Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha 1.12—Rāma's Reply
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2017-08-20

This series is classified Ajata-vāda | Jñāna-yoga | Turīya | Sahasrāra-cakra

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Vālmīki related: Being thus asked by the chief of the sages with soothing words, Rāma answered in a soft and graceful speech replete with good sense. “O venerable sage, untutored though I am, I will tell you in truth all the particulars as you asked. For who would disobey the bidding of the wise? Since I was born in this my father’s palace, I have remained here, grown up, and received my education. Then, O leader of sages, desiring to learn good customs, I set out to travel to holy places all over this sea-surrounded earth. By this time, a series of reflections arose in my mind that shook my confidence in worldly objects. I employed my mind to discriminate the nature of things, which gradually led me to discard all thoughts of sensual enjoyments.” — 1.12.1-6

“What are worldly pleasures good for, and why do men multiply on earth? Men are born to die, and they die to be born again. There is no stability in the tendencies of beings whether movable or immovable. They all tend to vice, decay and danger, and all our possessions become the grounds of our poverty. All objects of sense are detached from each other like iron rods from one another. It is only imagination which attaches them to our minds. It is the mind that pictures the existence of the world as a reality, but if we know the deceptiveness of the mind, we are safe from such deception.” — 1.12.7-10

“Now tell me, O venerable sir, is this world advancing to its dissolution, or continued reproduction, or is it in endless progression? If there is any progress here, is it the appearance and disappearance by turns of old age and disease, and of prosperity and adversity? See how the variety of our trifling enjoyments hastens our decay. They are like hurricanes shattering trees in the mountains. Men continue in vain to breathe their vital breath like hollow bamboo windpipes having no sense. The thought that consumes me like wildfire in the hollow of a withered tree is, ‘How is misery to be alleviated?’” — 1.12.17-21

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