Fwd: Yoga vasishtam and Va:sana:s:

[Guest guest]

Namaste all, I find this somewhat more illumating than my weak

attempts.........ONS..

 

advaitin , Ganesan Sankarraman <shnkaran

wrote:

 

 

 

kuntimaddi sadananda <kuntimaddisada wrote:

Dhyaanasaraswatiji,

 

Beautiful statement. Both bondage and liberation are mithya. But

they

appear to be satya as long as long as one has the notion that one

is

bound.

 

Sir,

May I be permitted to quote the following dialog

between Rama and sage Vasishta, as brought about in the translation

of sri R.M.Hari.

" Question 294: Sir, you have instructed me to be established in the

turiya state of quiescence. Are you free from the ideation of, ' I

am Vasishta'? What is the nature of the turiya state where you do

not experience the, 'I'.

[ Hearing these words of Sri Ramachandra, Vasishtaji became quiet

and gave no reply. At this Sri Ramachandra said, ' Sir, your

silence does not suit you. You are truly Brahmagyani and jagat-

guru. Nothing is unknown to you. Are you quiet because you consider

me incompetent?' After a silence for a while, Vasishta replied.]

Answer: Ramji, I did not become silent because of your

incompetence, but I replied according to the nature of your

question, or silence is the only answer to your question. Had you

been an agyani, I would have replied in words, but because you are

a gyani, I have answered it in gyan. Or, quiescence is the answer

to your question; hence I remained silent. As long as you were an

agyani, I answered your questions by the method of variants (

vikalpas), that is with ideation and words. All verbal statements

or instructions are imbued with words and duality. Formerly, words

and variants ( vikalpa ) suited you. But, now I have instructed you

about Nirvikalpa ( the mode that is divested of illusions or

variants).

Ramji, words are of four kinds, viz (i) words having subtle

purport, ( ii ) words having spiritual purport, ( iii ), and ( iv )

long or elaborate words. All these four types are limited on

account of three kinds of deficiencies or faults ( kalank ): (i )

doubt or logic ( sanshay ), ( ii ) duality ( pratiyogi ) and three

division or distinction ( bhed ). The state that is beyond mind and

verbal description cannot be expressed with the afflicted words. "

 

Vasishta very beautifully disowns the

relevance of words in the scheme of the unravelling of that which

is, which cannot be conceptualized through the network of thought,

which is essentially a knower-known phenomenon, and is relevant

only in the realm of the empirical. Vasishta ends this peroration

by the final statement to the following effect: " When a person

says, ' I am Brahman and that is the world,' you should assume that

he has not yet attained gyan. When the jiva truly attains gyan,

then he does not even have the awareness of non-duality.. He just

becomes sublime. At that stage who will teach whom, and what? Words

and meaning are absent at that stage and the universe is dissolved. "

Further, Vasishta is very insightful in the following

utterance, which is a practical guide for those who may not be

familiar with the dialectics or averse to it.

" Accepting the present that has arrived in regular course for the

moment with the externalized intellect, and not accepting ( or

entertaining ) the future and the past, the mind is reduced to the

state free from thoughts. " ( Page 145, verses 40-41, the story of

Ghadhi, Essence of Yoga Vasishta by Samvid)

 

yours truly,

Sankarraman

 

 

 

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