Philosophy and Religion / Yoga Vāsistha / Yoga-Vāsistha (6.2): Nirvāna-Prakarana

Válmiki

Yoga-Vāsistha, Book 6: Nirvāna-Prakarana (On ultimate extinction) - part 2. Chapter 216 - Conclusion of the Celestial Messenger's Message of Liberation

Vālmīki continued to say: I have thus related to you, O prince, whatever the pot born Vasistha had taught and preached to the princes; and it is certain that you will attain the same elevated state, as they did by the hearing of these lectures on sacred knowledge.

The Prince Aristanemi replied: O Venerable sir, your kind look is enough to extricate us from bondage in this world; and it is hence that I am not only brought to light, but saved from the ocean of this world by your favour.

The Heavenly Messenger said:- After saying so, the said prince seemed to look amazed in his look; and then he began to speak these words to me with a graceful voice.

The Prince said: I bow down to you, O Messenger divine, and wish all safety to attend on you; it is said that the friendship of the good is attended with seven benefits, all which have you conferred upon me.

Now return in safety to your seat in the heaven of Indra, and well know that, I am both gladdened as well as grown insouciant of worldly concerns, by hearing this discourse of yours.

I shall continue to remain here forever more, and without feeling any anxiety, to think well and ponder deeply into the sense of all that I have heard from you. Now I tell you, O Lady! that I was quite surprised ¹.

He said: I have never heard before, such words and fraught with so much knowledge, as I have come now to hear from you; It has filled my inward spirit with as much joy, as if I have drunk my fill of an ambrosial draught just now.

I then repaired to you, O you sinless fairy, at the bidding of Vālmīki; in order to relate unto you all that you have asked of me. And now I shall bend my course, towards the celestial city of Śukra.

The fairy said: I must thank you now, O you very fortunate emissary of the Gods! for all that you have related to me; and my knowledge whereof, has entirely composed my spirit, by its benign influence.

I am now quite satisfied in myself, and will ever remain from sorrow and all the sickening cares of life; and you may now to your destination at Indras, with all speed attending on your journey thither.

So saying Suruci-the best of fairies, continued to keep her seat on the slope of the Himalayas, and contiguous to the Gandhamādana mount of fragrance, and reflect on the sense of what she had heard ².

Now as you have fully heard my son, all the precepts of Vasistha, you are at liberty to do as you like, by your weighing well their purport. ³

Kārunya said: The remembrance of the past the sight of the present, and the talk of future events, together with the existence of the world; are all as false as the sights in our dreams or of water in mirage, or as the birth of a boy of a barren woman.

I gain nothing from my deeds, nor lose aught by what is left undone; I live to do as it happens, or at the impulse of the occasion and without any assiduity on my part.

Agasti said: Kārunya- The worthy son of Agnibesya, said in the aforesaid manner, and continued to pass his time on the discharge of his duties, as they occurred to him from time to time.

And you O Sutīksana! should never entertain any doubts regarding the acts, that you shall have to perform after your attainment of divine knowledge, ⁴. Because dubitation destroys the virtue of the deed, as selfishness takes away its merit.

Upon hearing this speech of the sage, which reconciles the duplicity of action and reflection, into the unity of their combination; he bowed to his preceptor and uttered as follows with due submission to him.

Sutīksana said: Any action done in ignorance of the actor, is reckoned as no act of his, unless it is done in his full knowledge to be taken into account. ⁵. But action done with reason and reasonable men, are invaluable in their nature. All our acts are best seen by the light of the intellect as the actions of stage-players are seen only in the candle light. ⁶

It is the presence of the supreme soul in us, that the action of our hearts, directs the motions of our bodies; as it is the malleability of gold, that moulds it to the many forms of jewelleries. ⁷

As it is the great body of waters, that gives rise to the boisterous waves, as well as the little playful billows, that heave and move in our sight; so it is the in being of the great soul, that fills all the great and small alike.

I submit to and bear with all that befalls to me, because there is no escape from destiny, nor slighting of the sound sayings of sages; and I acknowledge O Venerable sir, to owe my knowledge of the knowable One to your good grace only.

I own myself to be quite felicitous by your favour, and bow down prostrate to you on the ground, for your lifting me up from the doleful pit of the world; because there is no other way to repay my gratitude to my venerable preceptor.

Nay there is no other act, whereby one may give expression to his obligation to his tutor, for his salvation in this world, save by means of offering himself to his services; with his whole body and mind and the words of his mouth.

It is by your good grace, O my good sir, that I have passed over the Rubican of this world; I am filled with infinite joy amidst all these worlds, and am set free from all my doubts.

I bow down to that Brahma, who is sung in the Sāmaveda, as filling all this universe, as the waters of the ocean fill the boundless deep; and whose remembrance fills our soul with ecstasy.

I bow down also to the sage Vasistha, who is of the form of incarnate knowledge alone, and who is immerged in the joyous bliss of divine felicity; who is beyond all duality and sees the only One in the unity of infinite vacuity. Who is ever alike the pure and immaculate One, and witnesses the inmost of all minds; who is beyond all states and conditions ⁸; and who is quite devoid of the three qualities ⁹.

Here ends the Mahārāmāyana of the sage Vasistha, with its continuation by his recorder Vālmīki, and the speech of the celestial messenger at the latter end of the Book on Nirvāna or the ultimate Extinction of the living soul.

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