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Válmiki
Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 5: Upaśama-Khanda (On Quietism). Chapter 40 - Resuscitation of Prahlāda
The Lord continued- It is the soundness of the body, which men call life; and it is the quitting of the present body for a future one, which they call death. 1
You are released from both these states, O high minded youth! and have nothing to do with your life or death anymore. 2
It is for your acquaintance, that I relate to you the components of life and death; by knowledge of which you will not have to live nor die, like other living beings on earth: 3.
Though situated in the body, yet you are as unembodied as the disembodied spirit; and though embosomed in vacuity, yet are you as free and fleet as the wind, on account of your being unattached to vacuum. 4
Your perception of the objects of the touch, proves you to be an embodied being; and your soul is said to be the cause of that perception; as the open air is said to be the cause of the growth of trees, for its putting no hindrance to their height. But neither the soul is cause of perception, nor the air of the growth of trees. It is the mind which is the cause of the one, as moisture of the other.
But the perception of outward things, is no test of their materiality to the monoistic immaterialist; as the sight of things in a dream, is no proof of their substantiality, nor of the corporeality of the percipient soul. 5
All things are comprehended, in yourself, by the light of your intellect; and your knowledge of the only One in all, comprehends every thing in it. How then can you have a body either to take to yourself or reject it from you?
Whether the season of the spring appears or not, or a hurricane happens to blow or subside; it is nothing to the pure soul, which is clear of all connection whatever. 6
Whether the hills fall headlong to the ground, or the flames of destruction devour all things; orthe rapid gales rend the skies, it is not matter to the soul which rests secure in itself.
Whether the creation exists or not, and whether all things perish or grow; it is nothing to the soul which subsists of itself. 7
The Lord of this body, does not waste by waste of its frame, nor he is strengthened by strength of the body; neither does it move by any bodily movement, nor sleep when the body and its senses are absorbed in sleep.
Whence does this false thought rise in your mind, that you belong to the body, and are an embodied being, and that you come to take, retain and quit this mortal frame at different, times?
Forsake the thought, that you will do so and so after doing this and that; for they that know the truth, have given up such desires and vain expectations. 8
All waking and living persons, have something or other to do in this world, and have thereby to reap the results of their actions; but he that does nothing, does not take the name of an active agent, nor has anything to expect; 9.
He who is no agent of an action, has nothing to do with its consequence; for he who does not sow the grains, does not reap the harvest. 10
Desinence of action and its fruition, brings on a quiescence, which when it has become habitual and firm, receives the name of liberation: 11
All intellectual beings and enlightened men, and those that lead pure and holy lives, have al l things under their comprehension, whereof— there is nothing for them left to learn a new or reject what they have learnt. 12
It is for limited understandings and limited powers of the body and mind, to grasp or leave out some thing; but to men of unbounded capacities, there is nothing to be received or left out. 13
When a man is set at ease after cessation of his relation of the possessor or possession of any external object, and when this sense of his irrelation becomes a permanent feeling in him, he is then said to be liberated in his life time. 14
Great men like yourself, being placed in this state of perpetual unconcern and rest; conduct themselves in the discharge of their duties, with as much ease as in their sleep. 15
When one's desires are drowned in his reliance on God, he views the existing worldshining in his spiritual light.
He takes no delight in the pleasing objects about him, nor does he regret at the afflictions of others; all his pleasure consisting in his own soul; 16.
With his wakeful mind, he meets all the affairs of his concern with his spiritual unconcern; as the mirror receives the reflexions of objects, without being tainted by them.
In his waking he reposes in himself, and in his sleep he reclines amidst the drowsy world; in his actions he turns about as frolic some boys, and his desires lie dormant in his soul.
O you, great soul, thus continue to enjoy your supreme bliss, for the period of a Kalpa 17, by relying your mind in the victorious Visnu, and with enjoying the prosperity of your dominions by exercise of your virtues and good qualities. 18
Footnotes
1. Activity is the life of the body
2. Because the living liberated are freed from the cares of life, and future transmigrations also.
3. in pain and misery
4. Unattachment of the soul to the body and vital spirit, constitutes its freedom.
5. All external perceptions, are as those in a dream.
6. The soul is unconnected with all occurrences.
7. The increate soul is self existent and ever lasting.
8. Since God is the disposer of all events.
9. but lives resigned to the will of Providence
10. For as you sow, so you reap.
11. which is nothing to have or crave, save what God gave of his own will agreeably to the prayer, "Let not mine, but your will be done."
12. The gods and sages are all knowing, and have nothing to know or unknown any more.
13. Fullness can neither be more full, nor wanting in anything.
14. Total unconnection is perfect freedom.
15. Here is the main precept of the combination of internal turpitude with bodily action in the discharge of duties.
16. at its total indifference
17. a day of Brahmā
18. The ultimate lesson is, to be observant of the duties which are paramount on everybody, with relinquishment of all personal desire for one's self.
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