modes of public worship, to belong to the exoteric faith). 49. Remain quiet and sedate, with your firm faith in your inward consciousness; and know that knowledge is power, and the knowing man is the strongest being on earth; therefore be wise in all respects. 50. Ráma! renounce the cognizance of the knowable objects, and depend on the abstract knowledge of all things in thy subjective consciousness; remain firm in full possession of thy inner soul, and think thyself as no actor of thy acts. Then forsaking all inventions of men as falsehoods (kalaná and kalpaná), shine with the effulgence of thy spiritual light.

UNIVERSAL INDIFFERENCE OR INSOUCIANCE. Argument. Cultivation of understanding and Reason. Vasishtha continued:—Ráma! He who is possessed of little reason, and tries to subdue his mind as well as he can; succeeds to reap the fruit (object) of his life (salvation). (Neither is much learning required for divine knowledge, nor is much purity necessary for salvation; nor is the entire want of either, attended by its main object). 2. The small particle of reason that is implanted in the mind, becomes by culture a big tree in time, projecting into a hundred branches in all departments of knowledge. 3. A little development of reason, serves to destroy the unruly passions of the human breast, and then fill it with the good and pure virtues; as the roes of a fish fill the tank with fishes. (The seed of reason germinates in all good qualities). 4. The rational man who becomes wise, by his vast observation of the past and present, is never tempted by the influence of the ignorant, who value their wealth above their knowledge. 5. Of what good are great possessions and worldly honours to him, and of what evil are the diseases and difficulties unto the man, who looks upon them with an indifferent eye.

6. As it is impossible to stop the impetuous hurricane, or to grasp the flashing lightning, or hold the rolling clouds in the hand:— 7. As it is impossible to put the moon like a brilliant moonstone, in a box of jewels; and as it is not possible for a belle to wear the crescent of the moon like a moon flower on her forehead. 8. As it is impossible also for the buzzing gnats, to put to flight the infuriate elephant, with the swarm of bees sucking his frontal ichor, and the lotus bushes gracing his fore-head:— 9. As it is impossible too for a herd of timid stags, to withstand in fighting the brave lion, gory with the frontal pearls of slaughtered elephants in his bloody chase:— 10. As it is impossible likewise for a young frog, to devour a huge and hungry snake, which like the poisonous tree, attracts other animals to it by its poison, and then swallows them entire:— 11. So it is impossible for the robbers of outward senses, to overpower upon the man of reason, who is acquainted with the grounds of Knowledge, and knows the knowable Brahma.

12. But the sensible objects and the organs of sense, destroy the imperfect reason; as the violence of the wind, breaks off the stalks of tender plants. 13. Yet the wicked passions and desires, have no power to destroy the perfected understanding; as the lesser gales of minor deluges, are not strong enough to remove the mountain. (The great deluge is the mahákalpánta, and the partial ones are called the Khanda or yuga-pralayas). 14. Unless the flowery arbor of reason, takes its deep root in the ground of the human mind, it is liable to be shaken at every blast of the conflicting thoughts; because the unstable soul can have no stability; nor the uncertain mind can have any certainty. 15. He whose mind does not stick to strict reasoning, either when he is sitting or walking, or waking or sleeping; is said to be dead to reason. 16. Therefore think always within yourself, and in the society of good people, about what is all this, what is this world, and what is this body in a spiritual light. (i.e. Spiritually considered, the material universe will disappear from view).