[CHAPTER LXII.]
In the narration of Jívata an example of domestic and mendicant life
Argument:—Narration of the mendicant Jiváta, in illustration of the transmigration of the soul in various births, according to the variety of its insatiable Desire.
VASISHTHA resumed:—Hear me relate to you, Ráma, the story of a certain mendicant, who fostered some desire in his mind, and wandered through many migrations of his soul.
2. There lived a great mendicant at one time, who devoted his life to holy devotion, and passed his days in the observance of the rules of his mendicancy. (The state of mendicancy is the third stage of life of a Brahman, which is devoted to devotion, and supported by begging of the simple subsistence of life. This story applies to all men, who are in some way or other devoted to some profession for acquiring the necessaries of life and the more so, as all men have some ultimate object of desire, which is an obstruction to their Nirvána or final extinction in the Deity. For the lord says in the Gospel, He that loveth anything more than me, is not worthy of me).
3. In the intensity of his Samádhi devotion, his mind was purged of all its desires; and it became assimilated to the object of its meditation, as the sea water, is changed to the form of waves. (Samádhi is defined by Patanjali, as the forgetting of one's self in the object of his meditation).
4. Once as he was sitting on his seat after termination of his meditation, and was intent upon discharging some sacred functions of his order, there chanced to pass a thought over his clear mind (like the shadow of cloud over the midday sky).
5. He looked into the reflexion of the thought, that rose of itself in his mind; that he should reflect for his pleasure, upon the various conditions of common people, and the different modes of their life. (the proper study of man is man, and the manner of each rightly).
6. All this thought his mind passed from the reflexion of himself and his God, to that of another person; and he lost the calm composure of his mind, as when the quiet sea is disturbed by whirlpool or whirl wind. (This desire of the sage disturbed his breast, like the doubt of Parnell's Hermit).