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

by Valmiki

35. As the wise man tastes no pleasure in his waking state, so must he remain insensible of them in his sleep also; but continue with undivided attention, in the meditation of the Supreme being.

36. The wise man who has curbed his desire of worldly enjoyments, and is liberated from its bonds; remains with his cool and composed mind, and enjoys the tranquility of nirvána, without his efforts of yoga meditation.

37. As the course of water is always to run downward, and never to rise upward; so the course of the mind is ever toward the objects of sense, and sensible objects are the only delight of the mind.

38. The nature of the mind, with all its thoughts of internal and external objects, is of the same kind as that of the great ocean, which is full with the waters of its tributary rivers as well as those of the internal waters.

39. As a river flows in one united course, of the waters of all its confluent streams; so doth the mind run in an unvaried course, with all its internal and external, and righteous and unrighteous thoughts.

40. Thus the mind appears as a vast and wide extended sea, and rolling on with all its indistinct thoughts and feelings, as the inseparable waters and waves of the sea.

41. In this manner, the absence of one thing causes the extinction of both, as in the case of the air and its fluctuation; either of which being wanting, there is neither the wind nor its ventilation. (Such is the intimate connection between the mind and its thought).

42. The mind and its working being one and the samething, they are both controuled at once by bringing the other under subjection; know this well, nobody should cherish any earthly desire in order to foster his mind.

43. The mind may get its peace by true knowledge, and the mind of the wise man is destroyed of itself with all its desires, without the aid of austerities to destroy them.

44. As a man gets freed from the fear of the enmity of an enemy, by destroying his effigy made of mud by himself, so is one enabled to kill his mind, by committing himself to the Divine spirit.