BURNING OF THE _Seeds of Action_ FOR PREVENTION
OF THEIR VEGETATION.
Argument:—Concerning the seeds _and fruits_ of action, and the
mode of their extirpation by the root.
Vasishtha continued:—Think not of unity or duality, but remain quite
calm and quiet in thy spirit and as cold hearted as the dank mud and
mire, as the worlds are still with unstirry spirit of the divinity
working in them. (This is a lesson of incessant work without any stir
and bustle).
2. The mind with its understanding and egoism and all its thoughts, are
full of the divine spirit in its diversified forms (vivarta-rúpa); and
time and its motion and all sound, force and action, together with all
modes of existence, are but manifestations of the Divine Essence.
3. The Divine Spirit, being of the form of gelatinous mud (or plastic
nature), all things with their forms and colours, and the mind and all
its functions also, upon its own mould of endless shapes and types
beyond the comprehension of men.
4. It is the Divine Essence which forms its own substance as upon a
mould of clay, the patterns and forms and the shapes of all things,
together with the measurements of space and time and the position of all
the quarters and regions of the earth and heavens; so all things
existent or inexistent, are the produce and privation of the formative
mud and mould of the Divine Spirit.
5. Do you remain indifferent about the essence of your egoism and
selfishness, which is no other than that of the Supreme Spirit; and live
unconcerned with everything, like a dumb insect in the bosom of stone.
(This is the Vajra-Kita, which perforates the sálagram stone in the
river Gandak in Bihar). (The dumbness of silent munis was occasioned by
their inability to speak with certainty anything regarding the abstruse
spiritual subjects).
6. Ráma asked:—Sir, if the false knowledge of egoism and selfishness, be
wanting in the wise and God knowing man, then how comes it, that the
dereliction and renunciation of his duties, will entail any guilt or
evil upon him, and his full observance of them, is attended with any
degree of merit or reward? (This is the main question of the necessity
of the observance of duteous and pious acts by the wise, which is after
so long mooted by Ráma, in continuation of the last subject under
discussion).
7. Vasishtha replied:—I will ask you also one question, O sinless Ráma!
and you should answer it soon, if you understand well what is rightly
meant by the term duty and that of activity.
8. Tell me what is the root of action and how far it extends, and
whether it is destructible at last or not, and how it is totally
destroyed at the end.
9. Ráma replied:—Why sir, whatever is destructible must come to be
destroyed at last, by means of the act of rooting it out at once, and
not by the process of lopping the branches or cutting off the tree.
10. The acts of merit and demerit are both to be destroyed, together
with their results of good and evil; and this is done by eradicating and
extirpating them altogether.
11. Hear me tell you, sir, about the roots of our deeds, by the rooting
out of which the trees of our actions are wholly extirpated, and are
never to vegetate or grow forth any more.
12. I ween sir, the body of ours to be the tree of our action, and has
grown out in the great garden of this world, and is girt with twining
creepers of various kinds. (_i.e._ The members of the body).
13. Our past acts are the seeds of this tree, and our weal and woe are
the fruits with which it is fraught; it is verdant with the verdure of
youth for a while, and it smiles with its white blossoms of the grey
hairs and the pale complexion of old age.
14. Destructive death lurks about this tree of the body every moment, as
the light-legged monkey lights upon trees to break them down; it is
engulphed in the womb of sleep, as the tree is overwhelmed under the
mists of winter, and the flitting dreams are as the falling leaves of
trees.
15. Old age is the autumn of life, and the decaying wishes are as the
withered leaves of trees, and the wife and members of the family, are as
thick as grass in the wilderness of the world.
16. The ruddy palms and soles of the hands and feet, and the other
reddish parts of the body (as the tongue and lips), resemble the
reddening leaves of this tree; which are continually moving in the air,
with the marks of slender lines upon them.
17. The little reddish fingers with their flesh and bones, and covered
by the thin skin and moving in the air, are as the tender shoots of the
tree of the human body.
18. The soft and shining nails, which are set in rows with their rounded
forms and sharpened ends, are like the moon-bright buds of flowers with
their painted heads.
19. This tree of the body is the growth of the ripened seed of the past
acts of men; and the organs of action are the knotty and crooked roots
of this tree.
20. These organs of action are supported by the bony members of the
body, and nourished by the sap of human food; they are fostered by our
desires, resembling the pith and blood of the body.
21. Again the organs of sense supply those of action with their power of
movement, or else the body with the lightness of all its members from
head to foot, would not be actuated to action without the sensation of
their motion. (Hence a dead or sleeping man having no sensation in him,
has not the use or action of his limbs).
22. Though the five organs of sense, grow apart and at great distances
from one another, like so many branches of this tree of the body; they
are yet actuated by the desire of the heart, which supplies them with
their sap.
23. The mind is the great trunk of this tree, which comprehends the
three worlds in it, and is swollen with the sap which it derives from
them through its five fold organs of sense; as the stem of a tree thrive
with the juice it draws by the cellular fibres of its roots.
24. The living soul is the root of the mind, and having the intellect
ingrained, it is always busy with its thoughts, which have the same
intellect for their root; but the root of all these is the One Great
Cause of all.
25. The intellect has the great Brahma, which has no cause of itself;
and which having no designation or termination of it, is truth from the
purity of its essence.
26. The consciousness of ourselves in our egoism, is the root of all our
actions; and the internal thought of our personal entity is the root of
our energy, and gives the impulse to all our actions. (Therefore as long
as one has the knowledge of his personality, he is prone to action, and
without it, every body is utterly inert).
27. It is our percipience, O Sage, which is said to be the source and
root of our actions and whenever there is this principle in the mind, it
causes the body to grow in the form of the big _Sirsapatra_. (It is the
intellect which is both the living soul as well as its percipience).
28. When this percipience otherwise called consciousness (of the soul),
is accompanied with the thoughts (of egoism and personality in the
mind), it becomes the seed of action; otherwise mere consciousness of
the self is the state of the supreme soul.
29. So also when the intellect is accompanied with its power of
intellection, it becomes the source and seed of action; or else it is as
calm and quiet as it is the nature of the Supreme soul. (The
self-perception and pure intelligence, are attributes of the Divine
soul, and not productive of action; but these in company with the
operations of the mind, become the causes of the activity of both).
30. Therefore the knowledge of one’s personality in his own person, is
the cause of his action, and this causality of action, as I have said
herein, is quite in conformity with your teachings to me.
31. Vasishtha said:—Thus Ráma, action in the discreet being based on the
knowledge of one’s personality; it is no way possible to avoid our
activity, as long as the mind is situated in the body, and has the
knowledge of its personality.
32. Whoever thinks of anything, sees the same both within as well as
without himself; and whether it is in reality or not, yet the mind is
possessed with chimera of it.
33. Again whoever thinks of nothing, verily escapes from the error of
mistaking a chimera for reality; but whether the reality is a falsity,
or the falsity of anything is a sober reality, is what we are not going
to discuss about at present.
34. It is this thinking principle, which presents the shadow of
something within us, and passes under the various designations of will
or desire, the mind and its purpose likewise.
35. The mind resides in the bodies of both rational as well as
irrational beings, and in both their waking and sleeping states; it is
impossible therefore, to get rid of it by any body at any time.
36. It is neither the silence nor inactivity of a living body, that
amounts to its refraining from action, so long as the mind is busy with
its thoughts; but it is only the unmindfulness of the signification of
the word action, that amounts to one’s forbearance from acts.
37. It is the freedom of one’s volition or choice either to do or not to
do anything that is meant to make one’s action or otherwise; therefore
by avoiding your option in the doing of an act you avoid it altogether;
otherwise there is no other means of avoiding the responsibility of the
agent for his own acts; (except that they were done under the sense of
compulsion and not of free choice. Gloss).
38. Nobody is deemed as the doer of an act, who does not do it by his
deliberate choice; and the knowledge of the unreality of the world,
leads to the ignoring of all action also. (If nothing is real, then our
actions are unreal also).
39. The ignoring of the existence of the world, is what makes the
renunciation of it; and the renunciation of all associations and
connections, is tantamount to one’s liberation from them. The knowledge
of the knowable One, comprehends in it the knowledge of all that is to
be known. (Because the One is all, and all existence is comprised in
that only knowable One).
40. There being no such thing as production, there is no knowledge of
anything whatever that is produced; abandon therefore your eagerness to
know the knowable forms (of things), and have the knowledge of the only
invisible One.
41. But there is no knowing whatever of the nature and actions of the
quiescent spirit of Brahma, its action is its intellection only, which
evolves itself in the form of an infinite vacuum (showing the shapes of
all things as in a mirror).
42. “That utter insensibility is liberation,” is well known to the
learned as the teaching of the Veda; hence no one is exempted from
action, as long as he lives with his sensible body.
43. Those who regard action as their duty, are never released from their
subjection to the root (principle) of action; and this root is the
consciousness of the concupiscent mind of its own actions. (The desire
is the motive of actions, and the consciousness of one’s deeds and
doings, is the bondage of the soul. Or else a workingman is liberated,
provided he is devoid of desire and unmindful of his actions).
44. It is impossible, O Ráma, to destroy this bodiless consciousness,
without the weapon of a good understanding; it lies so very deep in the
mind, that it continually nourishes the roots of action.
45. When by our great effort, we can nourish the seed of conscience, why
then we should not be able to destroy the keen conscience by the same
weapon that is effort.
46. In the same manner, we can destroy also the tree of the world with
its roots and branches.
47. That One is only existent, which has no sensation and is no other
than of the form of an endless vacuum; it is that unintelligible vacuous
form and pure intelligence itself, which is the pith and substance of
all existence.