CHAPTER LXIX.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Union of the mind with the breath of life.
Argument.—Willful existence of the attendants of Rudra, and the elevation of yogis after their Demise.
RÁMA said:—Tell me, O chief of sages, how the Rudras came to be a hundred in their number, and whether the attendants of Rudra, are Rudras also or otherwise.
2. Vasishtha replied:—The mendicant saw himself in a hundred forms in a hundred dreams, which he dreamt one after another; these I have told you on the whole before, though I have not specially mentioned them to you.
3. All the forms that he saw in the dream, became so many Rudras, and all these hundred Rudras remained as so many attendants on the principal Rudra.
4. Ráma asked:—But how could the one mind of the mendicant, be divided into a hundred in so many bodies of the Rudras; or was it undivided like a lamp, that lightens a hundred lamps, without any diminution of its own light.
5. Vasishtha answered:—Know Ráma, that disembodied or spiritual beings of pure natures, are capable of assuming to themselves any form of their fancy, from the aqueous nature of their souls (which readily unite with other liquids). (The Sruti says, "the soul is a fluid"; corresponding with the psychic fluid of Stahl).
6. The soul being omnipresent and all pervading (like the all diffusive psychic fluid); takes upon it any form whatever, and whenever and wherever it likes, by virtue of its intelligence: (which the ignorant spirit is unable to do).
7. Ráma rejoined:—But tell me Sir, why the Lord Rudra or Siva wore the string of human skulls about his neck, daubed his body with ashes, and stark naked; and why he dwelt in funeral ground, and was libidinous in the greatest degree.
8. Vasishtha replied:—The Gods and perfect beings as the siddhas &c. are not bound down by the laws, which the weak and ignorant men have devised for their own convenience.
9. The ignorant cannot go on without the guidance of law, on account of their ungovernable minds; or else they are subject to every danger and fear, like poor fishes (which are quite helpless, and entirely at the mercy of all voracious animals).
10. Intelligent people are not exposed to those evils in life, as the ignorant people of ungoverned minds and passions, meet with by their restless and vagrant habits.
11. Wise men discharge their business as they occur to them at times, and never undertake to do any thing of their own accord, and are therefore exposed to no danger. (Graha in the text means a shark and calamities also).
12. It was on the impulse of the occasion that the God Vishnu, engaged himself in action, and so did the God with the three eyes (i.e. Siva), as also the God that was born of the lotus (i.e. The great Brahmá). (All of them took human forms on them, whenever the Daityas invaded the Bráhmans, and never of their own will).
13. The acts of wise men are neither to be praised or blamed nor are they praiseworthy or blameable; because they are never done from private or public motives (but on the expediency of the occasion).
14. As light and heat are the natural properties, of fire and sun shine; so are the actions of Siva and the Gods, ordained as such from the beginning, as the caste customs of the twice born dwijas (Aryans).
15. Though the natures of all mankind are the same, as they are ordained in the beginning; yet the ignorant have created differences among them, by institution of the distinction of castes and customs; and as their institutions are of their own making, they are subjected by them to the evils of future retribution and transmigration. (Men are bound down by their own laws, from which the brute creation is entirely free).
16. I have related to you, Ráma! the quadruple reticence of embodied beings, and have not as yet expounded the nature of the silence of disembodied souls (as those of the Gods, siddhas and departed saints).
17. Hear now how men are to obtain this chief good (summum bonum) of theirs, by their knowledge of the intellectual souls in the clear sphere of their own intellect, which is clearer far than the etherial sphere of the sky.
18. It is by the knowledge of all kinds of knowledge, and constant devotion to meditation; and by the study of the numerical philosophy of particulars in the sánkhya system, that men became renowned as Sánkhya yogis or categorical philosopher. (The Sánkhya is opposed to the Vedánta, in as much as it rises from particulars to general truths).
19. The yoga consists in the meditation of Yogis, of the form of the eternal and undecaying One; by suppression of their breathings, and union with that state, which presents itself to their mind.
20. That unfeigned and undisguised state of felicity and tranquillity, which is desired as the most desirable thing by all, is obtainable by some by means of the Sánkhya Yoga, and by the Jnána Yoga by others.
21. The result of both these forms of Yoga, is the same, and this is known to anybody that has felt the same; because the state arrived at by the one, is alike to that of the other also.
22. And this supreme state is one, in which the actions of the mental faculties and vital breath, are altogether imperceptible; and the network of desires is entirely dispersed.
23. The desire constitutes the mind, which again is the cause of creation; it is therefore by the destruction of both of these, that one becomes motionless and inactive. (Forgets himself to a stone. Pope).
24. The mind forgets its inward soul, and never looks towards it for a moment; it is solely occupied with its body, and looks at the phantom of the body, as a child looks at a ghost. (Thinking it a reality).
25. The mind itself is a false apparition, and an unsubstantial appearance of our mistake; and shows itself as the death of some body in his dream, which is found to be false upon his waking.
26. The world is the production of the mind, else what am I and who is mine or my offspring; it is custom and our education that have caused the bugbears of our bondage and liberation, which are nothing in reality.
27. There is one thing however, on which is based the bias of both systems; that it is the suppression of breath, and the restriction of mind, which form the sum and substance of what they call their liberation.
28. Ráma rejoined:—Now sir, if it is suppression which constitutes the liberation of these men; then I may as well say that all dead men are liberated, as well as all dead animals also.
29. Vasishtha replied:—Of the three practices of the restriction of the breath, body and mind, I ween the repression of the mind and its thoughts to be the best; because it is easily practicable and I will tell you how it is to be done to our good.
30. When the vital breaths of the liberated souls, quit this mortal frame; it perceives the same in itself, and flies in the shape of a particle in the open sky, and mixes at last with etherial air.
31. The parting soul accompanies with its tanmátras or elementary principles; which comprise the desires of its mind, and which are closely united with breath, and nothing besides.
32. As the vital breath quits one body to enter into another, so it carries with it the desires of the heart, with which it was in the breast of man, as the winds of the air bear the fragrance of flowers. These are reproduced in the future body for its misery only.
33. As a water pot thrown in the sea, does not lose its water, so the vital breath mixing with the etherial air, does not lose the desires of the mind, which it bears with it. They are as closely united with it, as the sun-beams with the sun.
34. The mind cannot be separated from the vital breath (i.e. the desires are inseparable from life), without the aid of the knowledge; and as the bird Titterí cannot be removed from one nest without an other (so the soul never passes from one body without finding and entering into another).
35. Knowledge removes the desires, and the disappearance of desires destroys the mind; this produces the suppression of breath, and thence proceeds the tranquillity of the soul.
36. Knowledge shows us the unreality of things, and the vanity of human desires. Hence know O Ráma, that the extinction of desires, brings on the destruction of both the mind and vitality.
37. The mind being with its desires, which form its soul and life, it can no more see the body in which it took so much delight; and then the tranquil soul attains its holiest state.
38. The mind is another name for desire, and this extirpated and wanting, the soul comes to the discrimination of truth, which leads to the knowledge of the supreme.