20 August 2001, 12:06am IST
Pranav Khullar.
Vashishta begins by emphasising moral excellence, a pre-requisite for any true seeker, in his metaphorical comparison of shanti or peace, vichara or discrimination, santosh or contentment, and satsang or the company of sages, to the four sentinels guarding the gate of moksha or salvation, and how a sadhak or devotee is to cultivate these traits to control the distractions of the mind. he then goes on to discuss the nature of existence and the role of the mind therein, through a series of anecdotes, the principal among them being the story of sambarika, the siddha or self-realised soul, who arrives at the court of king lavana to show his bag of tricks.
Sambarika manages to put the king into a trance-like state, in which the king sees himself as a chandala, the untouchable who is born and bred in a different place, marries in the chandala community, has children, lives in poverty and starvation till age 60, and finally immolates himself, being unable to face further depravation. at this point the king awakens from his stupor only to realise that his mind has conjured up the entire 60-year episode into a trance-span of two hours. vashishta drives home the point that the world of phenomena is nothing but a creation of the mind, a jugglery which is to be unravelled through atma-vichara or self-introspection and analysis.
Sage vashishta now exhorts sri rama to adopt the path of karma or duty guiding him back from his misconceived notions of renunciation in much the same manner as chudalai directs the king in the parable.
An ancient and pioneering literary-philosophical text on the vedanta, the yoga-vashishta can be seen as an early forerunner of the bhagavad-gita in its convergence of the paths of jnana and karma.
Pranav Khullar.
The ramayana is the story of sri rama, the earliest tragic hero of indian tradition. the epic includes a profound insight into the tenets of vedanta, in the form of a discourse given by sage vashishta to sri rama on the nature of existence and reality. this later got formalised into the text of the yoga-vashishta.
Also called the vashishta maha-ramayana, this discourse is one of the earliest works on vedanta in sanskrit literature, and is contextually placed in the valmiki ramayana at a moment of confusion and crisis in the life of the 16-year-old prince rama who is beginning to feel a surge of vairagya or detachment at that tender age. while extolling the vairagya state of sri rama, sage vashishta initiates rama into the deeper ontological questions of existence and the nature of the mind.
Vashishta begins by emphasising moral excellence, a pre-requisite for any true seeker, in his metaphorical comparison of shanti or peace, vichara or discrimination, santosh or contentment, and satsang or the company of sages, to the four sentinels guarding the gate of moksha or salvation, and how a sadhak or devotee is to cultivate these traits to control the distractions of the mind. he then goes on to discuss the nature of existence and the role of the mind therein, through a series of anecdotes, the principal among them being the story of sambarika, the siddha or self-realised soul, who arrives at the court of king lavana to show his bag of tricks.
Sambarika manages to put the king into a trance-like state, in which the king sees himself as a chandala, the untouchable who is born and bred in a different place, marries in the chandala community, has children, lives in poverty and starvation till age 60, and finally immolates himself, being unable to face further depravation. at this point the king awakens from his stupor only to realise that his mind has conjured up the entire 60-year episode into a trance-span of two hours. vashishta drives home the point that the world of phenomena is nothing but a creation of the mind, a jugglery which is to be unravelled through atma-vichara or self-introspection and analysis.
Vashista then puts forth some fundamental positions of vedanta which would later be formulated in detail by sankara and other sage-philosophers. he details the position of the individual soul vis-a-vis brahman that is compared to a universal mirror in which the reflection of the world can be seen like that of the image in a mirror, brahman alone being the substratum of this existence.
Vashishta reinforces the imaginary nature of the universe by narrating a similar tale of sukracharya. a meditating sukracharya gets distracted by a celestial nymph, and unable to check the impulse of his mind, slips into a reverie. the reverie leads him to attachments, a series of births, till he is dragged out of his twilight state and shown his true nature as the meditating sukra.
Sri rama is called upon to follow the example of uddalaka, the upanishadic sage who practised pranava yoga to master his mind and senses and who attained sattwa samanya or pure consciousness by withdrawing into the self. vashishta then narrates the poignant tale of king sikhidhwaja and his wife chudalai to illustrate the nature of avidya or ignorance, and samskara or past deeds, and to draw the road-map to freedom.
King sikhidhwaja decides to renounce his kingdom to find the ultimate reality on a momentary impulse of vairagya, despite the pleadings of his wife chudalai, who is an adept yogi herself, not to abdicate his responsibilities. the tale narrates the endeavours of chaudalai to teach the true meaning of detachment to her husband, through her yogic persona of kumbha muni. this tale encapsulates the entire spirit of the yoga-vashishta, as it were, as chudalai guides helps her husband to realise the true meaning of renunciation and detachment, through an elaborate understanding of the mind being the seat of illusion in its ability to generate desire; through ahankara which is egoism.
Sage vashishta now exhorts sri rama to adopt the path of karma or duty guiding him back from his misconceived notions of renunciation in much the same manner as chudalai directs the king in the parable.
An ancient and pioneering literary-philosophical text on the vedanta, the yoga-vashishta can be seen as an early forerunner of the bhagavad-gita in its convergence of the paths of jnana and karma.
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