CHAPTER CXXVI.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Description of the Spiritual state.
Argument:—The seven stages of yoga Meditation, and the true state of spirituality.
RÁMA said:—Tell me sir, the practices of the seven stages of yoga; and the characteristics of yogis in every stage.
2. Vasishtha related:—Know Ráma, mankind to be divided into two classes of the zealous and resigned (i.e. the active and the inactive); the one expectant of heavenly reward, and the other inclined to supreme felicity. Know now their different characters as follows:—
3. Those that are addicted to enjoyments, think the quietude of nirvána as nothing to their purpose, and give preference to worldliness above the final bliss of others; and he that acts his part on this sense, is styled an active and energetic man.
4. Such a man of the world bears his resemblance to a tortoise, which though it has its neck well hid in its shell, still stretches it out to drink the salt water of the sea it inhabits; until after many births, he gets a better life for his salvation (as when the tortoise is removed to a lake of fresh water).
5. But he who reflects on the nothingness of the world, and the uselessness of his situation in it; such a man does not allow himself to be carried on, by the current of his old and rotatory course of duties here in day after day.
6. And he who reflects in himself, after being released from the burden of his business, on the delight of his rest after labour, he is the man who is said to repose in his quiescence.
7. When a man comes to reconnoitre in himself, how he shall become dispassionate, and get over the boisterous ocean of the world; such a man is said to have come to his good and right sense, and to stand on the way to his tolerance.
8. He who has an unfeelingness in his heart, of the very many thoughts that daily rise in his mind; and manages his gravest and greatest concerns, without being much concerned about them in his mind; each a man is said to taste the delight of his stayedness day by day.
9. He who condemns the rustic amusements and mean employments of men; and instead of taking up the faults and failings of others for his merry talk, employs himself to meritorious acts.
10. Whose mind, is engaged in agreeable tasks and unpainsome acts; who is afraid of sin, and disdains all pleasures and bodily enjoyments.
11. Whose discourses are full of love and tenderness, and appropriate without any harshness; and whose speeches are suitable to the time and place in which they are delivered.
12. Such a man is said to stand on the first step of yoga, when he makes it his duty to attend the society of the good and great, whom he learns to imitate in his thoughts, words, and actions.
13. He collects also the work on divine learning from every where, and reads with attention and diligence; he then considers their contexts, and lays hold on the tenets, which serve to save him from this sinful world.
14. Such a man is said to have come upon the (first) stage of yoga, or else he is a hypocrite who assumes the guise of a yogi for his own interest only. The yogi then comes to the next step of yoga, which is styled the stage of investigation—Vichára.
15. He then hears from the mouths of the best pandits, the explanations of the srutis and smritis, the rules of good conduct, and the manner of meditation and conduct of yoga practice.
16. He then learns the divisions of categories and distinction of things, together with the difference between actions that are to be done or avoided; all which being heard from the mouth of an adept in yoga, will facilitate his course through the other stages, in like manner as the master of a house enters with facility into every apartment of his dwelling. (The guidance of a guru or spiritual guide, is essential to the practice of yoga).
17. He wears off his outer habit of pride and vanity, his jealousy and avarice, and the other passions which formed as it were an outer garment of his person, as a snake casts off his slough from him.
18. Having thus purified his mind (from the vile passions), he attends to the service of his spiritual preceptors and holy persons, and makes himself acquainted with the mysteries of religion. (This is the second stage of yoga, which is one of moral discipline and search after truth).
19. He then enters into the third stage of unsociality or avoidance of all company, which he finds to be as agreeable to him as a bed of flowers. (Lit.: a bedstead be strewn with flowers).
20. Here he learns to fix his mind to its steadiness, according to the dictates of the sástras; and passes his time in talking on spiritual subjects, in society of hermits and devotees.
21. He sits also with the dispassionate Vairágis, and religious recluses sanyásis who are disgusted with the world; and relying on the firm rock of his faith, he wears out his long life with ease.
22. He passes his moral life with cheerful delight of his loneliness, and pleasing tranquillity of his mind in his woodland retreat and wanderings.
23. By study of holy books and performance of religious acts, he gets a clear view of things, as it generally attends upon the virtuous lives of men.
24. The sensible man who has arrived to the third stage of his yoga practice, perceives in himself two kinds of his unconnectedness with the world, as you will now hear from me.
25. Now this disconnection of one with all others is of two sorts, one of which is his ordinary disassociation with all persons and things, and the other is his absolute unconnection with every thing including himself. (i.e. One's entire irrelation with both the subjective and objective).
26. The ordinary unconnection is the sense of one's being neither the subject or object of his action, nor of his being the slayer of or slain by anybody; but that all accidents are incidental to his prior acts (of past lives), and all dependant to the dispensations of Providence.
27. It is the conviction that, I have no control over my happiness or misery or pain or pleasure; and that all prosperity and adversity, employment and privation, and health and disease, ever betide me of their own accord.
28. All union is for its disunion, and all gain is for its loss; so the health and disease and pain and pleasure come by turns, and there is nothing which is not succeeded by its reverse. Because time with its open jaws, is ever ready to devour all things.
29. The negative idea of inexistence, which is produced in the mind, from our want of reliance in the reality of things; is the very sense which is conveyed by the phrase of our ordinary unconnection with all things.
30. With this sort of the disunion of every thing in the mind, and our union with the society of high minded men; and disassociation with the vile and unrighteous, and association with spiritual knowledge:—
31. These joined with the continual exertion of our manliness in our habitual practice of these virtues, one assuredly arrives to the certain knowledge of what he seeks (i.e. his god), as clearly as he sees a globe set in his hands.
32. The knowledge of the supreme author of creation, sitting beyond the ocean of the universe, and watching over its concerns; impresses us with the belief, that it is not I but God that does every thing in the world, and that there is nothing that is done here by me, but by the great God Himself.
33. Having left aside the thought of one's self agency on any act, whoso sits quiet silent and tranquil in himself, such a one is said to be absolutely unconnected with every thing in the world.
34. He that does not reside within or without anything, nor dwells above or beneath any object; who is not situated in the sky, or in any side or part of the all surrounding air and space; who is not in anything or in nothing, and neither in gross matter nor in the sensible spirit.
35. Who is present and manifest in every thing, without being expressed in any; and who pervades all things like the clear firmament, who is without beginning and end and birth and death. Whoso seeks this Lord of all, is said to be set in the best part of this stage.
36. Contentment is as sweet fragrance in the mind, and virtuous acts are as handsome as the leaves of a flower; the heart string is as stalk beset by the thorns of cares and anxieties, and thralls with the gusts of dangers and difficulties.
37. The flower of inward discrimination, is expanded like the lotus-bud, by the sun-beams of reason, and produces the fruit of resignation in the garden of the third stage of yoga-practice.
38. As it is by association with holy men, and by means of the assemblage of virtuous acts, that one arrives on a sudden to the first stage of yoga:—