BIRTH AND INCARNATION OF ADEPTS IN YOGA.
Argument. Production of the Body from the Mind.
Ráma asked:—What evidence is there sir, in proof of Lavana’s obtaining
the reward of his mental sacrifice of Rájasúya, in his transformation
to the state of the Chandála, as it was wrought upon him by the
enchantment of the magician?
2. Vasishtha answered:—I was myself present in the court-house of king
Lavana, at the time when the magician made his appearance there, and I
saw all that took place there with my own eyes.
3. After the magician had gone and done his work, I with the other
courtiers, was respectfully requested by the king Lavana, to explain to
him the cause (of the dream and its circumstances).
4. After I had pondered the matter and clearly seen its cause, I
expounded the meaning of the magician’s spell, in the way as I shall now
relate to you, my Ráma!
5. I remembered that all the performers of Rájasúya sacrifice, were
subjected to various painful difficulties and dangers, under which they
had to suffer for a full dozen of years.
6. It was then that Indra, the lord of heaven had compassion for Lavana,
and sent his heavenly messenger in the form of the magician to avert his
calamity.
7. He taxed the Rájasúya sacrificer with the inflictment of the very
many hardships in his dream, and departed in his aerial journey to the
abode of the gods and Siddhas.
8. (Prose) Thus Ráma! it is quite evident and there is no doubt in it.
The mind is the active and passive agent of all kinds of actions and
their sequences.
(_a_). Therefore rub out the dirt of your heart, and polish the gem of
your mind; and having melted it down like the particle of an icicle, by
the fire of your reason, attain to your chief good _summum bonum_ at
last.
(_b_). Know the mind as self-same with ignorance (avidyá), which
presents these multitudes of beings before you, and produces the endless
varieties of things by its magical power.
(_c_). There is no difference in the meanings of the words ignorance,
mind, understanding and living soul, as in the word tree and all its
synonyms.
(_d_). Knowing this truth, keep a steady mind freed from all its
desires; and as the orb of the clear sun of your intellect has its rise,
so the darkness of your _nolens_ and _volens_ flies away from you.
(_e_). Know also this truth, that there is nothing in the world which is
not to be seen by you, and which can not be made your own, or alienated
from you. Nothing is there that does not die or what is not yours or
others. All things become all at all times. (This dogma is based on a
dictum of the Vedánta given in the Madhu Bráhmana. That nothing is
confined in any place or person at all times, but passes from one to
another in its turn and time).
9. The multitudes of existent bodies and their known properties, meet
together in the substantiality (of the self-same Brahma); as the various
kinds of unburnt clay vessels, are melted down in the same watery
substance.
10. Ráma said:—You said sir, that it is by weakening the desires of our
mind, that we can put an end to our pleasures and pains; but tell me
now, how is it possible to stop the course of our naturally fickle
minds.
11. Vasishtha replied:—Hear, O thou bright moon of Raghu’s race! the
proper course that I will tell thee for quieting the restless mind; by
knowing this thou shalt obtain the peace of thy mind, and be freed from
the actions of thy organs of sense.
12. I have told you before of the triple nature of the production of
beings here below, which I believe, you well remember.
13. Of these the first is that power (Brahmá), who assumed to himself
the shape of the Divine Will (Sankalpa), and saw in his presence
whatever he wished to produce, and which brought the mundane system into
existence.
14. He thought of many changes in his mind, as those of birth and death,
of pleasure and pain, of the course of nature and effect of ignorance
and the like; and then having ordained them as he willed, he disappeared
of himself as snow before the solar light.
15. Thus this god, the personification of Will, rises and sets
repeatedly, as he is prompted from time to time by his inward wish. (So
does every living being come out of the mould of its internal desire. Or
that:—it is the wish, that frames and fashions every body, or the will
that moulds the mind).
16. So there are millions of Brahmás born in this mundane egg, and many
that have gone by and are yet to come, whose number is innumerable (and
who are incarnations of their desires only).
17. So are all living beings in the same predicament with Brahmá,
proceeding continually from the entity of God. Now I will tell you the
manner in which they live, and are liberated from the bond of life.
18. The mental power of Brahmá issuing from him, rests on the wide
expanse of vacuum which is spread before it; then being joined with the
essence of ether, becomes solidified in the shape of desire.
19. Then finding the miniature of matter spread out before it, it
becomes the quintessence of the quintuple elements. Having assumed
afterwards the inward senses, it becomes a suitable elementary body
composed of the finest particles of the five elements. It enters into
grains and vegetables, which re-enter into the bowels of animals in the
form of food.
20. The essence of this food in the form of semen, gives birth to living
beings to infinity.
21. The male child betakes himself in his boy-hood, to his tutor for the
acquisition of knowledge.
22. The boy next assumes his wondrous form of youth, which next arrives
to the state of manhood.
23. The man afterwards learns to choose something for himself, and
reject others by the clearsightedness of his internal faculties.
24. The man that is possessed of such right discrimination of good and
evil, and of right and wrong, and who is confident of the purity of his
own nature, and of his belonging to the best caste (of a Brahmán);
attains by degrees the supernatural powers for his own good, as also for
the enlightenment of his mind, by means of his knowledge of the seven
essential grounds of Yoga meditation.