CHAPTER XI. CAUSE OF THE PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument. Yama’s narration of Sukra’s meditation, and his inclination to worldliness.
Yama continued:—Your son is still engaged in his rigorous austerities on the bank of the rivulet, rolling with its loud waves on the beach, and the winds blowing and howling from all sides.
2. He has been sitting still in his firm devotion, with matted braids of hair on his head; and beads of rudráksha seeds in his hand; and controuling the members of his body from their going astray.
3. If you wish, O venerable sage! to know the reveries in his mind, you shall have to open your intellectual eye, in order to pry into the thoughts of others.
4. Vasishtha said:—Saying so, Yama the lord of world, who sees all at one view, made the Muni to dive into the thoughts of his son with his intellectual eye.
5. The sage immediately saw by his percipience, all the excogitations of his son’s mind; as if they were reflected in the mirror of his own mind.
6. Having seen the mind of his son in his own mind, the muni returned from the bank of Samangá to his own body on mount Mandara, where it was left in its sitting posture, in the presence of Yama (during the wandering of his mind).
7. Surprised at what he saw, the sage looked upon Yama with a smile; and dispassionate as he was, he spoke to the god in the following soft and dispassionate words.
8. O god, that art the lord of the past and future! we are but ignorant striplings before thee; whose brilliant insight views at once, the three times presented before it.
9. The knowledge of the existence of the world, whether it is a real entity or not, is the source of all errors of the wisest of men, by its varying forms and fluctuations.
10. It is thou, O potent god! that knowest what is inside this world; while to us it presents its outward figure, in the shape of a magic scene only.
11. I knew very well, that my son is not subject to death; and therefore I was struck with wonder, to behold him lying as a dead body.
12. Thinking the imperishable soul of my son, to be snatched by death; I was led to the vile desire, of cursing thee on his untimely demise.
13. For though we know the course of things in the world; yet we are subjected to the impulses of joy and grief, owing to the casualties of prosperity and adversity.
14. Moreover, to be angry with wrong doers, and to be pleased with those that act rightly, have become the general rule in the course of the world.
15. So long do we labour under the sense of what is our duty, and what we must refrain from, as we are subject to the error of the reality of the world; but deliverance from this error, removes all such responsibilities from us.
16. When we fret at death, without understanding its intention (that it is intended only for our good); we are of course blamable for it.
17. I am now made to be acquainted by thee, regarding the thoughts of my son; and am enabled also to see the whole scene on the bank of Samangá (by thy favour).
18. Of the two bodies of men, the mind alone is ubiquitous, and leader of the outer body of animated beings. The mind therefore is the true body, which reflects and makes us conscious of the existence of ourselves, as also of the exterior world.
19. Yama replied:—You have rightly said, O Bráhman! that the mind is the true body of man. It is the mind that moulds the body according to its will, as the potter makes the pot ad libitum (ex suo moto).
20. It frames a form and gives a feature to the person, that it had not before; and destroys one in existence in a moment. It is the imagination that gives an image to airy nothing, as children see ghosts before them in the dark. (The mind changes the features of the face and body, and views things according to its own fancy).
21. Its power to create apparent realities out of absolute unreality, is well known to every body, in his dream and delirium, in his misconceptions and fallacies and all kinds of error; as the sight of magic cities and talismans.
22. It is from reliance in visual sight, that men consider it as the principal body, and conceive the mind as a secondary or supplementary part.
23. It was the (Divine) mind, that formed the world from its thought; wherefore the phenomenal is neither a substance by itself (as it subsists in the mind); nor is it nothing (being in existence in us). Gloss. It is therefore undefinable—anirvachaníya.
24. The mind is part of the body, and spreads itself in its thoughts and desires into many forms; as the branch of a tree shoots forth in its blossoms and leaves. And as we see two moons by optical deception, so does one mind appear as many in many individuals (and as different in different persons).
25. It is from the variety of its desires, that the mind perceives and produces varieties of things, as pots and pictures and the like—ghatapatádi. (Hence the mind is the maker of all things).
26. The same mind thinks itself as many by the diversity of its thoughts; such as:—“I am weak, I am poor, I am ignorant and the like;” (all which serve to liken the mind to the object constantly thought upon).
27. The thought, that I am none of the fancied forms which I feign to myself, but of that form from whence I am, causes the mind to be one with the everlasting Brahma, by divesting it of the thoughts of all other things.
28. All things springing from Brahma, sink at last in him; as the huge waves of the wide and billowy ocean, rise but to subside in its calm and undisturbed waters below.
29. They sink in the Supreme Spirit, resembling one vast body of pure and transparent, cold and sweet water; and like a vast mine of brilliant gems of unfailing effulgence.
30. One thinking himself as a little billow, diminishes his soul to littleness. (He who bemeans himself, becomes mean).
31. But one believing himself as a large wave, enlarges his spirit to greatness. (Nobleness of mind, ennobles a man).
32. He who thinks himself as a little being, and fallen from above to suffer in the nether world; is born upon earth in the form he took for his pattern.
33. But he who thinks himself to be born to greatness, and rises betimes by his energy; becomes as big as a hill, and shines with the lustre of rich gems growing upon it.
34. He rests in peace, who thinks himself to be situated in the cooling orb of the moon; otherwise the body is consumed with cares; as a tree on the bank is burnt down by a conflagration.
35. Others like forest trees are fixed and silent, and shudder for fear of being burnt down by the wild fire of the world; though they are situated at ease, as beside the running streams of limpid water, and as high as on mountain tops of inaccessible height.
36. Those who think themselves to be surrounded by worldly affairs; are as wide-stretching trees, awaiting their fall by impending blasts of wind.
37. Those who wail aloud for being broken to pieces under the pressure of their misery; are like the noisy waves of the sea, breaking against the shore and shedding their tears in the form of the watery spray.
38. But the waves are not of one kind, nor are they altogether entities or nullities in nature; they are neither small or large nor high or low, nor do these qualities abide in them.
39. The waves do not abide in the sea, nor are they without the sea or the sea without them: they are of the nature of desires in the soul, rising and setting at their own accord.