MAINTENANCE OF INAPPETENCY OR WANT OF DESIRE.
Argument:—Nirvána-Extinction Compared with Waking from the Dream
of Existence.
Vasishtha resumed:—Seeing the end of all I still retained my seat in
infinite vacuity; and my eyes were detained by the sight of a glorious
light, shining as the morning rays of the rising luminary of the day.
2. While I was looking at that light, I beheld the great Brahmá sitting
as a statue carved in stone, intent upon his meditation of supreme One,
and beset by his transcendent glory all about him.
3. I saw there a multitude of gods, sages and holy personages, with
Vrihaspati and Sukra—the preceptors of gods and demigods, together with
the regent deities of wealth and death.
4. There were likewise the regent divinities of water, fire and the
other deities also; so were there companies of _rishis_ and _siddhas_
and _sádhyas_, gandharvas and others.
5. All these were as figures in painting, and all sitting in their
meditative mood; they all sat in their lotiform posture, and appeared as
lifeless and immovable bodies.
6. Then the twelve ádityas or suns (of the twelve signs), met at the
same centre (with the same object in their view); and they sat in the
same lotiform posture (of devotion, as the other deities).
7. Then awhile after, I beheld the lotus born Brahmá; as if I came to
see the object of my dream before me after my waking.
8. I then lost the sight of the deities, assembled in the Brahma-loka or
in the world of Brahmá, as when great minded men, lose the sight of the
most prominent objects of their desire from their minds. Nor did I
perceive the aerial city of my dream before me, upon my waking (from the
trance of my illusion).
9. Then the whole creation, which is but the ectype of the mind of
Brahmá; appeared as void as an empty desert to me; and as the earth
turning to a barrenwaste upon the ruin of its cities.
10. The gods and sages, the angels and all other beings, were no where
to be seen any more; but were all blended in and with the same void
every where.
11. I then seated in my etherial seat, came to know by my percipience,
that all of them have become extinct (lit. obtained their nirvána
extinction, like Brahmá in Brahma himself).
12. It is with the extinction of their desires, that they have become
extinct also; as the sleeping dreamers come to themselves after they are
awakened from their illusive vision. (Coming to one’s self _Swasiarúpa_
one’s own nature or essence, means in vedánta, the holy and pure nature
of the human soul, as an emanation or image of the divine).
13. The body is an aerial nothing, appearing as a substantial something,
from our desire (or imagination of it only), and disappearing with the
privation of our fancy for it, like a dream vanishing from the sight of
a waking man.
14. The aerial body appears as real as any other image in our dream; and
there remains nothing of it, upon our coming to their knowledge of its
unreal nature, and the vanity of our desires.
15. We have no consciousness also, of either our spiritual or corporeal
bodies, when we are fixed in our _samádhi_ or intense meditation in the
state of our waking (from sleep).
16. The notion of a thing seen in our dream, is given here as an
instance (to prove the unreality of our idea of the body); because it is
well known to boys and every body, and adduced to us both in the
_srutis_ and _smritis_ tradition (that the objects of sight, are as
false as those of dreams).
17. Whoever denies the falsity of the notions he has in his dream, and
goes on to support the reality of these as well as other visible sights;
must be a great impostor; and such a one deserves to be shunned, for who
can wake the waking sleeper.
18. What is the cause of the corporeal body? Not the dream; since the
bodies seen in a dream, are invisible (to the naked eye); and this being
true it follows, that there is no solid body in the next world (as it is
expected by means of sacrifices and pious acts).
19. Should there be other bodies after the loss of the present ones (by
death); then there would be no need of repeated creation (of corporeal
bodies by Brahmá); if the pristine bodies were to continue for ever.
20. Anything having a form and figure and its parts and members, is of
course perishable in its nature; and the position (of Jaimini), that
there was another kind of world before, is likewise untenable (since
there could be nothing at any time, without its definite form and
parts).
21. If you say (in the manner of the chárvákas), that the world was
never destroyed; and that the understanding is produced of itself in the
body, in the same manner as the spirit is generated in the fermented
liquor.
22. This position of yours is inconsistent with the doctrines, of the
puránas and histories as well as those of the vedas, smritis and other
sástras, which invariably maintain destructibility of material things.
23. Should you, O intelligent Ráma, deny with the chárvákas the
indefeasibility of these sástras; say what faith can be relied on those
heretical teachings, which are as false as the offspring of a barren
woman.
24. These heretical doctrines are not favoured by the wise, owing to
their pernicious tendencies; there are many discrepancies in them, as
you shall have it, from the few that I am going to point out to you.
25. If you say the human spirit to liken the spirit of liquors, (which
is generated in and destroyed with the liquor); then tell me what makes
the destroyed or departed spirit of a deceased person, who is dead in a
foreign country, revisit his friends at home in the shape and form of a
fiend (pisácha).
26. To this it is answered, that the apparition which thus appears to
view is a false appearance only; granting it as such, why not own our
appearances to be equally false also?
27. It being so, how can you believe the bodies, that the departed souls
of men are said in the sástras, to assume in the next world, to be true
also? (Any more than their being mere apparitions only).
28. There is no truth in the proof of a ghost (pisácha), as there is in
that of the spirit in liquor; hence if the supposition of the former is
untrue, what faith is there in future body in the next world?
29. If the existence of spirits be granted, from the common belief of
mankind in them; then why should not the doctrine of a future state of
the dead, be received as true upon the testimony of the sástras?
30. If the prepossession of a person’s being possessed on a sudden by an
evil spirit, be any ground of his reliance in it, why then should he not
rest his belief in his future state, wherein he is confirmed by the
dogmas of the sástras?
31. Whatever a man thinks or knows in himself, he supposes the same as
true at all times; and whether his persuasion be right or wrong, he
knows it correct to the best of his belief.
32. A man knowing well, that the dead are to live again in another
world, relies himself fully upon that hope; and does not care to know,
whether he shall have a real body there or not.
33. Therefore it is the nature of men, to be prepossessed with the idea
of their future existence; and next their growing desire for having
certain forms of bodies for themselves, leads them to the error of
seeing several shapes before them.
34. It is then the abstaining from this desire, that removes the
maladies of our errors of the looker, looking and the look (_i.e._ of
the subjective and the objective); while the retaining of this desire
leads us, to the viewing of this apparition of the world ever before us.
35. So it was the feeling of desire at first, which led the supreme
spirit of Brahmá to the creation of the world; but its abandonment
causes our _nirvána_-release, while its retention leads us to the error
of the world.
36. This desire sprang at first in the Divine mind of Brahmá, and not in
the immutable spirit of Brahma; and I feel this desire rising now in me,
for seeing the true and supreme Brahma in all and every where.
37. All these knowledge that you derive here from, is said to form what
is called the nirvána-extinction by the wise; and that which is not
learnt herein, is said to constitute the bondage of the world.
38. This is the true knowledge to see God every where, it is
self-evident in our inmost soul, and does not shine without it; (for all
without is error and ignorance—_avidyá_).
39. The self-consciousness of our liberation—_muktásmi_, is what really
makes us so; but the knowledge that we are bound to this
earth—_baddhásmi_, is the source of all our woe, which require great
pains to be removed.
40. The awakening of our consciousness of the world, is the cause of our
being enslaved to it; and its hybernation in the trance of _samádhi_, is
our highest felicity. By being awake to the concerns of the world, you
only find the unreal appearing as real to you (for every thing here, is
but deception and delusion).
41. Lying dormant in holy trance, without the torpidity of
insensibility, is termed our _moksha_ or spiritual liberation; while our
wakefulness to the outer world, is said to be the state of our bondage
to it.
42. Now let your _nirvána_ be devoid of all desire, and from trouble,
care and fear; let it be a clear and continuous revery without any gap
or cessation, without the scruples of unity and duality; and be of the
form of spacious firmament, ever calm and clear and undisturbed in
itself.