The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 3 (of 4), Part 1 (of 2)

by Valmiki

24. The man of the sedate soul, is pliable in his outer conduct, though he is inflexible in his mind. He resembles a mountain, which waves its trees with the breeze, without shaking or being shook by it.

25. The hypnotism of the mind purifies the body of all its impurity; and it is the same whether such a person perishes sooner or later, or lasts forever as a rock. (Because its purity is its strong shield, against the power and torments of life and death).

26. This state of hypnotism, being acquired by constant practice of Yoga, gets its maturity and perfections in process of time; when it is called the turíya or fourth stage of the adept, by the learned in divine knowledge.

27. He becomes the most exalted gnostic, whose mind is cleared of all its impurity; and whose inward soul is full of joy, with its mental powers all quiet and at rest.

28. In this state, the gnostic is in full rapture, and quite giddy with inward delight. He looks upon the whole creation as an exhibition of play and pageantry.

29. After the man who has attained his fourth stage, when he is freed from sorrow and fear, and has passed beyond the errors and troubles of this world; he has no fear of falling from this state.

30. The man of sedate understanding, who has attained this holy state, laughs to scorn and spurn at the whirling orb of the earth; as one sitting on a high hill, derides at the objects lying below it.

31. After one has obtained his everlasting position, in this firmly fixed fourth state of blissfulness; he becomes joyless for want of a higher state of felicity to desire.

32. The yogi having past his fourth stage, reaches to a state of ineffable joy, which has no part nor degree in it, and is absolute liberation in itself.

33. The man of great soul, is released from the snare of the metempsychoses of his soul, and of his repeated birth and death, and is freed from the darkness of his pride and egoism; he is transformed to an essence of supreme ecstasy and pure flavour, and becomes as a mass of sea salt, amidst the waters of the deep.