Yoga Vasishta - Post 11

Saraswati said to Leela, “That brahmin whom I described before, the one who become a monarch on earth, is the same as your husband. His wife Arundhati is no other than yourself, the best of women.  You two are the same pair now reigning over this realm, resembling a pair of doves in your nuptial love, and the gods Shiva and Parvati in your might.”

 

“I have related your past lives to you so that you may know the individual soul to be only air, and that knowledge of its reality is an error. False knowledge casts its reflection on consciousness and causes its error also. (Errors in the senses breed errors in the mind.) 

 

This makes you doubtful of the truth and untruth of the two states (of the material and intellectual worlds).  Therefore the question, ‘Which is true and which is untrue?’ has no better answer than that all creations are equally false and unsubstantial.”

 

Vasishta said:—

 

Hearing these words of the goddess, Leela was confused in her mind, and with her eyes staring with wonder, she addressed her softly.

Leela said, “How is it, O goddess, that your words are so incoherent with truth. You make us the same as the brahmin couple who are in their own house. We are sitting here in our palace. How is it possible that the small space of the room in which my husband’s body is lying could contain those spacious lands and hills and the ten sides of the sky?  It is as impossible as confining an elephant in a mustard seed, or a gnat fighting with a body of lions in a nutshell. 

 

It is as incredible as to believe a lotus seed contains a hill, or to be devoured by a little bee, or that peacocks are dancing hearing the roaring of clouds in a dream. O great goddess of gods, it is equally improbably to say that this earth, with all its mountains and other things, is contained within the small space of a sleeping room.  Therefore, O goddess, please explain this mystery clearly to me, because it is by your favor only that the learned are cleared of their questions.”

 

The goddess Saraswati said:— Hear me, fair maiden! I did not tell you a lie. 

The individual soul of the village brahmin saw within itself and in his own house the image of this great kingdom, just as his departed spirit now sees the same in its empty void. (Therefore both these states are equally ideal.) 

After death you lost the memories of your former lives, just like one loses memories of waking events when in the dream state. All are like the appearance of the three worlds in dream, or their formation in the imagination, or like the description of warfare in an epic poem, or like water in the mirage of a sandy desert. 

The hills and houses seen in the empty space of the brahmin’s house were nothing but the capacity of his own mind to form the images of its fancy and receive the external impressions like a reflecting mirror.  All these, though unreal, appear as real substances on account of the reality of consciousness which is seated in the cavity of the innermost sheath of the body and reflects the images. 

But these images derived from the memories of unreal objects of the world are as unreal as those objects which cast their reflections upon consciousness. Waves rising in the river of a mirage are as unreal as the mirage itself.

The spirit of the brahmin resided in the emptiness of his house (the body), with the seas, forests and the earth within itself, like a bee lives in the lotus. Thus the habitable earth with everything it contains is situated in a small cell in one corner of consciousness, like a spot of flimsy cloud in the sky. 

The house of the holy brahmin was situated in the same locality of consciousness which contains all the worlds in one of its atomic particles. Every atom of the intelligent soul contains unnumbered worlds within worlds, enough to remove your doubt of the brahmin being able to see an entire kingdom within the space of his intellect.

 

Leela asked, “How can we be the brahmin couple when they died only eight days before and we have been reigning here for so many years?”

 

Continued....

Love

 

Sri Sathya Sai Baba

 

 

THE mind flits fast from one idea to another; it fondles for a moment and forsakes the next. You may manage to keep your mouths shut, but it is next to impossible to keep the mind shut. Mind is of that nature; it is woven so out of the yarn of desire. Its characteristic is to flutter and flit, hither and thither, through the outlets of the senses, into the external world of colour, sound, taste, smell and touch. But it can be tamed and put to good use by man. If we keep it engaged in good pursuits and good adventures, particularly in the contemplation of the Universal, the Absolute, the Eternal, that is to say, of God, then, it will not go astray and land man in ruin; for, God is the source of undying strength, of lasting joy and the deepest wisdom. The age span, 16-30 years, is crude, for that is the period when life adds sweetness to itself, when talents, skills, and attitudes are accumulated, sublimated and sanctified. If the tonic of unselfish Seva (service) is administered to the mind during this period, life's mission is fulfilled - for the process of sublimation and sanctification will be hastened by this tonic. Do not serve for the sake of reward, attracting attention, or earning gratitude, or from a sense of pride at your own superiority in skill, wealth, status or authority. Serve because you are urged by love. When you succeed, ascribe the success to the Grace of God, who urged you on, as Love within you. When you fail, ascribe the failure to your own inadequacy, insincerity or ignorance. Examine the springs of action, disinfect them from all trace of ego. Do not throw the blame on the recipients of the seva, or on your collaborators and co-workers, or on God.

 

Divine Discourse – 19^th May, 1969

Sri Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol 9

 

  

Yoga Vasishta - Post 10

Vasishta relating the story of Leela, Saraswati speaking to Leela:

In his age and attire, in his learning and wealth, and in all his actions and pursuits, this holy man was equal to his namesake, except in his profession. (The one being a secular man, and the other the priest of the royal family). His name was Vasishta.

 

His wife was Arundhati, fair as the moon and like the star of the same name visible from earth. She resembled her namesake, the priestess of the solar race, in her virtues and parts and in all things, except in her soul and body. She passed her time in true love and affection in the company of her husband, and she was his all in the world, with her sweet smiling face resembling a kumuda flower.

 

Once this holy man had been sitting under the shady sarala trees, on the tableland of his native hill, when he saw the ruler of the land passing below with his gaudy train.  He was accompanied by all the members of the royal family and his troops and soldiers. They were going to a hunt with a clamor that resounded in the hills and forests.  The white flapper fans shed a stream of moonlight, the lifted banners appeared like a moving forest, and the white umbrellas made a canopy of the sky. 

 

The air was filled with dust raised by the horses’ hoofs, and the lines of elephants with their high pavilion saddles seemed like moving towers that protect them from the heat of the sun and the hot winds. The loud uproar of the party, resembling the roaring of a whirlpool, made wild animals run on all sides. Shining gems and jewels were flashing all about on the bodies in the party.

 

The holy man saw this procession and thought to himself, “O how charming is royalty, filled with such splendor and prosperity! Ah, how shall I become the monarch of all the ten sides, and have such a retinue of horse, elephants and foot soldiers, with a similar train of flags, flappers and blazing umbrellas? When will the breeze gently blow the fragrance of kunda flowers and the powdered dust of lotuses to my bed-chamber to lull me and my consorts to sleep? When shall I adorn the faces of my chamber maids with camphor and sandal paste, and enlighten the faces of the four quarters with my fair fame, like the moonbeams decorate the night?”

 

With these thoughts, the holy man determined that for the rest of his life, he would apply himself vigilantly to the rigid austerities of his religion. At last, he was overtaken by infirmities which shattered his body, like the sleets of snowfall batter the blooming lotuses in the lake. Seeing his approaching death, his faithful wife was fading away with fear, like a vine withers at the departure of spring for fear of the summer heat. Arundhati then began to worship me, as you yourself have, in order to obtain the boon of immortality which is hard to be had.

 

She prayed, “Ordain, O goddess, that the spirit of my lord may not depart from this tomb after his death.” I granted her request.

 

After some time Vasishta the holy man died and his empty spirit remained in the emptiness of that home. By virtue of the excessive desire and merit of acts in his former state of existence, this aerial spirit of the holy man assumed the shape of a mighty man on earth. He became the victorious monarch of the three realms. By his might he subjugated the surface of the earth. 

 

By his valor he conquered the high mountains (of the gods). By his kind protection, the nether lands were under his sway.  He was like a raging fire to the forest of his enemies, and like the steadfast Mount Meru amidst the rushing winds of business on all sides. He was like the sun expanding the lotus-like hearts of the virtuous. To the eyes of women he was like the god Kama.  He was the model of all learning, and the all giving wish-fulfilling tree to his suitors. He was the footstool of great scholars. He was like the full moon shedding ambrosial beams of enlightened rule all around.

 

But after the holy brahmin had died, and his dead body had disappeared into the forms of elementary particles in air, and his airy spirit had rested in the aerial intellectual soul within the empty space of his house, his holy brahmin widow, Arundhati, was pining away in her sorrow, and her heart was rent in twain like a dried pea pod. She became a dead body like her husband. Her spirit, by shuffling off its mortal coil, resumed its subtle and immortal form in which it met the departed ghost of her husband. She advanced to her lord as rapidly as a river runs to meet the sea below its level. She was as cheerful to join him as a cluster of flowers inhale the spring air.

 

The houses, lands and all the immovable properties and movable riches of this holy brahmin Vasishta still exist in that rocky village, and it has been only eight days since the souls of this loving pair were reunited in the hollow vault of their house.

 

Continued....

 

Love.