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

by Valmiki

56. This quintuple element of consciousness is reduplicate into many other quintuples, as a great many lamps are lighted from one lamp; these are the five vital airs, the mind and its five fold faculties of the understanding; the five internal and the five external senses and their five fold organs, together with the five elementary bodies; and all having the principles of their growth, rise and decay, as also their states of waking, dreaming and sleeping ingrained in them.

57. All these quintuples abide in the different bodies of the Gods and mortals, according to their respective natures and inclinations (which are the causes of their past and present and future lives in different forms).

58. Some taking the forms of places, and others of the things situated in them; while some take the forms of minerals, and others of the animals dwelling on earth.

59. Thus is this world the production of the action of the said quintuples, having the principle of intellectual consciousness, presiding over the whole and every part of it.

60. It is the union of these quintuples in gross bodies, that gives them their intelligence; hence we see the mobility of some dull material bodies, as also the immobility of others (as of mineral and vegetable creations).

61. As the wave of the sea is seen to roll in one place, and to be dull and at a lull in another; so is this intellectual power in full force in some bodies, and quite quiescent in others.

62. As the sea is calm and still in one place, and quite boisterous in another; so is the quintuple body either in motion or at rest in different places. (Hence rest and motion are properties of gross bodies and not of the intellectual soul, which is ever quiescent).

63. The quintuple body is mobile by means of the vital airs, and the vital life (jíva) is intelligent by cause of its intelligence; the rocks are devoid of both, but the trees have their sensibility by reason of their being moved by the breath of winds; and such is the nature of the triple creation of animals, minerals and vegetables.

64. Different words are used to denote the different natures of things (or else the same word is used for things of the same kind); thus fire is the general name for heat, and frost is that of coldness in general.