The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 2 (of 4), Part 1 (of 2)

by Valmiki

42. That which you call the mental part of the intellect, is full of error and ignorance; and it is the ignorance of the intellectual part, that produces the errors of egoism and personality.

43. There is no error of egoism or personality in the transcendental category of the divine soul; because it is the integrity of all consciousness, as the sea is the aggregate of all its waves and waters.

44. The belief of egoism rises as any other thought of the mind, and is as inborn in it as the water in the mirage, which does not exist really in it.

45. The term ego is inapplicable to the pure and simple internal soul; which being vitiated by the gross idea of its concupiscence, takes the name of ego, as the thickened coldness is called by the name of frost.

46. It is the pure substance of the intellect which forms the ideas of gross bodies, as one dreams of his death in his sleep. The all-pervading intelligence which is the all inherent and omnipotent soul, produces all forms in itself, and of which there is no end until they are reduced to unity.

47. The mind manifests various appearances in the forms of things, and being of a pure etherial form, it assumes various shapes by its intellectual or spiritual body.

48. Let the learned abstain from the thoughts of the threefold forms of the pure intellectual, spiritual and corporeal bodies, and reflect on them as the reflexions of the divine intellect in his own mind.

49. The mind being cleansed of its darkness like the mirror of its dirt, shows the golden hue of spiritual light, which is replete with real felicity, and by far more blissful than what this earthly clod of body can ever yield.

50. We should cleanse the mind which exists for ever, rather than the body which is transient and non-existent; and as unreal as the trees in the air, of which no one takes any notice.

51. Those who are employed in the purification of their bodies, under the impression that the body also is called the átmá or soul (in some sástra); are the atheistic chárvakas, who are as silly goats among men.