Mind for Self-Realisation – 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.
 
The mind is nothing but bundle of thoughts. Victory over this goblin known as mind is gained when, with the aid of one’s own self-effort, one attains self-knowledge and abandons the craving for what the mind desires as pleasure. This can be easily be achieved by the cultivation of the proper attitude. When the mind is thus conquered by remaining completely unagitated, you will consider even the conquest of the three-world worthless. Wisdom destroys egotism and generates fearlessness.
 
The pure mind is free from latent tendencies, and therefore it attains self-knowledge. The impure mind sees a ghost where there is just a post and pollutes all relationship, creating suspicion among friends and making enemies of them, even a drunken man sees that the world is revolving around him. A distressed mind turns food into poison and causes disease and death.
 
Conditioning of Mind -
The conditioned mind creates bondage even in ascetics; the unconditioned mind is pure even in a householder. The mind that is thus conditioned is bondage; liberation is freedom from conditioning (inner contact, attachment or identification). Actions performed by the unconditioned are non-action. Conditioning is cause of sorrow. Conditioning can be illustrated by the following example: the Donkey is led by the master’s rope and, afraid, it carries a heavy burden. The adorable conditioning recognises ‘natural’ limitations. However, attachment implies division and duality which is limitation of the infinite and conditioning of the unconditioned. The mind which is unattached to anything, which is established in the peace of infinite expansion, is conducive to delight.
 
At all times, the mind should not be attached to the action, the thoughts or the object. Neither should it be attached to the heavens above, nor what is below nor in the other directions. When the mind is dead and craving is dead, delusion has vanished and egoless-ness is born.
 
The very nature of the mind is stupidity. Hence when it dies, purity and noble qualities arise.
 
Desires, aversions and cravings are born out of attachment (liking or disliking for something) in the mind. Once desires are fulfilled, one feels pleasure and on not getting fulfilled, one feels pain. Pleasure is heaven and pain is hell. Deeper the pain, more intense is hell. Hence, strive to eradicate the desire for experience. Get rid of idleness. Free yourself from experiences. Neither idleness nor strong desires are good for peace and bliss. Lower the desires, better is the life.
 
If you strive to destroy the conditioning (the concepts, notions, habits etc.), then in a moment all your errors and illnesses will vanish. Renounce the pursuit of pleasure and resort to: cessation of conditioning, movement of thought and realisation of truth, simultaneously.
 
One should practise the abandonment of conditioning and the restraint of prana simultaneously. Prana is restrained by the practice of pranayama and yoga asana, as taught by the guru, or by other means. When desires, aversions and cravings do not arise in the mind even though their objects are seen in the front, then it is to be inferred that mental conditioning has weakened; thence wisdom arises, further weakening the conditioning. Then the mind ceases.
 
It is not possible to ‘kill the mind’ without proper methods. Knowledge of the self, company of the holy men, the abandonment of conditioning and the restraint of prana are the means to overcome the mind. Ignoring these and resorting to violent practices like Hatha Yoga, austerities, pilgrimage, rites and rituals, is of little use.
 
The illusory notion of existence of the mind etc. persists only as long as the sublime realisation of the truth is not experienced.
 
Remain pure at heart like space, but outwardly engage yourself in appropriate action; in situations which could provoke exultation or depression, remain unaffected by them like a log of wood. He who is friendly even to one who is about to murder him, is seer of truth. He in whom all concepts and habitual tendencies have ceased has overcome all mental conditioning and bondage.
 
Mind & Duality -
In the case of one who is not attracted by pleasure, whose heart is cool because of its purity and who has shattered the cage of desires, cravings and hopes, the deluded notion of the existence of the mind ceases to be. When he sees even his body as the deluded experience of the non-entity, how can a mind arise? He who has the vision of the infinite and into whose heart the world-appearance has merged, does not entertain the deluded notion of a Jiva etc.
 
Concepts of duality, unity or such others do not arise in them, for there are no tendencies in their heart. The very seed of ignorance is burnt in the state of sattva and it does not again give rise to delusion.
 
The individual is nothing more than the personalised mind. Individuality ceases when that mind ceases; it remains as long as the notion of a personality remains. So long as there is a pot there is also the notion of a space enclosed within or confined to that pot; when it is broken, the infinite space time alone is, even where the pot-space was imagined before.
 
Mind & Doership -
The sense of doership (the notion ‘I do this’) which gives rise to both happiness and unhappiness. whatever the mind does, that alone is action: hence, the mind alone is the doer of actions, not the body. The mind alone is the world-appearance; this world-appearance has arisen in it and it rest in the mind. When the objects as well as the experiencing mind have become tranquil, consciousness alone remains. The wise declare that the mind of the enlightened is neither in a state of bliss nor devoid of bliss, neither in motion nor static, neither real nor unreal, but between these two propositions.
 
Mind, Doership & Freedom -
The sense of doership (the notion ‘I do this’) which gives rise to both happiness and unhappiness. whatever the mind does, that alone is action: hence, the mind alone is the doer of actions, not the body. The mind alone is the world-appearance; this world-appearance has arisen in it and it rest in the mind. When the objects as well as the experiencing mind have become tranquil, consciousness alone remains. The wise declare that the mind of the enlightened is neither in a state of bliss nor devoid of bliss, neither in motion nor static, neither real nor unreal, but between these two propositions.
He who is wise, but who has not completely controlled the pleasure-seeking tendencies of his senses, sees the truth and sees the illusion. And, he who has clearly understood the nature of the world and the Jiva and who has firmly rejected the world-appearance as the reality, is liberated and is not born again.
Bondage is bondage to these thoughts and notions: freedom is freedom from them. Give up all notions; even those of liberation. First, by the cultivation of good relationships like friendship, give up tendencies and notions which are gross and materialistic.
There is no salvation without the total renunciation of all notions or ideas or mental conditioning. The sage of self-knowledge is not enamored of the gains or the pleasure of the entire universe.  

Cut down the mind with the mind itself –
Even a terrible weapon is encountered and destroyed by a more powerful weapon, tranquillise the mind with the help of the mind itself. Forever abandon every form of mental agitation. Remain at peace within yourself like a tree freed from the disturbance caused by monkeys.
Mind is but a product of ignorance; when ignorance wears out, then the mind wears out, too. O mind, I abandon you who are the source of sorrow.
Hence, if actions are performed spontaneously without mental conditioning, their experience will be pure and free from memories of past happiness or unhappiness.
When the mind has ceased to be because of the total absence of the notions of material existence, consciousness exists in its own nature as consciousness. that is known as pure being. When consciousness devoid of notions of objectivity merges in itself losing its separate identity, as it were, it is pure being.
 
Mind & Self -
In truth, there is no mind, no intelligence, no embodied being: the self alone exists at all times. Because it is extremely subtle it seems not to exist, though it exists.
 
O mind: your intelligence is derived from infinite consciousness, why do you grieve? That is omnipresent, that is the all: when you realise it, you become the all. O mind, you are neither the doer nor the experiencer. O mind, you are the support of all our hopes and desires; when you cease to be, all these hopes and desire cease.
 
One whose consciousness is extroverted experiences pleasure and pain; on the other hand, the yogi whose vision is introverted does not entertain ideas of pain and pleasure. You can punish the body; but you cannot punish the mind nor bring about the least change in it. If the mind is fully saturated with something, whatever happens to the body does not affect the mind. The mind alone is the seed for the body.
 
The individualised consciousness (mind) has in it own manifold potentialities. The pure and infinite consciousness alone thinks of itself as the Jiva and as the mind and then believes itself to be the body. In the mind, the subject is believed to be sentient and the object is said to be inert. Thus, caught in delusion, the Jiva hangs around. In truth, this duality itself is the creation of mind. But when the mind enquires into its own nature, this division disappears. There is realisation of the one infinite consciousness, and one attains great bliss.
 
Enlightened Mind -
The characteristic of the enlightened one is purity of mind and absence of craving. He is devoid of confusion and delusion. Samsara has come to an end. And lust, anger, grief, delusion, greed and such disastrous qualities are greatly weakened in him.
The pure and equanimous state which is devoid of ego-sense and non-ego-sense, of the real and unreal, and which is free, is known as turiya (the fourth state). It is the state of the liberated sage. It is the unbroken witness consciousness. It is different from the waking and dreaming states which are characterised by inertia and ignorance. When the ego-sense is abandoned, there arises the state of perfect equilibrium in which the turiya manifests itself. Waking, dream and sleep are states of the mind. Inwardly abandon everything; externally engage yourself in the appropriate action.