CHAPTER LXXXII. Investigation into the Nature of the Sensuous Mind.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument. Story of Vítahavya, materialist becomes a spiritualist.
Vasishtha continued:—It was in this manner that the learned Samvarta, who had the knowledge of the soul reasoned with himself, and which he communicated to me on the Vindhyan mountain. (Samvarta is said to have been the brother of Vrihaspati, both of whom have transmitted to us two distinct treatises on law, which are still extant).
2. Shut out the world, said he, from your sight, and employ your understanding to abstract reasoning, in order to get over the vast ocean of this world.
3. Hear me tell you Ráma of another view of things, whereby the great sage Vítahavya gave up the practice of making his offerings to fire, and remained dauntless in his spiritualistic faith.
4. The illustrious Vítahavya wandered about the forests in former times, and then resided in a cave of the Vindhya mount, which was as spacious as a cave of Meru under the sun’s passage. (The cave of mount Meru is the Polar circle about which the sun is said to turn; but Sumeru is the meridian circle on which the sun passes).
5. He grew in course of time dissatisfied with the ritual acts, which serve only to bewilder men, and are causes of diseases and difficulties to man (rather than those of their removal).
6. He fixed his aim to the highest object of unalterable ecstasis—samádhi, and abandoned his cares for the rotten world, in the course of his conduct in life.
7. He built a hut of leaves with the branches of plantain trees; strewed it with black stones, and perfumed it with fragrant earth.
8. He spread in it his seat of deer’s skin, serving as a pure paillasse for holy saints; and sat still upon it as a rainless cloud in the clear firmament.
9. He sat there in the posture of padmásana with his legs crossed upon one another, and held his heels with the fingers of both his hands, and remained with his uplifted head, like the fast and fixed peak of a mountain summit.
10. He closed his eyesight from looking upon the surrounding objects, and pent up his mind in his bosom, as the descending sun confines his beams in the hollow caves of Meru.
11. Then having stopped the course of his internal and external senses, he thus revolved in his mind, which was free from sin and guile.
12. How is it that though I have restrained my outer organs, I cannot with all my force stop the course of my mind, which is ever as fickle as a leaflet, floating on and dancing over the waves.
13. It impels the external organs (as a charioteer drives his horses), and is propelled by them in turn to their different objects, as a juggler tosses about and flings up and down his play balls.
14. Though I refrain from the exercise of my external faculties, yet it pursues them with eagerness, and runs towards the objects from which I try to stop its course.
15. It turns from this object to that, as they say from the pot to the picture and from that to the chariot (ghata, pata and sakata): and in this manner the mind roves about the objects of sense, as a monkey leaps from branch to branch of a tree.
16. Let me now consider the courses of the five external senses and their organs, which serve as so many passages for the mind.
17. O my wicked and wretched senses, how shall I counsel to call you to your good sense, when you are so senseless as to roll on restlessly like the billows of waters in the sea.
18. Do not now disturb me any more with your fickleness, for I well remember to what trains of difficulties I have been all along exposed by your inconstancy.
19. What are ye O my organs, but passages (to conduct the outer sensations) to the inner mind, and are dull and base of yourselves, and no better than the billows of the sea and the water in the mirage.
20. Ye senses that are unsubstantial in your forms, and without any spiritual light in you; your efforts are as those of blind men only to fall into the pit.
21. It is the intellectual soul only, that witnesseth the objects of sense, it is in vain that ye are busy without the soul.
22. It is in vain for the organs of sense, to display themselves to view, like the twirling of a firebrand and the appearance of a snake in the rope; since they have no essence of their own, and are of no use without the soul.
23. The all knowing soul knows well the eyes and ears, though none of these organs knows the internal soul, and is as far from it, as the heaven and hell asunder.
24. As the wayfarer is afraid of snakes, and the twice born Bráhmans are in dread of demoniac savages; so the intellect fears and avoids the company of the senses for its safety, and remains retired from them for its security.
25. Yet the unseen intellect directs the organs of sense, to their various duties from a distance; as the distant sun directs the discharge, of the diurnal duties of men on earth, from his situation in heaven.
26. O my mind! that art wandering all about like a mendicant, in order to fill the belly with food; and actest as a chárváka materialist, to make a god of thy body, and to enslave thyself to its service; do not thus rove about the world in the vain search of your bane only.
27. It is a false pretension of thine, to think thyself to be as intelligent as an intelligence or as the intellect itself; you two are too different in your natures, and cannot agree together.
28. It is thy vain boast also, to think thyself to be living, and to be the life and the ego likewise; because these things belong to the soul, and thou art entirely devoid of the same.
29. Egoism produces the knowledge of “I am the Ego” which thou art not; and neither art thou anything except a creature of false imagination, which it is good for thee to give up at once (because the mind’s eye sees the fumes of fancy only.)
30. It is the conscious intellect, which exists without its beginning and end, and nothing else is existent beside this: what art thou then in this body, that takest the name of the mind.
31. The impression of the activity and passivity of the mind is as wrong, as the belief of poison and nectar to be the one and same thing; since the two opposites can never meet together.
32. Do not, therefore thou fool, expose thyself to ridicule, (that art dependant on the organs of the body); by thinking thyself as both the active and passive agent, which thou art not; but a mere dull thing as it is known to all.
33. What is thy relation with enjoyments or theirs with thee, that thou wishest to have them come to thee? Thou art a dull thing and without thy soul, canst have no friend or foe to thee.
34. The unreal has no existence, and the existence of the mind, is an unreality as the redness of a crystal. Knowledge, action and passion belong to the soul only, and are not attributable to the mind.
35. If thou beest the eternal Mind, then thou art selfsame with the eternal soul; but the painful mutability of thy nature, bespeaks thee to be not the same (immutable, everlasting and imperishable soul).
36. Now as thou hast come to be acquainted, with the falsity of thine action and passion; hear now how I am purged of these impressions, by my own reasoning as follows.
37. That thou art an inert unreality, said I, is a truth beyond all doubt; and that the activity of an inactive nullity is as false, as the dancing of the ideal demon or of inert stones.
38. Therefore art thou dependant on the Supreme Spirit for thy movement; and it is in vain for thee to fain thyself as living or doing anything by thyself (being but a puppet player by the power of the Almighty).
39. Whatever is done by the power of another, is ascribed to that other and not to actor; as the harvest which is reaped by the sickle of the husband man, is said to be the act of the reaper and not of the instrument.