1. The god continued—When the intellect (takes the vanities of the world to itself, and thinks to be a miserable being; it is said to have fallen into error, (by forgetting its true nature). It then resembles a man that is deluded to think himself for another, in his dream or intoxication.
2. Though immortal yet it is deceived to believe itself as mortal, by its infatuated understanding; as a sick man weeps to think himself dead when he is still alive.
3. As the ignorant man views the revolving spheres to be at a stand still, so the deluded intellect sees the world and thinks its personality as sober realities.
4. The mind alone is said to be the cause of the perception of the exterior world in the intellect; but the mind can be no such cause of it, from the impossibility of its, separate existence independent of the intellect.
YOGA VASISHTHA MAHARAMAYANA 71 5. Thus there being no causality of the mind, there cannot be its causations of the thinkable world also. Therefore the intellect only is the cause of thought, and neither the mind nor the thinkable world.).
6. There is no spectacle, spectator of anything anywhere, unless it be a delusion, as that which appears oiliness in a stone; and there is no matter, making or work of any kind; unless it be a mistake like that of blackness in the moon.
7. The terms measure, measurer, and measurable are as negative in nature, as the privation of forest plants in the sky; and the words intellect, reasoning and intellegible are as meaningless in themselves, as the absence of thorns and thistles in the Nandana garden of paradise.
8. The personalities of I, you, and it are as false as mountains in the firmament. And the difference of persons, is as untrue as to find whiteness in ink.
9. The Divine Spirit is neither the same nor different in all bodies; because it is as impossible for the Universal Soul to be confined in anybody, as it is impracticable for the mount Meru to be contained in an atom of dust. And it is as impossible to express it in words and their senses as it is incapable for the sandy soil to grow the tender herbs.
10. The saying not this not that is as untrue as the belief of the darkness of night existing in company with the day light: and substantiality and unsubstantiality are both as wanting in the Supreme Spirit, as heat is wanting in ice.
11. It is as wrong to call it either as empty or solid, as it is to say a tree growing in the womb of a stone to call it either the one or the other; is to have it for the infinite vacuum or the full plenum.
12. It is the sole unity that remains in its state of pure transparency forever; and being unborn from the thought or mind of anybody, it is not subject to the misrepresentation of anybody.
13. It is however attributed with many faults and failings, in the thoughts and owings of men; but all these imputations and false attributes, vanish before one knowing its true nature.
14. The learned devoid of indifference, are employed in many other thoughts and things; though not a straw of all this vast world, is under the command of anybody.
15. It is in the power of everybody to get rid of his thoughts, but very difficult to get the object of his thought. How then is it possible for one to have, what it is impracticable for him to try for?
16. The one sole and immutable Intellect which pervades all nature, is the supreme one and without an equal, and is more transparent than the translucent light of a lamp and all other lights.
17. It is this intellectual light which enlightens everything, it is everywhere and ever translucent; it is ever shining without a shade, and immutable in its nature and mind.
18. It is situated everywhere and in all things, as in pots and pictures, in trees and huts, and houses in four-footed animals, demons and devils, in men and beasts, in the sea, earth and air.
19. It remains as the all witnessing spirit, without any vibration or motion of its own to any place; and enlightens all objects, without flickering or doing any action by itself.
20. It remains not stained with by its connection with the impure body, and continues unchangeable in its relation with the changeful mind. It does not become dull by being joined with the dull body, and is never changed to anything by its extension over all things. 21. The extremely minute and immutable intellect, retains its consciousness in itself; and by rolling itself like a spool of thread, enters the body in the form of a particle of air. 22. It is then accompanied with the powers of vision and reflection, which are wakeful in the waking state and lie dormant in sleep; whence it is said to be existent and nonexistent by turns.
23. The clear and pure intellect, comes then to think of many things in its waking state, and is thus perverted from its purity; as an honest man turns to dishonesty in the company of the dishonest.
24. As the pure gold is converted to copper by its alloy, and is again restored to its purity by removal of the base metal; such is the case of the intellect owing to its contracting and distracting of vicious thoughts.
25. As a good looking glass being cleansed of its dirt, shows the countenance in a clear light; so the intellect being born in the human body, attains its divine nature by means of its good understanding.
26. Its want of the knowledge of itself as the all, presents the sight of the false world to it as a true reality; but upon coming to know its true nature, it attains the divine state.
27. When the mind thinks of itself of its difference (from the intellect), and the existence of the unrealities (in nature), it gets the sense of its egoism, and then it perishes though it is originally imperishable in its nature.
28. As a slight wind scatters the fruits of trees growing on the sides of mountain, so the consciousness of self, drops down at the gust of a slight disease, like a large tree.
29. The existence of the qualities of form and color and others, is owing to that of intellect; as the position of inferiors is dependent on the station of the superior. And the pure intellect--infinite and indefinite in itself, is designated as a unity, duality and plurality by want of right understanding.
30. It is from the essence of the intellect only, that the mind and senses derive their faculties of thinking and perception; as it is presence of day light, which gives rise to the routine of daily business.
31. It is the action of the vital air, which gives pulsation to the pupils of the eye, and whose light is called the sight, which is the instrument of perceiving the forms and colors of things that are placed without it, but the perception belongs to the power and action of the intellect.
32. The air and skin are both of them contemptible and insensible things, yet their union gives the perception of touch or feeling; the mind becomes conscious of that feeling, but its consciousness is dependent on and caused by the intellect.
33. The particles of scent being carried by the particles of air to the nostrils, give the sense of smelling to the mind; but it is intellect which has the consciousness of smelling.
34. The particles of sound are conveyed by the particles of air to the organ of hearing for the perception of the mind, and the intellect is conscious of this as in its sleep.
35. The mind is the volitive principle of action from some desire or to some end and aim of its own, and the thoughts of the mind are all mixed with foulness, while the nature of the intellectual soul is quite pure and simple.
36. The intellect is manifest by itself, and is situated of itself in itself; it contains the world within itself, as the crystalline stone retains the images of all things in its bosom.
37. It is the single and sole intellect which contains the whole, without dividing or transforming itself to parts or forms other than itself. It neither rises or sets, nor moves nor grows at any place or time.
38. It becomes the living soul by fostering its desires, and remains as the pure intellect by forsaking them forever; and then seated in itself, it reflects on its two gross and pure states. 39. The intellect has the living soul for its vehicle, and egoism is the vehicle of the living principle. The understanding is the car of egotism and the mind the seat of the understanding.
40. The mind again has the vital breath for its vehicle, and the senses are vehicles of the vital airs; the body is the carriage of the senses, and the organs of action are the wheels of the body.
41. The motion of these vehicles forms the course of this world; and the continued rotation of the body; until its old age and death, which is the dispensation of the almighty power. 42. The world is shown unto us as a optical illusion of the Supreme Soul, or as a scene in our dream; it is a reflection and wholly untrue as the water in a mirage.
43. Know, O sage, that the vital breath is called the vehicle of the mind by fiction only; because wherever there is the breath of vitality, there is also the process of thinking carried on along with it.
44. Wherever the breath of life circulates like a thread, and acts as spring, there the body is made to shake with it; as the forms and colors of bodies, present themselves to view at the appearance of light.
45. The mind being employed with its desires, perturbs the vital breath and body as a tempest shakes the forest; but being confined in the cavity of the heart, it stops their motion as when the winds are confined in the upper skies.
YOGA VASISHTHA MAHARAMAYANA 73 46. Again the confinement of the vital breath in the vacuity of the heart, stops the course of the mind (thoughts); as the hiding of a light, removes the sight of the objects from view. 47. As the dusts cease to fly after the winds are over; so the mind (thought) ceases to move, when the breath is pent up in the heart.
48. As the carriage is driven wherever the driver wishes to drive it; so the mind being driven by the vital breath, runs from country to country in a moment.
49. As the stone flung from a fling is lost forever, so the thoughts of the mind are dispersed in the air, unless they are fixed upon some object. The thoughts are accompaniments of the mind and vitality, as fragrance is attendant on flowers and heat upon fire.
50. Wherever there is vital breath breathing (in any animal being), there is the principle of the mind with its retinue of thoughts likewise; as whenever the moon appears to view, it is accompanied with its beams also. Our conciousness is the result of the vibrations of the vital air, like our perception of the perceptibles; and this air is the sustainer of the body also, by supplying the juice of the food to all the nerves and arteries.
51. The mind and consciousness both belong to the body, the one residing in the hollow of the vital air, and the other is as clear as the intellect, and resides alike in all gross and subtle bodies, like the all pervading and transparent vacuum.
52. It remains in the form of conscious self-existence in dull inanimate bodies; and appears to be afraid of the vibrations of animal life.
53. The dull body being enlivened by the vital breath, is recognized by the mind as belonging to itself; and plays many parts and sports with it, as in its prior state of existence. 54. The mind vibrates no longer, after the extinction of breathing; and then, O sage! the pure intellect is reflected in the eight-fold receptacle of vacuum.
55. As it is the mirror only that can reflect an image, and no other stone; so it is the mind alone these as their eight-fold receptacle, and which is the agent of all actions, and is termed by different names according to the views of different spiritual teachers.
56. That which gives rise to the network of our imaginary visible world, and that in which it appears to be situated, and whereby the mind is made to revolve in various bodies, know that supreme substance to be the Immensity of Brahman, and source of all this world. CHAPTER XXXII ON THE PRESERVATION AND DISSOLUTION OF THE BODY. 1. The god continued:--Hear me, holy sage! now relate to you, how the active and oscillating principle of the intellect, acts on the human body and actuates it to all its actions, whereby it receives the noble title of its active agent.
2. But the mind of man which is impelled by its former propensities, prevails over the intellect; and being hardened in its vicious deeds, pursues its changeful wishes and desires. 3. The mind being strengthened by illusion, the intellect becomes dumb and hardened as stone; and this power of delusion growing stronger by divine dispensation, displayed the universe to view.
4. It is by the good grace of this power that the intellect is allowed to perceive sometimes, the fallacy of the aerial city of this world, and at others to think it as a reality.
5. The body remains as dumb as stone, without the presence of the intellect, the mind and its egoism in it; and it moves about with their presence in it, as when a stone is flung in the air.
6. As the dull iron is made to move, by its close proximity to or attraction of the loadstone; so does the living soul act its parts, by the presence of the omnipresent soul in it.
7. It is by the power of the all pervading soul, that the living principle shoots out in infinity forever, as the germs of trees sprout forth the seed in all places. And as the recipient mirror receives the reflection of objects situated at a distance from it, so the living soul gets the reflex or image of the distant Supreme Spirit in itself.
8. It is by forgetfulness of its own and real nature, that the living soul contracts its foul gross object, as a legitimate twice born man, mistakes himself for a Sudra by forgetting his birth by such error or illusion.
9. It is by unmindfulness of its own essence, that the intellect is transformed to the sensuous mind; as some great souls are deceived to believe their miserableness in the distractedness of their intellect percipience.
10. It is the intellect which moves the dull and inert body, as the force of the winds shakes the waters of the deep to roll and range about in chains and retinues of waves.
11. The active mind which is always prone to action, leads the machine of the body together, with the passive and helpless living soul at random, as the winds drive about in different directions, together with the inert weights contained in it.
12. The body is the vehicle, and god has employed the mind and the vital breath, as the two horses or bullocks for driving it.
13. Others say, that the rarefied intellect assumes a compact form, which becomes the living soul; and this riding on the car of the mind, drives it by the vital airs as its racers. 14. Sometimes the intellect seems as something born and to be in being, as in its state of waking and witnessing the objects all around; at others it seems to be dead and lost as in the state of its profound sleep. Again it appears as many, as in its dreaming state; and at last it comes to know itself as one and a unit, when it comes to the knowledge of truth and of its identity with the sole unity.
15. Sometimes it seems to be of a different form, without forsaking its own nature; as the milk becomes the butter and curd etc. and as the water appears in the shape of a wave or of its foam.
16. As all things depend upon light, to show their different forms and colors to view, so the mental powers and faculties, do all of them depend upon the intellectual soul for their several actions.
17. Again the Supreme Spirit being situated in the mind within the body, the animal soul has its life and action; as all things appear to sight, while the lighted lamp shines inside the room.
18. The ungoverned mind gives rise to all diseases and difficulties that rise as fastly and thickly, as the perturbed waters rise in waves, which foam out with thickening froth.
19. The living soul dwelling like the bee in the lotus-bed of the body, is also subject to diseases and difficulties as the bee to the rains and flood; and it is as disturbed by the casualties of life, as the calm sea-water are perturbed to waves by the blowing winds. 20. The doubt that, “the Divine Soul is omnipotent, and the living soul is impotent and limited in its powers; and therefore the human soul is not the same with the divine”; is the cause of our grief, and serves to darken the understanding; as the clouds raised by the sunlight, serve to obscure the solar disc.
21. The sentient soul passes under many transmigrations in its insensibility, and in utter want of its self consciousness; like one subdued to dull obtuseness by some sleeping drug, which makes him insensible of the pain inflicted upon his own person.
22. But as it comes to know itself afterwards by some means or other, it recovers from its dull insensibility, and regains its state of original purity; as a drunken or deluded person turns to his duty, after he comes to remember himself.
23. The sentient soul that fills the body, and is employed in enlivening all its members, does not strive to know the cause of its consciousness; as a leper never attempts to make