Yoga Vasishta

Yoga-Vasishta – a philosophical text written by Valmiki

Yoga-Vasishta is a philosophical text written by Valmiki. It consists of metaphysical conversations, taking place over several days, between Prince Rama and the Vedic sage Vasishta, on the illusory nature of the manifest world and the principles of non-duality. It is a very long text composed of 32,000 slokas and includes many direct doctrinal discourses, indirect teaching stories, anecdotes about the gods and other famous vedic individuals, and the occasional allegory. The text is known by several alternative names: Maha-Ramayana, Arsha Ramayana, Vasishta Ramayana, and Jnanavasishta.

The Yoga-Vasishta of Valmiki, together with the Dasbodha of Samartha Ramdass, were the two books most valued by Nisargadatta's teacher, Siddharameshwar. Some conceptual similarities can be detected in the teaching of Siddharameshwar and Nisargadatta which are probably derived from the Yoga Vasishta.

Vasishta appears to have had an intimate knowledge of Kapila's Yoga system. Scholars have analysed the Yoga-Vasishta, and believe it contains a mixture of doctrines derived from different traditions, including: Vedanta, Jainism, Yoga, Samkhya, Saiva Siddhanta, and Mahayana Buddhism. The original text dates from at least the 10^th century, which was then subjected to enlargement and editing during the 11^th to 14^th centuries to make its teaching align closer to the philosophy of Vedanta.

The book teaches a seven stage process of spiritual development: 1. Subheccha or longing for the Truth. The sadhaka must distinguish between the permanent and the impermanent, cultivate aversion to pleasure, and acquire control over the gross material body and the mind. He also should develop a yearning for liberation from Samsara. 2. Tanumanasa or the reduction of mental activity. The sadhaka begins to abandon the many and concentrates on the one. 3. Sattvapatti or the attainment of sattva, purity. The yogi now becomes a knower of Brahman. He practices Samprajnata Samadhi, contemplation. But, the consciousness of duality persists. 4. Asamsakti or being unaffected by anything. He performs activities and duties without involvement. 5. Padartha abhavana or seeing Brahman everywhere. The separation of subject and object becomes dissolved. Actions are performed without any sense of being the one who does them. Sancita and Agami Karma are destroyed. Only a small amount of Prarabdha Karma remains. 6. Turiya or permanent Samadhi. The yogi no longer performs any action. Neither promptings coming from within himself, nor from any other person, can induce him to perform action. 7. After entering this final stage, the gross material body falls away after approximately three days. [source: Wikipedia].

The Yoga-Vasishta is divided into six parts: 1. Dispassion. 2. The Method of Final Liberation. 3. Evolution of the World. 4. Existence. 5. Dissolution of the World. 6. Liberation.

On Dispassion, Vasishta says: the conception of the world is a mistake. Although we see the world and its objects by means of the senses, it has no real existence. Enquire into it and you will never find it to be real. The conviction of the non-existence of the objects of the senses, leads to the removal of their impressions from the mind. Upon perfecting this, there will enter the supreme and eternal bliss of self-extinction. The best state of liberation is actually the complete abandonment of desires. Desires bind us strongly by strings to the prison of the body. Impure desires are the cause of transmigration, whereas pure desires serve to destroy transmigration.

The purification or absence of desires leads to the extinction of mental actions, which in a liberated-while-still-living man appear like inner wheels and cogs which do not turn. When the mind becomes free from desire, the sense organs are relieved from their action, and the soul becomes devoid of the results of its past actions, just as it is of those actions it has left undone. The mind being set free from desire, the organs of action are restrained from their activities, just like an engine stopped in motion.

On the Method of Final Liberation, Vasishta states: the millions of beings who are dead, those who are dying, and those who will die in future, are all to be born according to the different desires in their minds. The external world appearing as a reality, is in truth only a creation of our desires, like a magical scene spread before us. Bondage consists in the belief that the visible world is real, and release depends on the negation of the phenomenal.

There is an interminable ignorance, resembling an immense sea, enveloping the face of creation, breaking into uncrossable streamlets. All beings here are but the waves of this sea of ignorance. Destiny has no form, no action, no movement, no power, because it is a false concept rooted in the minds of the ignorant. Destiny is a word which has come into fashion from the idea of the future retribution of one's past actions, as retributive justice, and this justice is designated 'destiny'. In this manner the ignorant are led to believe that there is a thing called destiny. There is no co-operative power of invisible destiny perceptible in the actions of men, consequently destiny is a meaningless word. If destiny is the main cause and source of the movements of all beings in the three worlds, then all creatures can rest in the assurance that destiny will perform their parts. Thus the fool imagines he has a destiny and relies on it to his own disadvantage, whereas the wise raise themselves to better states by means of their exertion. The wise do not wait for destiny in this world. It is a man's activity, and no other, that is the cause of all his actions, and the recipient of their consequences.

On the Evolution of the World, Vasishta teaches: that whoever is born in this world continues to progress until he at last attains his final liberation, or ascends towards heaven, or falls into hell. Whatever appears, as either moving or unmoving in this world, know them all as appearances in a dream in a state of sound sleep, which become extinct at the end of the Kalpa. At the end, there remains a nameless, unevolved 'thing', in a state of deep dark abyss, without any light. This great existence is given the name Mahat-atman. It next shows itself in another form which is called Jivatman, the living conscious self. The inert living principle, the jiva, becomes the moving principle, the akul-atman, which, due to its power of thought, manana, becomes the mind. Lastly, it becomes the embodied self, bhuta-atman. In this process, mind is produced and changed from the stillness of the Great Supreme Spirit, into a state of restlessness, asthirakara, which is personified as Hiranyagarbha. The mind soon evolves itself into a self-willed power which exercises its desires at all times, and consequently the extensive magical scene of the world is displayed to our view. This is Viraj-murti, the manifestation of the desires of the will of the Divine Mind, the offspring of Brahma. To the enlightened understanding, even spiritual bodies are non-existent.

On Existence, Vasishta declares: that it is not true that the mundane world exists in the form of a seed in the final sleep of Brahma. He argues that the mind is a very fine and minute substance, or particle, which logically cannot be born of itself, nor become the seed of the universe. The Supreme Spirit, being finer than subtle space, cannot have the form of a seed. That which is zero, or the equivalent of nothing, cannot be a seed without which nothing can sprout. Nothing comes out of itself, and that which is material does not comes out of immaterial spirit. It is Brahma who abides in his self, in the form of creation, at the beginning of the world. This creation is as formless as the creator himself, and there is no relation of cause and effect between them. There neither is, nor was, nor ever will be, a separate world in existence. It is the one intelligence of the Divinity that displays the creation in itself. Brahma himself is all and everything. The appearance of the visible world is a mere conception of the mind. The ineffable light, which is projected into the mind by the Divine Intellect, shows itself as the baseless fabric of the creation. The creation of the world, and all created things, are located in the mind of Brahma, and make their repeated appearance, as phantoms, before him. In reality, there exists no I, nor you, nor visible world, nor anything else, but all these merge, upon right reasoning, in the One, which remains and subsists after all other existences.

On the Dissolution of the World, Vasishta explains: when the thinking principle, or mind, is wasted and weakened, and it appears to be extinct or null, the intellect which remains in common in all beings, is called the universal intelligence of all. When this intellect is devoid of its intellection and becomes as transparent as if it is nothing of itself, then it is called the common universal intellect. When it ignores the knowledge of all its internal and external objects, then it remains as the common universal intellect, which is unconscious of any personality. When all visible objects are considered to have a common existence and to be of the same nature with oneself, this is designated to common universal intelligence. This common view of all existence is entertained by all great and liberated beings. Having attained this state of perfection, there is freedom from fear, or of falling. One who attains this immeasurable state is filled with supreme and infinite bliss, having neither beginning nor end, which is a reality without any property assignable to itself.

The mind is attached to the world and is said to be bound to it, but that which is detached from it is said to be free from it. It is internal attachment and detachment of the mind which are the causes of its bondage and liberation. The wise man watches the movements of the mind. The Mahat, the great soul, exists beyond the body and is situated in its own intellect. It looks on the body from a distance, like a spectator observing a crowd of moving people. The wise man, although he may be moving about in busy affairs, is yet ever quiet in the disengagement of his soul from them. He may be assailed by outward sorrow, yet his inward soul shines as an image of the sun. The soul, being without beginning, is never born, and being unborn it is never destroyed. It is unbounded by time and space, is never confined to any place, and being always unconfined, it requires no liberation. Give up the thoughts of your imaginary bondage and liberation

On Liberation, Vasishta reveals: there exists but one Brahma, unlimited by space and time, and he is the world himself. He is tranquil and shines with equal effulgence upon all bodies. Because of his nature of universality, he cannot be any particular thing. Knowing the nature of Brahma you will become free from your egoism, knowing yourself as the same with him, knowing yourself as bodiless and as great as he. There is no mind, nor ignorance, nor any life principle, prana... they are all fictitious concepts. It is the same beginningless and endless Brahma who spreads himself like a boundless and unfathomable ocean, supporting all bodies and things, and present in whatever we consider as favourable or unfavourable to ourselves, as our friends and our enemies.

The fiction of the mind continues, like a dragon, as long as we are unacquainted with the knowledge of Brahma, and believe the phenomenal world to be real, and continue selfishly to believe the body and the person and its personality, as well as a distinct mind, to be our own. The body of a living-liberated man has a mind which is employed in its duties, but free from its desires. Such minds are no longer self-willed free agents, but are acted upon by their paramount duties. They are mindless and unmindful of everything except their duty. They know no duality. Such a mind, purified by reason, is called the Sattva. It does not give rise to error. It is the opposite of the chitta, which is the active mind that has the quality of being born, on account of its desires and actions. The seed of the active mind, the chitta, is burned by the fire of sattva. The truly liberated man is unmoved under all circumstances, and has nothing to gain or lose in his prosperity or adversity, nor anything to elate or depress him in either state.

The blind see the world as all dark, while those who are conscious find it fully bright and shining, and so the wise are blessed with the knowledge of the Oneness of the whole, while the ignorant are immersed in misery by their lack of such knowledge. There is nothing in the world that lives of itself, nor dies away to nothingness. Everything equally exists in God at all time. All beings are located in the universal Self, as waves in the vast expanse of the ocean, therefore it is an error to believe that one resides in the spirit and another lives outside it. The spirit of God dwells in the form of the universe, displaying various shapes to awareness by the inner light of the spirit. There is nobody, nor no being, except the being of Brahma, just as all waves, foam and bubbles of the sea are the same water as the waters of the deep. So are all beings productions of spirit in the Infinite Spirit.

The infinite intelligence of God, filling all space and spacelessness, by its own will, takes a subtle and minute form, which is comprehensible by the name of 'intellect'. It is this which is expressed by the concept 'jiva' or living soul. The jiva is the pure intellect with consciousness of itself. It is nothing at all. It is identical with the nature, the property, and the quality of any object whatever that exists anywhere. Whatever this jiva thinks of anything, in any manner, in any place or time, it immediately becomes the same thing, by its idea of it. The jiva is misled to think of its individuality as the ego, the I am, by the dullness of its intellect, and it supposes itself to be confined within a limited place of space and time, and with limited powers of action and understanding. It assumes to itself an unreal form, or body, and believes it is real. The jiva, thinking of itself as being transformed into a gross material form, as that of Virat the macrocosm, views itself as bright but spotted, like the Moon. Then suddenly, he finds himself in union with the five senses of perception, which have appeared within him of themselves. These five senses of perception are discovered to have five organs of sensation, which are their inlets. Virat is also known as Purusha, the first male power. Purusha manifests himself into five other forms: the sides (space), air, the sun (fire), water, and the land (earth), which are the objects of the five senses. He then becomes the myriad forms, according to the infinity of objects within his knowledge. Although he manifests into objective forms, he is quite unknown to us in his unmanifest, subjective, causal form, which is unchanging. Virat-Purusha originally derives from the Supreme Being as mental energy and therefore is not the five elemental forms, but is the Self within the five elements. He is known as the Supreme Lord of All, the macrocosm of the world, who arises in a moment spontaneously by himself, by his own will, and expands his own essence over the whole universe, and after enduring for a long time, at last contracts the whole back into himself, then subsides in himself.

As subtle space, Virat-Purusha, is invisible, but becomes visible as the sky, as subtle and gross air. In the form of Brahma, he sang the four Vedas from his four mouths. He determined the significations of words, and established the rules of conduct, still applicable today. As the Lord of Life, he causes the body, the nature, the thoughts and actions of all living beings. Nothing whatsoever has its particular nature of itself, unless it is implanted in it by the intelligence of God, by the infusion of the subtle element of water, the moisture of divine intelligence. All our thoughts are agitated by inspiration of prana, the breath of the great intellect. Know your thoughts therefore as proceeding from the void, the nothingness of the entity of the Supreme Brahma. By his will, Virat-Purusha produces the gods, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva from himself. All the celestial deities and demons are the creations of his mind. By the light of the sun and moon he produces the vegetable food which supports all living beings, producing their minds and thoughts which become actions, and even the birth of future persons. In this manner, thousands of Virats, and hundreds of MahaKalpa ages have come and passed away, and there are many yet to appear. Virat is collectively the aggregate of all beings, but he is also distributed into the jiva, or soul, of every individual being. The same Virat is manifested in the meanest insect as well as in the highest Rudra, or god, and he even extends into atoms.

Being deluded by the illusion of the world, the jiva sees duality instead of its unity. The jiva, converted to the breathing of prana, vital life, has lost sight of the Self which is hidden, underlying it. We thus remain confined to this world of ignorance as long as we enjoy the idea of ego, I am. But as soon as we give up the idea of ego, we are free. Liberation is therefore self extinction. There is no confinement in this world, no bondage, no liberation, no salvation, no sat (being) and no asat (non-being), and when you know this, then, here and now, you will be truly free.

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The Yoga-Vasishta text exists in two main forms, full and abridged:

The Brihat Yoga Vasishta is the larger version which consists of the full text of some 36,000 granthas, written in Sanskrit. There are several English translations, perhaps not easily obtained: by Swami Jyotirmayananda, by Vidvan Bulusu Ventateswaraulu, by Vihari Lala Mitra, by Swami Venkatesananda etc.

Vihari Lala Mitra produced a translation in 1891 (3,650 pages), which reads well and is not noticeably dated. This translation will eventually become available at the Project Gutenberg, but a preview is presently published online at the URL: http://www.scribd.com/collections/2493058/Yoga-Vasishtha-Mitra-translation. A full scanned version is available at: https://archive.org/details/YogaVasishthaMaharamayana

The Laghu Yoga Vasishta is the smaller abridged version which consists of 6,000 granthas. The original abridgement was made by Abhinananda of Kashmir. He kept almost all of the significant teaching text of the full version and deleted only the descriptive stories and the anecdotal sections.

An English translation of the Laghu version by Swami Venkatesananda is published (1993) by State University of New York Press (768 pages). This translation is considered authoritative. Swami Venkatesananda was the private secretary to Swami Sivananda, at his Rishikesh ashram. Price about $26, £15, or €17.

There is a free online English translation of the Laghu version (738 pages) by K Narayanaswami Aiyer available at this URL... http://www.holybooks.com/wp-content/uploads/laghu-yoga-vasishta-english-translation.pdf NB. K N Aiyer was a member of the Theosophical Society which perhaps does not have the highest objective scholastic reputation.

Several other more severe abridgements exist but are not particularly recommended.