MANKI’S ATTAINMENT OF FINAL EXTINCTION OR NIRVÁNA.
Argument:—The vanity of Human wishes, and the Tranquility of
Rational and spiritual speculation.
Vasishtha said:—Thus the living soul, being let fall in the mazy path of
his world, is encompassed by calamities and accidents as countless as
the animalcules, which are generated in the rainy season.
2. All these accidents though unconnected with one another, follow yet
so fast and closely upon each other, as the detached stone lying
scattered and close together in the rocky desert, and linked in a
lengthening chain of thought in the mind of man.
3. The mind blinded of its reason, becomes a wilderness overgrown with
the arbour of its calamities, and yet appearing to be smiling as a
vernal grove before men, by its feigned merriment and good humour.
(Mirth and sorrow are both of them the effects of unreasonableness).
4. O how pitiable are all those beings! Who being bound to their
subjection to hope, are subjected to divers states of pain and pleasure,
in their repeated births in various forms on earth.
5. Alas for those strange and abnormal desires, which subject the minds
of men, to the triple error of taking the non-existent to be actually
present before them. (The triple error (_Triputi bhrama_) consists in
the belief of the visibles, their vision and the viewer of them, that
is, in the subject, act and objects of sight, which are all viewed as
unreal in the light of vedánta).
6. Those who have known the truth, are delighted in themselves, they are
immortal in their mortal life, and are diffusers of pure light all about
them. What then is the difference between the sapient sage who is
coldhearted in all respects, and the cooling moon (who cools and
enlivens and enlightens the world with her ambrosial beams?).
7. And what is the difference between a whimsical boy and a covetous
fool, who covets anything whatever at hand without any consideration of
the past and future (good or evil which attends upon it).
8. What is the difference between the greedy fool and voracious fish or
whale, that devour the alluring bait of pleasure or pain; and will not
give up the line until they are sure to give up their lives for the
same. (All seeming pleasure is real pain, and bane of both the body and
soul of men).
9. All our earthly possessions whether of our bodies or lives, our
wives, friends and properties, are as frail as a brittle plate made of
sand, which no sooner it is dried and tried than it spurts and breaks to
pieces.
10. O my soul! Thou mayst forever wander, in hundred of bodies of
various forms in repeated births; and pass from the heaven of Brahmá to
the empyrean of Brahma; yet thou canst never have thy tranquility,
unless thou attainest the even insouciance of thy mind. (The stoic
impassivity is the highest felicity).
11. The ties and bondage of the world, are dispersed by mature
introspection into the nature of things; as the uneven ruggedness of the
road, does not retard the course of the wayfarer walking with his open
eyes.
12. The negligent soul becomes a prey to concupiscence and unruly
passions, as the heedless passenger is caught in the clutches of demons;
but the well-guarded spirit is free from their fright.
13. As the opening of the eyes, presents the visibles to sight; so doth
the waking consciousness introduce the ego and phenomenal world into the
mind. (_i.e._ Consciousness is the cause of both the subjective and
objective).
14. And as the shutting of the eyelids, shuts out the view of the
visible objects from sight; so, O destroyer of enemies, the closing of
consciousness, puts out the appearance of all sights and thoughts from
your eyes and mind (and this unmindfulness of everything besides,
prepares the soul for the sight of the most high).
15. The sense of the existence of the external world, together with that
of one’s ego or self-existence, is all unreal and inane, it is
consciousness alone that shows everything in itself and by the
fluctuation of its erroneous; as the motion of winds displays the
variegated clouds in the empty air. (It is the imaginative faculty of
the mind, that creates and presents these phantoms before it).
16. It is the divine consciousness only, which exhibits the unreal
phenomenals as real in itself, without creating anything apart or
separate from its own essence; in the same manner as earth or any metal
produces a pot or a jar out of itself, and which is no wise distinct or
separate from its substance.
17. As the sky is only a vacuity, and the wind is a mere fluctuation of
air; and as the waves are composed of nothing but water; so the world is
no other than a phenomenon of consciousness: (because we have no
knowledge of it without our consciousness of it).
18. The world subsists undivided in the bas-relief of consciousness, and
without a separate existence of its own apart or disjoined in any part,
from its substance or substratum of the conscious soul, which is as calm
and clear as the empty air, and the world resembles the shadow of a
mountain in the bosom of water, or a surge or wave rising on the surface
of the sea.
19. There rises a calm coolness in the souls of wise and inexcitable
sages, when the shining worlds appear as the cooling moon beams falling
on the internal mirror of their minds.
20. How is it and by what means and in what manner, is this invisible
supreme light, produced in the calm and quiet and all pervading
auspicious soul, amidst the empty expanse of the universe. (Here is a
double question of the production of uncreated light in creation and of
the manifestation of divine and spiritual light in the quiet soul).
21. That essence which is expressed by the term Brahma, forms the
essential nature and form of everything besides; and the same is
permeated throughout all nature, except where it is obstructed by some
preventive cause or other,—_bádhá_.
22. Anything which presents a hindrance to this, and whatever is
preventive of the pervasion of divine essence, is a nullity in nature
like a sky flower—_ákása pushpa_, which is nothing at all _in nubibus_.
23. The wise man sits quietly like a stone, without the action of
even his inner and mental faculties; because the lord is without the
reflection or sensation of anything, and without birth or decay at
anytime. (Here the mind and its workings, are explained as _vikalpaná_
or changing thoughts, which are wanting in the eternal mind).
24. He who remains insensible and unconscious of every thing, like the
empty state of the open sky; arrives by his constant practice to his
state of sound sleep or hypnotism without the disturbance of dreams.
25. But how is it to be known that the world is the mere thought or will
of the Divine mind? Whereto it is said: It is the creative power of
Brahma (called _Brahmá_ or Hiranyagarbha—the demiurgus), thought of
forming the wondrous world in his mind (as it were he pictured it in
himself), without the aid of any tool or instrument or means or ground
for its construction; hence (it is plain), the world is merely ideal and
nothing real, nor is there any cause or creator of it whatsoever.
26. As the lord stretches out the world in his thought, he or it
instantly becomes the same; and as the lord is without any visible form,
so this seeming world has no visible nor material form whatever; nor is
there any framer of what is simply ideal.
27. So all men are happy or unhappy, as they think themselves to be one
or the other in their minds; they all abide in the same universal soul,
which is common to all; and yet believe themselves every one of his own
kind in his mind.
28. Therefore it is as vain to view anything, or any intellectual being,
in the light of an earthly substance, as it is false to take the
visionary hills of one’s dream, in the light of their being real rocks
situated on earth.
29. By assigning egoism to one’s self, he becomes subject to error and
change; but the want of egoism, places the soul to its invariable
identity and tranquility. (_i.e._ The sense of one’s personality,
subjects him to change and misery).
30. As the meaning of the word bracelet, is nothing different from the
gold (of which it is made); so the sense of thy false egoism, is no
other than that of the tranquil soul. (The soul, self, and ego are all
the one and same thing).
31. The anaesthetic sage, that is cold-blooded and sober minded as a
silent muni, is no voluntary actor of any act, although he may be
physically employed in his active duties; and the quiet saint carries
with him an empty and careless mind, although it may be full of learning
and wisdom. (Lit. the knower of God is as quiet, as the calm vacuum of
heaven).
32. The wise man manages himself as a mechanical figure or puppet, never
moving of its own motion but moving as it is moved, and having no
impulse of his desire within him, he sits as quiet as a doll without its
mobility.
33. The wise man that knows the soul, is as quiet as a babe sleeping in
a swinging cradle, and which is moved without moving itself; or he moves
the members of his body like a baby, without having any cause for his
doing so.
34. The soul that is intent on the thought of the one (Supreme) only,
and is as calm and quiet as the infinite spirit of God; becomes
unconscious of itself and all other things, together with all its
objects of desire, and expectations of its good and bliss.
35. He that is not the viewer himself, nor has the view before him, and
is exempt from the triple condition (_triputi bhába_) of the subjective,
objective and action; can have no object in his view; which is
concentrated in the vision of the invisible one.
36. Our view or regard of the world, is our strict bondage, and
disregard of it, is our perfect freedom; he who rests therefore in his
disregard of (or indifference to) whatever is expressed by words, has
nothing to look after or desire.
37. Say, what is it that is ever worth our looking after, or worthy of
our regard; when these material bodies of ours, are as evanescent as our
dreams, and our self-existence is a mere delusion. (There is nothing
therefore worthy of our inquiry beside the divine intellect. Gloss).
38. Therefore the wise man rests only in his knowledge of the true one,
by subjection of all his efforts and desires, and quelling all his
curiosity; and being devoid of all knowledge, save that of the knowable
one.
39. Hearing all this, Manki was released from his great error; as a
Snake gets loose from its slough by which it has been fast bound.
40. He retired from there to a mountain, on which he remained in his
deep meditation for a century of years; and discharged the duties that
occurred to him of their own accord, without his retaining any desire of
any (or expectation of fruition).
41. He resides there still, unmoved and insensible as a stone, quite
callous in all his senses and feelings, and wakeful with his internal
sensibility by the light of his yoga contemplation.
42. Now Ráma, enjoy your peace of mind, by relying in your habit of
reasoning and discrimination; do not deprave your understanding, under
the fits of your passion; nor let your mind turn to its levity like a
fleeting cloud, in the unrainy season of autumn.