ON THE PERFECT CALM AND COMPOSURE OF THE MIND.
Argument.--The sages joining the assembly the next morning, and
preaching of Divine knowledge to it.
Válmíki related: Then the shade of night, with her face as dark as that
of the darkened moon, began to waste and wane away; as the darkness of
ignorance and the mists of human wishes, vanish before the light of
reason.
2. Now the rising sun showed his crown of golden rays, on the top
of the eastern mountain, by leaving his rival darkness to take its
rest, beyond the western or his setting mount of _astáchala_ (the two
mountains mean the eastern and western horizons).
3. Now the morning breeze began to blow, being moistened by the
moon-beams, and bearing the particles of ice, as if to wash the face
and eyes of the rising sun.
4. Now rose Ráma and Lakshmana, with their attendants also, from their
beds and couches; and after discharging their morning services, they
repaired to the holy hermitage of Vasishtha.
5. There they saw the Sage coming out of his closet, after discharge
of his morning devotion; and worshipped his feet with offerings of
_arghya_ (or flowers and presents worthy of him).
6. In a moment afterwards, the hermitage of the Sage was thronged by
_munis_ and Bráhmans, and the other princes and chiefs, whose vehicles
and cars and horses and elephants, blocked the pathways altogether.
7. Then the Sage being accompanied by these, and attended by their
suite and armies; and followed by Ráma and his brothers, was escorted
to the palace of the Sovereign King Dasaratha.
8. The king who had discharged his morning service, hastened to
receive the Sage before hand; and walked a great way to welcome him,
and do him honour and pay his homage.
9. They entered the court hall, which was adorned with flowers and
strings of gems and pearls; and there they seated themselves on the
rich sofas and seats, which were set in rows for their reception.
10. In a short time the whole audience of the last day, composed both
of the terrestrial men and celestial spirits, were all assembled at the
spot, and seated in their respective seats of honor.
11. All these entered that graceful hall, and saluted one another
with respect; and then the royal court shone as brilliant as a bed of
blooming lotuses, gently moved by the fanning breeze.
12. The mixed assemblage of the _munis_ and _rishis_ or the saints and
Sages, and the _Vipras_ and _Rájas_ or the Bráhmans and Kshatriyas, sat
in proper order, on seats appropriated for all of them.
13. The soft sounds of their mutual greetings and welcomes, gradually
faded away; and the sweet voice of the panegyrists and encomiasts,
sitting in a corner of the hall, was all hushed and lulled to silence.
14. The sun-beams appearing through the chinks in the windows, seemed
to be waiting in order to join the audience, and to listen to the
lectures of the Sage. (Another translation has it thus:--The audience
crept in the hall, no sooner the sun-beams peeped through the windows).
15. The jingling sound of bracelets, caused by the shaking of hands of
the visitors in the hall; was likely to lull to sleep the hearers of
the sage. (It was a custom in olden times, to make a tinkling sound to
ear, in order to lull one to sleep, as by a kind of mesmerism).
16. Then as Kumára looked reverently on the countenance of his sire
Siva, and as Kacha looked with veneration upon the face of the
preceptor of the God or Brihaspati; and as Prahlada gazed upon the face
of Shukra--the preceptor of demons, and as Suparna viewed the visage of
Krishna.
17. So did Ráma gloat upon the countenance of Vasishtha, and his
eye-balls rolled upon it, like the black bees fluttering about a full
blown lotus.
18. The sage resumed the link of his last lecture, and delivered his
eloquent speech to Ráma, who was well versed in eloquence also.
19. Vasishtha said:--Do you remember Ráma! the lecture that I gave
yesterday, which was fraught with deep sense and knowledge of
transcendental truth?
20. I will now tell you of some other things for your instruction, and
you shall have to hear it with attention, for consummation of your
spiritual wisdom.
21. Whereas it is the habit of dispassionateness, and the knowledge of
truth; whereby we are enabled to ford over the boisterous ocean of the
world, you must learn therefore, O Ráma! to practice and gain these
betimes.
22. Your full knowledge of all truth, will drive away your bias in
untruth; and your riddance from all desire, will save you from all
sorrow. (Desire is a burning fire, but want of yearning is want of pain
and sorrowing).
23. There exists but one Brahma, unbounded by space and time; He is
never limited by either of them; and is the world himself, though it
appears to be a distinct duality beside Him.
24. Brahma abides in all infinity and eternity, and is not limited
in any thing; He is tranquil and shines with equal effulgence on
all bodies; He cannot be any particular thing, beside his nature of
universality.
25. Knowing the nature of Brahma as such, be you freed from the
knowledge of your egoism (personality); and knowing yourself as the
same with him, think yourself as bodiless and as great as he; and thus
enjoy the tranquillity and felicity of your soul.
26. There is neither the mind nor the _avidyá_ (or ignorance), nor
the living principle, as distinct things in reality; they are all
fictitious terms (for the one and same nameless Brahma himself).
27. It is the self-same Brahma, that exhibits himself in the forms of
our enjoyments, in the faculties of enjoying them, in our desires and
appetites for the same, and in the mind also for their perception. The
great Brahma that is without beginning and end, underlies them all, as
the great ocean surrounds the earth (and supplies its moisture to every
thing upon it).
28. The same Brahma is seen in the form of his intellect (or wisdom) in
heavens, on earth and in the infernal regions, as also in the vegetable
and animal creations; and there is nothing else beside him.
29. The same Brahma, who has no beginning nor end, spreads himself like
the boundless and unfathomable ocean, under all bodies and things;
and in whatever we deem as favourable and unfavourable to us, as our
friends and our enemies.
30. The fiction of the mind, like that of a dragon, continues so long,
as we are subject to the error and ignorance of taking these words for
real things; and are unacquainted with the knowledge of Brahma (as
pervading all existence).
31. The error of the mind and its perceptibles, continues as long as
one believes his personality to consist in his body; and understands
the phenomenal world as a reality; and has the selfishness to think
such and such things to be his (since there is nothing which actually
belongs to any body, besides its temporary use).
32. So long as you do not raise yourself, by the counsel and in the
society of the wise and good; and as long as you do not get rid of your
ignorance; you cannot escape from the meanness of your belief in the
mind.
33. So long as you do not get loose of your worldly thoughts, and have
the light of the universal spirit before your view; you cannot get rid
of the contracted thoughts of your mind, yourself and the world.
34. As long as there is the blindness of ignorance, and one's
subjection to worldly desires; so long there is the delusion of
falsehood also, and the fictions of the fallacious mind.
35. As long as the exhalation of yearnings infest the forest of the
heart, the _chakora_ or parrot of reason will never resort to it; but
fly far away from the infected air.
36. The errors of thought disappear from that mind, which is unattached
to sensual enjoyments; which is cool with its pure inappetency, and
which has broken loose from its net of avarice.
37. He who has got rid of his thirst and delusion of wealth, and who
is conscious of the inward coolness of his soul, and who possesses the
tranquillity of his mind; such a person is said to have fled from the
province of his anxious thought.
38. He who looks upon unsubstantial things, as unworthy of his regard
and _reliance_; and who looks upon his body as extraneous to himself;
is never misled by the thoughts of his mind.
39. He who meditates on the infinite mind, and sees all forms of things
as ectypes of the universal soul; and who views the world absorbed in
himself; is never misled by the erroneous conception of the living
principle.
40. The partial view of a distinct mind and a living principle, serves
but to mislead a man (to the knowledge of erroneous particulars); all
which vanish away, at the sight of the rising sun of the one universal
soul.
41. Want of the partial view of the mind, gives the full view of one
undivided soul; which consumes the particulars, as the vivid fire burns
away the dry leaves of trees, and as the sacrificial fire consumes the
oblations of ghee or clarified butter.
42. Those men of great souls, who have known the supreme one, and
are self-liberated in their lifetime; have their minds without their
essences, and which are therefore called _asatwas_ or nonentities.
(These minds, says the gloss, are as the watermarks on the sand, after
a channel is dried up (or its waters have receded); meaning that the
mind remains in its print but not in its substance).
43. The body of the living liberated man, has a mind employed in its
duties, but freed from its desires; such minds are not _chittas_ or
active agents, but mere _sattwas_ or passive objects. They are no
more self-volitive free agents, but are acted upon by their paramount
duties. (Free will is responsible for its acts, but compulsion has no
responsibility).
44. They that know the truth, are mindless and unmindful of everything
save their duty; they rove about at pleasure and discharge their duties
by rote and practice, in order any object to gain.
45. They are calm and cold with all their actions and in all their
dealings; they have the members of their bodies and their senses under
full control, and know no desire nor duality.
46. The saint having his sight fixed upon his inner soul, sees the
world burnt down as straws by the fire of his intellect; and finds
his erroneous conceptions of the mind, to fly far away from it, like
flitting flies from a conflagration.
47. The mind which is purified by reason, is called the _sattwa_ as
said above, and does not give rise to error; as the fried paddy seed,
is not productive of the plant (The sattwa mind is spiritless and dead
in itself).
48. The word Sattwa means the contrary of Chitta, which latter is
used in lexicons to mean the mind, that has the quality of being
reborn on account of its actions and desires. (The chitta is defined
as the living seed of the mind, and productive of acts and future
regenerations, which the Sattwa or deadened mind cannot do).
49. You have to attain the attainable _Sattwa_ or torpid state of your
mind, and to have the seed of your active mind or _chitta_, singed by
the blaze of your spiritual mind or sattwa.
50. The minds of the learned, which are lighted by reason, are melted
down at once to liquidity; but those of the ignorant which are hardened
by their worldly desires, will not yield to the force of fire and
steel; but continue still to sprout up as the grass, the more they are
mowed and put on fire. (The over-growing grass in the fields, though
set on fire, will grow again from their unburnt roots, and became as
rank as before).
51. Brahma is vast expanse, and such being the vastness of the universe
too there is no difference between them; and the intellect of Brahma is
as full as the fulness of his essence.
52. The Divine Intellect contains the three worlds, as the pepper
has its pungency within itself. Therefore the triple world is not a
distinct thing from Brahma, and its existence and inexistence (_i.e._,
its creation and dissolution), are mere fictions of human mind. (It is
ever existent in the eternal mind).
53. It is the use of popular language, to speak of existence and
non-existence as different things; but they are never so in reality to
the right understanding. Since whatever is or is not in being, is ever
present in the Divine Mind.
53a. This being a vacuity, contains all things in their vacuous
state (which is neither the state of sensible existence, nor that of
intellectual inexistence either). God as the Absolute, Eternal, and
Spiritual substance, is as void as Thought. (The universe is a thought
in the mind of God, and existence is thought and activity in the Divine
Mind. Aristotle).
54. If you disbelieve in the intellectual, you can have no belief
in your spirituality also; then why fear to die for fear of future
retribution, when you leave your body behind to turn to dust. Tell me
Ráma! how can you imagine the existence of the world in absence of the
intellectual principle. (There can be no material world, without the
immaterial mind; nor can you think of it, if you have no mind in you).
55. But if you find by the reasoning of your mind, all things to be
mere intellections of the intellect at all times; then say why do you
rely on the substantiality of your body.
56. Remember Ráma, your pellucid intellectual and spiritual form, which
has no limit nor part of it, but is an unlimited and undivided whole;
and mistake not yourself for a limited being by forgetting your true
nature.
57. Thinking yourself as such, take all the discreet parts of the
universe as forming one concrete whole; and this is the substantial
intellect of Brahma.
58. Thou abidest in the womb of thy intellect, and art neither this nor
that nor any of the many discrete things interspersed in the universe.
Thou art as thou art and last as the _End_ and _Nil_ in thy obvious and
yet thy hidden appearances.
59. Thou art contained under no particular category, nor is there any
predicable which may be predicated of thee. Yet thou art the substance
of every predicament in thy form of the solid, ponderous and calm
intellect; and I salute thee in that form of thine.
60. Thou art without beginning and end, and abidest with thy body of
solid intellect, amidst the crystal sphere of thy creation, and shining
as the pure and transparent sky. Thou art calm and quiet, and yet
displayest the wondrous world, as the seed vessel shows the wooden of
vegetation.