Knowledge of Truth – the Yoga Vasistha

The book “The Supreme Yoga” is the teaching of the sage Vasistha imparted to Sri Rama. It contains true understanding about the creation of the world i.e. the world is nothing but the play of consciousness. the Yoga Vasistha is the greatest help to the spiritual awakening and direct experience of Truth. Vasistha demands direct observation of the mind, its motion, its notions, its reasoning, the assumed cause and the projected result. The book is a translation into English by Swami Venkatesananda of Divine Life Society, Rishikesh India. The article is primarily based on it.
 
To the ignorant, the body is the source of suffering’ but to the enlightened man, this body is the source of infinite delight, and when its life-span comes to an end he does not regard it as a loss at all. The body is regarded as a vehicle of wisdom. The body does not subject the wise man to the temptations of lust and greed, nor does it allow ignorance or fear to invade him.
 
The wise man who is rid of all doubts, in whom there is no image of self, reigns supreme in the body. Therefore, one should abandon all cravings for pleasure and attain wisdom. The knower of truth regards even the most beautiful women as a painted image; that is the truth, for both of them are made of the same substance (earth, water etc.). The enlightened sage functions in the world while his consciousness is firmly established in the truth.
 
The truth or existence-consciousness-bliss absolute is beyond thought and understanding, it is supreme peace and omnipresent, it transcends imagination and description. There arises naturally in it the faculty of conceptualization.

Prakriti & Ignorance –
The self-understanding is considered to be threefold: subtle, middling and gross. The intellect that comprehends these three regards them as sattva, rajas and tamas. The three together constitute what is known as prakriti or nature. Avidya or ignorance is prakriti or nature and it is threefold. This is the source of all beings; beyond it is the supreme. These three qualities of nature (sattva, rajas and tamas) are subdivided again into three each i.e. subtle, middling and gross of each of these. Thus, you have nine categories. These nine qualities constitute the entire universe.
The sages, the ascetics, the perfected ones, the dwellers of the nether land, the celestials and the gods are the Satvika part of ignorance. Among these, the celestials and the dwellers of the nether land form the gross (tamas), the sages form the middling (rajas) and gods Vishnu, Shiva etc. form the Satvika. They who come under the category of sattva are not born again: hence they are considered liberated. They exist as long as this world lasts. The other (like the sages) who are liberated while living (Jivanmukta), shed their body in course of time, reach the abode of the gods, dwell there during the period of existence of the world and then are liberated. Thus, this part of avidya or ignorance has become vidya or knowledge has become vidya or self-knowledge. Avidya arises in vidya just as ripples arise in the ocean; and avidya dissolves in vidya just as ripples dissolve in water.
 
Knowledge of Truth -

1. One sees the truth who sees the body as a product of deluded understanding and as the fountain source of misfortune, and who knows that the body is not the self.
2. One sees the truth who sees that in the body pleasure and pain are experienced on account of the passage of time and the circumstances in which one is placed, and that they do not pertain to him.
3. One sees the truth who sees that he is omnipresent infinite consciousness which encompasses within itself all that takes place everywhere at all times.
4. One sees the truth who knows that the self, which is as subtle as the millionth part of the tip of a hair divided a million times, pervades everything.
5. One sees the truth who sees that there is no division at all between the self and the other, and that the one infinite light of consciousness exists as the sole reality.
6. One sees the truth who sees that the non-dual consciousness which indwells all beings is omnipotent and omnipresent.
7. One sees the truth who is not deluded into thinking that he is the body which is subject to illness, fear, agitation, old age and death.
8. One sees the truth who sees that all things are strung in the self as beads are strung on a thread, and who knows ‘I am not the mind’.
9. One sees the truth who sees that all this is a Brahman, neither ‘I’ nor ‘the body’.
10. One sees the truth who sees all beings in the three worlds as his own family, deserving of his sympathy and protection.
11. One sees the truth who knows that the self alone exists and that there is no substance in objectivity.
12. One is unaffected who knows that pleasure, pain, birth, death, etc. are all the self only.
13. One is firmly established in the truth who feels:” What should I acquire, what should I renounce, when all this is the one self?”

 
The Man of Truth, Sage -
The sage who has realised the truth and who is liberated from error here and now beholds this world as he would in deep sleep, without the least craving. He does all, yet he does nothing. Inwardly having renounced everything, though outwardly he appears to be busy, he is ever in the state of equilibrium. His actions are entirely non-volitional. The sage is unattached to anything or anybody. He is a child among children, old man among old man, hero among heroes, youth among youth and sorrowing among the sorrowful. He has no longing for pleasure and hence is not tempted by it. He is not attached to bondage or even to liberation. He is not elated when his efforts bear fruit, nor is he worried if they do not.
 
He does not feel any justification for either pity or joy. When all such concepts as pleasure and pain, desirable and undesirable cease, all notions in the mind cease.
 
There are two ways in which this cessation can be achieved: one is the way of yoga which involves the restraint of movement of thought, and the other is the way of knowledge which involves the right knowledge of truth.
 
There are two types of muni (a sage, who observes mouna or silence). One is the rigid ascetic and the other the liberated sage.

1. The former forcibly restrains his senses and engages himself in dry (devoid of wisdom) kriya (activities) with fanaticism.
2. The liberated sage, on the other hand, knows what is what (the truth as truth and the unreal as unreal), he is endowed with self-knowledge and yet he behaves as any ordinary person here. What is regarded as silence or Mouna is based on the nature and the behaviour of this muni.

 
Four types of silence have been described: 1. Silence of speech, 2. Silence of the senses (eyes, etc.), 3. Violent restraint, as also, 4. The silence of deep sleep. There is another known as silence of the mind. However, that is possible only in one who is dead or one who practises the rigid Mouna (kastha Mouna) or the silence of deep sleep (susupti Mouna). Of these the first three involve elements of the rigid Mouna. It is the fourth that is really conducive to liberation. Hence, even at the risk of incurring the displeasure of those who resort to the first three types of Mouna. I say that there is nothing in those three is desirable.
 
The silence of deep sleep is conducive to liberation. In it the prana or life-force is neither restrained nor promoted, the senses are neither fed nor starved, the perception of diversity is neither expressed nor suppressed, the mind is neither mind nor non-mind. There is no division and hence no effort at abolishing it; it is called the silence of deep sleep, and one who is established in it may or may not meditate.
 
They who are fully awakened, who are constantly engaged in samadhi and who are thoroughly enlightened, are known as Samkhya-yogi. They who have reached the state of bodiless consciousness through pranayama etc., are known as yoga-yogi. Indeed, the two are essentially the same. The cause of this world-appearance and bondage is indeed the mind. Both these paths lead to the cessation of the movement of prana or the cessation of thought, liberation is attained.
 
Impure mind-stuff remains restless as the wind. It is dissatisfied with whatever it gets and grow more and more restless by the day. like the lion in the cage, the mind is ever restless. It is this mind which is the cause of all objects in the world; the three worlds exist because of the mind-stuff. When the mind vanishes, the worlds vanish too.
 
People are righteous because they are afraid of consequences of sin. Abandon joy and sorrow, grief and attachment. The unreal appears to be real and the real appears to be unreal: hence give up hope and hopelessness and equanimity.
 
Distinction between ignorance and knowledge is unreal and verbal. There is neither ignorance here nor even knowledge! When you cease to see knowledge and ignorance as two distinct entities, what exists alone exists. When these two notions are abandoned, what remains is the truth.