CHAPTER LXXXXI. On the Origin of the Human Body and Consciousness.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
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.