CHAPTER CXXVII.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Admonition to Bharadwája.
Argument:—Relation of the Quietude of Ráma, and the Queries of Bharadwája; with further description of states of waking and others, and of the ultimate turíya condition of the fourth stage of yoga.
BHARADWAJA asked:—Válmíki saying:—Tell me sir, what did Ráma do after hearing the lecture of the sage; whether he with his enlightened understanding put any other question, or remained in his ecstatic quietude with his full knowledge of yoga and the supreme soul.
2. And what did next that supremely blest yogi (Vasishtha) do, who is adored by all and honoured even by Gods; who is a personification of pure understanding, and free from the state of birth and death; who is fraught with every good quality and kindly disposed for ever to the welfare and preservation of the peoples in all the three worlds.
3. Válmíki replied:—After hearing the lecture of Vasishtha, combining the essence of the vedánta philosophy, the lotus-eyed Ráma became perfectly acquainted with the full knowledge of yoga.
4. He felt the failing of his bodily strength, and the falling of the members of his body, he stared with his glaring eyes, and his clear intellect was shrouded under a cloud. He awoke in a moment from his entranced state, and felt a flood of rapturous joy within himself.
5. He forgot the fashion of putting his questions, and hearing their answers; his mind was full with the ambrosial draught of delight, and the hairs of his body stood up like prickles in his horripilation.
6. An inexpressibly ineffable light overspreads his intellect with its unusual glare; which cast the bright prospects of the eight dignities of yoga into utter shade. (The eight dignities—(ashta-siddhis) are so many perfections arrived at by practice of yoga).
7. In this way did Ráma attain the supereminent state of Siva, in which he sat sedate without uttering a word.
8. Bharadwája said:—Oh! how much I wonder at such a high dignity, which Ráma had attained; and how much I regret at the impossibility of its attainment, by a dull and ignorant sinner as myself.
9. Tell me, O great sage, how it may be possible for me to attain to that stage of perfection, which it is impossible for the gods Brahmá and others to arrive at any time; and tell me likewise, how I may get over the unfordable ocean of earthly troubles.
10. Válmíki replied:—It is by your perusal of the history of Ráma from its first to last, and by your following the dictates of Vasishtha as given in these lectures; as also by your consideration of their true sense and purport in your understanding, that you may be able to attain to the state that you desire. This is all that I can tell you at present.
11. The world is an exhibition of our ignorance, and there is no truth in aught that we see in it; it is a display of our error only, wherefore it is entirely disregarded by the wise, and so much regarded by fools.
12. There is no entity of anything here, beside that of the divine Intellect; why then are you deluded by the visibles, learn their secrets and have a clear understanding. (or have the clearness of your understanding).
13. The perception of the delusive phenomenals, resembles the waking dream of day dreamers; and he alone is said to be waking, who has the lamp of his intellect ever burning within himself.
14. The world is based on vacuity, and it ends in vacuum also; its midmost part being vacuous likewise, there is no reliance placed upon it by the intelligent and wise.
15. Our primeval ignorance (avidyá) being accompanied by our primordial desires, it presents all what is inexistent as existing in our presence; just as our fancy paints an Utopia or fairy city to our view, and as our sleep shows its multifarious dreams before us.
16. Being unpracticed to taste the sweet plantain of your beneficent intellect, you are deluded greedily to devour the delirious drug of your desire, and make yourself giddy with draughts of its poisonous juice.
17. He who lays hold on true knowledge for his support, never falls down into the pit of ignorance during his wakeful state; and those who depend on their subjective consciousness alone (as in the turíya or fourth stage of yoga), stand above all the other states (of fallibility).
18. So long as the adepts in yoga, do not plunge themselves (lit.—their souls), in the fresh and sweet waters of the great fountain of their consciousness; they must be exposed to the boisterous waves of the dangerous ocean of this world. (Spiritual knowledge alone saves a man from the troubles of life).
19. That which has no existence before, nor will remain to exist afterwards (such as all created and perishable things in the world); must be understood to be inexistent in the interim also, as our night dreams and fleeting thoughts that are never in being, and so is this world and whatever is seen in it.
20. All things are born of our ignorance, as the bubbles are swollen by the air; they glisten and move about for a moment, and then melt into the sea of our knowledge.
21. Find out the stream of the cooling waters of your consciousness, and plunge yourself deep into it; and drive out all external things from you, as they shut out the warm and harmful sun-beams from their houses.
22. The one ocean of ignorance surrounds and over floods the world, as the single salt sea girds and washes the whole island; and the distinctions of ego and tu etc., are the waves of this salt sea of our erroneousness.
23. The emotions of the mind, and its various feelings and passions, are the multiform billows of this sea of ignorance; our egoism or selfishness is the great whirlpool, in which the self willed man is hurled of his own accord.
24. His love and hatred are the two sharks, that lay hold of him in their jaws; and drag him at last into the depth (or to his death), which no body can prevent.
25. Go and plunge yourself in the calm and cooling sea of your solitude, and wash your soul in the nectareous waters of your ambrosial solity; dive and dive deep in the depth of unity, and fly from the salt sea of duality, and the brackish waves of diversities.
26. Who is lasting in this world, and who is passing from it, who is related to anyone, and what does one derive from another; why are you drowned in your delusion, rise and be wakeful (to your spiritual concerns).
27. Know thyself as that one and very soul, which is said to be diffused all over the world; say what other thing is there except that and beside thee, that you should regret or lament for (since the one soul is all and that is thyself, thou hast all in thee, and there is nothing for thee to regret that thou hast not or dost require to have).
28. Brahma appears to the ignorant boys, to be diffused through all the worlds; but the learned always rely on the undiffused felicitous soul of God.
29. It is the case of unreasonable men, to grieve as well as to be pleased on a sudden and without cause; but the learned are always joyous, and it is a sad thing to find them in error.
30. The truth of the nice subtility of the divine soul, is hid from eyes of the ignorant; and they are as doubtful about its nature, as men are suspicious of land and water where they are not. (Water appears as ground in dark, and sand seems as water in the barren desert).
31. See the great bodies of the earth, air, water and sky, which are composed of atomic particles, to be so durable as to last for ever; why then mourn at the loss of anything in the world (which is never lost at all).
32. From nothing comes nothing, and something cannot become nothing; it is only the appearance of the form, which takes place in the substance of things.
33. But it is by virtue of the prior acts in the former births of men, that they are reborn in different shapes to enjoy or suffer the results of those acts; adore therefore the lord God and author of the worlds, who is always bountiful and bestower of all blessings.
34. The worship of this God destroys all our sins, and cuts off the knots of snares of this world.
35. You may worship Him in some form or other, until your mind is cleared and your nature is purified; and then you can resort to the transcendent spirit of the formless Deity.
36. Having overcome the impervious gloom of ignorance, by force of the purity of thy nature; you may pursue the course of the yoga, with the contrition of your inner soul, and belief in the sástras (and in the dictates of your spiritual guide).
37. Then sit a moment in your fixed meditation (samádhi), and behold the transcendent spirit in thy own spirit; in this state the dark night of your former ignorance, will break forth into open and bright daylight.
38. It must be by one's manly exertion or by virtue of the meritorious acts of former births only, as also by grace of the great God, that men may obtain the obtainable one. (The unknown God is said to be knowable and obtainable by yoga only).