Transcriber’s Notes

Inconsistent punctuation has been silently corrected.

Obvious misspellings have been silently corrected, and the following corrections made to the text. Other spelling and hyphenation variations have not been modified.

Page [985], section 21: exhalted -> exhaled Page [1018], section 36: before blazing -> blazing before Page [1065], section 11: you that -> that you Page [1081], section 37: guána -> jnána Page [1110], section 23: breathing intends -> breathing in, tends Page [1145], section 30: cannot the living -> cannot be the living Page [1154], section 12: to found -> to be found

The spelling of Sanskrit words are normalized to some extent, including correct/addition of accents where necessary. Note that the author uses á, í, ú to indicate long vowels. This notation has not been changed.

The LPP edition (1999) which has been scanned for this ebook, is of poor quality, and in some cases text was missing. Where possible, the missing/unclear text has been supplied from another edition, which has the same typographical basis (both editions are photographical reprints of the same source, or perhaps one is a copy of the other): Bharatiya Publishing House, Delhi 1978.

A third edition, Parimal Publications, Delhi 1998, which is based on an OCR scanning of the same typographical basis, has also been consulted.

The term “Gloss.” or “Glossary” probably refers to the extensive classical commentary to Yoga Vásishtha by Ananda Bodhendra Saraswati (only available in Sanskrit).

These shortcomings of the LPP ed. were corrected:

• Page [i]: page reference for Quiescence of Uddálaka was corrected from 992 to 983.
• Pages [1035] and 1037 in the printed book were exchanged and have been transcribed in their correct places.
• Page [1125]: verse 19 missing (the printed book has a blank page here).

THE
YOGA-VÁSISHTHA-MAHÁRÁMÁYANA.

VOL. III (part 1)

THE
YOGA-VÁSISHTHA
MAHÁRÁMÁYANA
OF
VÁLMÍKI

in 4 vols. in 7 pts.
(Bound in 4.)

Vol. 3 (In 2 pts.)
Bound in one.

Containing
Upasama Khanda and Nirvána Khanda

Translated from the original Sanskrit
By
VIHARI LALA MITRA

CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

UPASAMA KHANDA.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER LIV.
Quiescence of Uddálaka.

Argument. Uddálaka meditates on the form of Vishnu, and his quietus in and coalescence with it.

Vasishtha continued:—Thinking himself to be raised to this state of his transcendency, the saint sat in his posture of padmásana with his half shut eye-lids, and began to meditate in his translucent mind.

2. He then thought that the syllable Om, is the true emblem of Brahma; and he rises to the highest state, who utters this monosyllabic word.

3. Then he uttered the word with an elevated voice and high note, which rang with a resonance like the ringing of a bell.

4. The utterance of his Omkára, shook the seat of his intellect in the cranium; and reached to the seat of the pure soul, in the topmost part of his head.

5. The pranava or Omkára, consisting of three and half matrás or instants, fills the whole body with the breath of inspiration; by having its first part or the letter a, uttered with an acute accent (Udátta).

6. He let out the rechaka or the exhaling breath, whereby the internal air was extracted from the whole body; and it became as empty as the sea, after it was sucked up by Agastya.

7. His vital breath was filled with the sap of the intellect, and rested in the outer air by leaving his body; as when a bird leaves its snug nest; and then mounts to and floats in the open air.

8. The burning fire of his heart, burnt away his whole body; and left it as dry as a forest, scorched by the hot wind of a conflagration.

9. As he was in this state at the first step of his practice of Yoga, by the pranava or utterance of this syllable Om; he did not attend to the hatha Yoga at all, on account of its arduousness at first.

10. He then attended to the other parts of the mystic syllable, and remained unshaken by suppression of his breath by the kumbhaka breathing.

11. His vital breaths were not suffered to pass out of his body, nor were they allowed to circulate up and down in it; but were shut up in the nostrils, like the water pent up in the drain.

12. The fire burning before burnt body, was blown out in a moment like the flash of lightning; and he left his whole frame consumed to ashes, and lying cold and grey on the naked ground.

13. Here the white bones of his body, seemed to be sleeping unmoved on the naked shore; and lying in quiet rest on the bed of greyish ashes, appearing as the powder of camphor strewn on the ground.

14. These ashes and bones were borne aloft by the winds, and were heaped at last on his body; which looked like the person of Siva besmeared with ashes, and wearing the string of bones about it.

15. Afterwards the high winds of the air, flying to the face of the upper sky, bore aloft and scattered about those ashes and bones, resembling an autumnal mist all about the air.

16. The saint attained to this state, in the second or middle stage of his pranava Yoga; and it was by his kumbhaka breathing, and not by hatha yoga (which is difficult to practise), that he effected it.

17. He then came to the third stage, of his pranava yoga, by means of the púraka or inhaling breathing, which confers a quiet rest to the Yogi, and is called púraka for its fulfilment of his object.

18. In the process of this practice, the vital breath is carried through the intellect to the region of vacuum; where it is cooled by the coldness of its climate.

19. From the region of vacuum, the breathing ascended to that of the lunar sphere; and there it became as cold as when the rising smoke, turns to the watery cloud in the upper sky.

20. Then the breath rested in the orb of the full moon, as in the ocean of ambrosial waters, and there became as cool, as in the meritorious samádhi meditation.

21. The respiring breaths were then exhaled as cooling showers of rain; and were brightened by the moon-beams to the form of fine wires of gold.

22. The same fell as a dew drop on the remaining ashes, as the stream of the heavenly Gangá fell on the crest of Siva; and this resuscitated the burnt body to its former form.

23. It then became as bright as the orb of the moon, and the body was bedecked with the four arms of Vishnu. It glistened like the párijáta tree on the sea shore, after it was churned out by the Mandara mountain.

24. The body of Uddálaka, stood confest as that of Náráyana to view; and his bright eyes and lotus-like face, shone with a celestial light.

25. The vital breaths filled his body with a humid juice, as when the lake is filled with sweet water, and the trees are supplied with moisture by the breath of spring.

26. The internal airs filled the lungs, and the cavity of the heart; as when the waters of the sea, run towards and roll into the whirlpool.

27. His body was afterwards restored to and regained its natural state; as when the earth regains its prior and purer state, after it is washed by the waters of rain.

28. He then sat in his posture of padmásana, and kept his body fixed and firm in its straight and erect position. The five organs of his sense, were bound as fast, as the feet of an elephant with strong chains.

29. He strove to practise an unshaken hybernation (samádhi), and wanted to make himself appear as translucent, as the clear autumnal sky and air.

30. He restrained his breath (by means of his pránáyáma or contraction of breathing), and the fleet stag of his respiration from its flight to all sides; and he restricted his heart from its inclinations, and fixed it fast as by a rope to the post of his bosom.

31. He stopped his heart forcibly, from its running madly to the pits of its affection; as they stop the course of over-flowing waters, by means of embankments.

32. His eyes were half hid under his closing eye-lids, and his pupils remained as fixed and unmoved, as the contracted petal of the lotus, against the buzzing bees, fluttering about and seeking to suck their honey.

33. He employed himself to Rája Yoga, at first, by remaining silent with a graceful countenance.

34. He abstracted his senses from their objects, as they separate the oil from the sesamum seeds; and he contracted the organs of sense within himself, as the tortoise contracts his limbs under his hard covering.

35. With his steady mind, he cast off the external sensations afar from him; as a rich and brilliant gem, casts off its outer coating and rubbish, and then scatters its rays to a distance.

36. He compressed his external sensations, without coming in contact with them within himself; as the trees contract their juice in the cold season within their rind.

37. He stopped the circulation of his respiration, to the nine openings of his body, and their passing through the mouth and anus; and by means of his kumbhaka inspiration, he compressed the winds in the internal cells of his body.

38. He held his neck erect like the peak of mount Meru, in order to receive the light of the soul; which irradiated in the form of flowers, before the vision of his mind.

39. He confined his subdued mind in the cavity of his heart, as they imprison the big elephant in a cavern of the Vindhya mountain; when they have brought him under their subjection by some artifice.

40. When his soul had gained its clearness, resembling the serenity of the autumnal sky; it forsook its unsteadiness like the calm ocean, when it is full and unagitated by the winds.

41. The mist of doubts, which sometimes gathered in his breast, and obscured the light of his reason and truth; now fled from before him, like a flight of gnats driven by the wind.

42. As yet the crowds of doubt, rose repeatedly in his breast, and of their own accord; he dispersed them boldly by the sword of his reason, as a hero drives the enemy before him.

43. Upon the dispersion of the thick mists of doubts, and all worldly desires from his mind; he beheld the bright sun of reason rising in his breast, from amidst the parting gloom of ignorance.

44. He dispelled this darkness, by the sun-beams of his full intelligence; which rose in his mind as a blast of wind, and dispersed the clouds of his doubts in the skies.

45. After dispersion of this darkness, he saw a beautiful collection of light, shining upon him like the morning twilight, and alighting upon his lotus bed, after dispersion of the shade of night. (This was his sáttwikabháva or state of purity).

46. But this clear light of his soul, was soon after removed by the raja or worldliness of his mind; which devoured it as the young elephant feeds upon the red lotuses of the land (sthala padma), and as Vetála goblins lick up the drops of blood.

47. After the loss of this heavenly light, his mind turned flighty from the giddiness of his passions (or tama guna); and he became as drowsy as the sleeping lotuses at night, and as tipsy as a drunken sot over his cups.

48. But his reason soon returned to him, and made him shake off his sleepiness, as the winds disperse the clouds, and as the snake inhales the air; and as the elephant devours the lotus bush, and the sunlight dispels the darkness of night.

49. After removal of his drowsiness, his mind beheld the broad expanse of the blue firmament, filled with fancied forms of animals, and flights of peacocks and other birds.

50. When, as the rain water washes off the blackness of tamála leaves, and as a gust of wind drives away the morning mist, and as the light of a lamp disperses the darkness; so returned to him, his spiritual light, and removed the blue vacuum, of his mind, by filling it with its benign radiance.

51. The idea of an empty vacuity (vacuum), being replaced by that of his self consciousness, his idea of the mind was also absorbed in it; as the drunken frenzy of a man is drowned in his sleep.

52. His great soul, then rubbed out the impressions of error from his vitiated mind; as the luminous sun drives from the world, the shades of darkness which had overspread it at night.

53. In this manner his misty mind, being freed from its shades of light and darkness, and from the dross of its drowziness and error; obtained its rest in that state of samádhi or trance, which no language can describe.

54. In this state of calm and quiet repose, his limbs dropped down as in the drowziness of sleep; and their powers were absorbed in the channel of his self consciousness, as a flood recoils to its basin, when it is bound by an embankment.

55. It was then by means of his constant inquiry, that he advanced to the state of his intellectuality, from that of his consciousness of himself; as the gold that is moulded to the form of a jewel, is reduced afterwards to the pure metal only.

56. Then leaving his intellectuality, he thought himself as the intellect of his intellect; and then became of another form and figure, as when the clay is converted to a pot.

57. Then leaving his nature of a thinkable being (or objectivity), he became the subjective thinking intellect itself; and next to that, as identic with the pure universal intellect; just as the waves of the sea, resolve their globules into the common air. (It is by the process of generalization, that particulars are made to blend in one ultimate universal).

58. Losing the sight of particulars, he saw the Great One as the container of all; and then he became as one with the sole vacuous intellect.

59. He found his felicity in this extra phenomenal state of the noumenon; which like the ocean, is the reservoir of all moistures.

60. He passed out of the confines of his body and then went to a certain spot, where leaving his ordinary form, he became as a sea of joy (in the transport of his ecstacy).

61. His intellect swam over that sea of joy like a floating swan, and remained there for many years with as serene a lustre, as the moon shines in her fulness in the clear firmament.

62. It remained as still as a lamp in the breathless air, and as the shadow of a picture in painting; it was as calm as the clear lake without its waves, and as the sea after a storm, and as immovable as a cloud after it has poured out its waters.

63. As Uddálaka had been sitting in this full blaze of light, he beheld the aerial Siddhas and a group of gods (advancing towards him).

64. The groups of Siddhas, that were eager to confer the ranks of the Sun and Indra upon him, assembled around him with groups of Gandharvas and Apsaras, from all sides of heaven.

65. But the saint took no notice of them, nor gave them their due honour; but remained in deep thought, and in the continuance of his steady meditation.

66. Without paying any regard to the assemblage of the Siddhas, he remained still in that blissful abode of his bliss; as the sun remains in the solstices, or in the northern hemisphere for half of the year.

67. While he continued in the enjoyment of his blessed state of living liberation, the gods Hari, Hara and Brahmá waited at his door, together with bodies of Siddhas, Sádhyas and other deities beside them.

68. He now remained in his state of indifference, which lies between the two opposites of sorrow and joy; and neither of which is of long continuance, except the middle state of insouciance which endureth for ever.

69. When the mind is situated in its state of neutrality, and whether it is for a moment or a thousand years; it has no more any relish for pleasure, by seeing its future joys of the next world, as already begun in this.

70. When holy men have gained that blissful state in this life, they look no more on the outer world; but turn aside from it, as men avoid a thorny bush of brambles (Lit., catechu plants).

71. The saints that attained to this state of transcendental bliss, do not stoop to look upon the visible world; and as one who is seated in the heavenly car of Chitraratha, never alights on the thorny bush of the Khadira (catechumemosa).

72. They take no account of the visible world, who enjoy this felicity of the invisible in them; as the self-sufficient rich man, takes into no account the condition of the miserable poor.

73. The wise heart that has found its rest in that blissful state, does either keep itself from the thoughts of this world, or shrink from it with disgust and hatred.

74. Uddálaka thus remained in his holy seat for six months, after which he awoke from his trance; and removed from there to another place, as the sun gets out of the mists of frost in the vernal season.

75. He beheld before him, the assemblage of the bright beings of enlightened minds; and who with their countenances shining as the lightsome moon, hailed the hermit with high veneration.

76. They were fanned with chouries flapping about them, like swarms of bees besmeared with white powders of mandára flowers; and sitting on their heavenly cars, decorated with flags waving in the sky.

77. There were the great saints like ourselves sitting in them, decorated with ringlets of the sacred grass in their fingers, and accompanied by Vidyádharas and Gandharvas, with their damsels ministering unto them.

78. They addressed the great-souled and saintly Uddálaka with saying:—“Deign, O venerable sir, to look upon us, that have been waiting here upon you with our greetings.”

79. “Vouchsafe to mount on one of these heavenly cars, and repair to our celestial abode; because heaven is the last abode, where you shall have the full gratification of your desires after this life.”

80. “There remain to enjoy your desired pleasures, until the end of this kalpa age; because it is pure heavenly bliss which is the inheritance of saints, and the main aim and object of ascetic austerities on earth.”

81. “Behold here the damsels of Vidyádharas, are waiting for you with fans and wreaths of flowers in their hands; and they have been hailing and inviting you to them, as the young elephantess, entices the big elephant towards her.”

82. “It is the desire of fruition only, which is the main object of riches and meritorious acts; and the greatest of our enjoyments is the company of fairy damsels; as the flowers and fruits are the desired products of the vernal season.”

83. The hermit heard his heavenly guests, speaking in this manner; and then honoured them as he ought, without being moved by aught they said unto him.

84. He neither complemented them with his courtesy, nor changed the tenor of his even and inexcitable mind; but bidding them depart in peace, he betook himself to his wonted devotion.

85. The Siddhas honoured him for his devotedness to his pursuit, and his abjuring the desire of carnal gratifications. They then departed to their elysian abode from there, after tarrying there in vain for some days, to entice the hermit to their Parnassian fields.

86. Afterwards the saint continued to wander about at pleasure, in his character of a living liberated Yogi; and frequented the hermitages of the ascetics, at the skirts of the woods and forests.

87. He roved about freely over the mountains of Meru, Mandara, and Kaylása, and on the table lands of the Vindhyan and Himalayan ranges; and then travelled through woods and forests, groves and deserts, to distant islands on all sides.

88. At last the saintly Uddálaka chose his abode in a cavern, lying at the foot of a mountain; and there dedicated the remainder of his life, to devotion and meditation in his seclusion.

89. It was then in the course of a day, and then of a month, and sometimes after the lapse of a year or years, that he rose once from his meditation.

90. After his yoga was over, he came out and mixed with the world; and though he was sometimes engaged in the affairs of life, yet he was quite reserved in his conduct, and abstracted in his mind.

91. Being practiced to mental abstraction, he became one with the divine mind; and shone resplendent in all places, like the broad day light in view.

92. He was habituated to ponder on the community of the mind, till he became one with the universal Mind; which spreads alike throughout the universe, and neither rises nor sets any where like the solar light.

93. He gained the state of perfect tranquility, and his even mindedness in all places, which released him from the snare of doubts, and of the pain of repeated births and deaths. His mind became as clear and quiet as the autumnal sky, and his body shone as the sun at every place.

FORMULÆ OF THE PRANAVA YOGA.

CHAPTER LV.
Transcendentalism of Uddálaka.

Argument. Meditation on the Universality of the soul and Intellect.

Ráma said:—Venerable Sir! you are the sun of the day of spiritual knowledge, and the burning fire of the night of my doubts; and you who are the cooling moon to the heat of my ignorance, will deign to explain to me, what is meant by—community of existence, (that you said just now).

2. Vasishtha answered:—When the thinking principle or mind is wasted and weakened, and appears to be extinct and null; the intellect which remains in common in all beings, is called the common intelligence (or Nous) of all.

3. And this intellect when it is devoid of its intellection and is absorbed in itself, and becomes as transparent as it is nothing of itself; it is then called the common (or Samanga) intellect.

4. And likewise, when it ignores the knowledge of all its internal and external objects, it remains as the common intellect and unconscious of any personality.

5. When all visible objects are considered to have a common existence, and to be of the same nature with one’s self, it is designated the common intellect. (Or compression of the whole in one, like the contraction of the limbs of a tortoise).

6. When the phenomenas are all ingulphed of themselves, in the one common spirit; and there remains nothing as different from it, it is then called the one common entity.

7. This common view of all things as one and the same, is called transcendentalism; and it becomes alike both to embodied and disembodied beings in both worlds. It places the liberated being above the fourth stage of consummation.

8. It is the enlightened soul which is exalted by ecstacy (Samádhi), that can have this common view of all as one; and not the ignorant (who can not make this highest generalization).

9. This common view of all existence, is entertained by all great and liberated beings; as it is the same moisture and air, that is spread through the whole earth and vacuum.

10. Sages like ourselves, as Nárada and others, and the gods Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva, have this common view of all things in existence.

11. The saintly Uddálaka, entertained this view of the community of all beings and things; and having thereby attained to that state of perfection, which is free from fear or fall; he lived as long as he liked to live in this earthly sphere.

12. After lapse of a long time, he thought of enjoying the bliss of disembodied or spiritual liberation in the next world, by quitting his frail mortal frame on earth.

13. With this intention, he went into the cave of a mountain, and there made a seat for himself, with the dried leaves of trees; and then sat upon it in his posture of padmásana, with his eyes half closed under his eyelids.

14. He shut up the opening of the nine organs of sense, and then having compressed their properties of touch and the like, in the one single sense of perception, he confined them all within it in his intellect.

15. He compressed the vital airs in his body, and kept his head erect on his neck; and then by fixing the tip of his tongue to the roof of his palate, he sat with his blooming countenance turned upwards to heaven.

16. He did not allow his breath, to pass up or down or out of or inside his body, or fly into the air; nor let his mind and sight to be fixed on any object; but compressed them all in himself with his teeth joined together (in his struggle for compression).

17. There was a total stop of the breathing of his vital airs, and his countenance was composed and clear; his body was erect with the consciousness of his intellect, and his hairs stood on their ends like thorns.

18. His habitual consciousness of intellection, taught him the community of the intellect; and it was by his constant communion with the intellect, that he perceived a flood of internal bliss stirring in himself.

19. This feeling of his internal bliss, resulting from his consciousness of intellectual community; led him to think himself as identic with the entity of the infinite soul, and supporting the universal whole.

20. He remained with an even composure, in his state of transcendent quietness; and enjoyed an even rapture in himself, with a placid countenance.

21. Being unruffled by the transport of his spiritual bliss, and attaining the state of divine holiness; he remained for a long time in his abstract meditation, by abstracting his mind, from all thoughts and errors of the world.—

22. His great body remained as fixed as an image in painting, and shone as bright as the autumnal sky, illumined by the beams of the full moon.

23. In course of some days, his soul gradually forgot its mortal state, and it found its rest in his pure spiritual bliss; as the moisture of trees is deposited in the rays of the sun, at the end of autumn (in the cold season).

24. Being devoid of all desires, doubts and levity of his mind; and freed from all foul and of pleasurable inclinations of his body; he attained to that supreme bliss on the loss of his former joys, before which the prosperity of Indra appeared as a straw, floating on the vast expanse of the ocean.

25. The Bráhman then attained to that state of his summum bonum which is unmeasurable, and pervades through all space of the measureless vacuum; and which fills the universe and is felt by the enraptured yogi alone. It is what is called the supreme and infinite bliss, having neither its beginning nor end, and being a reality, without any property assignable to itself.

26. While the Bráhman attained to this first state of his consummation, and had the clearness of his understanding, during the first six months of his devotion; his body became emaciated by the sun beams, and the winds of heaven whistled over his dry frame, with the sound of lute strings.

27. After a long time had elapsed in this manner, the daughter of the mountain king—Párvatí, came to that spot, accompanied by the Mátris, and shining like flames of fire with the grey locks of hair on their heads, as if to confer the boon of his austere devotion.

28. Among them was the goddess Chámundá, who is adored by the gods. She took up the living skeleton of the Bráhman, and placed it on her crown, which added a new lustre to her frame at night.

29. Thus was the disgusting and dead like body of Uddálaka, set and placed over the many ornaments on the body of the goddess; and it was only for her valuing it as more precious than all other jewels, on account of its intrinsic merit of spiritual knowledge.

30. Whoever plants this plant of the life and conduct (i.e., the biography) of Uddálaka in the garden of his heart, will find it always flourishing with the flowers of knowledge and the fruit of divine bliss within himself. And whoso walks under the shadow of this growing arbor, he is never to be subject to death, but will reap the fruit of his higher progress in the path of liberation.

CHAPTER LVI.
Investigation into Meditation and Contemplation.

Argument. That a man in secular life, is not barred from spiritual contemplation. Nor is the spiritualist debarred from engaging in secular duties.

Vasishtha continued:—Proceed in this manner to know the universal soul in your own soul, and thereby obtain your rest in that holy state.

2. You must consider all things by the light of the sástras, and dive into their true meaning; you will also benefit yourselves by the lectures of your preceptor, and by pondering on them in your own mind; as also by your constant practice of ignoring the visibles, until you come to know the invisible One.

3. It is by means of your habitual dispassionateness, your acquaintance with the sástras and their meanings, and your hearing the lectures of the spiritual teachers; as well as your own conviction that you can gain the holy state (for it is your confidence only), whereby you can come to it.

4. It is also by your enlightened understanding too, when it is acute and unbiased, that you can attain to that everlasting state of felicity, without the medium of anything else.

5. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, that art acquainted with the past and future; whether one who is employed in the affairs of life, and at the same time is enlightened and situated in his quietude;—

6. And another who remains in his solitary devotion, apart from worldly connections; which of these two has greater merit (i.e., whether the social or solitary devotee).

7. Vasishtha replied:—-He who views the association of properties and qualities of things (which constitute all bodies in general), as quite distinct from the soul; enjoys a cool tranquility within himself, which is designated by the name of Samádhi.

8. He who is certain that the visibles bear relation to his mind only, and have no connection with his soul; and remains calm and cool in himself, may be either engaged in business, or sit quietly in his meditation.

9. Both of these are happy souls, as long as they enjoy a cool calmness within themselves; because it is this internal coolness of the soul only, which is the result of great and austere devotion.

10. When a man in his habit of quietude, feels the fickleness of his mind, his habitude then, turns to the reeling of a giddy or mad man.

11. When the sprawling mad man is devoid of desires in his mind; his foolish frolic is then said to resemble the rapturous emotions, and gesticulations of Buddhist mendicants.

12. The worldly man who is enlightened in his mind, and the enlightened sage who is sitting in his hermitage; are both of them alike in their spiritual coolness, and have undoubtedly reached the state of their blessedness.

13. The man who is unrelated with the actions which he does, but bears a mind which is free from desires, such as the mind of a man engrossed with other thoughts; he is sensible of what he hears and sees, with his organs only, without being affected by them.

14. A man becomes the agent of an act, even without his doing it actually, who is fully intent upon the action; as the unmoving man thinks himself to be moving about, and falling down in a ditch (startles even at the thought, as if it were in actuality).

15. Know the inaction of the mind, to be the best state of anaesthesia; and solity or singleness, as the best means to your insouciance.

16. It is the activity and inactivity of the mind, which are said to be the sole causes, of the restlessness and quietness of men, as also of their fixed meditation and want of its fixity: therefore destroy the germs of thy rising desires.

17. Want of desire is called the neutrality of the mind, and it is this that constitutes its steadiness and meditation; this gives solity to the soul, and contributes to its everlasting tranquility.

18. The diminishing of desires leads the man to the highest station of inappetency and innocence (i.e. from the fourth to the seventh píthiká).

19. The thick gathering desires, serve to fill the mind with the vanity of its agency, which is the cause of all its woes; (because it wakens them, only to labour under their throes); therefore try to weaken your desires at all times.

20. When the mind is tranquil, after it is freed from its fears, griefs and desires; and the soul is set at its rest and quiet, in want of its passions; it is then called the state of its samádhi or non-chalance.

21. Relinquish the thoughts of all things from thy mind, and live wherever thou livest, whether on a mount or in a forest, as calmly as thou dost at thy home.

22. The houses of house-holders of well governed minds, and of those who are devoid of the sense of their egoism, are as solitary forests to them (without any stir or disturbance to annoy them).

23. Dwelling in one’s own house or in a forest, is taken in one and the same light by cool-minded men, as they view all visible objects, in the light of an empty vacuum only.

24. Men of pacified minds, view the bright and beautiful buildings of cities, in the same indifferent light, as they behold the woods in the forest.

25. It is the nature of ungoverned minds, to view even the solitary woods, to be as full of people as large towns and cities (i.e., they have no peace of mind anywhere).

26. The restless mind falls asleep, after it gets rid of its labour; but the quiet mind has its quietus afterwards (its nirvána extinction) (i.e., the one sleeps and rises again, but the other one is wholly extinct). Therefore do as you like: (either sleep to rise again, or sleep to wake no more).

27. Whether one gets rid of worldly things or not, it is his sight of the infinite spirit, that makes him meek and quiet. (The worldly and the recluse are equally holy, with their divine knowledge only).

28. He whose mind is expanded by his like indifference, to both the objects of his desire and disgust also; and to whom all things are alike insignificant everywhere, he is called the staid and stoic, and the cool and meek.

29. He who sees the world in God in his inmost soul, and never as without the Divine Spirit; and whose mind sees everything in waking as in his sleep, is verily the lord of mankind.

30. As the market people, whether coming in or going out, are strangers to and unrelated with one another; so the wise man looks upon the concourse of men with unconcern, and thinks his own town a wilderness.

31. The mind which is fixed to its inward vision, and is inattentive to external objects; thinks the populous city as a wilderness before it, both when it is awake or asleep, and active or inactive.

32. Those who are attentive to the inward mind, sees the outer world as a vacuous space to him; and the populous world appears as a desert desolate to him, owing to its unworthiness of his attention.

33. The world is all cool and calm to the cold hearted, as the system of the body is quiet cool to one without his fit of fever-heat.

34. Those that are parched with their internal thirst, find the world as a burning conflagration to them; because everybody sees the same without him, as he sees within himself.

35. The external world with all its earthly, watery and airy bodies, and with all its rocks, rivers and quarters, is the counterpart of the inner mind, and is situated without it, as it is contained within itself.

36. The big banian tree and the little barley plants, are exact ectypes of their antitypes in the eternal mind; and they are exhibited out of it, as they are within it, like the fragrance of flowers diffused in the air.

37. There is nothing situated in the inside or the outside of this world, but they are the casts and copies, as displayed by their patterns in the great mind of God.

38. The external world is a display of the essence, contained in the universal soul; and appears without it from within its concealment, like the smell of camphor coming out of its casket.

39. It is the divine soul, which manifests itself in the form of the ego and the world also (the subjective and the objective); and all what we see externally or think internally, either in and out of us is unreal, except the real images which are imprinted in the soul.

40. The soul which is conscious of its innate images, sees the same in their intellectual appearances within the mind, and in their external manifestations in the visible creation.

41. He who has his internal and external tranquility, and enjoys his peace of mind, and views the world inseparable from the soul, enjoys his quiet samádhi everywhere; but he who perceives their difference, and differentiates his egoism from all others (that is, who sees his distinction from other beings), he is ever subject to be tossed about, as by the rolling waves of the sea.

42. The soul that is infested by the maladies of this world, sees the earth, sky, air and water, together with the hills and all things in them, burning before it as in the conflagration, of the last day of dissolution (pralaya).

43. He who performs his work with his organs of action, and has his soul fixed in its internal meditation; and is not moved by any joy or grief, is called the dispassionate yogi.

44. He who beholds the all pervading soul in his own self, and by remaining unruffled in his mind, doth never grieve at nor thinks about any thing; is styled the unimpassioned yogi.

45. Who looks calmly into the course of the world, as it has passed or is present before him, and sits still smiling at its vicissitudes, that man is named the unpassionate yogi.

46. Because these changing phenomena do not appertain to unchanging spirit of God, nor do they participate with my own egoism (i.e. they are no parts, of God or myself); they but resemble the glittering atoms of gold in the bright sun-shine which do not exist in the sky.

47. He who has no sense of egoism or tuism in himself, nor the distinction of things in his mind, as of the sensible and insensible ones; is the one that truly exists, and not the other who thinks otherwise. (So says the Sruti:—The one alike in all is the All, and not the other, who is unlike every thing).

48. He who conducts all his affairs with ease, by his remaining as the intangible and translucent air about him, and who remains as insensible of his joy and sorrow, as a block of wood or stone, is the man that is called the sedate and quiet.

49. He who of his own nature and not through fear, looks on all beings as himself, and accounts the goods of others as worthless stones; is the man that sees them in their true light.

50. No object whether great or small, is slighted as a trifle by the polished or foolish; they value all things, but do not perceive in their hearts, the Reality that abides in them like the wise. (Fools look into the forms of things, but the wise look in their in being).

51. One possessed of such indifference and equality of his mind, attains to his highest perfection; and is quite unconcerned with regard to his rise and fall, and about his life and death.

52. He is quite unconcerned with any thing, whether he is situated amidst the luxuries at his home, and the superfluities of the world, or when he is bereft of all his possessions and enjoyments, and is exposed in a dreary and deep solitude:

53. Whether indulging in voluptuousness or bacchanal revelry, or remaining retired from society and observing his taciturnity (it is all equal to him, if he is but indifferent about them).

54. Whether he anoints his body with sandal paste or agalo chum, or besmears it with powdered camphor; or whether he rubs his person with ashes, or casts himself into the flames (it is all the same to him, with his non-chalance of them).

55. Whether drowned in sinfulness, or marked by his meritoriousness; whether he dies this day or lives for a kalpa-age (it is all the same to the indifferent).

56. The man of indifference is nothing in himself, and therefore his doings are no acts of his own. He is not polluted by impurity, as the pure gold is not sullied by dirt or dust.

57. It is the wrong application of the words consciousness—samvit, and soul (purusha), to I and thou (or the subjective and objective), which has led the ignorant to the blunder (of duality), as the silvery shell of cockles, misleads men to the error of silver.

58. The knowledge of the extinction of all existence (in the Supreme Spirit), is the only cure for this blunder of one’s entity, and the only means to the peace of his mind.

59. The error of egoism and tuism of the conscious soul, which is the source of its vain desires, causes the variety of the weal and woe of mankind in their repeated births. (Selfishness grows our desires, and these again produce our woes).

60. As the removal of the fallacy of the snake in the rope, gives peace to the mind of there being no snake therein; so the subsidence of egoism in the soul, brings peace and tranquility to the mind.

61. He that is conscious of his inward soul, and unconscious of all he does, eats, drinks; and of his going to others, and offering his sacrifice; is free from the results of his acts: and it is the same to him, whether he does them or not.

62. He who slides from outward nature, and abides in his inward soul; is released from all external actions, and the good and evil resulting therefrom.

63. No wish stirs in such unruffled soul, in the same manner as no germ sprouts forth from the bosom of a stone; and such desires as ever rise in it, are as the waves of the sea, rising and falling in the same element.

64. All this is Himself, and He is the whole of this universe, without any partition or duality in Him. He is one with the holy and Supreme soul, and the only entity called the Idest, tatsat. (He is no unreality, but as real as the true Reality).

CHAPTER LVII.
Negation of Dualism.

Argument. One Supreme Intellect pervades the whole, and is one with itself.

Vasishtha continued:—The intellect residing in the soul, is felt by all like the poignancy inherent in pepper; and it is this, whereby we have the intellection of the ego and non-ego, and of the distinctions of the undivided dimension of infinite duration and space.

2. The soul is as the Universal ocean of salt, and the intellect is the saltishness inherent in it; it is this which gives us the knowledge of the ego and non-ego, and appears in the forms of infinite space and time (which are no other than its attributes).

3. The intellect of which we have the knowledge as inherent in the soul itself; is as the sweetness of the sugarcane of the soul, and spreads itself in the different forms of the ego and the non-ego of worldly objects.

4. The intellect which is known as the hardness inhering in the stonelike soul, diffuses itself in the shapes of the compact ego and the unsolid non-ego of the world.

5. The knowledge that we have of the solidity of our rock-like soul, the same solidifies itself in the forms of I and thou, and the diversities of the world all about us.

6. The soul which like the great body of water, presents its fluidity in the form of the intellect; the same assumes the forms of the whirlpools of the ego, and the varieties of non-ego in the world.

7. The great arbor of the soul, stretches itself in the exuberant branches of the intellect; producing the fruits of ego and the various forms of non-ego in the world.

8. The intellect which is but a gap in the great vacuum of the soul, produces the ideas of I and thou and of the universe besides.

9. The intellect is as vain as vanity itself in the vacuity of the soul; and gives rise to the ideas of ego and tu, and of the world besides.

10. The intellect situated within the environs of the soul, has its egoism and non-egoism situated without it. (i.e. The soul contains the intellect, which deals with ideas lying beyond it).

11. When the intellect is known, to be of the same essence with that of the soul; then the difference of the ego and non-ego, proves to be but acts of intellection and no reality.

12. It is the reflexion of the inward soul अन्तरात्मा which is understood to be the ego अहं, the mind चित्त and anima or animated soul जीव. (The two souls are respectively called the nafs natigue and the nafs Jesmia in sufism, the former is Meram and Shaffat—luminous and transparent, and the latter nafs amera Jesmani—or bodily senses, and quate uhshi—or outrageous passions).

13. When the luminous and moon like soul, entertains and enjoys the ambrosial beams of the intellect within itself; it then forgets its egoism, which rises no more in its bright sphere.

14. When the sweetness of the intellect, is felt within the molasses of the soul; it is relished by the mind with a zest, which makes it forget its egoism in itself.

15. When the bright gem of the soul, shines with the radiance of the intellect in itself; it finds its egoism to be lost altogether, under the brightness of its intellectual light.

16. The soul perceives nothing in itself, for the total want of the perceptibles in it; nor does it taste anything in itself, for want of anything gustable therein. (The objective is altogether lost in it).

17. It thinks of nothing in itself, for want of the thinkables therein; nor does it know of aught in itself, for want of the knowables there. (The soul being absorbed in itself, is unconscious both of the subjective as well as objective).

18. The soul remains blank of all impressions of the subjective and objective, and also of the infinite plenum in itself; it remains in the form of a firm and solid rock by itself.

19. It is by way of common speech or verbiage, we use the words I and thou, and of the objective world, though they are nothing whatever in reality.

20. There is no seat nor agent of thought, nor fallacy of the world in the soul (all which are acts of the mind only): while the soul remains as a mute and pellucid cloud, in one sphere of the autumnal sky.

21. As the waters by cause of their fluidity, take the forms of vortices in the sea; so the intelligent soul assumes its errors of I and thou in its undivided self; owing to its delusion (máyá) of the knower and known (or the subjective and objective).

22. As fluidity is inherent in water, and motion in air, so is egoism innate in the subjective knower, and objectively connate with the known world. (This is said of the intelligent or animated soul, and not of the supreme soul, which is both the subject and object in itself).

23. The more doth the knowledge of a man, increase in its verity, the clearer does the knowing man come to find, that his very knowledge of the known objects, is the display of Divine Omniscience itself. But should he come to know his egoism or subjectivity, owing to his vitality and activity; and conceive the Idison or objectivity of all others (beside himself); in this case the learned or knowing man is no better than an Egoist, and knowing the Living God or Jíva Brahmá only.[1]

24. In as much as the intelligent soul (jíva), derives its pleasure from its knowledge of objects; in like manner is it identified with the knowledge, of its sameness with or difference from that object. (i.e. It is according to the thought or belief of the thinker, that he is identified or differentiated from the object thought of).

25. Living, knowing and the knowledge of things, are properties of the animated or concrete soul—the jíva: but there is no difference of these in the discrete, or Universal and intellectual soul (which is one in all).

26. As there is no difference between the intelligent and the living soul (jíva), so there is no diversity between the intelligent soul and Siva (Ziv or Jove), the Lord of animated nature who is the undivided whole.

27. Know the all quiescent, and the unborn One, who is without beginning, middle and end; who is self manifest and felicity itself; and who is inconceivable and beyond all assignable property or quality. He is all quiescent, and all verbal and ocular indications of him are entirely false. Yet for the sake of our comprehension, he is represented as the Holy one, on or om.

CHAPTER LVIII.
Legend of Suraghu; and Admonition of Mándavya.

Argument. Self-dejectedness of Suraghu; and Mándavya’s Admonitions to him.

Vasishtha said:—Hear me relate to you Ráma, an old legend, in illustration of this subject; and it is the account of the Kiráta Chief Suraghu, which is marvelous in its nature.

2. There is a tract of land in the regions on the north, which was hoary as a heap of camphor with its snowfalls, and which seemed to smile as the clear night, under the moon-beams of the bright fortnight.

3. It was situated on the summit of Himálaya, and called the peak of Kailása; it was free from mountainous elephants, and was the chief of all other peaks (owing to its being the seat of Siva).

4. It was as milk-white, as the bed of Vishnu in the milky ocean, and as bright as the empyrean of Indra in heaven; it was as fair as the seat of Brahmá, in the pericarp of the lotus; and as snow-white as the snowy peak of Kedára, the favourite seat of Siva.

5. It was owing to the waving of the Rudráksha trees over it, and the parade of the Apsara fairies about it, as also by the pencils of rays of its various gems, that it appeared as the undulating sea (of milk or curd).

6. The playful Pramathas, and other classes of demigods (ganadevatás) frolicked here as gaily as blossoms of Asoka plants, when tossed about by the feet of their wanton damsels. (It is said that the Asoka jonesia flowers blossom, better, when they are kicked by and trodden under the feet of females). See Sir W. Jones’ Indian plants.

7. Here the god Siva wanders about, and sees the water falls proceeding from and receding into the caves of the mountain, by dilution of the moon-stones contained in them (the thick ice and snows here, are taken for moon-stones).

8. There was a spot of ground here enclosed by trees, and by plants and creepers and shrubs of various kinds; and which is intersected by lakes, hills and rivers, and interspersed by herds of deer and does of various species.

9. There dwelt a race of the Kirátas called Himajátas at this spot, who were as numerous as the ants living at the foot by a big banian tree.

10. They lived like owls in the shades and hollows of the trees, and subsisted upon the fruits and flowers and herbage of the nearest forests, and by felling and selling the Rudráksha woods of the Kailása mountain.

11. They had a chief among them, who was as nobleminded, as he was brave to baffle his enemies; he was as the arm of the goddess of victory, and stretched it for the protection of his people.

12. He had the name of Suraghu, and was mighty in quelling his brave and dreadful enemies; he was powerful as the sun, and as strong as the god of wind in his figure.

13. He surpassed the lord of the Guhyakas—Kuvera, in the extent of his kingdom, his dignity and riches; he was greater than the guru of the lord of gods in his wisdom, and excelled the preceptor of the Asuras in learning.

14. He discharged his kingly duties, by giving rewards and punishments of the deserts of his men as they appeared to him; and was as firm in the acquittal of these duties, as the sun in making the day and his daily course.

15. He considered in himself the pain and pleasure, that his punishments and rewards caused his people; and to which they were like birds caught in nets from their freedom of flight.

16. “Why do I perforce pierce the hearts of my people,” he said, as they bruise the sesamum seeds for oil; it is plain that all persons are susceptible of pain and affliction like myself?

17. Yes, they are all capable of pain, and therefore I will cease to inflict them any more; but give them riches and please all persons.

18. But if I refrain to punish the tormentors of the good, they are sure to be extirpated by the wicked, as the bed of the channel is dried up for want of rain.

19. Oh! the painful dilemma in which I am placed, wherein my punishment and mercy to men are both grievous to me, or pleasing and unpleasing to me by turns.

20. Being in this manner much troubled in his mind, his thoughts disturbed his spirit like the waters in the whirlpools.

21. It happened at one time the sage Mándavya met him at his house, as the divine sage Nárada (the Mercury or messenger of gods), meets Indra in his celestial abode, in his journey through the regions of the sky.

22. The king honoured him with reverence, and then asked that great sage to remove his doubt, as they cut down a poisonous tree in the garden, with the stroke of the axe at its roots.

23. Suraghu said:—I am supremely blest, O sage, at this call of thine at mine, which has made me as joyous as the visit of the spring on the surface of the earth, and gives a fresh bloom to the fading forest.

24. Thy visit, O sage! has really made me more blest than the blessed, and gives my heart to bloom, as the rising sun opens the closed petals of the lotus.

25. Thou oh lord! art acquainted with all truths and art quite at rest in thy spirit; deign, therefore to remove this doubt from my mind, as the sun displaces the darkness of night by his orient beams.

26. A doubt festering in the heart is said to be the greatest pain of man, and this pain is healed only in the society of the good and wise.

27. The thoughts of my rewards and punishments to my dependents, have been incessantly tormenting my heart, as the scratches inflicted by the nails of a lion, are always afflicting to the bruised body of the elephant.

28. Deign, therefore, O sage, to remove this pain of mine, and cause the sunshine of peace and equanimity to brighten the gloom of my mind.

29. Mándavya replied:—It is O prince; by means of one’s self-exertion, self-dependence and self-help that the doubts of the mind, are melted down like snows under the sunshine.

30. It is by self-discrimination also, that all mental anguish is quickly put to an end; as the thick mists and clouds are dispersed in autumn.

31. It must be in one’s own mind, that he should consider the nature and powers of his internal and external organs, and the faculties of his body and mind.

32. Consider in thy mind (such things as these); as what am I, what and whence are all these things; and what means this our life, and what is this death that waits upon it? These inquiries will surely set thee to eminence.

33. As you come to know your true nature by your introspection into the state of your mind, you will remain unchanged by your joys and griefs, as a firm rock (stands against the force of winds and waves, to shake or move it).

34. And as the mind is freed from its habitual fickleness and feverish heat, it regains its former tranquility; as the rolling wave returns to the state of the still water from which it rose.

35. And as the mind remains in the impassability of living liberated men (Jívan-mukta), all its imageries are wiped off from it; as its impressions or reminiscences of past lives, are lost and effaced upon its regeneration (in each succeeding manwantara).

36. The unimpassioned are honoured as the most fortunate among mankind on earth; and the man knowing this truth and remaining with his self-contentment is regarded as venerable father by every body.

37. When you come to see the greatness of your soul by the light of reason, you will find yourself to be of greater magnitude, than the extent of the sky and ocean put together; and the rational comprehensiveness of the mind, bears more meaning in it, than the irrational comprehension of the spheres.

38. When you attain to such greatness, your mind will no more dive into worldly affairs; as the big elephant will not be engulfed in the hole made by the bullock’s hoof.

39. But the base and debased mind, will plunge itself in mean and vile matters of the world; as the contemptible gnat is drowned in a drop of water in a little hole.

40. Little minds are led by their greediness, to dive in to dirty affairs, like insects moving about in the dirt; and their miserliness makes them covet all out-ward things (without seeking their inward good).

41. But great minds avoid to take notice of outward things, in order that they may behold the pure light of supreme soul shining in themselves.

42. The ore is cleared and washed, until pure gold is obtained from it; and so long is spiritual knowledge to be cultivated by men, until spiritual light fills their souls.

43. See always all things of all sorts with an ecumenical view in all places; and with an utter indifference to the varieties of their outward forms and figures; behold all with the eye of thy soul fixed to one universal soul pervading the whole.

44. Until thou art freed from thy view of all particular specialities, thou canst have no sight of the universal spirit, it is after the disappearance of all particularities, that there remains the catholicity of the transcendental spirit.

45. Until thou gettest rid of all individualities, it is impossible for thee to come to the knowledge of universality; and much more so, to comprehend the all-comprehending soul of all.

46. When one endeavours to know the supreme soul, with all his heart and soul, and sacrifices all other objects to that end; it is then only possible for him, to know the Divine soul in its fulness, and not otherwise.

47. Therefore forsake to seek aught for thy own soul; and it is only by thy leaving all other things, that thou comest to the sight of the best of things.

48. All these visible objects which appear to be linked together, by the concatenation of causes and their effects, are the creation of the mind; which combines them together, as the string doth a necklace of pearls. That which remains after expunging the mind and its created bodies, is the sole soul, and this is that soul Divine;—the paramátmá.

CHAPTER LIX.
Tranquility of Suraghu.

Argument. The loss and oblivion of all things and thoughts, leading to the security and Tranquility of spirit.

Vasishtha continued:—O progeny of Raghu! after the sage Mándavya had advised the Kiráta king in the said manner, he retired to his solitary abode, suited for holy saints and sages.

2. After the sage had gone, the prince also retired to a lonely place; and there began to reflect on the nature of his soul, and the manner of his existence (in this world and the next).