CHAPTER LXIV. Sermon on Self-Knowledge.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument. The way to guard the mind from faults, and deliver the soul from misery.
Vasishtha resumed:—After Suraghu and Parigha had ended their discussion on the errors of this world, they honoured one another with due respect, and retired gladly to their respective duties of the day.
2. Now Ráma, as you have heard the whole of this instructive dialogue between them, do you try to profit thereby by a mature consideration of the same.
3. It is by reasoning with the learned, that the wits are sharpened with intelligence; and the egotism of men melts down in their minds, like the raining of a thick black cloud in the sky.
4. It spreads a clear and calm composure over the mind, as the revisit of cloudless Autumn does, over the spacious firmament to the delight of mankind, and by its diffusion of bounteous plenty on earth.
5. After the region of the intellect, is cleared of its darkness, the light of the supreme soul which is the object of meditation and our sole refuge, becomes visible in it.
6. The man that is always spiritual and insighted within himself, who is always delighted with his intellectual investigations, has his mind always free from sorrow and regret.
7. Though the spiritual man is engaged in worldly affairs, and is subject to passions and affections; yet he is unstained by them in his heart, as the lotus bud is unsullied by the water under which it is sub-merged.
8. The silent sage that is all-knowing, holy, and calm and quiet in himself, is never disturbed by his ungoverned mind; but remains as firm as the dauntless lion, against the rage of the unruly elephant.
9. The heart of the wise man is never affected by the mean pleasures of the world; but it stands as the lofty arbor of paradise, above the encircling bushes of thorny brambles and poisonous plants.
10. As the religious recluse who is disgusted with the world, has no care for his life, nor fear of death; so the man whose mind is fraught with full knowledge, is never elated nor depressed by his good or bad fortune.
11. The man that knows the erroneousness of the mind and the panorama of the world in the soul, is never soiled by the stain of sin, as the clear sky is nowhere daubed by any dirt or dust.
12. It is the knowledge of one’s ignorance, that is the best safe guard against his falling into greater ignorance, and it is the only remedy for his malady of ignorance, as the light of the lamp is the only remedial of nocturnal gloom.
13. The knowledge of our ignorance is the best healer of ignorance, as the knowledge of one’s dreaming removes his trust in the objects of his dream. (A dream known as a dream to the dreamer, can not lead him to delusion).
14. A wise man engaged in business, with his mind disengaged from it, and fixed on one object, is not obstructed by it in his view of spiritual light; as the eye-sight of fishes, is not hindered by the surrounding water.
15. As the light of intellectual day, appears over the horizon of the mind, the darkness of the night of ignorance is put to flight; and then the mind enjoys its supreme bliss of knowledge, as in the full blaze of day.
16. After the sleep of ignorance is over, the mind is awakened by its intelligence, to the bright beams of the rising sun of knowledge; and then the mind is ever awake to reason, which no dulness can overpower.
17. A man is said to live so long, as he sees the moon of his soul, and the moon beams of his intellect, shining in the sphere of his mind; and he is said to have lived only for those few days, that he has discharged his duties with joy.
18. A man passing over the pool of his ignorance, and betaking himself to the contemplation of his soul; enjoys a coolness within him, as the cooling moon enjoys by the cold nectarious juice contained in her orb.
19. There are our true friends, and those are the best sástras; and those days are well spent, which have passed with them (the sástras), in discourse on dispassionateness, and when we felt the rise of the intellect within us.
20. How lamentable is their case, who are born to perish like ferns in their native forests; and who are immerged in their sinfulness, by their neglect to look into their souls.
21. Our lives are interwoven with a hundred threads of hopes and fears, and we are as greedy as bulls of their fodder of straws. We are at last over taken by old age and decrepitude, and are carried away with sorrow and sighs.
22. The dullheaded are made to bear, like heavy laden bullocks, great loads of distress on their backs in their native soil.
23. They are bitten and disturbed by the gnats of their passions, and are made to plough the ground under the halter of their avarice; they are shut in the cribs of their masters, and are bound by the bonds of their kindred.
24. Thus we are harassed in the supportance of our wives and children, and weakened by age and infirmity, and like beasts of burden we have to wade in dirt and mire, and to be dragged to long journeys, and be broken under heavy loads, without halting a while under the toil and fatigue.
25. Bending under our heavy loads, we are tired with our long journeys across the deserts, where we are burnt under the burning sunbeams, without having a cool shade, to shelter our heads for a while.
26. We are big bodied like bulls with poor souls in us; we are oppressed at every limb, and labour under our destiny by being tied as the ringing bell, about the necks of bullocks; and the scourge of our sins lashing us on both sides.
27. We toil like bulls labouring under the poles of the carts which they draw along; and traverse through dreary deserts, without laying down our bodies to rest for a moment.
28. We are always prone to and plunged in our own evils, and move on like heavy laden bullocks with trolling and groaning all the way long.
29. Ráma! try your best to redeem by all means, this bullock of your living soul, from the pool of this world; and take the best measures, to restore it to its form of pristine purity.
30. The animal soul that is released from the ocean of this world, and becomes purified in its mind by the light of truth, is no more liable to roll in the mud, like some beasts after they are cleansed.
31. It is in the society of highminded men, that the living soul receives the instruction, for its salvation in this ocean of the world; just as a passenger easily gets a boat from the ferry-man to go across a river.
32. That country is a desert where there are not learned and good people, resembling the verdant trees of the land. The wise must not dwell in the land, where the trees yield neither fruits nor afford cooling shades.
33. Good men are as the flowering Champa trees of the land; their cooling words resemble the shady leaves of the tree, and their gentle smiles its blooming flowers. Let men therefore resort to the umbrage of such champaka bowers.
34. For want of such men, the world is a desert, burning under the darkening heat of ignorance, where no wise man should allow himself to rest in peace and quiet.
35. It is the self that is the true friend to one’s self, therefore support thyself upon thy self only; nor obscure the brightness of thy soul, under thy darkness of the bodily pride, to bury thy life in the slough of ignorance.
36. Let the learned ponder in themselves, “what is this body and how came it to existence, what is its origin and to what is it reduced?” Thus let the wise consider with diligence, the miseries to which this body is subject.
37. Neither riches nor friends, nor learning nor relatives, serve to redeem the drowning soul. It must be one’s own mind to buy its own redemption, by resigning itself to its source and cause.
38. The mind is the constant companion and true friend to the soul; and therefore it is by consultation with the mind, that one should seek to redeem himself.
39. It is by a constant habit of dispassionateness and self deliberation, that one can ford the ocean of this world, riding on the raft of true knowledge (or the knowledge of truth).