Yoga Vasistha

The stainless Jnana can be attained through the Supreme Avidya only after expelling its darkness which annhilates one s own self (or Reality). You should destroy Ajnana through itself alone like likes by likes, such as arrows by arrows, poison by poison, enemy by enemy, or excessive dirt by itself alone. Through patient enquiry and reflections, you will find that it will fly away and with its disappearance, Brahmic bliss will be attained.

If you have Jnana and a cognition of its reality through the unification of Jiva and Eswara, then will you be able to understand the true nature of Avidya. Till the blissful Jnana dawns in you, you should hold fast to the words of mine that the terrific Maya really is not. Those who have cognized directly through themselves that all are but the immaculate Brahman, can be said to have attained Moksha.

The knowledge of diversity itself constitutes Maya. At nil costs, should this Maya be overcome. The other bank of the river against which lash the waves of Maya, can never be perceived without gaining Atma-Jnana. If that is clearly seen, then such a stainless seat is itself the imperishable Nirvana. Please do not rack your brains now as to the origin of this Mdya ; but enquire into the means of its destruction. If it is destroyed, then will you be able to know how it arose. Then will you be able to know whence it arose, what is its nature and how it perished.

Therefore, Oh Rama, should the dose of medicine called Jnana be administered to you, suffering from the malady of Ajnana fruitful of all pains, then you will not be drowned in the ocean of the baneful re-births- Like Vayu which having its source in Akasa yet pervades it? so the Chit-Sakti arising out of Brahman, the Atmic Be-ness, shines as this universe. It is only through a slight motion in the immaculate Jnana-ocean, all the hosts of Jivas and Eswa- ra shine. Having cognized without doubt through your divine vision that the one Brahman alone is partless, may you drown yourself in the Jnana-ocean.

Through a slight motion in the one Jnana, the Jnana-Sakti in it becomes transformed in a moment into various Saktis of many powers when they are associated with the three (Saktis) potencies of Space, Time and Karmas. Though resting in its eternal seat of Brahmic Reality, this Jnana- Sakti will contemplate upon itself as conditioned. While contemplating upon itself thus, there will come upon it, in its train of ideas, the conception of the limitation of names and forms. Associated as it then is with excessive Vikalpas, it is bound by the conceptions of space, time and actions.

It is at this stage that the Jnana Reality passes under the appellation of Jiva. This Jiva generating manifold pains be comes tinged with Ahankara This never-bending Ahankara manifests itself as the stainful Buddhi leading to certain knowledge. Then this Buddhi suffused with illusions becomes the Manas of thought. This Manas of great fancies becomes gradually the Indryas (or organs). It is these ten Indriyasof hand, etc., that are termed this body of flesh.

Thus it is that the Jiva through its association (with the universe), gradually de bases itself, being bound by the cord of Sankalpas and enmesh ed in the snare of pains. Thus is the mind, which was originally the one reality itself, bound by desires through its Ahankara like worms caught in their own chrysalides. Through the Tanmatras (rudimentary properties) produced by itself, it is bound by the snare of its own internal (mental) actions and will ever be afflicted at heart like an undaunted male lion in a forest bound in fetters. Thus has the one principle been dubbed by the great ones with different appellations of Manas, Buddhi, Jnana, Karmas, Ahankara, Yatana (suffering) bodies, Prakriti, Maya, the base Mala (impurity), Karma, Bondage, Chitta, Avidya, desires and others.

Hence all these diverse things of the world which have appeared as many in different places through the bondage of our desires, do not confer even the least iota of benefit to the (real) mind in the heart. All these things are like a huge banyan tree with its long branches, &c., latent in a banyan seed. The mind will ever be tossed in the ocean of desires, being scorched by the fire of pains and devoured by the boa- constrictor of anger. Losing all equilibrium through its in tense sufferings, it becomes quite oblivious of its own reality.

It is this mind you should try to lift out of Maya, like an ele phant sunk in mire. Oh Rama, the very incarnation of Grace, those are Rakshasas in the guise of men who do not relieve their minds reeling under the fiery poison of the terrible births and deaths as well as in the presence of their two enemies good and evil.

Thus have the Jivas, which are nothing but a disport of Chit, arisen through Bhavanas (thoughts) as separate entities out of the one Brahman, as countless as drops of water trickling down from the Meru heights. Some of them have subjected themsslves to one, two or three births. Some of them have undergone more than a hundred births. Some have attained births beyond number of Kinnaras,* Gandharvas, Vidyadharas or the hosts of Uragas.

Some are born as the sun or the moon or Varuna : some as Brahma, Vishnu or Siva ; some as Brahmins or kings or Vysias or the ser viceable Sudras ; some as beasts, birds or reptiles ; some as tendrils, unripe fruits, fruits, roots or straw. Some monads are born as the mountains, Mahendra, Sahya, Meru or Kinnaras Elementals of Buvarloka or intermediate space having the body of a human being and the head of a horse.

Gandharvas Elementals of the same regions which are musicians, and hence preside over sounds. Uragas Serpent Elementals. Vidyadharas are elements of another order. Mandara and the trees, Kadamba, Lime, Palmyra, etc.; same as the grand septenary seas of salt, curd, ghee, milk, sugar-cane-juice, honey or pure water ; some as the different quarters or rivers and other objects, high or low. Like a ball tossed to and fro by the hand, these Monads are played about by time, enter various bodies and attain dis crimination through repeated fluctuations ; but the ignorant subject themselves to the ever-recurrent cycle of re-births. It is only through the illusory Maya which is in the one Rea lity of Brahman like the waves of an ocean that the whole universe expands itself, being created and preserved through this Ajnana.