CHAPTER XIII. GOVERNMENT OF THE MIND.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. As the Lord God doth every thing, and is yet aloof from all; so must thou do all thy acts outwardly, and without thyself mixing in any.
41. Knowing the knowable, one finds himself as the increate soul and Great Lord of all; but being apart from that soul, he views only the material world spread before him.
42. He who has the sight of the inner spirit, is freed from the thoughts of the external world, and is not subjected to the joy or grief or sorrow and other evils of his life.
43. He is called a Yogi who is free from passions and enmity, and looks on gold and rubbish in the same light; he is joined with his Joy in his Yoga, and disjoined from all worldly desires.
44. He enjoys the fruit of his own acts, and minds not what he wastes or gives away; he has the evenness of his mind in every condition, and is unaltered by pain or pleasure. (The Sanskrit sukh-dukkha means also prosperity and adversity, and good and evil of every kind).
45. He who receives what he gets, and is employed with whatever offers of itself to him, without considering the good or evil that he is to gain by it, is not plunged into any difficulty.
46. He who is certain of the truth of the spiritual essence of the world, pants not for its physical enjoyments, but he is even-minded at all times.
47. The dull mind follows the active intellect in accomplishing its objects, as the carnivorous cat or fox follows the lion in quest of meat.
48. As the servile band of the lion feeds on the flesh acquired by his prowess, so the mind dwells upon the visible and sensible object, which it perceives by power of the intellect.
49. Thus the unsubstantial mind, lives upon the outer world by the help of the intellect; but as it comes to remember its origination from the intellect, it recoils back to its original state.
50. The mind which is moved and lighted, by the heat and light of the lamp of the intellect; becomes extinct without its physical force, and grows as motionless as a dead body.
51. The nature of the intellect is known to exclude the idea of motion or pulsation from it; and the power which has vibration in it, is called intellection or the mind in the sástras.
52. The breathing (or vibration) of the mind, like the hissing of a snake, is called its imagination (kalpana); but by knowing the intellect as the Ego, it comes to the true knowledge of the inward soul.
53. The intellect which is free from thoughts (chetyas), is the ever lasting Brahma; but being joined with thought, it is styled the imaginative principle or Mind.
54. This power of imagination having assumed a definite form, is termed the mind; which with its volition and options, is situated in the heart of living beings.
55. With its two distinct powers of imagination and volition, it is employed in the acts of discriminating and choosing the agreeable from what is disagreeable to it. (i.e. The imagination and volitive faculties of the mind, supply it with the power of discrimination and option, between what is fit or unfit for or suitable to it).
56. The intellect being seated in the heart with its thoughts and volitions, forgets its spiritual nature, and remains as a dull material substance (i.e. the passivity of the heart as opposed to the activity of the mind).
57. The intellect being thus confined in the hearts of all animals in this world, continues in utter oblivion of its nature; until it is awakened of itself, either by its intuition or instruction of preceptors &c.
58. So it is to be wakened by means of instruction, derived from the sástras and preceptors; as also by the practice of dispassionateness, and subjection of the organs of sense and action.
59. When the minds of living beings, are roused by learning and self-control; they tend towards the knowledge of the Great Brahma, or else they rove at random about the wide world.
60. We must therefore awaken our minds, which are rolling in the pit of worldliness, through the inebriety of the wine of error, and which are dormant to divine knowledge.
61. As long as the mind is unawakened, it is insensible of every thing (in its true light); and though it perceives the visibles, yet this perception of them is as false as the sight of a city in our fancy.
62. But when the mind is awakened by divine knowledge, to the sight of the supreme Being; it presents every thing in itself, as the inward fragrance of flowers pervades the outer-petals also. (i.e. The inward sight of God, comprehends the view of every thing in it).
63. Though the intellect has the quality of knowing every thing, contained in all the three worlds; yet it has but a little knowledge of them from the paucity of its desire of knowing them. (i.e. Though the capacity of the intellect is unlimited, yet its knowledge is proportionate to its desire of gaining it).
64. The mind without the intellect is a dull block of stone; but it is opened by divine light, like the lotus-bud expanding under the light of the sun.
65. The imaginative mind is as devoid of understanding, as a statue made of marble, is unable to move about by itself.
66. How can the regiments drawn in painting, wage a war in a mutual conflict, and how can the moon-beams, make the medicinal plants emit their light? (i.e. As it is life that makes the armies fight, so it is the intellect that actuates the mind to its operations. And as the plants shine by night by the sun-beams, which are deposited in them during day, so shines the mind by means of its intellectual light).
67. Who has seen dead bodies besmeared with blood to run about on the ground, or witnessed the fragments of stones in the woods to sing in musical strains?
68. Where does the stone idol of the sun, dispel the darkness of the night; and where does the imaginary forest of the sky spread its shade on the ground?
69. Of what good are the efforts of men, who are as ignorant as blocks of stones, and are led by their error in many ways; except it be to endanger themselves by the mirage of their minds? (The exertions of the ignorant are as vain as the labour of a Sisyphus).
70. It is the imagination that displays the non-existent as existent in the soul, as it is the sun-beams, which exhibit the limpid main in the mazy sands.
71. It is the moving principle in the body, which the sophists designate as the mind; but know it as a mere force of the winds, like the vital breath of living beings.
72. Those whose self-consciousness is not disturbed, by the currents of their passions and desires; have their spiritual souls like an unperturbed stream (of psychic fluid).
73. But when this pure consciousness is befouled by the false fancies of this and that, and that this is I and that is mine; then the soul and the vital principle, are both taken together to form a living being.
74. The mind, the living soul and understanding, are all but fictitious names of an unreality, according to the conceptions of false thinkers, and not of them that know the true spirit.
75. There is no mind nor understanding, no thinking principle, nor the body in reality; there is the only reality of the One universal spirit, which is ever existent everywhere. (So says the Sruti:—All else are but transitory creations of imagination, and so pass into nothing).
76. It is the soul, which is all this world, it is time and all its fluctuations, it is more transparent than the atmosphere, and it is clear as it is nothing at all.
77. It is not always apparent, owing to its transparency; yet it is ever existent, owing to our consciousness of it. The spirit is beyond all things, and is perceived by our inward perception of it.
78. The mind vanishes into nothing, before our consciousness of the Supreme Soul; just as darkness is dispelled from that place, where the sunshine is present.
79. When the transparent and self-conscious soul, raises other figures of its own will; then the presence of the soul is forgotten, and hid under the grosser creations of the mind.