CHAPTER CXXVI.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
79. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma! it is our concupiscence which has the gigantic figure of this elephant, and which roams at random in the forest of our bodies, and sports in the demonstrations of all our passions and feelings.
80. It hides itself in the covert of our hearts, and has our acts for its great tusks; its fury is our ardent desire of anything, and our great ambition is its huge body.
81. All the scenes on earth are the fields for its battle, where men are often foiled in their pursuit of any.
82. The elephant of concupiscence kills members of miserly and covetous men, in the state of their wish or desire, or exertions and effort, or longing and hankering after anything.
83. In this manner does this fierce greediness, lurk in the sheath of human breast under the said several names, and it is only our forbearance from those desires, that serves as the great weapon of their destruction.
84. This ubiquious desire of our possession of everything in the world, is conquered by reflection on the ubiquity of the soul in all of them; and that the unity of my soul, stretches over and grasps all things that I covet.
85. He is doomed to suffer under the colic pain of this venomous avarice, who minds to continue in this world, in the manner as it goes on with the rest of mankind.
86. It is the mitigation of the smart poison of avarice, that is our highest wisdom, and it is our liberation, when the calm and cooling countenance of inappetency appears to our sight.
87. Words of advice stick to the sapient mind, as drops of oil adhere on glass mirror; and that our indifference to the world is the only preventive of its thorns, and is the best advice to the wise.
88. It is as advisable to destroy a desire by the weapon of indifference, no sooner it rises in the breast, as it is proper to root out the sprout of a poisonous plant, before it spreads itself on the ground.
89. The concupiscent soul, is never freed from its miserliness; while the mere effort of one's indifference, makes it set quiet in itself (without cringing at others).
90. It is by your carelessness about everything, and by your lying down as supine as a dead carcass, that you can kill your desire by the weapon of your indifference, as they catch and kill fishes with hooks (by sitting silent beside some pond or lake).
91. Let this be mine or that I may have it, is what is called desire by the wise; and the want of every desire for wealth &c., is called resignation by them.
92. Know that the remembrance of some thing, is alike the desire of having the same in one's possession again; and it includes both what was enjoyed before or next.
93. O high minded Ráma, you must learn to remain as a block in your mind, by forgetting whatever you think of or otherwise; all of which must be buried in oblivion, for your estrangement from the world. (Retire, the world shut out, imagination's airy wing repress—Young).
94. Who will not lift up his arms, and have his hairs standing at their end, to hear and reflect in himself that, want of desire is the summum bonum of every one's desire. (Desire of nothing is the most desirable thing, is a paralogism in logic).
95. It is by sitting quite silent and quiet, that one attains to the state of his supreme felicity, a state before which the sovereignty of the world seems as a straw.
96. As a traveller traverses on foot through many regions, in order to reach to his destination, so the yogi passes through all his ordinary acts, to reach his goal of final bliss.
97. What is the good of using many words, when it can be expressed in a few; that our desire is our strongest bondage, and its want our complete liberation.
98. Now Ráma, rest quiet in your joy, with knowing that all this creation is full of the increate, everlasting, undecaying and tranquil spirit of God; and sit quiet and delighted in yourself with viewing the visibles in their spiritual sense.
99. Know that it is the ignoring of every thing and the quiet posture of the yogi, which is called as yoga by the spiritual; and continue to discharge your duties even in your yoga state, until you get rid of them by the privation of your desires.
100. It is also the unconsciousness of one's self, which is likewise styled yoga by the wise; and it consists of the entire absorption of one's self in the supreme, by wasting away his mind and all its operations.
101. Again this self absorption is the conceiving of one's self, as he is the all pervasive spirit of Siva, which is increate, self-conscious and ever benevolent to all. This conception of one's self is tantamount to his renunciation of every thing besides himself.
102. He who has the sense of his egoism and meism (i.e. that this is I and these are mine), is never released from the miseries of life; it is the negation of this sensation that produces our liberation, and therefore it is at the option of every body, to do either this or that for his bondage or salvation.