CHAPTER LXXX.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
39. It continues curved and curbed in the form of a folded snake in winter, until it unfolds its twisted form under the summer heat (or the intestinal heat of its hunger Jatharágní), and lifts its hood likening the disk of the moon. (The moon in the yoga sástra, means the loti-form gland under the upper most crown of the head).
40. It extends from the lower base, and passing through the cavity of the heart, touches the holes between the eye brows; and remains in its continued vibration by the wind of the breath.
41. In the midst of that curvilineal artery (kundaliní nárhí), there dwells a mighty power like the pith within the soft cell of the plantain tree, which is continually vibrating, like thrilling wires of the Indian lute (or as the pendulum of a machine).
42. This is called the curvilineal artery (kundaliní) on account of its curviform shape, and the power residing in it is that prime mobile force, which sets to motion all the parts and powers of the animal body.
43. It is incessantly breathing like hissing of an infuriate snake and with its open mouths, it keeps continually blowing upwards, in order to give force to all the organs.
44. When the vital breath enters into the heart, and is drawn in by the curved Kundaliní; it then produces the consciousness of the mind, which is the ground of the seeds of all its faculties.
45. As the Kundaliní thrills in the body, in the manner of a bee fluttering over a flower; so doth our consciousness throb in the mind, and has the perception of the nice and delicate sensations. (Such as the lungs and arteries receive the crude food and drink; so doth our consciousness perceive their various tastes and flavour).
46. The Kundaliní artery stirs as quickly to grasp its gross objects, as our consciousness is roused at the perception of the object of the finer senses of sight &c. These come in contact with one another, as an instrument lays hold of some material.
47. All the veins in the body are connected with this grand artery, and flow together like so many cellular vessels into the cavity of the heart, where they rise and fall like rivers in the sea. (It shows the concentration of blood in the heart by all the veins and arteries, and its distribution to them in perpetual succession, to have been long known to the sages of India, before its discovery by Harvey in Europe).
48. From the continued rise and fall (or heaving and sinking) of this artery, it is said to be the common root or source of all the sensations and perceptions in the consciousness. (It rises and falls with the inhaling and exhaling breaths up to the pericranium and thence down to the fundament).
49. Ráma regained:—How is it sir, that our consciousness coming from the infinite intellect at all times and places, is confined like a minute particle of matter, in the cellular vessel of the curved Kundaliní artery, and there it rises and falls by turns.
50. Vasishtha replied:—It is true, O sinless Ráma, that consciousness is the property of the infinite intellect, and is always present in all places and things with the all pervading intellect; yet it is sometimes compressed in the form of a minute atom of matter in material and finite bodies.
51. The consciousness of the infinite intellect, is of course as infinite as infinity itself; but being confined in corporeal bodies, it is fused as a fluid to diffuse over a small space. So the sunshine that lightens the universe, appears to flush over a wall or any circumscribed place. (Such as human consciousness, which is but a flush of the Divine omniscience).
52. In some bodies it is altogether lost, as in mineral substances which are unconscious of their own existence; and in others it is fully developed, as in the Gods and human species; while in some it is imperfectly developed, as in the vegetable creation, and in others it appears in its perverted form, as in the inferior animals. So everything is found to have its consciousness in some form or other.
53. Hear me moreover to explain you, the manner in which consciousness (or other), appears in its various forms and degrees, in the different bodies of animated beings.
54. As all cavities and empty spaces are comprised under the term air, so are all intelligent as well as unintelligent beings comprehended under the general category of the one ever existent intellect, which pervades all things in the manner of vacuum. (Here is another proof of the vacuistic theory of the theosophy of Vasishtha).
55. The same undecaying and unchanging entity of the intellect, is situated some where in the manner of pure consciousness, and elsewhere in the form of the subtile form of the quintuple elements. (i.e. As the simple soul and the gross body or the mundane soul. So says Pope: Whose body nature is, and God the soul).
56. This quintuple element of consciousness is reduplicate into many other quintuples, as a great many lamps are lighted from one lamp; these are the five vital airs, the mind and its five fold faculties of the understanding; the five internal and the five external senses and their five fold organs, together with the five elementary bodies; and all having the principles of their growth, rise and decay, as also their states of waking, dreaming and sleeping ingrained in them.
57. All these quintuples abide in the different bodies of the Gods and mortals, according to their respective natures and inclinations (which are the causes of their past and present and future lives in different forms).
58. Some taking the forms of places, and others of the things situated in them; while some take the forms of minerals, and others of the animals dwelling on earth.
59. Thus is this world the production of the action of the said quintuples, having the principle of intellectual consciousness, presiding over the whole and every part of it.
60. It is the union of these quintuples in gross bodies, that gives them their intelligence; hence we see the mobility of some dull material bodies, as also the immobility of others (as of mineral and vegetable creations).
61. As the wave of the sea is seen to roll in one place, and to be dull and at a lull in another; so is this intellectual power in full force in some bodies, and quite quiescent in others.
62. As the sea is calm and still in one place, and quite boisterous in another; so is the quintuple body either in motion or at rest in different places. (Hence rest and motion are properties of gross bodies and not of the intellectual soul, which is ever quiescent).
63. The quintuple body is mobile by means of the vital airs, and the vital life (jíva) is intelligent by cause of its intelligence; the rocks are devoid of both, but the trees have their sensibility by reason of their being moved by the breath of winds; and such is the nature of the triple creation of animals, minerals and vegetables.
64. Different words are used to denote the different natures of things (or else the same word is used for things of the same kind); thus fire is the general name for heat, and frost is that of coldness in general.
65. (Or if it is not the difference in the disposition of the quintuple elements in bodies, that causes the difference in their natures and names). It is the difference in the desires of the mind, which by being matured in time, dispose the quintuple elements in the forms of their liking.
66. The various desires of the mind, that run in their divers directions, are capable of being collected together by the sapient, and employed in the way of their best advantage and well being.
67. The desires of men tending either to their good or evil, are capable of being roused or suppressed, and employed to their purposes by turns. (The changeful desires always run in their several courses).
68. Man must direct his desires to that way, which promises him the objects of his desires; or else it will be as fruitless, as his throwing the dust at the face of the sky.
69. The great mountains are but heaps of the pentuples, hanging on the tender and slender blade of consciousness, and these moving and unmoving bodies, appear as worms on the tree of knowledge (i.e. before the intelligent mind).
70. There are some beings with their desires lying dormant in them, as the unmoving vegetable and mineral productions of the earth; while there are others with their ever wakeful desires, as the deities, daityas and men.
71. Some are cloyed with their desires, as the worms and insects in the dirt; and others are devoid of their desires as the emancipate yogis, and the heirs of salvation.
72. Now every man is conscious in himself of his having the mind and understanding, and being joined with his hands, feet and other members of his body, formed by the assemblage of the quintuple materials.
73. The inferior animals have other senses, with other members of their bodies; and so the immoveables also have some kind of sensibility, with other sorts of their organs. (The members of brute bodies are, the four feet, horns and tails of quadrupeds; the birds are biped and have their feathers, bills and their tails also; the snakes have their hoods and tails; the worms have their teeth, and the insects their stings &c. And all these they have agreeably to the peculiar desire of their particular natures. Gloss).
74. Thus my good Ráma! do these quintuple elements, display themselves in these different forms in the beginning, middle and end of all sensible and insensible and moving and unmoving beings.
75. The slightest desire of any of these, be it as minute as an atom, becomes the seed of aerial trees producing the fruits of future births in the forms of the desired objects. (Every one's desire is the root of his future fate).
76. The organs of sense are the flowers of this tree (of the body), and the sensations of their objects are as the fragrance of those flowers, our wishes are as the bees fluttering about the pistils and filaments of our fickle efforts and exertions.
77. The clear heavens are the hairy tufts, resting on the stalks of the lofty mountains; its leaves are the cerulean clouds of the sky, and the ten sides of the firmament, are as the straggling creepers stretching all about it.
78. All beings now in being, and those coming into existence in future, are innumerable in their number, and are as the fruits of this tree, growing and blooming and falling off by turns.