CONTINUATION OF THE SAME. ON THE SEVEN STAGES OF EDIFICATION.
Argument:--The three stages of the seekers of Liberation, and the three
others of the Liberated.
Manu continued:--Enlightenment of the understanding by the study of the
sástras and attendance on holy and wise men, is said to be the first
stage of yoga by yogis. (These seven stages have been spoken of before
in other words in the Utpatti-prakarana).
2. Discussion and reconsideration of what has been learnt before, is
second stage of yoga; the third is the rumination of the same in one's
self and is known under the name of _nididhyásana_ or self-communion
of meditation. The fourth is silent meditation in which one loses his
desires and darkness in his presence before the light of God. (This
is called the atmásakshyat kara also; and all these four stages are
expressed in the vedic text. [Sanskrit: átmáváre svítavá mantabá
nididhyásitava karttavasveti]).
3. The fifth stage is one of pure consciousness and felicity, wherein
the living-liberated-devotee remains in his partly waking and partly
sleeping state. (This is half hypnotism).
4. The sixth stage in one's consciousness of ineffable bliss, in which
he is absorbed in a state of trance or sound sleep. (This is known as
samádhi or hypnotism).
5. One's resting in the fourth and succeeding stages, is called his
liberation, and then the seventh stage is the state of an even and
transparent light, in which the devotee loses his self consciousness.
6. The state above turya or fourth stage, is called _nirvána_ or
extinction in God; and the seventh stage of perfection relates to
disembodied souls only and not to those of living beings.
7. The first three stages relate to the waking state of man, and the
fourth stage concerns the sleeping state, in which the world appears in
the manner of a dream.
8. The fifth stage is the stage of sound sleep, in which the soul is
drowned in deep felicity; and the unconsciousness of one's self in the
sixth stage, is also called his turya or fourth state: (because it is
beyond the three states of waking, sleeping or dreaming and sound sleep
[Sanskrit: jagatnidrasusuptáh]).
9. The seventh stage is still above the _turya_ state of
self-unconsciousness; and which is full of divine effulgence, whose
excellence no words can express nor the mind can conceive.
10. In this state the mind being withdrawn from its functions, it is
freed from all thoughts of the thinkables, and all its doubts and cares
are drowned in the calm composure of its even temperament.
11. The mind that remains unmoved amidst its passions and enjoyments,
and is unchanged in prosperity and adversity, and retains full
possession of itself under all circumstances, becomes of this nature
both in its embodied and disembodied states of life and death.
12. The man that does not think himself to be alive or dead, or to be a
reality or otherwise; but always remains joyous in himself, is one who
is verily called to be liberated in his life time. (The happy minded
are accounted as liberated in life).
13. Whether engaged in business or retired from it, whether living with
a family or leading a single life (_i.e._ whether leading a social or
solitary mode of life), the man that thinks himself as naught but the
intellect, and has nothing to fear or care or to be sorry for in this
world, is reckoned as liberated in this life.
14. The man who thinks himself to be unconnected with any one, and to
be free from disease, desire, and affections; and who believes himself
to be a pure aerial substance of the divine intellect, has no cause to
be sorry for anything.
15. He who knows himself to be without beginning and end, and decay and
demise, and to be of the nature of pure intelligence; remains always
quiet and composed in himself, and has no cause for sorrow at all.
16. He that deems himself to belong to that intellect, which dwells
alike in the minute blade of grass, as well as in the infinite space
of the sky, and in the luminous sun, moon and stars, and as also in
the various races of beings, as men, Nágas and immortals; has no cause
whatever for his sorrow.
17. Whoso knows the majesty of the divine intellect, to fill all the
regions both above and below and on all sides of him, and reflects
himself as a display of his endless diversity, how can he be sorry at
all for his decay and decline.
18. The man that is bound to (or enslaved by his desire), is delighted
to have the objects he seeks; but the very things tending to his
pleasure by their gain, prove to be painful to his heart at their loss.
(Hence the wise are never elated or dejected, at either gain or loss of
temporal things, but are ever pleased and content with their spiritual
souls only which they can never lose).
19. The presence or absence of some thing, is the cause of the pleasure
or pain of men in general; but it is either the curtailment or want of
desires that is practiced by the wise. (The diminishing of desires is
practiced by yogis in the fourth and its two succeeding stages; but its
utter annihilation occurs only in the seventh and last stage of yoga).
20. No act of ours nor its result (whether good or bad), conduces
either to our joy or grief, which we do with unconcern or little desire
or expectation of its reward.
21. Whatever act is done with ardent employment of the members of the
body, and the application of the whole heart, mind and soul to it, such
an act tends to bind a man; otherwise an indifferent action like a
fried grain, does not germinate into any effect.
22. The thought that I am the doer and owner of a deed, overpowers all
bodily exertions, and sprouts fourth with results, that are forever
binding on the doer (_i.e._ an indifferent action may pass for nothing,
but a conscious and meditated act is binding on the actor).
23. As the moon is cool with her cooling beams; and the sun is hot by
his burning heat; so a man is either good or bad according as the work
he does.
24. All acts which are done or left undone, are as fugacious as the
flying cotton on cotton trees; they are easily put to flight by the
breath of understanding (Jnána or wisdom). All the acts of men are lost
by discontinuance of their practice (as in Jnána khanda).
25. The germ of knowledge growing in the mind, increases itself day by
day, as the corn sown in good ground soon shoots forth into the paddy
plant.
26. There is one universal soul, that sparkles through all things in
the world, as it is the same translucent water, that glistens in lake
and large oceans and seas.
27. Withhold sir, your notions of the varieties and multiplicities of
things, and know these as parts of one undivided whole, which stretches
through them as their essence and soul.