THE DORMANT SEED OF DESIRE
Māyā Whispers Through Desire
Caught in the vision of our dreams
Vāsanā — What Binds the Jīva, What Sets It Free
The Boundless Web of Vāsanā
Vāsanā—the desire embedded deep within the body—acts as the primary engine driving cosmic manifestation and personal bondage. It is the unconscious psychological seed from which every thought, mental fluctuation (vṛtti) arises. Consciousness, when pristine and unblemished, remains limitless and free; yet, when touched by the subtle residue of past experiences and longings, it projects a localized self into the ocean of Saṃsāra. Vāsanās weave the cycle of births and deaths across countless realms, obscuring the Self (Paramātma). Whether appearing as the instinctual cravings of lower life forms or the noble ambitions of celestial beings, these latent tendencies maintain the illusion of the world. True liberation (mokṣa) cannot be achieved merely through renunciation, but requires the total burning of these subterranean seeds through wisdom (jnāna) and sustained inquiry (vicāra).
The Ego and the Universal Spirit
Be diligent to wipe off from thy heart the sense of thy egoism, and try to be happy by thinking always of the nullity of thyself.
It is in like manner that ourselves, these gods and demigods, and all things besides, are unrealities in fact, and yet we seem to turn about and speak and act as real persons. The ignorant have no notion of the spirit, beside that of matter, which they believe as the cause and effect (Kārya Kārana) of its own production; but the learned man sees the substantive spirit, in all forms of creation, as he views the substance of gold in all the ornaments made of that metal. As the divine consciousness expanded itself with the images of Dāma and others, it immediately assumed those shapes by its notions of the same. But the Intellect which never sleeps, nor has to be awakened at any time (but is ever wakeful), is the vacuity of the Divine Mind, in which the world is ever present in its visible form.
Transmutation of Intellect
Now there is a city by name of Adhisthāna, in the happy valley of Kashmir, which is beset by mountains and trees on all sides, and very romantic in its appearance. And the parrot Kata, happening to hear it, remembered his past life, whereby he was absolved of his sins, and attained his final liberation. In this manner, the sparrow on the Pradyumna mount, the gnat in the palace, and the parrot on the play ground, had all their liberation.
When the sphere of the pure intellect, is tinged with the hue of egotism, it is debased to another form without changing its nature. He whose mind always longs after having this thing and that, loses the best gain of his manliness (parama purushārtha) by his avarice, and leaves not even ashes or traces behind. But those who walk by the dictates of conscience, and follow the path pointed by the Āgama (Veda), are saved from destruction, and attain their best state (of perfection and bliss). Take care, that your sensuous soul does not perish as a prey in the snare of your sensual appetites, nor as a blind old man by falling in the hidden pits of this world.
Renunciation of Egoism and Bondage
There is no great exertion of any kind that goes unrewarded in this world; all impossibility is thought possible by ardent pursuit after it.
He that understands the Divine Ego, does no more retain the notion of his own egoism; but mixes with the Supreme soul, as a drop of water is lost in the waters of the ocean.
As long as the moonlight of the intellect, is obscured by the darkness of egoism, so long the lotus lake of spirituality, will not come to its bloom. Whatever joy or grief betides us at any time in this changeful world, is all the effect of the rotatory wheels of egoism, turning up and down at every moment. Egoism is the sprout of the trees of our lives, in their interminable revolutions through the world; and meity or the sense that “this is mine,” is the cause that makes them expand in a thousand branches. As long as the darkness of egoism reigns over the wilderness of human life, so long doth the goblin of selfishness infest it with its wanton revelry.
He whose soul is free from egoism, and devoid of the impression of the phenomenals; whose course of life runs in an even tenor, is the man who can have no sense of egoism in him. Whoso thinks himself to be the inward noumena, and distinct from the outward phenomena, and keeps the calm equanimity of his mind, is not ruffled by the feeling of his egoism.
The first is the supreme and undivided Ego, which is diffused throughout the world; it is the Supreme soul (Paramātma), beside which there is nothing in nature. The feeling of this kind of egoism, leads to the liberation of men, as in the state of the living-liberated; but the knowledge of the ego, as distinct and apart from all, and thought to be as minute as the hundredth part of a hair, is the next form of self-consciousness, which is good also. This second form of egoism, leads also to the liberation of human souls, even in the present state of their existence, known as the state of living-liberation (Jīvan-Mukta).
The other kind of egoism, which is composed of the knowledge of the body, with all its members as parts of the Ego, is the last and worst kind of it, which takes the body for the soul or self. This third and last kind, forms the popular belief of mankind, who take their bodies as parts of themselves; it is the basest form of egoism, and must be forsaken in the same manner, as we shun our inveterate enemies. The man that is debased by this kind of egoism, can never come to his right sense; but becomes subject to all the evils of life, under the thrall of the powerful enemy. That I am not the body, is the certainty arrived at by the great and good, who believing themselves to be of the first two kinds, are superior to the vulgar.
Tell me, sir, the state of that man, who by discarding the third or popular kind of egoism from his mind, attains the well being of his soul in both the present and future worlds.
Having cast off this noxious egoism, (which is to be got rid of by every body), a man rests in the Supreme Spirit in the same manner, as the believers in the two other sorts of it. Renunciation of the unholy belief of one’s self personality in his material body, is the greatest good that one can attain to for his highest state of felicity parama padam.
Wisdom Delivered
Sambara remained motionless for many years in his strong citadel, at the loss of his forces defeated by the gods; and then thought within himself, about the best means of overcoming the celestials.
“I will now produce some other demons by the power of my charm, and endue them both with the power of reason and acquaintance with spiritual science, in order that they may know and judge for themselves. These then being acquainted with the true nature of things, and devoid of false views, will not be subject to pride or vanity, but be able to vanquish the deities in combat”.
These infernal spirits burst out of the ether and sprang up to the upper world, and then spread over the face of the sky as a flight of locusts. They cracked as guns, and roared and rolled about as the clouds of the rainy season. They were fearless in fighting with the gods, from the knowledge of their being equally mortal as themselves; and from their want of the knowledge of any difference subsisting between one another. They waged the war under the sense of doing their duty to their master; while their own nature was entirely free from all passion and affection, and of even tenor at all times.
The discomfited legion of the deities, then resorted to the god Hari, sleeping on the surface of the ocean of milk; as the bodies of the clouds of heaven, are driven by the winds to the tops of mountains. The demons of Bhīma, Bhāsa and Dridha, were also killed in their unequal struggle with Vishnu, and were extinguished like lamps by the wind. They became extinct like flames of fire, and it was not known whither their vital flame had fled. Because it is the desire of a person that leads him to another state, but these having no wish in them, had no other place to go.
Hence the wishless soul is liberated, but not the wistful mind; therefore use your reason, to have a wishless mind and soul.
A full investigation into truth, will put down your desires at once; and the extinction of desires, will restore your mind to rest like an extinguished candle. The whole world is full with the spirit of God, whatever otherwise one may think of it at any time; there can be no other thought of it except that it is a nihility, and this forms our perfect knowledge of it.
Abandonment of Desires, and Mind’s Liberation
It is self-control or the government of one’s own mind, that is the only means of wading through all the troubles and distresses, and amidst all the dangers and difficulties of this world. Consider well and repeatedly in yourself, that all sensible objects are as hydras and dragons; and their enjoyment is gall and poison. Avoid them at a distance and pursue after your lasting good. The good qualities coming to shine in the sphere of the mind, like stars in the moonlight sky, gives rise to the luminary of reason to shine over it, like the bright sun of the day.
The society of the good is an arbour, affording its cooling shade of peace, and yielding the fruit of salvation. Its effect in righteous men, is like that of the stately sarala-tree, distilling the juice of spiritual joy from the fruitage of samādhi.
Its attempts and efforts, malice and disdain, distress and disease, are all removed from it; and the mist of its grief and sorrow, and the chain of affections, are all blown and torn away. It abandons the causes of its stoutness (i.e. its nourishments and enjoyments), and relinquishes its choice of this thing and that; and then remembering the dignity of the soul, it casts off the covering of its body as a straw.
The mind makes the world its own, and ranges all about it; it raises the mountains and mounts over them; it is as the infinite vacuum, and comprehends all vacuity in itself; and it makes gods of friends and foes of others unto us. Know the mind and living soul as making a man, and assuming his mortal form; the mind takes its form by itself according to his own option. But what is naturally foul or fair, can hardly turn otherwise at any time; as the limpid lake never becomes muddy, nor the dirty pool ever becomes glassy.
There is no restriction or freedom of the human soul, to or from any action or thing herein; it is a mere passive and neutral consciousness, of all that passes before it as a magic scene. When the mind is fixed upon God, by abstracting its sight from all mental and ocular visions, it has then the view of the Supreme before it.
The vanities of the world, are fraught with sorrow, therefore discard all its appendages from thee. The abandonment of superfluity, will conduce to thy attainment of wisdom at last. The airy flight of the mind being restrained, the sluggish body must cease to run about; and the cloud of the dust of ignorance, will no more spread over the city of the world.
Then raptures of serene delight, shoot forth in the soul like blooming blossoms in the open air; and a cool light is shed upon it, like the cooling beams of the autumnal moon. It sheds its clear lustre all over the world, and shows the depths of the hills and forests, and everything on earth in their clearest light.
The man whose investigation has made him acquainted with all things, whose soul is enlightened with truth; whose mind is melted down from his highmindedness; who is calm and quiet in his understanding, and looks at the unpleasant course of the births and deaths of men with pity; he verily lives happily in the realm of his body, without his feverish anxieties about anything.
Intellect as the Cause
As the sea water shows itself in various forms in all its waves, so the intellect does not differ from it, in showing us its various representations of its own motion.
Thus the intellect which is self-manifest and omnipresent of its own nature, developes and envelopes the world by its own manifestation and occultation, and by its acts of integration and segregation (sānhāra and nirhāra); or the acts of accretion and secretion. It falls from its knowledge of generals to that of particulars, by its act of specialization; and comes to the discrimination of the positive, and negative, and of inclusion and exclusion.
It bids the folia, fruits and flowers to wait on the flowery season of spring; and then brings their fruitage to perfection, under the heat of the summer sun. It makes the ever moving time, to revolve in its rotation of years and cycles and Yuga—ages; and causes the tide of creation to roll on in its waves of worlds, on its bosom of the ocean of eternity.
The Illusion of Worldly Reality
As the desert in summer heat, presents the waters of mirage to the clear sky, so the false world, shows its delusive appearances to the mind. Whereas it is impossible for any thing to exist beside the Spirit of God, it was the Spirit that “willed to become many”. And as there was nothing beside itself, which it could think of or find for itself, it was necessary that it became so of itself, and without the aid of any extraneous matter.
The world doth proceed from the Mind (Divine); it is the mind (by being a development of it), and is situated in the (infinite and eternal) mind; knowing all things as such manifestations of the powers of the intellect, the wise man remains in the coolness of his desire or lukewarmness. This is not the felicity of the gusto of pleasure, nor the dolour of sorrow or discontent; it consists not in the liveliness of living beings, nor in the torpidity of stones. It is not situated in the midst of these antitheses (i.e. in the sandhisthāna or golden medium between these); but in the knowing mind which is Bhumānanda—all rapture and ravishment.
Omnipotence and Spiritual Instruction
The density of the Intellect makes the mind, and the mind brings forth all the powers of thinking, willing or volition, and of acting or action. These it produces, accumulates, contains, shows and then absorbs in itself.
You cannot conceive Rāma, of there being a second person or thing beside the One Brahma; as you can have no conception of fire beside its heat.
His mind lost its wonted clearness (in its confusion), and then recovering its perspicacity, he pondered within himself in the following manner. The well discerning Sage should tell them, that are enlightened in their understandings, whose desire of sensual gratifications has abated, and who are freed from their worldly desires, that they are purged of the dirt of their ignorance, and are prepared to receive religious and spiritual instruction.
Fairy cities like the palaces of the Gandharvas of the etherial regions, are shown on earth, and filled with the fairies of the Fairy land. All things appear before us in the presence of our souls, and they vanish from before us in their absence from the body.
The minds of men are endowed with their knowledge at their very birth. Then growing big by degrees in course of time, they expand themselves in the form of this spacious forest of the world.
Intellect, Illusory Qualities, and Overcoming Prejudices
Tell me, sir, about the production of animal beings from Brahma, and let me know their different names and natures in full length.
The power of the intellect of Brahma exerts of its free will, and this omnipotence becomes whatever is thought of (chetya) in the Divine Intellect. The mind then by an effort of its conception (called the Will), expands itself to an unreal (ideal) scenery like that of the Fairyland, by falling off from the nature of Brahmic Incogitancy.
How sir, do you speak of a part of the infinite Spirit, and of the momentum of the motionless God; as also of a change and effort of it, that is altogether without them (vikārāvikrama).
No change or partition, and no relation of space or time, bear any reference to the Supreme, who is unchangeable, infinite and eternal; nor is there any appearance or disappearance of Him at any time or place, who is ever invisible every where.
The mind, by reason of its birth (tajja) from Brahma, is possessed both of the power and intelligence of his Intellect, and is enabled to accomplish its intended purpose, by means of its intense application.
That one is the producer of another is also a paralogy; because the one Brahma being infinite, could produce no other thing, beside reproducing himself. It is untruth that wavers and equivocates in double entendres. It prevaricates the truth, as the defective eye views the double moon in the sky. Beside the truth of the existence of Brahma, there is nothing which can be proved as absolutely certain; and it is a scriptural truth which says, “verily all this is Brahma.”
Sir, I understand Brahma as infinite and inconceivable, and the life and light of all that exists. I know that light never sets; but tell me, how they attribute many qualities that are foreign to his nature.
The wording and meaning of my lectures to you, are all used in their right and ordinary sense, they are neither insignificant or meaningless, equivocal or ambiguous, or contradictory of one with another. You will understand the proper import of my phraseology, when the eyesight of your understanding becomes clearer, and when the light of reason will rise in your mind. As conscious ignorance offers herself a willing sacrifice to the shrine of knowledge, she bids her adversary—the destroyer of error, to take possession of her seat in the bosom of man.
When you are enlightened with the thought, that all this is inexistent in reality; you will then become the knower of the knowable (God), and understand the import of my lectures. The whole scale of the earth, is as a net of birds to catch the fleeting mind; it is as false as a landscape in the dream; which represents the unreal as real ones to the mind. The forms of the formless spirit, is the formation of ignorance, and when the blemishes of passions and mutations, do not even belong to great souls, how can these attributes relate to the greatest God.
The attributes given to the Supreme Spirit, are as dust thrown upon the surface of limpid water; it is our thoughts only that attribute these qualities to the inconceivable One, as we attribute certain meanings to words. As the cloth cannot be thought of without its thread, so the soul is unintelligible without the medium of words giving its true definition.
It is impossible to arrive at the state of what is called imperishable life and bliss, when the soul is any how polluted by the blemishes of ignorance. Leave off thinking whence is all this, how it is and how it is destroyed at last; believe it to be really nothing, but only appearing without being actually seen. Try your best to destroy this prejudice of yours, and then you will know the truth. And verily such men are the greatest heroes and most learned in the world, who are freed from prejudices. Avoid quickly this false view, the baneful cause of your fears and sorrows, and of your diseases and dangers; and the germ of errors in the mind; and thereby ford over this perilous ocean of the world.
Desires and the Creation of Souls
The same Brahma who is all-pervading, undecaying and immortal; is known as intellectual light and without beginning and end, and free from error. As the water of the sea, is agitated in itself without any motion or excitation from without; so the Almighty power exerts its force in itself, throughout all its eternity and infinity.
As the sea seems to move with its sparkling waters, reflecting the sun and moonbeams upon its surface, so the almighty spirit appears to shake with the fleeting reflections of creation in its bosom.
These images though inseparable from the intellect of the Divine spirit, yet they seem to be apart from it, like the light in the holes of needles and other cavities. Thus the intellectual power of the Supreme spirit, coming to shine forth as light, refracts itself in various forms as the very many semblances of that great light. The Supreme spirit, though conscious of its nature of infinity and indivisibility, yet assumes to itself the state of its individuality, in every separate and limited form of created beings.
As there is no material difference of the armlet and bracelet, from their matter of the same gold; so is the intellect and the soul the one and same thing. It is the thought that makes the difference in their different modes. The same intellect also, taking its volitive and active forms at different times and places; is styled the embodied soul or spirit, and known as Kshetrajna.
Thus the gradual development of the intellect, produces its successive results; so these are the different states or conditions of the living soul, and not so many forms of it, but all these are the impurities of the soul.
The tendencies of the mind, pursue their desired objects, as the cow follows the lusty bull; and the mind runs after its objects only to be polluted by them, as the sweet stream of the river, meets the sea to become bitter and briny.
Knowing itself to be enslaved, it bids farewell to the freedom of its thought and knowledge; and begets within itself the gross ignorance, which rages and ranges free in the forest of this world, with its horribly monstrous appearance. It is sometimes designated as bondage, and is often synonymous with the heart; it is called also as avidyā or ignorance, and frequently identified with the will or volition likewise.
It is living dead with the cares of age and the fear of death, to which the world is subject; it is troubled with desire and disgust, and stained by its ignorance and passions. It is confined as the silkworm in its own cell, where it is doomed to dwell with its sorrow and pain; and though it is but a minim in its shape, it is the seat of endless hell-fire.
The snare of desire is stretched over the whole world; its fruits are as those of the Indian fig trees, which has no pith or flavour within. It is torn away as a limb from its place in the Spirit, and thrown in an uncongenial spot; it is withering away like a lotus plant plucked from its root.
The mind is carried away by the current of business, like a man borne by the waves of the sea. Lift it, O brave Rāma! from this pit, as they do an elephant sinking in the mud. The man whose mind is not troubled in this world, with successive joy and grief, and the vicissitudes of decrepitude, disease and death, is no human being: but resemble a monstrous Rākshasa, although he may have the figure of a man on him.
Transmigrations and Existence
These atomic souls of living beings, being subjected to their desires by the great variety of their wishes; are made to wander under many forms, to which they are bound by their desires. Some are produced for the first time in a new kalpa age, and others are born a hundred times in it; some have had only two or three births, while the births of others are unnumbered (in a kalpa).
Some are born again and again, for myriads of kalpas, some remaining in one state all along, and many in various states repeatedly changing their forms and natures. Some are born as Kinnaras and Gandharvas and others as Vidyādharas and huge serpents; some appear in the forms of Sol, Indra and Varuna (Ouranas), and others in those of the triocular Siva and the lotus-born Brahmā. Some are formed into varieties of herbs and creeping plants, and others into stones and rocks; some into Jāma and Kadamba trees, and others into Sāla, Tāla and Tamāla forests. Some are born as snakes and hydras, worms, insects and ants; whilst there are others in the forms of great lions, big buffaloes, stags and goats, the bos guavas and fleet antelopes in forests.
Some are brought forth as elephants and their cubs, and as wild boars, bulls and asses; and others come into being as bees and beetles, flies and gadflies, gnats and mosquitoes. Some are situated in the stars, and some in the hollows of trees; some move upon the wings of the winds, and others rest in the still air above or fly freely in the sky. Some become regents of the skies above, and others roll down in the form of mighty streams; some become females of beautiful appearances, and others as ugly hermaphrodites and abnormalities.
The living souls that are under the subjection of their desires, are so powerless of themselves, that they have forgotten their freedom, and are fast chained to the fetters of their wishes. Entrapped in the hundred fold snare of desire, and converted to the various forms of their wishes, they pass from one body to another, as the birds fly from one tree to alight on another.
Having known and seen the true Self, by forsaking their false knowledge of it, they come to their consciousness of themselves, as identic with the divine Self; and having attained this in process of time, they are released from their doom of revisiting this world of pain and sorrow.
There are some great minded souls, who having proceeded from the state of Brahma, have to pass here a single life, after which they are absorbed in the Supreme soul.
There are others who have become as gods and brute creatures in them, and there are snakes and other reptiles also in them as well as in this earth. There are various other creatures of different shapes, produced by various unknown causes in the other worlds also, which have their growths and deaths like those of this earth. The whole creation moves onward in eternal progression, in its course of evolution and involution, and in its motions of ascension and descension like the waves of the ocean. They are as the particles (or minute moments) of time, and the flying odours of flowers; or as the cold icicles and the minutial of rain water, borne by breeze and cooling the air all around.
Incarnation and Death
The phenomenal world differs only in its being but a longer and more delusive dream; it is as the sight of the double moon by optical deception, and of a mountain in the delusion of darkness. This unlimited creation is the false fabrication of imagination; whereupon the living soul in conjunction with the mind, obtained the state of Brahmā. The same becomes the living soul, and is fraught with various desires in itself, of becoming many:—aham bahu syāma.
The elements of air, wind, fire and water united together produced the gross form of earth—the receptacle of scent; and then the mind being filled with these minute elementary particles in its thoughts of them, forsook its fine form of the spirit for its gross body of the quintuple elements (called the quintessence of material bodies (panchabhautika)).
It saw this body shining as a spark of fire in the sky, which joined with its egoism and understanding, formed its personality.
This is called the spiritual body (lingasarīra),—the embodying octuple, which is situated as the bee in the pericarp of the lotus-like heart, and which gives growth to the outer body by its inner working. The quality of the inner soul or mind, manifests itself in the outer body, as the quality of the seed appears in the form and taste of its fruit. The mind then dwells upon the thoughts of its actions, which have their display in the several organs, and members of the bodily actions, which are produced by the motions of the inner thoughts and acts, as the leaves and branches of trees are projected by the inner process and operations of the seed.
In this manner did Brahmā, who is called a muni or mental being, from his having sprung from the mind of Brahma, produced the several parts of his body, according to his thoughts of their usefulness to it. Being begotten by the vacuous Brahma, he resides in the lap of vacuity; and is of the form of melted gold, like every other luminous body in the heavens. Sometimes the lord thinks himself, as identic with the waters which existed before creation in his mind; and at another as the mundane egg, which was as bright as the fire of universal destruction.
He took a corporeal body, with its breathings and respirations (prānāpāna); it was covered with pores of hair, and furnished with gums of two and thirty teeth. It had the three pots of the thighs, backbone, and bones, standing on the feet below; with the five air, five partitions, nine cavities, and a smooth skin covering all the limbs. (The five airs are prānāpāna. The five partitions are, the head, the legs, the breast, belly and the hands). The body is the nest of the bird of the mind, and it is hole of the snake of lust; it is the cave of the goblin of greediness, and the den of the lion of life.
It is a chain at the feet of the elephant of pride, and a lake of the lotuses of our desire; The lord Brahmā looked upon his handsome body, and saw it was good.
The Mind
The mind has made the body for its own abode, as some worms make their cortices or coatings, and the soul also has its sheaths or koshas. What impossibility is there of the same powers residing in Omnipotence, which are possessed by the mind in its secluded cell? Seeing by thy keen sightedness, that all these bodies are bodiless (I.e. only imaginary beings), why shouldst thou fall into the error? Whoever desires to have any thing in this world, after knowing it as an unreality, surely perishes with his soul for his forsaking the reality. When some vain thought labors in the mind, like the moon appearing to move under the water; it beguiles little children only, and not the wise as yourself. As nothing is lost or drowned in the talismanic tank of a conjuror, so nothing is dead or dissolved in the magical sea of this world (samsāra sāgara).
If the Deity is the only absolute existence, what else is there for us to lose in it? The whole universe being full with Brahma, there can be no cause of our joy or sorrow for any thing whatever. Children take a liking for light, empty and gaudy baubles; which are of no good or use to them nor any body at all, and are rather led to sorrow at their loss, than derive any good from their gain whatever.
Living Souls
There is increase of care with the increase of wealth and family; and there is no happiness in the increase of worldly possessions and affections. What joy is there in the possession of temporary wealth and family to the wise, that seek their lasting welfare, and are quite indifferent about these?
Inappetency of what is ungotten, and enjoyment of what is in present possession; are the true characteristic of the wise and learned. He who knowing the unrealities, place no reliance in anything; is said to have mastered all knowledge, and is never liable to error.
Though engaged in business, yet you must remain, O Rāma! quite indifferent to all things; because the apathetic and inappetent are truly happy in this world. Let thy accessory organs manage thy outward affairs or not; but keep thy apathetic soul quite unconcerned with all. The embodied or disembodied soul whether living or dead, that has ceased to have any taste for sensuous enjoyments, has attained its liberation without its wishing for it.
They that have not been swept away by the waves of their desires, to the midst of the ocean of this world, are said to have got over it; but the others are no doubt drowned and lost in it. Suppress the sight of the visibles, and avoid your pride and enmity; then roam wherever you will, and you will meet with success.
Mundane Worlds, and Cycle of Time
I am never satiate with hearing your speech, which is equally copious, clear and elegant.
Some creations were made with Brahmā as the first born, others with Vishnu and some with Siva as the next created beings. There were some other (minor productions), having the munis for the patriarchs. In one egg the sun was born with all his eyes, and in another Vāsava—the Indra; in some one was born the lotus-eyed Vishnu, and in another he with his three eyes as Siva.
The earth was full of gold in some place, and it was hard ground at others; it was mere mud in many places, and incrusted with copper and other metals in some. The splendours of worlds, are seen in the Supreme like waves in the sea, and as the mirage in the sandy desert; they abide in Him as flowers on the mango tree. These multitudes of worlds rise and fall in the Universal Spirit, like gnats flying and following others in swarms in the rainy season. They have been rolling without beginning like the billows of the sea; those that are past and gone had their previous ones, and they their prior ones also. There are series of mundane worlds like the egg of Brahmā, which pass away by thousands like the hours in course of the year.
The rising and falling of worlds are neither true nor wholly false; they are as the fanfaronade of fools, and as orchids of the air. The learned in divine knowledge, consider the creations proceeding from the Spirit of God, as showers of rain falling from the waters contained in the clouds. All created things that you see in their gross or subtle forms, have proceeded from the vacuity of the Divine Mind, and are strung together, like a rosary of large and small gems and beads. Sometimes the atmospheric air is condensed into a solid form, and that gives birth to a Brahmā; under the title of the atmospheric lord of creation. It is sometimes by the condensation of water, air or heat, that a being is produced in the form of a male or female. Sometimes the great Being causes a lotus to grow out of his navel; in which is born the great Brahmā known as the lotus-born.
Tell me what do you think of these theories in your own judgment; do they not appear as the tales told to boys?
It is agreed by all, that the creation is but the development of divine mind; although I have related for your acquaintance, the various processes of its production. Now know the endless succession of all things in the world; creation is followed by destruction as pleasure by pain; and as ignorance is followed by knowledge, and bondage by liberation. The production and destruction of all bodies, are as those of Brahmā and the lamps, they assume their forms in their time, but become an undistinguishable mass after death. All worlds and things are under the subjection of time. They are subject to repeated successions, and there is nothing without its rotation.
Know Rāma, the world to be never in existence; it is a motionless show of that power, which resides only in the Supreme spirit. This same vacuum and these quarters of the sky, with all these seas and mountains, appear in the recurrent course of creation with their various hues, like those of the solar rays seen through the chink of a wall.
The god Nārāyana and the demigods appear by turns, and the sky is always revolving with the regents of all its sides, the sun and moon, clouds and winds. Behold again the flight of time, riding as the eagle on its two wings of acts and actions, and passing with the noise of pat-pat over the vast maze of creation. Again the wicked age of Kali appears to soil the holy satya yuga, as the black body of Nārāyana fills the clear waters of the deep, or as a blast of wind sweeps the dust of the earth on its pellucid surface. Again doth the veteran time, who is skilled in the work of renovation, wither away the freshness of creation, as the autumnal winds blast the foliage of a forest, in order to produce them anew.
Again the dozen of zodiacal suns, rising at once and burning the creation, leaves the dead bodies all around, like the white bones lying scattered in a country. Again we see living beings filling the earth, and feeding for some years upon the moisture of its verdure, leaving their decayed bodies, and being mixed up with their souls in the universal spirit.
Now consider, O Rāma! if there is any stability of any thing in this revolutionary world, beside its being a maze of continuous delusion.
The Vanity of World
Do not therefore, O Rāma! take so much care for the dull body like the ignorant; but regard only for the welfare of thy soul.
There is on the surface of this land, the great and opulent province of Magadha, which is full of flower trees of all kinds. Here the wide fields were full of corns and grains, and the skirts of the land were beset by groves and arbours; and the banks of rivulets were fraught with the lotuses and water lilies in their bloom.
On the sacred hill overhanging that spot, there rose a kadamba arbor, crowded by birds of various kinds; and there dwelt on it a holy sage of great austerity. He was known by the name of Dāsūra, was employed in his austere devotion; sitting on a branch of his kadamba tree with his exalted soul, and devoid of passions. He had for his father, the renowned sage Saraloman, residing in the same mountain, and resembling the great Brahmā in his abstract meditation. He was the only son of that sire, like Kacha the only progeny of Brihaspati, the preceptor of the gods, with whom he came to dwell in the forest from his boyhood. Saraloma having passed many years of his life in this manner, left his mortal frame for his heavenly abode, as a bird quits its nest to fly into the air. Dāsūra being left alone in that lonely forest, wept bitterly and lamented over the loss of his father, with as loud wailings as the shrieks of a heron upon separation from its mate. Being bereft of both his parents, he was full of sorrow and grief in his mind; and then he began to fade away as the lotus blossom in winter.
He was observed in this sad plight by the sylvan god of that wood, who taking compassion on the forlorn youth, and accosted him unseen in an audible voice and said:— O sagely son of the sage! why weepest thou as the ignorant, and why art thou so disconsolate, knowing the instability of worldly things? Do not therefore wail at the demise of thy father, but know like the rising and falling sun, every thing is destined to its rise and fall.
He rose up and performed the funeral ceremonies of his sire, with devoutness of his heart; and then set his mind to the success of his steady devotion. He was employed in the performance of his austerities according to the Brāhmanic law, and engaged himself in discharging his ceremonial rites by the Srauta ritual, for the accomplishment of his sundry vows. But not knowing the knowable (Brahma), his mind could not find its rest in his ceremonial acts, nor found its purity on the surface of the stainless earth.
Not knowing the fulness of the world with divine spirit, and the holiness of the earth in every place, he thought the ground polluted, and did not find his repose any where.
Henceforth said he, “I will perform my austerities on these branching arbours, and repose myself like birds and sylvan spirits, on the branches and leaves of trees.” Thus sitting on high, he kindled a flaming fire beneath him, and was going to offer oblations of living flesh on it, by paring bits of his shoulder blade. When the god of fire thought in himself that, as fire is the mouth whereby the gods receive their food, the offering of a Brāhman’s flesh to it, would wholly burn down their faces. So, the god of fire appeared before him in his full blaze, as the luminous sun appeared before the lord of speech—Brihaspati or Jupiter. He uttered gently and said, “Accept young Brāhman your desired boon from me, as the owner of a store, takes out his treasure from the chest in which it is deposited”. “Lord! I find no holy place upon earth, which is full of iniquity and sinful beings; and therefore pray of thee to make the tops of trees, the only places for my abode.”
Allegorical Splendor
The banks with their long shrubbery, and the crimson filaments of their milk-white blossoms, were smiling like the fair faces of beauties, with their teeth tinged with reddish hue of betel leaves. The earth with its thickening thickets, and the warbling chakoras as amongst them, appeared as the milky path of heaven studded with stars singing their heavenly strains. The white chowry deer with half of their bodies hidden under the coverts of the woods, and their fore parts appearing without the thickets, appeared as so many moons with their dark and bright sides in the sky. The forest with thousands of uplifted branches, seemed as the god Visva-rūpa lifting his thousand arms on high, and dancing with the breeze, with the pendant orbs of the sun and moon, suspended as the earrings to both his ears. The forest was as the store house of all sorts of fruits and flowers, as the god Brahmā was the reservoir of all sorts of productions.
There was the joint harmony of the humming bees and buzzing beetles; the twittering of chakoras and parrots, and cooing of cokilas in the deep coverts of the woods; and issuing out of their holes like the music of songstresses, coming out in unison from the hollows of windows. The bees were continually humming over the farinaceous pistils of flowers, and sounding water-falls were incessantly exuding from the high hills in its neighbourhood. The sturdy woods resembling high hills, were rubbed by the scabby cheeks of elephants, and stood unmoved though they were incessantly dashed by their huge legs and feet. With the movements of their painted leaves, resembling the fingers of their palms, the trees seemed to keep time with the dancing creepers, and point out the modes of their oscillation.
The kadamba tree seemed by its blooming blossoms, to laugh to derision, the five woody arbors on the skirts which do not bear their flowers.
The body of bees thronging all about its person, gave it the appearance of the thousand eyed Indra, with whom it vied in the greater number of its eyes.
The verdant leaves of trees were as the green garb of this fairy, and the clusters of flowers were as garlands on her head; the distant lakes appearing as water-pots, were decorated by their aquatic plants and flowers.
Mental Sacrifices and Instructions
There sitting on the leaves of the creepers growing on the branch of that tree, he looked up to heaven, and then placing himself in the posture of padmāsana, he called back his mind to himself. Sitting on the leaves of the creepers in his aerial seat, he employed his inward spirit and mind, in discharging his sacrificial rites, of the sacred fire and horse sacrifice. In process of time, his mind was purified and expanded, and he gained the knowledge of the beatification of his soul.
She said to the hermit with a sweet and charming voice in the following manner:—”Mayst thou prosper in obtaining the objects of thy wishes:— “I am, O Brāhman! a sylvan goddess of this forest, which is so full of creeping plants, and decorated by the beautiful kadamba trees. Hearing the sylvan dame speaking in this manner, the hermit smiled at her, and spoke kindly to her with presenting her a flower with his own hand, and said:— Depart O queen bee! and betake thyself to the worship of Siva for a whole month, and then thou shalt like a tender creeper, beget a boy as beautiful as a bud by this time of the year.
So saying the sage dismissed the suppliant queen bee now gladdened in her face, and promised to perform the necessary for her blessing’s sake. This sir, is the would be son (bhāvya) of both of us, who has been trained up by me in all the branches of learning. Do you now my lord! deign to instruct him in that knowledge, for who is there that should like to keep his own boy in ignorance (of his future and best welfare)?
The boy was taught in various narratives and tales, and with many examples and ocular instances; as also in historical accounts and evidences of the Veda and Vedānta. The magnanimous father thus instilled true knowledge into the mind of his boy, by means of right reasoning and correct diction, rather than regarding the elegance of expression; as the cloud indicates the approaching rain to the peacock by its hoarse sounds.
The Structure of Mind
There is a very powerful King renowned in all the three worlds for his great prosperity. His name is Khottha or Air-produced, and able to grasp the whole world. His unnumbered acts and exploits, are fraught with successive pain and pleasure; and they are as interminable as the continuous waves of the sea. Even the gods Indra, Upendra and Hara, have fallen short of following his steps in his ambitious pursuits, and the splendid inventions of his imagination.
He has built a city in that unlimited space of the Universe, having fourteen provinces (chaturdasa Bhuvana) (the planetary spheres), in its triple divisions (tribhuvana) of the earth and regions above and below it. The king has peopled this great city of his with many selfmoving bodies, which move in their spheres quite ignorant of themeslves. They are covered with black skins and hairs, and furnished with nine holes; which are continually receiving in and carrying out the air to keep them alive.
They are supplied with five lights of sensation and perceptions and supported by three posts of the two legs and the back bone, and a frame work of white bones for the beams and bamboo rafters. It is plastered over with flesh as its moistened clay, and defended by the two arms as latches on door way.
This triformed prince (the mind) is always fickle, and never steady in any; he resides in many bodies and plays his gambles there with his guard of egoism, and leaves one body for another at will, as a bird alights from one branch upon another. Like one under the influence of a ghost, he stirs up from one place and runs to another, as a man builds and breaks and rebuilds his aerial castle at his hobby. It is produced again as the wave of the sea, after it had subsided to rest; and it pursues slowly and gradually a different course in its renewed course of life.
He is sometimes dejected by sorrow and at others elated by success, like the current of a river, now going down in the hot season, and again overflowing its banks in the rains. This king is led by his hobbies like the waters of the sea by the winds; it puffs and swells, falls and rises, runs fast and ceases to flow at once as in a calm.
Hear me tell you my son, the meaning of this parable, which will explain to you the nature of this revolutionary world in its true light.
The vacuous spirit of the Supreme Deity, gives rise to his formless will, which is thence called Air-born (or the mind). It is born of itself in its formless state from the formless Spirit, and dissolves itself into the same; as the wave rising from and falling in the bosom of the sea.
Know the gods Brahmā, Vishnu, Indra, Siva and the Rudras, as offspring of the willful Mind; as the branches are the offshoots of the main tree, and the summits are projections of the principal mountain.
This city is composed of fourteen worlds (planetary spheres) containing all their peoples; together with chains of their hills bargaining with commodities (of virtue and vice), leading either to heaven above or to the hell below.
Their bodies are made of clay, and their frame work is of white bones; and their plastering is the flesh under the skin as a pneumatic machine. All these bodies are furnished with nine crevices, consisting of the two earholes, two sockets of the eyes, and two nostrils with the opening of the mouth, which are continually employed in inhaling and exhaling cold and hot air by their breathings.
The mind then creates of its own will the delusion of egoism, which like a yaksha demon takes possession of the whole body, but flies before the light of knowledge. It rises and falls like the flame of a lamp in the abode of the body, and is as boisterous with all its desires, as the sea with its ceaseless waves.
But no sooner it ceases to foster its desires, than it ceases to exist, and loses itself in that state of Supreme bliss of which there can be no end. It is egoism (or the belief of one’s real entity), that spreads the view of this miserable world before him; but absence of the knowledge of self-entity, removes the sight of all objects from view, as the veil of thick darkness hides all things from sight.
The mind remains in eager expectation of the enjoyment of its desired objects, as the stag stood with its lifted mouth, to have a drop of honey fall into it, from a honey-comb hanging on high.
Now try diligently, my boy, to extricate thy mind from all outward objects, and fix thy attention to the inward object of this meditation. In its form of moderation, it is observant of the rules and laws of society, and conducts itself in the world in the company of friends and members of the family.
Or although you burn your body alive on a flaming pyre, or plunge yourself into the submarine fire; or if you fall in a deep and dark pit or well, or rush upon the edge of a drawn and sharp sword;— Whether you are situated in heaven or on earth, or in the regions of pātāla—the antipodes below; you have no way of liberation, save by keeping your desires under subjection. As the mind conceives a thing to be, so it perceives the same in actuality; therefore have no conception of anything, if you want to know the truth of it.
The mind which having sprung from the Supreme Soul in the form of goodness, is inclined afterwards towards the unrealities of the world; surely alienates itself from the Supreme, and exposes itself to all sorts of misery.
First learn the truth, and attain to the true knowledge of your soul; and then abandon all your desire and dislike of the world. Being thus prepared with a dead-like insensibility of your internal feelings, you will be enabled to come to the knowledge of that transcendental state, which is full of perfect bliss and blessedness.