UDDALAKA ARUNA
GOTAMA
DESIRE OF UDDALAKA
Uddalaka’s struggle for liberation amidst
all his worldly attachments.
This is an anachronism of
Vaivasvata Gita!
Related by Lord Vasishtha to Prince Rama
in The Court of the Race of Raghu (Ikshvaku).
YOGA-VASISHTHA OF VALMIKI
Lord Vasishtha: Rely on no confidence, O’ Rama, in the course of the mind, which is sometimes continuous and sometimes momentary, now even and flat and then sharp and acute, and often as treacherous as the edge of a razor. As it occurs in the course of a long time, that the germ of intelligence comes to sprout forth in the field of the mind, so do you, O’ Rama, who is a moral-ist; grow it by sprinkling the cold water of reason over its tender blades.
As long as the body of the plant does neither fade away in the course of time nor roll upon the ground as the decayed and dead body of man, so long should you hold it up upon the prop of reason. Knowing the truth of my sayings and pondering on the deep sense of these say-ings of mine, you will get delight in your inmost soul, as the serpent-killing peacock, is ravished at the roaring of raining clouds.
Do like the Sage Uddalaka, shake off your knowledge of quintuple materiality as the cause of creation, and ac-custom yourself to think deeper, and on the prime cause of causes by your patient inquiry and reasoning.
Prince Rama: Tell me, Sir, in what way (“Katha”) the Sagely Uddalaka got rid of his thoughts of the quintes-sential creation, and penetrated deeper into the original cause of all, by the force and process of his reasoning?
Lord Vasishtha: Learn Rama, how the Sage Uddalaka of old, rose higher from his investigation of the quintuple matter to his inquiry into their cause, and the manner in which that transcendent Light dawned upon his mind.
It was in some spacious corner of the old mansion of this world, and on the Northwest side of this land, a spot of rugged hills and overtopping it as a shed. Among these stood the high hill of Gandhamadana with a tableland on it, which was full of camphor ar-bours that shed the odours of their flowers and pistils continually on the ground.
This spot was frequented by birds of variegated hues and filled with plants of various kinds. Its banks were behest by wild beasts, and fraught with flowers shin-ning and smiling over the woodland scene. There were the bright swelling gems in some part of it, and the blooming full-blown lotuses in another; some parts of it were veiled by tufts of snow, and crystal streams glid-ing of glassy mirrors on others.
Here on the elevated top of a big cliff on this hill, which was studded with Sarala trees, and strewn over with flowers up to the heels, and shaded by the cooling umbrage of lofty trees. There lived the silent Sage by the name of Uddalaka, a youth of a great mind, and with a high sense of his honour. He had not yet at-tained his maturity when he betook himself to the course of his rigorous austerity. On the first develop-ment of his intellect, he had the light of reason dawn-ing upon his mind, and he was awakened to noble aims and expectations, instead of arriving at the state of rest and quietude. As he went on in this manner in his course of austerities, religious studies, and observances of his holy rites and duties, the genius of right reason appeared before him, as the new year presents itself be-fore the face of the world.
He then began to cogitate in himself in the following manner, sitting aside as he was in his solitude, weary with thoughts and terrified at the ever-changing state of the world. What is that best of gains, said he, which being once obtained, there is nothing more to be ex-pected to lead us to our rest, and which being once had, we have no more to do with our transmigration in this world? When shall I find my permanent rest in that state of holy and transcendent thoughtlessness, and remain above all the rest, as the cloud rests over the top of the Sumeru mountain, or as the polar star stands above the pole without changing place?
When will my tumultuous desires of worldly aggran-dizement, merge in peaceful tranquillity; as the loose, loud, and boisterous waves and billows subside in the sea?
Immerged in these and the like reflections, the twice-born Uddalaka sat in his meditation amidst the forest. He often beheld the Sunlight of spirituality rising with-in himself, and as often turned away his mind from that golden prospect to the sight of gross objects. Leav-ing the soul in the gloom of internal darkness, the li-centious mind flies as fast as a bird, to the object of sense abroad.
RATIOCINATION OF UDDALAKA
Uddalaka remonstration with himself amidst the rever-ies of his meditation.
Lord Vasishtha: He sat firmly in the posture of pad-masana with his face turned upwards; his two legs and feet covered his private parts, and his palms and fingers counted the beads of Rudraksha.
Sage Uddalaka: O’ my senseless mind! Why is it that you are occupied in your worldly acts to no purpose, when the sensible never engage themselves, to what proves to be their bane afterwards?
He who pursues after pleasure, by forsaking his peace-ful tranquillity, is as one who quits his grove of Manda-ra flowers and enters a forest of poisonous plants. You may hide yourself in some cave of the Earth and find a place in the highest abode of Brahma, then yet you cannot have your quiet there, without the quietism of your Spirit.
You have been roving all this time with your froggish heart, in the blind pursuit after your profit and pleasure, but tell me what great boon has booted you in all your ramblings about the Earth?
Why do you not fix your mind to that quietism, which promises to give you something as your self-sufficiency, and wherein you may find your rest as the state of your liberation in your lifetime?
O’ my heart! Said he, it is you yourself that does stretch the snare of your desires for your own entan-glement, as the silkworm weaves its own cell by its sa-liva, for its own imprisonment.
It is impossible for the slender and finite mind to com-prehend the nature of the infinite Soul, as it is not pos-sible for an elephant to be contained in a nutshell. I analysed my body by each atom from head to foot but failed to find what we call the “I” in any part of it, and what makes my personality. That which is the “I am” fills the whole universe and is the only One in all the three worlds; it is the unknowable consciousness, om-nipresent, and yet, apart from all.
Its magnitude is neither to be known nor has it any ap-pellation of its own; it is neither the one or the other, nor an immensity nor minuteness: It is unknowable by the light of the Vedas, and its ignorance, which is the cause of misery is to be destroyed by the light of rea-son. I am none of the elements of the body, nor the mind, nor its desires, but the pure intellectual Soul, and a manifestation of the divine Intellect.
That I am everywhere, and yet nothing whatever that is anywhere, is the only knowledge of the true reality that we can have, and there is no other way to it.
I have been long deceived by my deceitful ignorance, and am misled from the right path, as the young of a beast is carried away by a fierce tiger to the woods. It is now my good fortune that I have come to detest this thievish ignorance, not shall I trust anymore this robber of truth.
Being subject to my egoism, I say, I speak, I know, I stay, I go etc., but on looking at the soul, I lose my egoism in the Universal Soul.
I verily believe my eyes, and other parts of my body, to belong to myself, but if they be as something besides myself, then let them remain or perish with the body, with which I have no concern.
Fie for shame! What is this word “I,” and who was its first inventor? This is no other than a slipslop and a namby-pamby of some demoniac child of Earth.
It is your own will that guides your hand to construct a prison for your own confinement, as the silkworm is confined in the pod of its own making. It is your desire only that is the chief cause of your being attached to one another in one place, as the tread passing through the holes of pearls, ties them together in a long string around the neck. This desire, the creature of your imag-ination, is the cause of all your errors and your ruin also, as the breath of air is the cause of both burning and extinction of lamps and lightening the fiery furnac-es.
THE RATIONAL RAPTURE OF UDDALAKA
Description of the soul unsullied by its
desires and egoism and the difference subsisting
between the body and mind.
Sage Uddalaka: The Intellect is an unthinkable sub-stance; it extends to the limits of endless space and is minute than the minutest atom. It is quite aloof of all things and inaccessible to the reach of desires, logic, etc. It is inaccessible by the mind, understanding, ego-ism, and the gross senses, but our empty desires are as wide extended as the shadowy forms of big and formi-dable demons.
From all my reasonings and repeated cogitations, I per-ceive an Intelligence within myself, and I feel to be the stainless Intellect.
This body of mine, which is of the world, and is a de-pository (Hiranyagarbha) of my false and evil thoughts, may last or be lost without any gain or loss to me since I am the untainted Intellect.
The Intellect is free from birth and death because there is nothing perishable in the nature of the all-pervasive Intellect; what then means the death of a living being, and how and by whom can it be put to death?
What means the life and death of the Intellect, which is the Soul and life of all existence; what else can we ex-pect of the Intellect, when it is extended through and gives life to all?
Life and death belong to the optative and imaginative powers of the mind, and do not appertain to the pure Soul; that which has the sense of its egoism has also the knowledge of its existence and inexistence, but the Soul, which is devoid of its egoism can have no sense of its birth or death.
Egoism is a fallacy and production of ignorance, and the mind is no other than an appearance of the water in a mirage; the visible objects are all gross bodies; what then is that thing to which the term ego is applied?
There is only one Being, which is all-pervading and subsisting in all bodies; it always exists and is immensi-ty in itself. It is only the Supreme Spirit that is the in-telligent Soul of all.
Now tell me, which of these is the ego, what is it, and what is its form, what is its genus and what are its at-tributes, what is its appearance, and of what ingredients is it composed?
What am I and what shall I take it to be, and what re-ject as not itself?
Hence, there is nothing here, which may be called the ego either as an entity or a non-entity; and there is nothing anywhere, to which the ego may bear any rela-tion or any resemblance whatsoever. Therefore, egoism being a perfect non-entity, it has no relation to any-thing at all, and this irrelation of it with all things proved, its fiction as a duality goes to nothing whatso-ever.
Thus, everything in the world being full of the Spirit of God, I am no other than that Reality, and it is in vain that I think myself as otherwise and suffer or sorrow for it or as a result of it.
All things being situated in the One pure and omni-present Spirit, whence is it that the meaningless word ego could take its rise?
So, there is no reality of any object whatsoever, except that of the supreme and all-pervading Spirit of God; it is, therefore, useless for us to inquire about our rela-tionship with anything, which has no reality in itself.
The senses relate to the organs of sense, and the mind is conversant with the mental operations, but the Intel-lect is unconnected with the body and bears no relation with anybody in any manner. As there is no relation between stones and iron nails, so the body, the senses, the mind, and the intellect bear no relation with one another, though they are found to reside together in the same person.
The great error of the unreal ego having once obtained its footing among mankind, it has put the world to an uproar with the expressions of mine and yours, as that is mine and that is yours, and that other is another’s and the like. It is the want of the light of reason that has given rise to the meaningless and marvellous ex-pression of egoism, which is made to vanish under the light of reason, as ice is dissolved under the heat of so-lar light.
That there is nothing in existence, except the Spirit of God is my firm belief, and this makes me believe the whole universe as a manifestation of the great Brahman himself.
I have altogether got rid of the error of my egoism and now recline with my tranquil Soul in the universal Spirit of God, as the autumnal cloud rests in the infi-nite vacuum of the sky.
The unreal world gives rise to the error of appearing as real, as the unreal I and you seem to be realities, though they are caused by mere pulsations of the unre-al mind. This world is seen apparently to arise at first without a cause and to no cause, how then call it a real-ity, which is sprung from and to no cause at all?
Or it is my long habit of thinking that makes the un-truth appear as truth to me, and like the mirage of the desert, our mirage of life presents its falsehood as reali-ties onto us.
All things that we see in the phenomenal world are un-realities in their nature, and as the mind comes to know the nothingness of things, it feels in itself its nothing-ness also. When the mind comes to see the pure Soul by means of its intellectual light, it gets itself ridden of its temporal exertions; and being thereby freed from its passions and affections, it rests with its calm compo-sure in itself.
The mind is the enemy of the body, and so is the latter an enemy of the former. Owing to their mutual hostili-ties, and their passions and affections towards each oth-er, it is better to eradicate and destroy both, for our at-tainment of supreme bliss.
The existence of either of these after death is as incapa-ble of heavenly felicity as it is for an aerial fairy to fare on Earth. What good then can possibly accrue to us from the union of the body and mind, which are repug-nant to one another, and which of their own nature can never be reconciled together?
The mind being weakened, the body has no pain to un-dergo, wherefore, the body is always striving to weaken the mind. Though both are troublesome to us in their different natures, yet their union to one end is benefi-cial to us, as the collaboration of fire and water is for the purpose of cooking.
That for which the body of mine craves its enjoyments is neither mine nor do I belong to it; what is the good therefore of bodily pleasures to me. It is certain that I am neither myself the body nor is the body mine in any way; just as a corpse with all its parts entire, is nobody at all. Therefore, I am something besides this body of mine, and that is everlasting and never sets in its glory; it is by means of this that I have that light in me, whereby I perceive the luminous Sun in the sky.
Where there is the Soul of Self, there is neither the mind nor senses nor desire of any kind, as the vile Pa-maras never reside in the contiguity of Princes.
I have attained to that state in which I have surpassed all things, and it is the state of my soliety, my extinc-tion, my indivisibility, and my want of desires. I am now loosened from the bonds of my mind, body, and the senses, as the oil, which is extracted from the seeds of sesame and separated from the sediments.
I walk about freely in this state of my transcendental-ism, and my mind, which is disjoined from the bonds of the body, considers its members as its dependent in-struments and accompaniments.
I find myself to be now situated in a state of transpar-ency and buoyancy, of self-contentment and intelli-gence, and of true reality.
I feel my full joy and calmness and preserve my reserv-edness in speech. I find my fullness and magnanimity, my comeliness and evenness of temper.
I see the unity of all things and feel my fearlessness and want of duality, choice, and option.
I find these qualities to be ever attendant on me. They are constant and faithful, easy and graceful and always propitious to me, and my unshaken attachment to them has made them as heartily beloved consorts to me.
I find myself as all and in all, at all times and in every manner, and yet, I am devoid of all desire for or dislike to anyone and am equally unconcerned with whatever is pleasant or unpleasant, agreeable or disagreeable to me. Removed from the cloud of error and melancholy, and released from dubitation and duplicity in my thoughts, I peregrinate myself as a flimsy cloud in the cooling atmosphere of the autumnal sky.
QUIESCENCE OF UDDALAKA
Uddalaka’s Pranava-Yoga and meditation;
his quietus in and coalescence with it.
The first step of his practice of Yoga is through
the utterance of the syllable OM or AUM (A-acute or Rechaka yoga; then, U-grave or Kumbhaka yoga;
then, M-circumflex or Puraka yoga);
the second step and middle step of his Kumbhaka
breathing and not by Hatha Yoga;
the third step of his Puraka breathing.
Lord Vasishtha: Thinking himself to be raised to this state of transcendence, the Saint sat in his posture of padmasana with his half-shut eye-lids and began to meditate in his translucent mind. In the state of calm and quiet repose, his limbs dropped down as in the drowsiness of sleep, and their powers were absorbed in the channel of his self-consciousness, as a flood recoils to its basin when it is bound by an embankment.
It was then by means of his constant inquiry that he advanced to the state of his intellectuality, from that of his consciousness of himself, as the gold that is mould-ed to the form of a jewel, is reduced afterwards to the pure metal only.
Then, leaving his intellectuality, he thought himself as the Intellect of his intellect and then became of another form and figure, as when the clay is converted to a pot.
Then leaving his nature of a thinkable being, he be-came the subjective thinking Intellect itself, and next to that, as identic with the pure universal Intellect, just as the waves of the sea resolve their globules into the common air.
Losing the sight of particulars, he saw the Great One as the container of all, and then he became as one with the sole vacuous Intellect. He found his felicity in this extra phenomenal state of the noumenon, which like the ocean, is the reservoir of all moistures.
He passed out of the confines of his body, and then went to a certain spot, where leaving his ordinary form, he became like a sea of joy. His intellect swam over that sea of joy like a floating swan (Hansa) and re-mained there for many years with as serene a lustre as the moon shines in her fullness in the clear firmament. It remained as still as a lamp in the breathless air; it was as calm as the clear lake without its waves, and as the sea after a storm, and as immovable as a cloud after it has poured out its waters.
As Uddalaka had been sitting in this full blaze of light, he beheld the aerial Siddhas and a group of gods. The group of Siddhas that were eager to confer the ranks of the Sun and Indra upon him, assembled around him with groups of Gandharvas and Apsaras, from all sides of heaven. But the saint took no notice of them, nor gave them their due honour, but remained in deep thought, and in the continuance of his steady medita-tion.
Without paying any regard to the assemblage of the Siddhas, he remained still in his blissful abode of his bliss, as the Sun remains in the solstices, or in the northern hemisphere for half of the year.
While he continued in the enjoyment of his blessed state of living liberation, the gods Hari, Hara, and Brahma waited at his door, together with the bodies of Siddhas, Sadhyas, and other deities beside them. He now remained in his state of indifference, which lies between the two opposites of sorrow and joy, and nei-ther of which is of long continuance, except the middle state of insouciance, which endureth for ever.
When the mind is situated in its state of neutrality, and whether it is for a moment or a thousand years, it has no more any relish for pleasure, by seeing its future joys of the next world, as already begun in this.
When holy men have gained that blissful state of this life, they look no more on the outward world, but turn aside from it, as men avoid a thorny bush of brambles. The Saints that attained to this state of transcendental bliss, do not stop to look upon the visible world, and as one who is seated in the heavenly car of Citraratha, never alights on the thorny bush of the Khadira.
Uddalaka thus remained in his holy seat for six months. He beheld before him the assemblage of the bright be-ings of enlightened minds, hailed the hermit with high veneration. They addressed the great-souled and saintly Uddalaka with saying, “Deign, O’ Venerable Sir, to look upon us that have been waiting here upon you with our greetings. Vouchsafe to mount on one of these heavenly cars, and repair to our celestial abode, because heaven is the last abode, where you shall have the full gratification of your desires after this life. There remain to enjoy your desired pleasures, until the end of this kalpa age; because it is pure heavenly bliss, which is the inheritance of Saints, and the main aim and ob-ject of ascetic austerities on Earth.”
The hermit heard his heavenly guests, speaking in this manner, and then honoured then as he ought, without being moved by aught they said unto him. He neither complemented them with his courtesy nor changed the tenor of his even and unexcitable mind, but biding them depart in peace, he betook himself to his wonted devotion.
At last, the saintly Uddalaka chose his abode in a cav-ern, lying at the foot of a mountain, and there dedicat-ed the remainder of his life to devotion and meditation in his seclusion.
After this Yoga was over, he came out and mixed with the world, and though he was sometimes engaged in the affairs of life, yet he was quite reserved in his con-duct and abstracted in his mind. Being practised to mental abstraction, he became one with the divine Mind, and shone resplendent in all places, like the broad daylight in view.
He was habituated to ponder on the community of the mind (existence), till he became one with the Universal Mind, which spreads alike throughout the universe, and neither rises nor sets anywhere like the solar light.
He gained the state of perfect tranquillity, and his even-mindedness is all places, which released him from the snare of doubts, and of the pain of repeated births and deaths. His mind became as clear and quiet as the au-tumnal sky, and his body shone like the Sun at every place.
TRANSCENDENTALISM OF UDDALAKA
Meditation on the universality of the Soul and Intellect.
Prince Rama: Venerable Sir! You are the Sun of the day of spiritual knowledge, and the burning fire of the night of my doubts; and you who are the cooling moon to the heat of my ignorance, will deign to explain to me, what is meant by the community of existence?
Lord Vasishtha: When the thinking principle or mind is wasted and weakened and appears to be extinct and null, the Intellect, which remains in common in all be-ings is called the common intelligence (Nous) of all. And this Intellect when it is devoid of its intellection and is absorbed in itself and becomes as transparent as it is nothing of itself, it is then called the common (Samanga) Intellect.
And likewise, when it ignores the knowledge of all its internal and external objects, it remains as the common Intellect and unconscious of any personality. When all visible objects are considered to have a common exist-ence and to be of the same nature with one’s self, it is designated the common Intellect.
When the phenomena are all engulfed of themselves in the common Spirit, and there remains nothing as dif-ferent from it, it is then called the one common entity. This common view of all things as one and the same is called transcendentalism, and it becomes alike, both to embodied and disembodied beings in both worlds.
It places the liberated being above the fourth stage of consummation (Turiya). It is the enlightened Soul, which is exalted by the ecstasy that can have this common view of all as one; and not the ignorant. This common view of all existence is entertained by all great and liberated beings, as it is the same moisture and air that is spread through the whole Earth and vacuum.
Sages like ourselves, as Narada and others, and the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, have this common view of all things in existence. The saintly Uddalaka enter-tained this view of the community of all beings and things, and having thereby, attain to that state of per-fection, which is free from fear or fall, he lived as long as he liked to live in this Earthly sphere.
After the lapse of a long time, he thought of enjoying the bliss of disembodied or spiritual liberation in the next world, by quitting his frail mortal frame on Earth. His habitual consciousness of intellection taught him the community of the intellect, and it was by this con-stant communion with the Intellect that he perceived a flood of internal bliss in himself.
This feeling of his internal bliss, resulting from his con-sciousness of intellectual community, led him to think himself as identic with the entity of the infinite Soul, and supporting the universal whole. He remained with an even composure, in his state of transcendent quiet-ness, and enjoyed an even rapture in himself, with a placid countenance.
Being unruffled by the transport of his spiritual bliss, and attaining the state of divine holiness, he remained for a long time in his abstract meditation, by abstract-ing his mind from all thoughts and errors of the world. His great body remained as fixed as an image in a paint-ing and shone as bright as the autumnal sky illumined by the beams of the full moon.
In course of some days, his soul gradually forgot its mortal state, and it found it’s rest in his pure spiritual bliss, as the moisture of trees is deposited in the rays of the Sun at the end of autumn.
Being devoid of all desire, doubts, and levity of his mind, and freed from all foul and of pleasurable inclina-tions of his body, he attained to that supreme bliss on the loss of his former joys, before which the prosperity of Indra appeared as a straw, floating on the vast ex-panse of the ocean.
The Brahmana then attained to that state of his sum-mum-bonum, which is unmeasurable and pervades through all space of the measureless vacuum, and which fills the universe and is felt by the enraptured Yogi alone. It is what is called the supreme and infinite bliss, having neither its beginning nor end and being a reality without any property assignable to itself.
While the Brahmana attained to this first state of con-summation and had the clearness of his understanding; during the first six months of his devotion, his body became emaciated by the Sunbeams, and the winds of heaven whistled over his dry frame, with the sound of lute strings. After a long time had lapsed in this man-ner, the daughter of the mountain King, Parvati, came to the spot, accompanied by the Matris, and shinning like flames of fire with the grey locks of hair on their heads, as if to confer the boon of his austere devotion.
Among them was the goddess Camunda, who is adored by the gods. She took up the living skeleton of the Brahmana and placed it on her crown, which added a new lustre to her frame at night. Thus, was the disgust-ing and dead like body of Uddalaka, set and placed over the many ornaments on the body of the goddess, and it was only for her valuing it as more precious than all other jewels, on account of its intrinsic merit of spiritu-al knowledge.
Whosoever plants this plant of the life and conduct of Uddalaka in the garden of his heart will find it always flourishing with the flowers of knowledge and the fruits of divine bliss within himself. And, whosoever walks under the shadow of his growing arbour, he is never to be subject to death but will reap the fruit of his higher progress in the path of liberation.
Proceed in this manner to know the universal Soul in your own soul, and thereby, obtain your rest in that holy state. You must consider all things by the light of the Sastras, and dive into their true meaning; you will also benefit yourselves by the lectures of your precep-tor, and by pondering on them in your own mind, as also by your constant practice of ignoring the visible, until you come to know the invisible One.
It is by your habitual dispassionateness, your acquaint-ance with the Sastras and their meanings, and your hearing the lectures of the spiritual teachers, as well as your own conviction that you gain the holy state, whereby you can come to it.
It is also by your enlightened understanding too, when it is acute and unbiased that you can attain to that ever-lasting state of felicity, without the medium of any-thing else.
Excerpted from The Yoga-Vasishtha of Valmiki.
OM
DIPPACK MISTRI 