CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH VOLUME. NIRVÁNA PRAKARANA. BOOK VI.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XV.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHAPTER XX.

CHAPTER XXI.

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAPTER XXV.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CHAPTER XXVII.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAPTER XXX.

CHAPTER XXXI.

CHAPTER XXXII.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

CHAPTER XXXV.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CHAPTER XL.

CHAPTER XLI.

CHAPTER XLII.

CHAPTER XLIII.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CHAPTER XLV.

CHAPTER XLVI.

CHAPTER XLVII.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

CHAPTER XLIX.

CHAPTER L.

CHAPTER LI.

CHAPTER LII.

CHAPTER LIII.

CHAPTER LIV.

CHAPTER LV.

CHAPTER LVI.

CHAPTER LVII.

CHAPTER LVIII.

CHAPTER LIX.

CHAPTER LX.

CHAPTER LXI.

CHAPTER LXII.

CHAPTER LXIII.

CHAPTER LXIV.

CHAPTER LXV.

CHAPTER LXVI.

CHAPTER LXVII.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

CHAPTER LXIX.

CHAPTER LXX.

CHAPTER LXXI.

CHAPTER LXXII.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

CHAPTER LXXV.

CHAPTER LXXVI.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

CHAPTER LXXVIII.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

CHAPTER LXXX.

CHAPTER LXXXI.

CHAPTER LXXXII.

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

CHAPTER LXXXV.

CHAPTER LXXXVI.

CHAPTER LXXXVII.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

CHAPTER LXXXX.

CHAPTER LXXXXI.

CHAPTER LXXXXII.

CHAPTER LXXXXIII.

CHAPTER LXXXXIV.

CHAPTER LXXXXV.

CHAPTER LXXXXVI.

CHAPTER LXXXXVII.

CHAPTER LXXXXVIII.

CHAPTER LXXXXIX.

CHAPTER C.

CHAPTER CI.

CHAPTER CII.

CHAPTER CIII.

CHAPTER CIV.

CHAPTER CV.

CHAPTER I. On Unintentional Acts and Actions.

Argument:—The manner how the liberated should conduct themselves in life, with renunciation of their egoism and selfish desires.

Ráma rejoined:—The renunciation of the notion of one’s personality or egoism in his own person, being attended by its attendant evil of inertness and inactivity (lit. want of acts), it naturally brings on a premature decay and decline, and the eventual falling off of the body in a short time: how then is it possible sir, for an indifferent person of this kind, to practice his actions and discharge the active duties of life (as you preached in your last lecture)?

2. Vasishtha replied:—It is possible Ráma, for the living person to resign his false ideas and not for one that is dead and gone (because the life of a man is independent of his notions; while the notions are dependant on his life). Hear me now to expound this truth, and it will greatly please your ears: (lit. it will be an ornament to your ears).

3. The idea of one’s egoism (or his personality in own person), is said to be an idealism by idealists; but it is the conception of the signification of the word air or vacuity (which is the essence of the Deity), that is represented as the repudiation of that erroneous notion.

24. The idealists represent the sense of all substances, as a creation of the imagination, while it is the idea of a pure vacuum, which they say to be the resignation of this erroneous conception. (The vacuistic Vasishtha treats here in length of the nullity of all substances, and the eternity of all pervading vacuum, and establishes the doctrine of the nothingness of the world and its God).

5. The idea of any thing in the world as something in reality, is said to be mere imaginary by the best and wisest of men; but the belief of all things as an empty nothing, displaces the error of thought from the mind. Since all things are reduced to and return to nothing, it is this alone which is the ever lasting something. (Ullum est nullum, et nullum est ullum).

6. Know thy remembrance of anything, is thy imagination of it only, and its forgetfulness alone is good for thee; therefore try to blot out all thy former impressions from thy mind, as if they were never impressed on it.

7. Efface from thy mind the memory of all thou hast felt or unfelt (i.e. fancied), and remain silent and secluded like a block after thy forgetfulness of all things whatsoever.

8. Continue in the practice of thy continuous actions, with an utter oblivion of the past (nor need the assistance of thy memory of the past, in the discharge of thy present duties); because thy habit of activity is enough to conduct thee through all the actions of thy life, as it is the habit of a half-sleeping baby to move its limbs (without its consciousness of the movements). (Such is the force of habit, says the maxim Abhyastopapatti—habit is second nature).

9. It requires no design or desire on the part of an actor to act his part, whereto he is led by the tenor of his prior propensities (of past lives); as a potter’s wheel is propelled by the pristine momentum, without requiring the application of continued force for its whirling motion. So O sinless Ráma! mind our actions to be under the direction of our previous impressions, and not under the exertion of our present efforts.

10. Hence inappetency has become the congenial tendency of your mind, without its inclination to the gratification of its 3appetites. The leanings of men to particular pursuits, are directed by the current of their previous propensities. The predisposition of the mind, is said to be the cause of the formation of the character and fortune of a man in his present state, (which is otherwise said to be the result of his predestination) which runs as a stream in wonted course, and carries all men as straws floating along with its tide.

11. I am proclaiming it with a loud voice and lifted arms, and yet no body will hearken unto me when I say that, want of desire is our supreme bliss and summum bonum, and yet why is it that none would perceive it as such?

12. O the wondrous power of illusion! that it makes men to slight their reason, and throw away the richest jewel of their mind, from the chest of their breast wherein it is deposited.

13. The best way to inappetence, is the ignoring and abnegation of the phenomenals which I want you to do; and know that your disavowal of all is of the greatest boon to you, as you will be best able to perceive in yourself.

14. Sitting silent with calm content, will lead you to that blissful state, before which your possession of an empire will seem insignificant, and rather serving to increase your desire for more. (The adage says:—No one has got over the ocean of his ambition, neither an Alexander nor a Cæsar).

15. As the feet of a traveller are in continued motion, until he reaches to his destination; so are the body and mind of the avaricious in continual agitation, unless his inappetence would give him respite from his incessant action.

16. Forget and forsake your expectation of fruition of the result of your actions, and allow yourself to be carried onward by the current of your fortune, and without taking anything to thy mind; as a sleeping man is insensibly carried on by his dreams.

17. Stir yourself to action as it occurs to you, and without any purpose or desire of yours in it, and without your feeling any pain or pleasure therein; let the current of the business conduct you onward, as the current of a stream carries down a straw in its course.

418. Take to thy heart no pleasure or pain, in the discharge of the work in which thou art employed; but remain insensible of both like a wooden machine which works for others. (Because, says the commentary, it is the dull head of people only, that are elated or dejected in the good or bad turns of the affairs of life).

19. Remain insensible of pleasure or pain, in thy body and mind and all the organs of senses; like the sapless trees and plants in winter, when they bear their bare trunks without the sensitiveness of their parts.

20. Let the sun of thy good understanding, suck up the sensibility of thy six external senses, as the solar rays dry up the moisture of winter plants; and continue to work with the members of thy body, as an engine is set to work. (Work as a brute with thy bodily powers or as a machine with its mechanical forces; but keep thy inner mind aloof from thy outer drudgeries).

21. Restrain thy intellectual pleasures from their inclination to sensual gratifications, and retain thy spiritual joy in thyself, for the support of thy life; as the ground retains the roots of trees in it very carefully in winter for their growth in the season of spring.

22. It is the same whether you continually gratify or not the cravings of your senses, they will continue insatiate notwithstanding all your supplies, and the vanities of the world will profit you nothing.

23. If you move about continually like a running stream, or as the continuous shaking of the water in an aerostatic or hydraulic engine, and be free from every desire and craving of your mind, you are then said to advance towards your endless felicity (so the adage is:—All desire is painsome, and its want is perfect freedom).

24. Know this as a transcendent truth, and capable of preventing all your future transmigrations in this world, that you become accustomed to the free agency of all your actions, without being dragged to them by your desires.

25. Pursue your business as it occurs to you, without any 5desire or purpose of your own towards its object; but continue to turn about your callings, as the potter’s wheel revolves round its fulcrum.

26. Neither have in view the object of your action, nor the reward of your action; but know it to be equally alike whether you refrain from action, or do it without your desire of fruition.

27. But what is the use of much verbiology, when it can be expressed in short and in a few words, that the desire of fruition is the bondage of your soul, and your relinquishment of it is fraught with your perfect freedom.

28. There is no business whatever for us in this world, that must be done or abandoned by us at any time or place; every thing is good that comes from the good God, therefore sit you quiet with your cold indifference as before the occurrence of any event.

29. Think thy works as no works, and take thy abstinence from action for thy greatest work, but remain as quiet in your mind in both your action and inaction, as the Divine Intellect is in ecstasies amidst the thick of its action.

30. Know the unconsciousness of all things to be the true trance-yoga, and requiring the entire suppression of the mental operations. Remain wholly intent on the Supreme spirit, until thou art one and the same with it.

31. Being identified with that tranquil and subtile spirit, and divested of the sense of dualism or existence of anything else; nobody can sorrow for ought, when he is himself absorbed in his thought, in the endless and pure essence of God.

32. Let no desire rise in thy indifferent mind, like a tender germ sprouting in the sterile desert soil; nor allow a wish to grow in thee, like a slender blade shooting in the bosom of a barren rock.

33. The unconscious and insensible saint, derives no good or evil by his doing or undoing of any deed or duty in his living state, nor in his next life. (Duties are not binding on the holy and devout sages and saints).

34. There is no sense of duty nor that of its dereliction neither, in the minds of the saintly Yogis, who always view the 6equality of all things and acts; and never consider their deeds as their own doings, nor think themselves as the agents of their own actions.

35. The consciousness of egoism and the sense of meiety of selfishness, will never release a man from the miseries of life; it is his unconsciousness of these, that can only save him from all sorrow, wherefore it lies in the option of every body, to choose for him either of these as he may best like.

36. There is no other ego or meiety excepting that of the one self-existent and omniform Deity; and besides the essence of this transcendent being, it is hard to account anything of the multifarious things that appear to be otherwise than Himself.

37. The visible world that appears so vividly to our sight, is no more than the manifestation of the One Divine Essence in many, like the transformation of gold in the multiform shapes of jewels; but seeing the continual decay and disappearance of the phenomenals, we ignore their separate existence. We confess the sole existence of the One that lasts after all and for ever.

CHAPTER II. Burning of the Seeds of Action for Preventionof their vegetation.

Argument:—Concerning the seeds and fruits of action, and the mode of their extirpation by the root.

Vasishtha continued:—Think not of unity or duality, but remain quite calm and quiet in thy spirit and as cold hearted as the dank mud and mire, as the worlds are still with unstirry spirit of the divinity working in them. (This is a lesson of incessant work without any stir and bustle).

2. The mind with its understanding and egoism and all its thoughts, are full of the divine spirit in its diversified forms (vivarta-rúpa); and time and its motion and all sound, force and action, together with all modes of existence, are but manifestations of the Divine Essence.

3. The Divine Spirit, being of the form of gelatinous mud (or plastic nature), all things with their forms and colours, and the mind and all its functions also, upon its own mould of endless shapes and types beyond the comprehension of men.

4. It is the Divine Essence which forms its own substance as upon a mould of clay, the patterns and forms and the shapes of all things, together with the measurements of space and time and the position of all the quarters and regions of the earth and heavens; so all things existent or inexistent, are the produce and privation of the formative mud and mould of the Divine Spirit.

5. Do you remain indifferent about the essence of your egoism and selfishness, which is no other than that of the Supreme Spirit; and live unconcerned with everything, like a dumb insect in the bosom of stone. (This is the Vajra-Kita, which perforates the sálagram stone in the river Gandak in Bihar). (The dumbness of silent munis was occasioned by their 8inability to speak with certainty anything regarding the abstruse spiritual subjects).

6. Ráma asked:—Sir, if the false knowledge of egoism and selfishness, be wanting in the wise and God knowing man, then how comes it, that the dereliction and renunciation of his duties, will entail any guilt or evil upon him, and his full observance of them, is attended with any degree of merit or reward? (This is the main question of the necessity of the observance of duteous and pious acts by the wise, which is after so long mooted by Ráma, in continuation of the last subject under discussion).

7. Vasishtha replied:—I will ask you also one question, O sinless Ráma! and you should answer it soon, if you understand well what is rightly meant by the term duty and that of activity.

8. Tell me what is the root of action and how far it extends, and whether it is destructible at last or not, and how it is totally destroyed at the end.

9. Ráma replied:—Why sir, whatever is destructible must come to be destroyed at last, by means of the act of rooting it out at once, and not by the process of lopping the branches or cutting off the tree.

10. The acts of merit and demerit are both to be destroyed, together with their results of good and evil; and this is done by eradicating and extirpating them altogether.

11. Hear me tell you, sir, about the roots of our deeds, by the rooting out of which the trees of our actions are wholly extirpated, and are never to vegetate or grow forth any more.

12. I ween sir, the body of ours to be the tree of our action, and has grown out in the great garden of this world, and is girt with twining creepers of various kinds. (i.e. The members of the body).

13. Our past acts are the seeds of this tree, and our weal and woe are the fruits with which it is fraught; it is verdant with the verdure of youth for a while, and it smiles with its white blossoms of the grey hairs and the pale complexion of old age.

914. Destructive death lurks about this tree of the body every moment, as the light-legged monkey lights upon trees to break them down; it is engulphed in the womb of sleep, as the tree is overwhelmed under the mists of winter, and the flitting dreams are as the falling leaves of trees.

15. Old age is the autumn of life, and the decaying wishes are as the withered leaves of trees, and the wife and members of the family, are as thick as grass in the wilderness of the world.

16. The ruddy palms and soles of the hands and feet, and the other reddish parts of the body (as the tongue and lips), resemble the reddening leaves of this tree; which are continually moving in the air, with the marks of slender lines upon them.

17. The little reddish fingers with their flesh and bones, and covered by the thin skin and moving in the air, are as the tender shoots of the tree of the human body.

18. The soft and shining nails, which are set in rows with their rounded forms and sharpened ends, are like the moon-bright buds of flowers with their painted heads.

19. This tree of the body is the growth of the ripened seed of the past acts of men; and the organs of action are the knotty and crooked roots of this tree.

20. These organs of action are supported by the bony members of the body, and nourished by the sap of human food; they are fostered by our desires, resembling the pith and blood of the body.

21. Again the organs of sense supply those of action with their power of movement, or else the body with the lightness of all its members from head to foot, would not be actuated to action without the sensation of their motion. (Hence a dead or sleeping man having no sensation in him, has not the use or action of his limbs).

22. Though the five organs of sense, grow apart and at great distances from one another, like so many branches of this tree of the body; they are yet actuated by the desire of the heart, which supplies them with their sap.

1023. The mind is the great trunk of this tree, which comprehends the three worlds in it, and is swollen with the sap which it derives from them through its five fold organs of sense; as the stem of a tree thrive with the juice it draws by the cellular fibres of its roots.

24. The living soul is the root of the mind, and having the intellect ingrained, it is always busy with its thoughts, which have the same intellect for their root; but the root of all these is the One Great Cause of all.

25. The intellect has the great Brahma, which has no cause of itself; and which having no designation or termination of it, is truth from the purity of its essence.

26. The consciousness of ourselves in our egoism, is the root of all our actions; and the internal thought of our personal entity is the root of our energy, and gives the impulse to all our actions. (Therefore as long as one has the knowledge of his personality, he is prone to action, and without it, every body is utterly inert).

27. It is our percipience, O Sage, which is said to be the source and root of our actions and whenever there is this principle in the mind, it causes the body to grow in the form of the big Sirsapatra. (It is the intellect which is both the living soul as well as its percipience).

28. When this percipience otherwise called consciousness (of the soul), is accompanied with the thoughts (of egoism and personality in the mind), it becomes the seed of action; otherwise mere consciousness of the self is the state of the supreme soul.

29. So also when the intellect is accompanied with its power of intellection, it becomes the source and seed of action; or else it is as calm and quiet as it is the nature of the Supreme soul. (The self-perception and pure intelligence, are attributes of the Divine soul, and not productive of action; but these in company with the operations of the mind, become the causes of the activity of both).

30. Therefore the knowledge of one’s personality in his own person, is the cause of his action, and this causality of action, as 11I have said herein, is quite in conformity with your teachings to me.