ASCERTAINMENT OF LIVING LIBERATION.
Argument.--Instances of Living Liberation in Hari, Hara and others, and
its consisting in the oecumenical knowledge of the one Brahma in all
and every thing.
Vasishtha said:--I tell you again and repeatedly O pious Ráma! for your
understanding, that you can never know the spirit without your constant
habit, of contemplating on it in your self-cogitation. (So the Sruti.
_Atmá vára, mant avyam_, "the soul is to be constantly thought upon"
and so also the Vedánta aphorism "asakrit upadesat" the soul is known
by repeated instructions on spiritual knowledge).
2. It is gross ignorance which is known as nescience, and it becomes
compact by the accumulated erroneous knowledge of previous births and
past life (namely; the errors of the dualities of matter and spirit
and of the living and Supreme soul, and the plurality of material and
sensible objects).
3. The perceptions of the external and internal senses of body, both
in the states of sensibility and insensibility, are also the causes
of great errors or ignorance _crasse_ of embodied beings. (_i.e._ The
sensible perceptions are preventives of spiritual knowledge which
transcends the senses and is called [Sanskrit: atíndriya]).
4. Spiritual knowledge is far beyond the cognizance of the senses, and
is only to be arrived at after subjection of the five external organs
of sense, as also of the mind which is the sixth organ of sensation.
5. How then is it possible to have a sensible knowledge of the spirit,
whose essence is beyond the reach of our faculties of sense, and whose
powers transcend those of all our sensible organs? (_i.e._ Neither is
the spirit perceptible by our senses, nor does it perceive all things
by senses like ours). So the Srutis He is not to be perceived by the
faculties of our sense, who does and perceives all with our organs.
([Sanskrit: na tatra vaggacchati namani ápanipádau yavanagtahítá]).
6. You must cut off this creeper of ignorance, which has grown up in
the hollow of the tree of your heart, with the sharp sword of your
knowledge, if you should have your consummation as an adept in divine
wisdom.
7. Conduct yourself Ráma! in the same manner in the practice of your
spiritual knowledge, as the king Janaka does with his full knowledge of
all that is knowable to man.
8. He is quite confident in his certain knowledge of the main truth,
both when he is employed in his active duties, in his waking state as
well as when he remains quiet at his leisure. (The end of knowledge is
to know God, and to rely on him both in busy and in active life).
9. It was by his reliance on this certain truth, that Hari was led
to the performance of his various acts in his repeated births or
incarnations. (A god in human flesh does his works as a god).
10. May you, Ráma! be certain of the main truth, which conducted the
three-eyed god Siva in the company of his fair consort; and which led
the dispassionate Brahmá to the act of creation. (_i.e._ the passionate
and unimpassioned and those that are active or inactive are equally
assured of this truth).
11. It was the assurance of this eternal verity, which led the
preceptors of the gods and demons, even Brihaspati and Bhargava, in
their duties; and which guide the sun and moon in their courses, and
even directs the elements of fire and air in the wonted ways.
12. This truth was well known to the host of Sages, including Narada
and Pulastya, Angira and Pracheta, and Bhrigu Krutu, Atri and Suka, as
it is known to me also.
13. This is the certainty which has been arrived at by all other
learned Brahmans and Sages, and this is the firm belief of every body,
that has been liberated in his life time.
14. Ráma said:--Tell me truly, O venerable sir, the true nature of the
truth, on which the great gods and wisest sages, have grounded their
belief, and became freed from their sorrow and grief (in this world of
sorrow and tears).
15. Vasishtha replied:--Hear me tell you! O worthy prince that art
great in arms as in thy knowledge of all things, the plain truth in
reply to your question, and the certitude arrived at by all of them
(named above).
16. All these spacious worlds, that you behold to be spread all about
you, they are all that One or _on_, and are situated in the immensity
of Brahma. (In their real or spiritual nature, and after obliteration
of the erroneous forms in which they appear to you. Their phenomenal
appearances, being but the misconceptions of our errors).
17. Brahma is the intellect, and the same is this world and all its
animate and inanimate creatures also; Myself and Brahma and so art thou
thyself, and such are all our friends and foes beside us.
18. Brahma is the tripletime of the past, present and future, all which
are comprehended in his eternity; in the manner of the continuity of
waves, billows and surges, contained in the immensity of the ocean.
19. It is thus the same Brahma that appears to us in all the various
forms of our perception, and in the different shapes of the actor,
action and its act, as those of the feeder, feeding and the food, and
of the receiver, reception and the thing received. (There being but
the only unity of God, the same is changed to all forms of action and
passion and so says the poet "that change through all and yet in all
the same" and also unvaried in all with a varied name. This the vedánta
says to be the _vivarta rúpa_ or the one changed in many form _vividha_
many, and varta let vertuus changed [Sanskrit: paribatta].)
20. Brahma expands in himself by his power of evolution, or unfolding
himself by his vivarta sakti; Hence He would be our enemy if he would
do any thing unfavourable into us. (God is good and never does any evil
to any one: all he does in and to himself)?
21. Thus Brahma being situated and employed with himself, does nothing
aught of good or evil to any other. The attribution of passions to
him, is as the planting of a tree in empty air. (God is not capable of
any human attribute, as it is usual with anthropomorphists to load him
with).
22. How very delighted are they that are dead to their desires, to
reflect on this truth, that they are continually living and moving in
the all pervading Brahma. (In Him we live and move).
23. All things are full of Brahma, and there is naught of pleasure or
pain herein; Brahma resides in his self-same all and is pleased with
all in himself. (The one is full of bliss with all in himself).
24. The Lord is manifest in his Lordship, and I am no other person
beside himself; this pot and that painting and I myself, are full with
the self-same Brahma.
25. Hence it is in vain to speak of our attachment or aversion to
worldliness, since we bear our bodies and dare to die in Brahma only.
(It is that something, for which we bear to live, and dare to die,
Pope).
26. Our bodies being the abodes of Brahma, it is as false to think to
our bodily pains, as also of our pleasure in bodily enjoyments, as to
take a rope for a serpent. (Hence we can have no sense of our pleasure
or pain, as long we know ourselves to be situated in Brahma and He in
us).
27. How say you, that this or that is your doing, when you have the
power of doing nothing. (The fluctuation of the billows on the surface
of the sea, cannot agitate the waters of the deep below.)
28. Myself, thyself and himself, and all others, are but the breaths of
the universal spirit; and they heave and then subside to rest as waves
of the sea; but the spirit of God, like the water of the deep, neither
rises nor falls as ourselves or the fleeting waves at any time.
29. All persons returning to Brahma after their death, have their
bodies also reduced into Him and retain their personal identity in Him
in the same manner, as the moving and unmoving waters rest alike in the
sea.
30. All moving and unmoving souls and bodies, rest alike in the supreme
Brahma; as the _Jíva_ and its form reside in God, and the whirling and
still waters remain in the same sea.
31. The soul and the body, are the two states of the likeness and
unlikeness of Brahma, the one is the living soul of bodies, and the
other is the gross body itself.
32. Irrational souls, that are ignorant of this truth, are verily
subject to delusion; but the rational souls are not so, but enjoy their
full bliss on earth, while the other is ever doomed to misery.
33. The blind behold the world all dark, while the eye-sighted find it
fully bright and shining; so the wise are blessed with the knowledge of
the one soul of the whole, while the ignorant are immerged in misery,
by their want of such knowledge.
34. As the darkness of the night, presents its goblins and spectres, to
the sight of children only, and not those of the grown up and adult; so
the world presents its delusions to ignorant and never to the wise, who
behold one Brahma only in all things before them.
35. There is nothing here that lives of itself, nor dies away to
nothing; all equally exist in God at all time, and nothing is doomed to
be born or perish herein to happiness or misery.
36. All beings are situated in the universal soul, as the waves in the
vast expanse of the ocean, therefore it is erroneous to say the one
reside in the spirit, and another to be beside it.
37. As there is an inborn light in the crystal, which is capable of
reflecting a variety of rays, so the spirit of God dwells in his own
spirit in the form of the universe, showing various shapes to view by
the inner light of the spirit.
38. As the particles of water flying from the waves, fall into the sea
and mix with its body of water; so the bodies of dying people, fall
into the body of Brahma, wherein they subsisted in their life time. (So
there is neither an increase or diminution of the essence of Brahma, by
the birth or death or increase or decrease of beings in the world).
39. There is nobody nor being beside the being of Brahma, as there is
no wave nor foam or froth of the sea beside the water of the deep.
40. As the billows and waves, the surges and eddies, and their froths
and foams, and bubbles and minute particles, are all formations of
water in the great body of waters; so are all beings but productions
of the spirit in the Infinite spirit. (All matter is reduced to the
spirits, and the spirits are consolidated to material substances by
chemical process).
41. All bodies with their various modes, and organs of sense and their
several functions, and all visible objects and their growth and decay,
together with every thing conducing to our happiness and misery, and
all other energies and their gains, are the works of Brahma in himself.
(_i.e._ they are the self reflective acts of gods and not done for the
sake of others).
42. The production of these various beings in _esse_, is from the
essence of Brahma; as the formation of different ornaments, is from the
substance of gold. There is no other formal cause or formation distinct
from Brahma, and the distinction of the cause and its creation, is the
erroneous conception of the ignorant.
43. The mind, understanding, egoism, and the elemental atoms, and the
organs of sense, are all the various forms of Brahma; wherefore there
is cause of our joy or grief.
44. The words I, thou, he, and this and that, as also the terms of
the mind and matter, are all significant of the self-same Brahma
_átmátmani_, in the same manner as the roaring of a cloud in the hills,
resounds in a hundred echoes through their caverns. (All words applied
to every thing, relate to the one self-same Brahma who is all in all
_to pan_).
45. Brahma appears as an unknown stranger to us, through our ignorance
of him, as the visions seen in a dream by our mind itself, appear
foreign to us. (_i.e._ Our belief in the visibles is the cause of our
disbelief in the invisible God; as our familiarity with the objects of
our waking state, makes us reject our visionary dreams as false).
46. Ignorance of Brahmá as Brahma or what he is, makes men to reject
divine knowledge altogether; as our ignorance of the quality of gold
causes us to cast it off dross. (Brahma to the brute is, as the gem in
the dung hill cast away by the silly cock).
47. Brahma is known as the Supreme spirit and sole Lord, by those who
are acquainted with divine knowledge; but he is said to be unknown and
involved in ignorance by them that are ignorant of Him.
48. Brahma being known as Brahma, becomes manifested such in a moment;
just as gold when known as such, is taken in due esteem.
49. Those who are versed in divine knowledge, know Brahma as without a
cause and causing nothing by himself, and that he is free from decay,
and is the Supreme spirit and sole Lord of all.
50. He who can meditate in himself, on the omnipotence of Supreme
spirit of Brahma; comes to behold him as such in a short time, even
without a leader to guide him in his spiritual knowledge (one's own
faith in Divine Omnipotence, is the surest means to the sight of his
Maker).
51. The want of divine knowledge, that is called the ignorance of the
ignorant; whereas it is the knowledge of God, that constitutes the true
knowledge which removes the ignorance.
52. As an unknown friend is no friend at all, until he is recognized as
such, after removal of one's forgetfulness; so God is no God to one, as
long he continues in ignorance of Him.
53. We can then only know God, when the mind comes to perceive the
unconnection of the soul with the body; and whereby it alienates itself
from all worldly connections in disgust.
54. It is then that we come to know the one true God, when the mind is
freed from its knowledge of duality; and by its distaste of dualism, it
abandons its attachment to the world.
55. We then come to the knowledge of God, when we come to know
ourselves to be other than our persons; and when by getting rid of our
personal egoism, we forsake our affection for this unkindred world.
56. It is then that the thought of God rises in our minds, when we
come to the true knowledge of thinking ourselves the same with Brahma;
and when the mind is absorbed in the meditation of the divine truth in
one's self. (This is the sublimation of the Yogi to the divine state;
or when the Yogi loses himself, in his rapturous vision on the one God.
This kind of meditation is indicated in the formula "Soham" in Vedánta
and _an ald Huq_ in sufism).
57. God being known as the _tout ensemble_ or comprising the whole
_plenum_, we come to believe the same as Brahma; and losing our egoism
and tuism in the same, we come to the knowledge of that entity only
comprising the entire universe. (This belief of the entirety of the
Deity, is expressed in the words "_Tat Sat_" corresponding with _to
on_, _idest_, _alast_, that is, He in the creeds of other people).
58. When I come to know this true and omniform Brahma, as all in all,
and forming the entire whole; I become released from all my sorrow
and grief, and am set free from all my delusion and desire, and the
responsibility of my duties (from the belief of God's agency in all
things).
59. I am quite calm and at ease and without any sorrow or grief, by my
knowledge of the truth, that I am no other than Brahma Himself; I am as
cool as the moon, without her spots and phases in me, and I am the all
entire, without any disease, decay or diminution in me. (This is said
with regard to the universal soul, which engrosses all souls and things
in itself).
60. It is true that I am the all pervading Brahma, and therefore I can
neither wish to have or leave any thing from me; being of myself the
blood, bones and flesh of my body. (The soul is the source of the body,
and the spirit its life, without which it decays and dies away).
61. It is true that I am Brahma the universal soul, and therefore the
intellect, mind and sensibility also; I am the heaven and sky with
their luminaries and quarters and the nether worlds also.
62. It is true that I am Brahma, composing this pot and painting, these
bushes and brambles, these forests and their grass, as also the seas
and their waves. (One God is manifest in many forms).
63. The unity of Brahma is a certain truth, and it is the ego which is
manifest in the seas and mountains and all living beings; and in the
qualities of reception and emission, and of extension and contraction
in all material bodies. (It is the Divinity that actuates the physical
powers in nature).
64. All things of extended forms situated in the intellectual spirit of
Brahma, who is the cause of the growth of creepers and plants, and of
the germination of vegetative seeds.
65. The supreme Brahma resides in his sheath of the intellectual soul,
in the manner of flavour in the cup of the flower; and thence diffuses
itself on all sides in the form of everything everywhere.
66. He that is known as only soul of all, and who is ascertained as
the supreme spirit, and who is designated by the appellations of the
intellectual soul, Brahma the great, the only entity and reality, the
Truth and Intelligence and apart from all.
67. He is said to be the all-inhering element, and Intelligence only
without the intelligibles in it; He is the pure light that gives every
being its consciousness of itself.
68. He appears to the spiritualist to be existent everywhere, as the
tranquil and intelligent Brahma; and contains in himself the powers of
all the faculties of the mind and body, such as the understanding and
the organs of sense, so the sruti; "He is the mind of the mind, the
sight of the eye." [Sanskrit: yascat?u sascat?unmanásá manoyadityádi].
69. Give up the thought of thy difference from Brahma by knowing
thyself as the reflexion of the intelligent soul; which is the cause of
the causes of the existence of the world. Such as vacuum and others,
which are causes of sound and are caused by vacuous spirit of God
(and not as the vacuists and materialists belief them, to be increate
essences from eternity).
70. The intellect of Brahma is the transparent receptacle of all
essences, and my ego is of the same essence, which exudes continually
as a shower of rain, from the transparent spirit of God.
71. I am that light which shines in the souls of yogis, and I am that
silent spirit which is supported by the ambrosial drops of Divine
Intellect; which continually distils its nectarious juice into our
souls, as we may feel in ourselves.
72. I am as a wheel or circle without having the beginning or end of
myself, and by having the pure intellect of Brahma in me. I am quiet in
my deep sleep of samádhi meditation, and I perceive holy light shining
within me. (The yogi in his devotion is absorbed in the calmness of his
soul and is wrapt in divine light).
73. The thought that I am Brahma, affords afar greater delight to the
soul, than the taste of any sweet meat, which gives but a momentary
delight, so the sruti:--God is all sweetness [Sanskrit: rasobetat]
(sweet is the memory of a friend, and sweeter far must be the thought
of God, who is best and greatest friend).
74. One knowing his soul and intellect, knows the indestructible Brahma
and himself as identic with the same; as one whose mind is possessed
with the image of his beloved, beholds her bright countenance in the
shining orb of the moon.
75. As the sights of earthly people are fixed in the etherial moon,
so the sight of intellectual beings, is fixed in the supreme and
indestructible soul, which he knows as self-same with himself.
76. The intellectual power which is situated in the vacuity of the
heart, is verily the verity of the immaculate Brahma himself. Its
pleasure and pain, and mutability and divisibility, are attributed to
by ignorance only.
77. The soul that has known the truth, knows himself as the supreme
Intellect, as the pilgrim on the way sees only his saint before him,
and no intermediate object besides.
78. The belief that I am the pure and all pervading intellect, is
attended with the purity and holiness of the soul, and the knowledge
of the Divine power as the cause of the union of earth, air and water
in the production of the germ of creation, is the main creed of all
creeds.
79. I am that intellect of Brahma which is inherent in all things as
their productive power; and I am that soul which causes the sweetness
of the _beal_ and bitterness of _nimba_ fruits.
80. I am that divine intellect which inheres alike in all flavours,
which is devoid of pain and pleasure and which I perceived in my mind
by my consciousness.
81. I am the undecaying intellect of Brahma, and deem my gain and loss
in equal light of indifference; while I view this earth and sky, and
the sun and moon displayed before my eyes in all their glory.
82. I am that pure and serenely bright Brahma, whose glory is displayed
alike in all of these, and which I behold to shine vividly before me,
whether when I am awake or asleep or whenever I am in the state of
dreaming or profound sleep.
83. I am that Brahma who is without beginning and end, who is known by
his four fold hypostases, and is ever indestructible and undecaying. He
resides in the souls of men in the form of sweetness in the sugarcane
through all their transmigrations.
84. I am that intellect of Brahma, which like the sunshine pervades
equally in the form of transparent light in and above all created
beings.
85. I am that all pervasive intellect of Brahma, which like the
charming moon light fills the whole universe; and which we feel and
taste in our hearts, as the delicious draught of ambrosia.
86. I am that intellect of Brahma, which extends undivided over the
whole and all parts of the universe, and which embraces all existence
as the moving clouds of heaven encompasses the firmament.