Yoga Vasishta - Post 20

Leela’s Vision in Meditation; Description of the Mountain Hamlet

Rama said, “Tell me sage, how did the goddesses break out of the strongholds of their bodies and the prison-house of this world and pass through infinite space and survey the scenes beyond its confines?”

Vasishta replied:— Where is the world and where is its support or solidity? They were all situated in the region within the minds of the goddesses.  In their minds they saw the hilly tract where the brahmin Vasishta lived and had his desire for royalty.  They saw his deserted house and in their minds they saw the surface of the earth stretching to the seas.

 

In that imaginary spot of earth they saw the city of the king and the royal palace which he had enjoyed with Arundhati, his wife.  They saw how she was born under the name of Leela and how she worshipped the goddess of wisdom, Saraswati, by whom she was miraculously conveyed to the delightful region of the sky.  It was in the house situated in that hilly village that she saw the world placed within the space of her mind.

 

Having come out of her vision of the world, she found herself sitting in her house, just like one finds himself lying in his own bed after rambling from one dream to another. All that she saw was mere vision and void. There was no world, no earth, no house, and no distance. It was the mind that showed them these images, just like the mind presents the objects of our desire to our view. Otherwise, there is neither world nor earth in actuality.

 

The sphere of consciousness is infinite and without any covering. If agitated by the powers of one’s intellect, it presents all the objects of nature to his view, like the sky when agitated by heat produces the winds. The sphere of consciousness is uncreated. It is ever calm everywhere. Deluded minds suppose the world to exist. He who understands rightly sees the world is as unsubstantial as air. But whoever is misled by wrong judgment takes it to be like a solid mountain.

As a house and city are manifested to us in our dream, so this unreal world is presented as a reality to our understanding. It is like the misconception of water in the mirage and the mistake of gold in a bracelet. All this unreality appears as a reality to the mistaken mind.

 

Discoursing in this manner between themselves, the two charming ladies, walked out of the house with their graceful steps.

 

Being unseen by the village people, they viewed the mountain standing before them, kissing the vault of heaven and touching the orb of the sun with its lofty peaks. It was decorated with flowers of various colors and covered with a variety of trees of various colors. There were waterfalls gushing with their tremendous roaring on one side, and groves resounding with the warbling of birds in another. 

 

Standing on that spot, the ladies saw the hilly hamlet in the grass, like a fragment of heaven had fallen on the ground. There the rippling streams softly glided by, and here the brimming brooks wobbled in the ground. The birds of the air chirped on the sprays, and aquatic fowls flew about the holes of the seashore. 

 

There they saw herds of cattle slowly moving and grazing in the plains, filling the echoing woods with their loud lowing. They saw an open space broken with shady groves and trees and green meadows all about. The cliffs were white with snow, impenetrable by sunbeams. Hill tops were covered with bushy brambles, forming like braids of hair upon their craggy heads.

 

Cascades falling in torrents in the cavities of rocks, scattering their pearly particles afar like the churning of the Milky Ocean by Mandara Mountain. The trees in the glens, loaded as they were with their fruit and flowers, appeared like waiters upon the goddesses, standing to welcome their approach with their rich presents. Shaken by gusts of roaring winds, the forest trees were shedding showers of their honey sweetened flowers as offerings to the woodland gods and people.

 

Every morning flowering plants growing in the caves of the hills and around the house covered the ground heel-deep with heaps of flowers. There were whisk-tailed cattle and antelope grazing in one part of the forest, and tender young deer sleeping on beds of grass under gunja groves. There were young calves lying on their sides shaking their ears to drive away the flies that fluttered around their faces, milk dripping from the sides of their mouths.

 

A grove of green trees cast its cooling and undivided shade upon the ground where dewdrops trembled on blades of grass and glistened like twinkling stars in the blue sky. Trees constantly dropped their ripened fruit, dried flowers and leaves of various sorts, like showers of snow on whitened ground. Some clouds were seen to hang continually over the household compound, like aristocratic girls who never forsake their parents’ home. 

 

The altar here reverberated to the loud roaring of winds confined in the caves of mountains. The temple there was graced by twittering swallows and parrots that perched upon it from their numerous flights. 

 

Pearly dewdrops continually falling on the ground from the leaves of trees and blades of grass, the gleaming beauty of the ever blooming blossoms above, and the other everlasting charms of mountain hamlets baffle the description of poets.

 

Love.