NARA & NARAYANA
The following precepts are an incredible, majestic, and profound illustration of anachronism that antedates the Consciousnesses of Lord Krishna and Arjuna, and prior to the birth of Lord Rama.
Narayana and Nara actually are that One Consciousness playing a dual role!
The author grants the readers the following majestic discourse between Narayana and Nara.
It supports the view firmly held by the author that there is none other soteriology worth its weight in gold than the soteriology of the ancient Hindu sages.
SANNYASA YOGA
“The world is a dream and unworthy of our reliance.”
In support of this grandiose idea is
the best-known lesson on indifference (Vairagya)
and discernment (Viveka).
Prophet Sage Grand Master Vasishtha.
This world to be as a dream, which is common to all living beings, and is fraught with many agreeable scenes, so as to form the daily romance of their lives, which is neither true nor entirely false. But as it is not likely that the living souls of men should be always asleep, therefore, their waking state is to be accounted for as one of dreaming also. Life is a longer dream than the short-lived ones in our sleep, and know it to be as untrue as it is unsubstantial and airy in its nature.
The living souls of the living world, continually pass from dream to dream, and they view the unrealities of the world as positive realities in their nature. They as-cribe solidity to the subtle and subtlety to what is solid; they see the unreal as real and think the unliving as living in their ignorance. They consider the revolution of all worlds to be confined in the Solar system, and they rove about like somnambulators and fleeting bees about the living soul, which they differentiate from the Supreme. They consider and meditate in their minds the living soul as a separate reality, owing to its ubiqui-ty and immortality, and as the source of their own lives (this is the tenet of Buddhists who consider their living souls as an absolute agent of themselves).
Hear me relate to you the best lesson of indifference (Vairagya; unattachment to the world and life), which the lotus-eyed Lord (Krishna) teaches Arjuna, and whereby that sagely prince becomes liberated in his life-time. Thus, Arjuna, the son of Pandu, will happily pass his life, and which I hope you will imitate if you want to pass your days without any grief or sorrow.
Prince Rama: Tell me Sir, when will this Arjuna, the son of Pandu, will come to be born on Earth, and who is this Hari of his, that is to deliver this lesson of indif-ference to the world to him.
Lord Vasishtha: There is only the entity of one Soul, to whom this appellation is applied by fiction only. He remains in himself from time without beginning and end, as the sky is situated in a vacuum. We behold in him the phantasmagoria of this extended world, as we see the different ornaments in gold and the waves and billows in the sea.
The fourteen kinds of created beings display themselves in him, and in him is the network of this universe, wherein all these worlds are suspended, as birds hang-ing in the net in which they are caught. In him reside the deities Indra and Vaivasvata and the Sun and Moon, who are renowned and hallowed in the scrip-tures, and in him abide the five-elemental creation and them that have become the regents.
That, the one thing is a virtue and therefore expedient, and the other is vice and therefore improper, are both placed in him as his ordinances, and depending on the free agency of men, to accept or reject the one or the other for good or evil. It is obedience to the Divine or-dinance that the good are still employed in their fixed charges with their steady minds.
The Lord Vaivasvata is accustomed to make his pen-ance at the end of every four yugas, on account of his greatness in the destruction of the creatures of God. Sometimes he sat penitent for eight years, and all oth-ers for a dozen of years, oftentimes he made his pen-ance for five or seven years, and many times for full sixteen years. On a certain occasion, as Vaivasvata sat observant of his austerity and indifferent to his duty, death ceased to hunt after living beings in all the worlds. Hence, the multitude of living beings filled the surface of the Earth and made the ground pathless and impassable by others. They multiplied like the filth born gnats in rainy weather that obstruct the passage of elephants.
Then the gods sat together in council, and after various deliberations came to determine the extirpation of all living beings for relieving the overburdened Earth. In this way, many ages have passed away, and many changes have taken place in the usages of the people, and unnumbered living beings have passed and gone with the revolutions of the worlds.
Now it will come to pass that this Vaivasvata, the son of the Sun, and the Lord of the regions of the dead, will again perform his penance in an aforesaid manner after the expiration of many ages to come. He will again re-sume his penitence for a dozen years, for the atonement of his sin of destroying the living when he will abstain from his want of conduct of destroying the lives of human beings. At that time, well the Earth will be filled with deathless mortals, so as this wretched Earth will be covered and overburdened with them like dense forest trees.
The Earth groaning under her burden and oppressed by tyranny and lawlessness will have recourse to Hari for her redress, as when a virtuous wife resorts to her hus-band from the aggression of Dasyus. For this reason, Hari will be incarnate in two bodies, joined with the powers of all the gods and will appear on Earth in two persons of Nara and Narayana, the one a man and the other the Lord Hari himself.
With one body Hari will become the son of Vasudeva and therefore will be called Vasudeva, and with the other, he will be the son of Pandu and will thereby be named the Pandava, Arjuna or Arjuna the Pandava. Pandu will have another son by name of Yudhishthira, who will adopt the title of the son of Dharma or right-eousness, for his acquaintance with politics, and he will reign over the Earth to its utmost limit of the ocean. He will have his rival with Duryodhana, his cousin by his paternal uncle, and there will be a dreadful war between them, as between a snake and weasel. The belligerent princes will wage a furious war for the possession of the Earth, with forces of eighteen legions on both sides. The God Vishnu will cause Arjuna to slay them all by his great bow of Gandiva, and thereby relieving the Earth of her burden of riotous peoples.
The incarnation of Vishnu in the form of Arjuna will comprise all the qualities incident to humanity and will be fraught with the feelings of joy and vengeance, which are connatural with mankind. Seeing the battle array on both sides, and friends and kinsmen ready to meet their fate, pity and grief will seize the heart of Arjuna, and he will cease from engaging in the war. Hari will then, with his intelligent form of Krishna, persuade his insensible person of Arjuna to perform his part of a hero for crown his valour with success.
He will teach him the immortality of the Soul by tell-ing him that, the Soul is never born nor does it die at any time nor had it a prior birth nor is it newborn to be born again on Earth; it is unborn and everlasting and is indestructible with the destruction of the body. He who thinks the Soul to be the slayer of or slain by anybody is equally ignorant of its nature, so the Soul never kills nor is ever killed by anybody. It is immortal and uni-form with itself, and more rare and subtler than the air and vacuity; the Soul, which is the form of the great God himself, is never and in no way destroyed by any-body.
O’ Rama, thou are conscious of yourself, know your Soul to be immortal and unknown, and without begin-ning, middle, and end; as it is of the form of conscious-ness and clear without any soil, so by thinking yourself as such, you become the unborn, eternal, and undecay-ing Soul yourself.
ADMONITION OF ARJUNA
Abandonment of egoism;
knowledge of the adorable One and its
different stages.
Lord Krishna: Arjuna! You are not the killer, it is the false conceit of yours, which you must shun; the Soul is everlasting and free from death and decay. He who has no egoism in him, and whose mind is not moved, is neither the killer of nor killed by anybody, though he may kill everyone in the world.
Whatever is known in our consciousness, the same is felt within us, shun therefore your inward conscience (consciousness) of egoism and meity, as this is I and these are mines, and these others are theirs. The thought that you are connected with such and such persons and things, and that of your being deprived of them, and the joy or grief to which you are subjected thereby, must affect your soul in a great measure.
He who does his works with the parts or members of his body, and connects the least attention of his soul therewith, becomes infatuated by his egoism and be-lieves himself as the doer of his action.
Let the eyes see, the ears hear, and your touch feel their objects, let your tongue also taste the relish of a thing, but why take them to our soul and where is your ego-ism situated in these. The minds of even the great, are verily employed in the works that they have undertaken to perform, but where is your egoism or soul in these that you should be sorry for its pains.
Your assumption to yourself to any action, which has been done by the combination of many, amounts only to a conceit of your vanity and exposes you not only to ridicule but to frustrate the merit of your actions. The yogis and hermits do their rituals and their ordinary actions with the attention of their minds and senses, and often times with the application of the members and organs of their bodies only in order to acquire and preserve the purity of their souls.
Those who have not subdued their bodies with the morphia of indifference are employed in the repetition of their actions, without ever being healed of their dis-ease. No person is graceful whose mind is tinged with his selfishness, as no man how-ever learned and wise is held in honour, whose conduct is blemished with impo-liteness and misbehaviours. He who is devoid of his selfishness and egotism, and is alike patient both in prosperity and adversity, is neither affected nor deject-ed, whether he does his business or not.
Know this, O’ son of Pandu, as the best field for your martial action, which is worthy of your great good, glo-ry, and ultimate happiness. Though you reckon it as heinous on the one hand and unrighteous on the other, yet you must acknowledge the super-excellence and imperiousness of the duties required of your martial race, so do your duty and immortalize yourself. Seeing even the ignorant stick fast to the proper duties of their race, no intelligent person can neglect or set them at nought; and the mind that is devoid of vanity, cannot be ashamed or dejected, even if one fails or falls in the discharge of his duty.
Do your duty, O’ Arjuna, with your yoga or fixed atten-tion to it, and avoid all company. If you do your works as they come to you by yourself alone, you will never fail nor be foiled in any, i.e., your object you canst nev-er gain unless from all others you refrain. Be as quiet as the person of Brahma, and do your works as quietly as Brahma does; leave the result to Brahma, and by doing so, assimilate yourself into the nature of Brahma. Commit yourself and all your actions and objects to God, and remain as unaltered as God himself, and know him as the soul of all, and be thus the decoration of the world. If you can lay down all your desires and become as even and cool minded as a muni-monk; if you can join your soul to the yoga of sannyasa or contemplative coldness, you can do all your actions with a mind unat-tached to any.
Arjuna: Please Lord, explain to me fully, what is meant by the renunciation of all connections, commitment of our actions to Brahman; dedication of ourselves to God and abdication of all concerns. Tell me also about the acquisition of true knowledge and divisions of Yoga meditation, all of which I require to know in their prop-er order, for the removal of my gross ignorance on those subjects.
Lord Krishna: The learned know that as the true form of Brahman, of which we can form no idea or concep-tion, but which may be known after restraining of our imagination, and pacification of our desires. Prompti-tude after these things constitutes our wisdom or knowledge, and perseverance in these practices is what is called Yoga. Self-dedication to Brahman rests on the belief that Brahman is all this world and myself also. As a stone statue is hollow both in its inside and out-side, so is Brahman as empty, tranquil, and transparent as the sky, which is neither to be seen by us nor is it beyond our sight. It then bulges out a little from itself and appears as something, other than what it is. It is this reflection of the universe, but all as empty as this inane vacuity. What is again this idea of your egoism, when everything is evolved out of the Supreme Intel-lect, of what account is the personality of anybody, which is but an infinite sealed part of the universal Soul.
The egoism of the individual soul, is not apart from the universal Spirit, although it seems to be separate from the same, because there is the impossibility of exclu-sion or separation of anything from the omnipresent and the all-comprehensive soul of God, and therefore a distinct ego is a nullity. As it is the case with our ego-ism, so it is with the individuality of a pot and of a monkey also. None of which is separate from the uni-versal whole. All existences being as drops of water in the sea, it is absurd to presume an ego to anybody.
Things appearing as different to the conscious soul, are to be considered as the various imageries represented in the self-same soul. So also, is the knowledge of the par-ticulars and the species, lost in the idea of the general and the summum-genus (Gloss: plural summa-genera; The highest, most all-inclusive genus; the one that is not a species of any other genus).
Now by sannyasa or renunciation of the world is meant, the resignation of the fruition of the fruits of our ac-tions. Unattachment signifies the renunciation of all our worldly desires, and the intense application of the mind to the one sole God of the multifarious creation, and the variety of his imaginary representations.
The want of all dualism in the belief of his self-existence as distinct from that of God constitutes his dedication of himself to God; it is ignorance that cre-ates distinctions by applying various names and attrib-utes to the one Intellectual Soul.
The meaning of the words, “Intelligent Soul,” is un-doubtedly that, it is one with the universe; and that the Ego is the same with all space, and its contents of worlds and their motions. The Ego is the unity of Eter-nity, and the Ego is duality and plurality in the world and the variety of its multifarious productions. There-fore, be devoted to the sole Ego, and drown your own egoism in the universal Ego.
Arjuna: There being two forms of the Deity, one tran-scendental or spiritual and the other conspicuous or material; tell me to which of these I shall resort for my ultimate perfection?
Lord Krishna: There are verily two forms of the all-pervading Vishnu, the exoteric and the other esoteric; that having a body and hands holding the conch-shell, the discus, the mace, and lotus is the common form for public worship. The other is the esoteric or the spiritual form, which undefined and without Its beginning and end, and is usually expressed by the term Brahman-great.
As long as you are unacquainted with the nature of the Supreme Soul, and you are not awakened to the Light of the Spirit, so long should you continue to adore the form of the God with Its four arms. By this means you will be awakened to the light, by your knowledge of the Supreme, and when you come to comprehend the Infi-nite in yourself, you shall have no more to be born in any mortal form.
When you are acquainted with the knowledge of the knowable Soul, then will your soul find its refuge in the eternal Soul of Hari, who absorbs all souls in him.
When I tell you that this is I and I am that, mind that I mean to say that, this and that is the Ego of the Su-preme Soul, which I assume to myself for your instruc-tion. I understand you to be enlightened to the Truth, and to rest in the state of supreme felicity, and now that you are freed from all your temporal desires, I wish you to be one with the true and holy Spirit. View in yourself the Soul of all beings and those beings them-selves; think your own-self or Soul as the microcosm of the great universe, and tolerant and broad sighted in your practice of Yoga.
He who worships the universal Soul that resides in all beings as the one self-same and undivided spirit is re-leased from the doom of repeated births, whether he leads a secular or holy life in this world.
The meaning of the word “All” is unity, and the mean-ing of the word “One” is the unity of the Soul; as in the phrase “All is One,” it is meant to say that the whole universe is collectively but one Soul. The Soul is nei-ther a positive entity nor a negative non-entity, but It is as It is known in the Spirit of the form of ineffable light and delight. He who shines as the Light within the minds of all persons, and dwells in the inwards con-sciousness or percipience of every being, is no other than the very Soul that dwells within myself also.
That which is settled in shape of savour in the waters all over the three worlds, and what gives flavour to the milk, curd, and the butter of the bovine kind, and dwells as sapidity in the marine salt and other saline substances, and imparts its sweetness to saccharine ar-ticles, the same is this savoury Soul, which gives a gust to our lives, and a good taste to all the objects of our enjoyment.
Know your soul to be that percipience, which is situat-ed in the hearts of all corporeal beings, whose rarity eludes our perception of it, and which is quite removed from all perceptible, and is therefore ubiquitous in eve-rything and omnipresent everywhere. As the butter is inbred in all kinds of milk, and the sap of all sappy sub-stances is inborn in them, so the Supreme Soul is in-trinsically and immanent in everything. As all the gems and pearls of the sea have a lustre inherent in them, which shines forth both in their inside and outside, so the soul shines in and out of everybody without being seated in any part of it, whether in or out or where about it. As the air pervades both in the inside and out-side of all empty pots, so the spirit of God is diffused in and about all bodies in all the three worlds. As hun-dreds of pearls are strung together by a thread in the necklace, so the soul of God extends through and con-nects these millions of beings, without Its being known by any.
He who dwells in the hearts of everybody in the world, commencing from Brahma to the object grass that grows on the Earth, the essence which is common in all of them is Brahman-the unborn and undying. Brahma is a slightly developed form of Brahman and resides in the Spirit of the great Brahman, and the same dwelling in us, makes us conceive of our ego (self) by mistake of the true Ego (Self). The divine Soul being manifest in the form of the world, say what can It be that destroys or is destroyed in It; and tell me, Arjuna, what can It be that is subject to or involved in pleasure or pain?
The divine Soul is as a large mirror, showing the imag-es of things upon its surface, like reflections on the glass, and though these reflections disappear and vanish in time, yet the mirror of the Soul is never destroyed, but looks as it looked before. When I say I am this and not the other, I am quite wrong and inconsistent with myself; so is to say that, the human soul is the Spirit or image of God, and not that of any other being when the self-same divine Spirit is present and immanent in all.
The revolutions of creation, sustentation, and final dis-solution take place in an unvaried and unceasing course in the Spirit of God, and so the reeling on the surface of the waters of the sea. As the stone is the constituent essence of rocks, the wood of trees, and the water of waves, so is the Soul the constituent element of all ex-istence. He who sees the Soul in all substances, and every substance in the Soul, and views both as the component of one another, sees the uncreating God as the reflector and reflection of Himself.
Know Arjuna, the Soul to be the integrant part of eve-rything, and the constituent elements of the different forms and changes of things, as water is of the waves and the gold is of jewellery. As the boisterous waves are let loose in the waters, and jewels are made of gold, so are all things existent in and composed of the Spirit of God.
All material beings of every species, are forms of the great Brahman himself; know this One as all, and there is nothing apart from or distinct from him. How can there be an independent existence or voluntary change of anything in the world; where can they or the world be, except in the essence and omnipresence of God, and wherefore do you think of them in vain. By knowing all this as I have told you, the saints live fearlessly in the world by reflecting on the supreme Being in them-selves; they move about as liberated in their lifetime, with the equanimity of their souls.
The enlightened saints attain their imperishable states, by being invincible to the errors of fiction, and unsub-dued by the evils of worldly attachment, they remain always in their spiritual and holy states, by being free from temporal desires and the conflicts of jarring pas-sions, doubts, and dualities.
ADMONITION OF ARJUNA IN SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE
The causes of the feelings of pleasure and pain, and happiness and misery in this world, and the modes and means of their prevention and avoidance.
Lord Krishna: Listen moreover, O’ mighty-armed Arju-na, to the edifying speech, which I am about to deliver unto you, for the sake of your lasting good and welfare.
Know, O’ progeny of Kunti, that the perception of the senses or the feelings conveyed to our minds by the organic senses, such as those of cold and heat and the like, are the causes of our bodily pleasure and pain, but as these are transitory, and come to us and pass away by turns, you must remain patient under them. Know-ing neither the one nor the other to be uniform and monotonous, what is it that you callest as real pleasure or pain.
A thing having no form or figure of its own can have no increase or decrease in it. Those who have sup-pressed the feelings of their senses, by knowing the il-lusory nature of sensible perceptions, are content to remain quiet with an even tenor of their minds, both in their prosperity and adversity, are verily the men that are thought to taste the ambrosial drought of immortal-ity in their mortal state. Knowing the soul to be the same in all states, and alike in all places and times, they view all differences and accidents of life with indiffer-ence and being sure of the unreality of unrealities, they retain their endurance under all the varying circum-stances of life.
Never can joy or grief take possession of the common Soul, which being ecumenical in its nature, can never be exceptional or otherwise. The unreal has no exist-ence, nor is the positive a negative at any time; so, there can be nothing as a positive felicity or infelicity either in any place, when God himself is present in his person everywhere. Abandon the thoughts of felicity or infelicity of the world, and seeing there is no such dif-ference in the mind of God, stick fast in this last state of indifference to both. Though the intelligent Soul, and the external phenomena, are closely situated in the inside and outside of the body, yet the internal soul is neither delighted nor depressed, by the pleasure or pain, which environ the external body.
All pleasure and pain, relating the material body, touch the mind, which is situated in it, but no bodily hurt or debility affects the Soul, which is seated beyond it. Should the Soul be supposed to participate, in the pleasure or pain, which affect the gross body, it is to be understood as caused by the error, rising from our igno-rance only. The gross is no reality, and its feelings of pain or pleasure are never real ones, as to touch the in-tangible Soul; for who is so senseless, as not to perceive the wide separation of the soul from the body?
What I tell you here, O’ progeny of Bharata, will surely destroy the error arising from ignorance, by the full un-derstanding of my lectures.
As knowledge removes the error and fear of the snake in a rope, arising from one’s ignorance, so our miscon-ception of the reality of our bodies and their pleasures and pains is dispelled by our knowledge of the Truth.
Know the whole universe to be identic with increate (unmanifest) Brahman, and is neither produced nor dissolved by itself; knowing this as a certain truth, be-lieve in Brahman only, as the most supreme source of all the knowledge.
You are but a little billow in the sea of Brahman’s es-sence; you rise and roll for a little while, and then sub-side to rest. You foam and froth in the whirlpool of Brahman’s existence, and are no other than a drop of water in the endless ocean of Brahman. As long as we are in action under the command of our general, we act our parts like soldiers in the field; we all live and move in Brahman alone, and there is no mistake of right or wrong in this.
Abandon your pride and haughtiness, your sorrow and fear, and your desire of pleasure; it is bad to have any duality or doubt in you; be good with your oneness or integrity at all times. Think this in yourself from the destruction of these myriads of forces under your arms that all these are evolved out of Brahman, and you do more than evolve or reduce them to Brahman himself.
Do not care for your pleasure or pain, your gain or loss, and your victory or defeat, but resort only to the unity of Brahman, and know the world as the vast ocean of Brahman’s entity. Being alike in or unchanged by your loss or gain, and thinking yourself as nobody, and go on in your proper course of action, as a gust of wind takes its own course. Whatever you do or take to your good, whatever sacrifices you make or any gift that you give to anyone, commit them all to Brahman and remain quiet in yourself.
Whoever thinks in his mind of becoming anything in earnest, he undoubtedly becomes the same, in process of time; if therefore, you wish to become as Brahman himself, learn betimes to assimilate yourself to the na-ture of Brahman, in all your thoughts and deeds.
Let the one who knows the great Brahman, be em-ployed in doing his duties as they occur to him without any expectation or reward, and as God does his works without any aim, so should the godly do their works without any object.
He who sees the inactive God in all his active duties, and sees also all his works in the inactive God, that man is called the most intelligent among men, and he is said to be the readiest discharger of his deeds and du-ties. Do not do your works in expectation of their re-wards, nor engage yourself to do anything that is not your duty or improper for you. Go on doing your duties as in your yoga or fixed meditation, and not in connec-tion with other’s or their rewards. Neither be addicted to active duties nor recline in your inactivity either; never remain ignorant or negligent of your duties in life, but continue in your work with an even temper at all times.
The man though employed in business is said to be do-ing nothing at all who does not foster the hope of a re-ward of his acts and is ever contented in himself, even without a patron or refuge. It is the addictedness of one’s mind to anything that makes it his action and not the action itself without such addiction. It is ignorance, which is the cause of such tendency, therefore, igno-rance is to be avoided by all means.
The great Soul that is settled in divine knowledge, and is freed from its want or bent to anything, maybe em-ployed in all sorts of works, without being reckoned as the doer of any. He who does nothing is indifferent about its result, this indifference amounts to his equa-nimity, which leads to his endless felicity, which is next to the state of Godhead.
By avoiding the dirt of duality and plurality, betake yourself to your belief in the unity of the supreme Spir-it, and then whether you do or not do your ceremonial acts, you will not be accounted as the doer.
He is called a wise man by the learned, whose acts in life are free from desire or some object of desire, and whose ceremonial acts are burnt away by the fire of spiritual knowledge. He who remains with a peaceful, calm, quiet, and tranquil equanimity of the Soul, and any desire or avarice for anything in this world, maybe doing his duties here, without any disturbance or anxie-ty in his mind. The man who has no dispute with any-one, but is ever settled with calm and quiet rest of his soul, which is united with the Supreme Soul in Yoga, without ceremonial observances, and is satisfied with whatever is obtained of itself, such a man is deemed as a decoration of this Earth.
They are called ignorant hypocrites, who, having re-pressed their organs of actions, still indulge themselves in dwelling upon sensible pleasures by recalling their thoughts in the mind. He who has governed his out-ward and inward senses by the power of his sapient mind, and employs his organs of action in the perfor-mance of his bodily functions and discharge of his cer-emonial observances without its addictedness to them, is quite different from the one described before. As the overflowing waters of rivers fall into the profound and motionless body of waters in the sea, so the souls of holy men enter into the ocean of eternal God, where they are attended with a peaceful bliss, which is never to be obtained by avaricious worldlings.
LECTURE ON THE LIVING SOUL OR JIVATMA
Unity and reality are the causal subjective
(noumenon), and the duality and unreality are
the objective worlds (phenomenon),
and the situation of God between the two implies his witnessing both of these without being either of them,
because the condition of the cause and the caused
do not apply to God who is beyond all attributes.
Lord Krishna: Neither relinquish nor abstain from your enjoyments, nor employ your mind about them, nor in the acquisition of the object thereof. Remain with an even tenor of your mind and be content with what comes to you.
Never be intimately related to your body that is not in-timately related with you, but remain intimately con-nected with yourself, which is your increate and imper-ishable soul.
We suffer no loss by the loss of our bodies, but we lose everything, by the loss of our souls, which last forever and never perish. The soul is not weakened like the sen-tient mind, by loss of the sensible objects of enjoyment and incessantly employed in action, yet it does nothing by itself. It is one’s addictedness to an action that makes it his act, and this even that incites the mind to action and therefore, this ignorance is required to be removed from it by all means.
The great minded man who is acquainted with the su-perior knowledge of spirituality forsakes his tendency to action and does everything that comes to him without his being the actor thereof. Know your soul to be with-out its beginning and end, and undecaying and imper-ishable in its nature; the ignorant think it is perishable, and you must not fall into this sad error like them. The best of men that are blest with spiritual knowledge, do not look at the Soul in the same light as the ignorant vulgar, who either believe the soulless matter to be the soul or think themselves as incorporate souls by their egoistic vanity.
Arjuna: If it is so, O’ Lord of worlds, then I ween that the loss of the body is attended with no loss or gain to the ignorant.
Lord Krishna: So, it is, O’ mighty-armed Arjuna! They lose nothing by the loss of the perishable body, but they know that the soul is imperishable, and its loss is the greatest of all losses. How be it, I see no greater mistake of men in this world than when they say that they have lost anything or gained something that never belongs to them. It appears like the crying of a barren woman for her child, which she never had, nor is ex-pected to have at any time.
That it is axiomatic Truth established by the learned, and well known to all men of common sense, though the ignorant may not perceive it verily that, an unreali-ty cannot come to reality, nor a reality go to nothing at any time. Now know that to be the imperishable that has spread out this perishable and frail world, and there is no one that can destroy the indestructible.
The finite bodies are said to be the abode of the infinite soul, and yet the destruction of the finite and frail en-tails no loss upon the infinite and imperishable Soul. Know therefore the difference between the two. The Soul is a unity without duality, and there is no possibil-ity of Its nihility. The eternal and infinite reality of the Soul can never be destroyed with the destruction of the body. Leaving aside the unity and duality, take that which remains, and know that state of tranquillity, which is situated between the reality and unreality to be the state of the transcendental Deity.
A DISCOURSE ON SOTERIOLOGY
Arjuna: Such being the nature of the soul, then tell me, O’ Lord, what is the cause of this certainty in a man that he is dying, and what makes him think that he is either going to heaven above or to the hell below?
Lord Krishna: Know Arjuna, there is a living soul dwelling in the body composed of the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and vacuum, as also of the mind and understanding. The embodied and living soul is led by its (mind’s) desire, as the young of a beast is carried about tied by a rope around its neck, and it dwells in the recess of the body, like a bird in a cage. Then, as the body is worn-out and becomes infirm in course of time, the living soul leaves it, like the moisture from a dried leaf, and flies to where it is led by its (mind’s) inborn desire. It carries with it the senses of hearing, seeing, feeling, taste, touch, and smell from the body, as the breeze wafts the fragrance from the cells of flow-ers.
The body is the production of one’s desire, and has no other assignable cause to it; it weakens by the weaken-ing of its desire, and being altogether weak and wasted, it becomes extinct in its final absorption in the God-head. The avaricious man, being staunch with his con-cupiscence, passes through many wombs into many births, like a magician is skilled in leaping up and down in earth and air.
The parting soul carries with it the properties of the senses from the sensible organs of the body, just as the flying breeze bears with it the fragrance of flowers in its flight through the sky. The body becomes motionless after the soul has fled from it, just as the leaves and branches of trees remain unruffled after the winds are still. When the body becomes inactive, and insensitive to the incision and wounds that are inflicted upon it, it is then called to be dead, or to have become lifeless. As this soul resides in any part of the sky, in its form of the vital air, it beholds the very same form of things manifested before it, as it was wont to desire when liv-ing. The soul comes to find all these forms and bodies to be as unreal as those it has left behind, and so, must you reckon all bodies after they are destroyed, unless you be so profoundly asleep as to see and know noth-ing.
Brahma, the lord of creation, has created all beings ac-cording to the images that were impressed in his mind in the beginning. He sees them still to continue and die in the same forms. Whatever form or body the soul finds on itself on its first and instantaneous springing to life, the same is invariably impressed in its con-sciousness, until its last moment of death.
The pristine desire of a man is the root of his present manliness, which becomes the cause of his future suc-cess. So also, the present exertion of one, is able to cor-rect and make up not only his past mistakes and deficits but also to edify upon his rugged but of old. Whatever is pursued with ardent exertion and diligence for a while, the same in particular is gained among all other objects of one’s former and future pursuit. Whether a man is exposed on the barren rock of the Vindhya, or blown and bourn away by the winds, he is yet support-ed by his manhood; therefore, the wise man should never decline to discharge the legal duties that are re-quired of him at all times. Know the heaven and hell of which you ask, to be creatures of the old prejudices of men; they are the productions of human wish and exist in the customary bias of the populace.
Arjuna: Tell me, O’ Lord of the world, what is that cause, which gave rise to the prejudice of heaven and hell?
Lord Krishna: These prejudices are as false as airy dreams, and have their rise from our desire, which wax-ing strong by our constant habit of thinking them as true, make us believe them as such, as they mislead us to rely on the reality of the unreal world. Therefore, we must shun our desires for our real good.
Ignorance is the source of our desires, as it is the main-spring of our error of taking the unreal self for the true Self; it is knowledge of the Self, therefore, combined with right understanding that can dispel the error of our desires. You are best acquainted with the Self, O’ Arju-na! And well know the Truth also, therefore, try to get off your error of yourself and not yourself as this I and that another, as also of your desires for yourself and other.
Arjuna: But I ween that the living soul dies away with the death of its desires because the desire is the support of the soul, which must languish and droop down for want of a desire. Tell me moreover, what thing is it that is subject to future births and deaths, after the living soul perishes with its body at any time or place?
Lord Krishna: Know the wistful soul, O’ intelligent Arjuna, to be of the form of the desire of the heart and any other form that one has framed for himself in his imagination. The soul that is self-same with itself, and unaltered in all circumstances, that is never subject to the body or any desire on Earth, but is freed from all desires by its own discretion, is said to be liberated in this life.
Living in this manner, you must always look to and be in search of the Truth and being released from the snare of worldly cares, you are said to be liberated in this life.
The soul that is not freed from its desires is said to be pent up as a bird in its cage, and though a man may be very learned, and observant of all his religious rites and duties, yet he is not said to be liberated, as long as he labours in the chain of his desires.
The man who sees the train of desires, glimmering in the recess of his heart and mind, is like a purblind man who sees the bespangled train of peacocks’ trail in the spotless sky.
He is said to be liberated whose mind is not bound to the chain of desire, and it is one’s release from this chain that is called his liberation in this life and in the next.
A DISCOURSE ON MENTALISM
Discourse on the liberation of the living soul,
and description of the mind
as the miniature of the world.
Lord Krishna: Now Arjuna, forsake your sympathy for your friends, by the cold-heartedness that you have ac-quired from the abandonment of your desires and cares, and the liberation that you have attained to in this your living state. Be dispassionate, O’ sinless Arjuna! By forsaking your fear of death and decay of the body, and be as clear as the unclouded sky in your mind, by driv-ing away the clouds of your cares from it, and dispel-ling all your aims and attempts either good or evil for yourself or others.
Discharge your duties as they come to you in the course of your life, and do well whatever is proper to be done that no action of yours may go for nothing. Who-soever does any work that comes to him of itself in the course of his life, that man is called to be liberated in his lifetime; and the discharge of such deeds belongs to the condition of living liberation.
That I will do this and not that, or accept of this one and refuse the other, are the conceits of foolishness, but they are all alike to the wise. Those who do works, which occur to them, with the cool calmness of their minds, are said to be the living liberated, and they con-tinue in their living state as if they are in their pro-found sleep.
He who has contracted the members of his body, and curbed the organs of his senses in himself, from their respective outward objects, resembles a tortoise that rests in quiet by contracting its limbs within itself.
The universe resides in the Universal Soul and contin-ues there in all the three present, past, and future times, as the painting-master of the mind, draws the picture of the world in the aerial canvas. The variegated picture of the world, which is drawn by the painter of the mind in the empty air, is as void as vacant air itself, and yet appearing as prominent as a figure in relief, and as plain as a pike-staff. Though the formless world rests on the plane of vacuity, yet the wonderous error of our imagination shows it as conspicuous to view as a magi-cian shows his aerial cottage to our deluded sight. As there is no difference in the plane surface of the canvas, which shows the swelling and depression of the figures in the picture to our sight, so there is no convexity or concavity in the dead flat of the Spirit, which presents the uneven world to view.
Know, O’ lotus-eyed Arjuna, the picture of the world in the empty vacuum is as void as the vacuity itself; it rises and sets in the mind as the temporary scenes, which appear in imagination at the fit of delirium. So is this world all hollow both in the inside and outside of it, though it appears as real as an air drawn city of our imagination by our prejudice or long habit of thinking it so.
Without cogitation, the Truth appears as false, and the false as true as in a delirium, but by excogitation of it, the Truth comes to Light, and the error or untruth van-ishes in nullity. As the autumnal sky, though it appears bright and clear to the naked eye, has yet the flimsy clouds flying over it, so the picture drawn over the plane of the inane mind presents the figures of our fan-cied objects in it. The baseless and unsubstantial world, which appears on the outside, is but a fantasy and has no reality in it, and when there is nothing as you or I or anyone in real existence, say who can destroy one or be destroyed by another?
Driveaway your false conception of the slayer and slain from your mind, and rest in the pure and bright sphere of the divine Spirit, because there is no stir or motion in the intellectual sphere of God, which is ever calm and quiet. All commotions appertain to the mental sphere and the action of the restless mind. Know the mind to contain everything in its clear sphere, such as time and space, the clear sky, and all actions and mo-tions and positions of things, as the area of a map pre-sents the sites of all places upon its surface. Know that the mind to be more inane and more rarefied than the empty air, and it is upon that basis, the painter of the intellect has drawn the picture of this immense uni-verse. But the infinite vacuum being wholly inane, it has not that diversity or divisibility in it, as they exhibit themselves in the mind, in the rearing up and breaking down of its aerial castle. So, the Earthly mortals seem to be born and die away every moment, as the change-ful thoughts of the all-engrossing mind, are ever rising and existing in it. Though the erroneous thoughts of the mind, are so instantaneous and temporary, yet it has the power of stretching out the ideas of the length and duration of the world, as it has of producing new ideas of all things from nothing.
The mind has moreover the power of prolonging a mo-ment to a kalpa age, as of enlarging a minim to a mountain, and of increasing a little to a multitude. It has the power also of producing a thing from nothing, and of converting one to another in a trice; it is this capacity of it, which gives rise to the erroneous concep-tion of the world, in the same manner, as it raises the airy castle and fairylands of its own nature in a mo-ment. It has likewise brought these wonderous worlds into existence, which rose out in the twinkling of an eye, as a reflection and not the creation of it.
All these are but ideal forms and shadowy shapes of imagination, though they appear as hard and solid as adamant, they are the mistaken ideas of some unknown form and substance. Whether you desire or dislike your worldly interests, show me where lies its solidity, both in your solicitude as well as in your indifference about it; the mind being itself situated in the intellect of the Divine contriver, the picture of the world, cannot have its place anywhere else.
O’ how very wonderous and bright is this prominent picture, which is drawn on no base or coating, and which is so conspicuous before us, in various pieces without any paint or colour whereof it is made.
O’ how pleasant is this perspicuous picture of the world, and how very attractive to our sight. It was drawn on the inky coating of chaotic darkness and ex-hibited to the full blaze of various lights. It is fraught in diversity, colours, and filled with various objects of our desire in all its different parts; it exhibits many shows, which are pleasant to the sight, and presents all things to the view of which we have the notions in our minds. It presents many planets and stars before us, shining in their different shapes and spheres all about. The blue vault of heaven resembling a cerulean lake brightens with the shining Sun, moon, and stars liking it’s blooming and blossoming lotuses. There are the bodies of variegated clouds, pendant as the many coloured leaves of trees on the azure sky, and appearing as pic-tures of men, gods, and demons, drawn over the domes of the three regions.
The fickle and playful painter of the mind has sketched and stretched out the picture of the sky, as an arena for the exhibition of the three worlds as its three different stages, where all deluded peoples are portrayed as joyful players, acting their parts under the encircling light of the supreme Intellect. Here is the actress with her se-date body of golden hue, and her thick braids of hair; her eyes glancing on the people with flashes of sun-shine and moonbeams; the rising ground is her back and her feet reach the infernal regions; and being clothed with the robe of the sastras, she acts the plays of morality, opulence, and the farce of enjoyments. The gods Brahma, Indra, Hari, and Hara, form her four arms of action; the property of goodness is her bodice, and the two virtues of discretion and apathy (viveka and vairagya) are her prominent breasts. The Earth resting on the head of the infernal serpent is her lotus-like footstool upheld by its stalk; she is decorated on the face and forehead with the paints of mineral moun-tains, whose valleys and caves form belly and bowels. The fleeting glances of her eyes dispelling the gloom of night, and the twinkling of stars is like the erection of hairs on her body; the two rows of her teeth emit the rays of flashing lightning, and all Earthly beings are like the hairs on her person and rising as piles about the bulb of a Kadamba flower.
This Earth is filled with living souls, subsisting in the spacious vacuum of the Universal Soul, and appearing as figures in painting drawn in it. This, the skilful artist of the mind that has displayed this elusive actress of the universe, to show her various features as in a pup-pet show.
ON ABANDONMENT OF DESIRE RESULTING IN TRANQUILITY
The final discourse delivered to Arjuna on the peace of mind resulting from its want of desires.
Lord Krishna: Look here, O Arjuna! The great wonder, which is manifest in this subject; it is the appearance of the picture, prior to that of the plane of the plan upon which it is drawn. The prominence of the painting and the non-appearance of its basis must be as wonderous as the buoyancy of a block of stone, and the sinking down of gourd shell as it is shown in a magic play.
The universe resting in the vacuity of the divine Spirit, appears as a picture on the tablet of the mind; say then, how does this egoism or self-knowledge of your sub-stantiality arise from the bosom of the vacuous nullity?
All these being the vacant production of vacuum, are swallowed up likewise in the vacuous womb of an infi-nite vacuity; they are no more than hallow shadows of emptiness and stretched out in empty air. This empty air is spread over with the snare of our desires, stretch-ing as wide as the sphere of these outstretched worlds; it is the band of our desire that encircles the worlds as their great belt.
The world is situated in Brahma as a reflection in the mirror, and is not subject to partition or obliteration, owing to its inherence in its receptacle, and its identity with the same. The indissoluble vacuum being the na-ture of Brahma, is inseparable from his essence; for no-body is ever able to divide empty air in twain or remove it from its place. It is owing to your ignorance of this that your concupiscence has become congenial with your nature, which it is hard for it to get rid of, not-withstanding its being fraught with every virtue.
He who has sown the smallest seed of desire in the soul of his heart is confined like a lion in the cage, though he may be very wise and learned in all things. The de-sire, which is habitual to one, grows as rank as a thick wood in his breast, unless it is burnt away in the seed by the knowledge of the Truth when it cannot vegetate anymore. This mind is no more inclined to anything, who has burnt away the seed of his desire at once; he remains untouched by pleasure and pain, like the lotus-leaf amidst the water. Now, therefore, O Arjuna! Do you remain calm and quiet in your Spirit; be undaunted and devoid of all desire in your mind; meltdown the mist of your mental delusion by the heat of your Nir-vana devotion, and from all that you have learned from my holy lecture to you; remain in perfect tranquillity with your reliance in the Supreme Spirit.
ARJUNA’S SATISFACTION & PRAISE ON THE SERMON
The knowledge of Truth dispels the doubts and leads to display his valorous deeds in warfare.
Arjuna: Lord! It is by your kindness that I am freed from my delusion, and have come to the reminiscence of myself. I am now placed above all doubts and will act as you have said.
Lord Krishna: When you find the feelings and faculties of your heart and mind, to be fully pacified by the means of your knowledge, then understand your soul to have attained its tranquillity, and the property of good-ness or purity of its nature.
In this state, the soul becomes insensible of all mental thoughts, and full of intelligence in itself, and being freed from all inward and outward perceptions, it per-ceives in itself the one Brahman, who is all and every-where. No worldly being can observe this elevated state of the soul, as nobody can see the bird that has fled from the Earth into the upper sky. The pure Soul, which is devoid of desire, becomes full of intelligence and spiritual light, and it is not be perceived by even the most foresighted observer. Nobody can perceive this transcendental and transparent state of the Soul, with-out purifying his desires at first; it is a state as imper-ceptible to the impure, as the minutest particle of an atom is unperceivable by the naked eye.
Attainment of this state drives away the knowledge of all sensible objects as of pots, plates, and others. What thing, therefore, is so desirable, as to be worth desiring before the Divine presence. As the frost and ice melt away before a volcanic mountain, so doth our ignorance flies afar, from the knowledge of the intellectual Soul.
What are these mean desires of us that are blown away like the dust of the Earth, and what are our possessions and enjoyments but snares to entangle our souls?
So long doth our ignorance flaunts herself in her vari-ous shapes, as we remain ignorant of the pure and modest nature of our inner souls in ourselves. All out-ward appearances fade away and faint, and appear in their pellucid forms in the inmost soul, which grasps the whole in itself, as the vacuum contains the plenum in it.
That which shows all forms in it, without having or showing any form of itself, is that transcendent sub-stance, which is beyond description, and transcends our comprehension of it.
Now get rid of the poisonous and colic pain of your de-sire for gain, as also of the permanence of your own existence; mutter to yourself the mantra of your resig-nation of desirables, and thus prosper in the world without fear for anything.
Lord Vasishtha: After the Lord of the three worlds had spoken the words, Arjuna remained silent for a moment before him, and then like a bee sitting beside a blue lotus, uttered the following words to the sable bodied Krishna.
Arjuna: Lord! Your words have dispelled all grief from my heart, and the light of truth is rising in my mind, as when the Sun rises to awaken the closed and sleeping lotus,
Lord Vasishtha: After saying so, Arjuna being cleared of all his doubts, will lay hold on his Gandiva bow, and rise with Hari from his chariot in order to proceed to his warlike exploits. He will transform the face of the Earth into a sea of blood, gushing out of the bodies of com-batants, their charioteers and horses and elephants that will be wounded by him; the flights of his arrows and thickening darts, will hide the disc of the Sun in the sky and darken the face of the Earth with flying dust.
OM
DIPPACK MISTRI 