Valmiki

“ All acts which are done or left undone, are as fugacious as the flying cotton on cotton trees; they are easily put to flight by the breath of understanding (Jnána or wisdom) . All the acts of men are lost by discontinuance of their practice (as in Jnána khanda) .
25. The germ of knowledge growing in the mind, increases itself day by day, as the corn sown in good ground soon shoots forth into the paddy plant.
26. There is one universal soul, that sparkles through all things in the world, as it is the same translucent water, that glistens in lake and large oceans and seas. ”

“ The Intellect assumes of its own pleasure, the paramount dignity of Indra; who is the crown jewel over the three worlds, and whose feet are honoured by the whole body of gods.
42. The Intellect expands, rises and falls, and circulates everywhere in the womb of the triple world; as the waters of the deep overflow and recede and move about in itself.
43. The full moon beams of intellect, scatter their widespread brightness on all sides; and display to the full view the lotus lake of all created beings in the world. ”

“ Know all the worlds to be absorbed in the vast ocean of the universal soul of God, as all things are devoured by death or time (Kála) , and lie buried like the ocean itself in the insatiable womb of Agastya or Eternity.
14. Cease to consider the bodies of men as their souls, and to behold the visibles in a spiritual light; rely solely in thy spiritual self, and sit retired from all except alone with thyself.
15. Men are seen foolishly to wail for the loss of their souls, though lying within themselves; as a fond mother moans on missing her child, forgetful of its sleeping upon her lap. ”

“ The slight light which shines in the divine soul, is like the twilight that fills the etherial sphere; is the reflexion of the mirror of the supreme intellect, and is neither the dim light of the mind, nor any reflexion of the phenomenal world. ”

“ Sikhidhwaja said:—Sir, I now perceive the truth, and find the reasonableness of all that you have said; I see now that I am the pure and free soul, and quite aloof of any bondage or its liberation from bonds.
21. I understand Brahma as no cause of anything, for his entire want of causality; and the world is a nullity for its want of a cause, and therefore there is no being whatever which we reckon as a category.
22. Thence there is no such category as the mind or its seed, nor its growth nor decay; I therefore bow down to myself of which alone I have a consciousness in me. ”

“ VASISHTHA continued:—Ráma! knowing your mind, understanding, egoism and all your senses, to be insensible of themselves, and deriving their sensibility from the intellect; say how can your living soul and the vital breaths, have any sensation of their own.
2. It is the one great soul, that infuses its power to those different organs; as the one bright sun dispenses his light, to all the various objects in their diverse colours.
3. As the pangs of the poisonous thirst after worldly enjoyments, come to an end; so the insensibility of ignorance, flies away like darkness at the end of the night. ”

“ The saint saw the bevy of the young ladies, resembling the body of the full moon complete with all its digits; and his mind was ravished with their beauty (as the minds of men are turned to the delirium of lunacy by looking at the moon-light) .
102. He lost the balance of his reason, and became elated with giddiness; and his breath of his life throbbed in his heart, by impulse of the delight that raged and boiled in his breast.
103. At last the excess of his rapture, gave effusion of his passion; as the fullness of a cloud in summer, breaks out in water in the rainy weather. ”

“ One knowing his soul and intellect, knows the indestructible Brahma and himself as identic with the same; as one whose mind is possessed with the image of his beloved, beholds her bright countenance in the shining orb of the moon. ”

“ It is under the influence of the cooling moon-light of ignorance; that our minds foster the fond desire of worldly enjoyments; and like the chakora birds of night, drink their fill of delight as ambrosial moon-beams. (The ignorant are fond of pleasures, and where ignorance is bliss, it is foolish to be wise) .
60. It is under this delusion, that men view their beloved ones as buds of roses and lotuses, and their loose glancing eyes, as the black bees fluttering at random; they see the sable clouds in the braids and locks of their hair, and a glistening fire in their glowing bosoms and breasts. ”

“ The shining sky with its sight of the days and watches, and its eyes of the twinkling stars; is witnessing the continual rise and fall of all being, and the plunging and up heaving of mountaintops at the great deluge.
28. The revolving luminaries of the sun and moon, and the rolling currents of the Ganges, appear as the pearly jewels on the person of this actress, and the lustre of the twilight seems as the red red-dye of her palms. ”

“ It is fanned and roused by the enkindling animal spirit, which blows over it as with the breath of the wind; it pervades the whole body without burning it, and shines as brightly as the sun in the form of our consciousness. ”

“ If you do not sow the seed of imagination in the soil of your intellect, you will stop the germination of the plants of pain and pleasure in the field of your mind. (Pain and pleasure are imaginary ideas and not really so in their nature) .
36. Ráma! as you have come to know the truth, you must forsake your false conception of such a thing as ignorance or error existing in the world; and know that there is no duality in the unity of God. Being thus full with the knowledge of one supreme soul, you must repudiate your ideas of pain and pleasure in anything here below. ”

“ You who had so long the sense of your desire, your mind and your personality from your ignorance only; are quite set free from all of them at this moment, by your being awakened to the light of knowledge.
26. All the troubles that you have to meet with, owing to your fostering the inborn desire of your heart; are all driven away by your want of desire, as the wind disperses the flaming conflagration of the forest.
27. It is the dense essence of the Divinity that pervades the whole universe, as it is this circumambient ocean which surrounds all the continents of the earth. ”

“ The lord replied:—so it is, O mighty armed Arjuna! they lose nothing by the loss of the perishable body, but they know that the soul is imperishable, and its loss is the greatest of all losses.
11. How be it, I see no greater mistake of men in this world; than when they say, that they have lost anything or gained something that never belongs to them. It appears like the crying of a barren woman for her child, which she never had, nor is expected to have at any time. ”

“ Vasishtha replied:—After Sikhidhwaja had consented to continue in his indifference and disinterested friendship, with his only companion in the forest; Chúdálá was highly pleased to wit the nobleness of his mind, and thus said to herself.
32. O the transcendent tranquillity, which this lord of mine has gained, and whose dispassionateness has set him above anger, and his living liberation hath attained.
33. No delight doth attract his heart, nor any excellence ever allures his soul; whose mind is not elated by pleasure or prosperity, nor depressed by pain or calamity. ”

“ Know Ráma, the nature of the soul, to be as that of the pure intellect; it is more subtile than the circumambient air, and minuter far than the minutest atom; it is a particle of our consciousness only, and indestructible as the all pervasive air, which is never to be nullified.
20. The soul is never born, nor does it die as any other thing at any place or time; it extends over the whole universe, as the universal soul of Brahma, which encompasses and comprehends all space, and manifests itself in all things. ”

“ O sage, that art acquainted with the sole unity, in the one uniform tenor of thy soul and mind, thou art thereby set above the reach of the miseries attending his frail life, as the pure crystal is clear of the shade and dross of all worldly things. ”

“ The godly intellect frames the celestial and infernal regions in our dreams, by the slight vibration of the mind at its pleasure; and then takes a delight in rambling over and dwelling in them.
18. It is this divine intellect, which by its own motion, takes the form of living soul upon itself; and wanders from itself to rummage over the false objects of the deceptive senses.
19. The mind also is the supreme soul, and if it is not so it is nothing; the living and embodied is likewise a designation of the same, likening to the shadow of the substance. ”

“ Kumbha said:—The mind becomes composed and tranquil, after subordination of its desire of enjoyments, and its indifference to the taste of sweet and bitter, and its full control over the organs of sense.
11. There arises a peace in the mind, which is purer than any earth born delight; and is as delightsome as the dew drops falling from flowers under the bright beams of cooling moonlight night.
12. It is today, O prince, that your bad desires like the bitter taste of bodies, are bettered by your advancement in knowledge. ”

“ It is as deep as our consciousness in profound sleep, as hidden as a mark in the heart of a stone; as sweet as the flavour in salt, and as the breath of wind after a storm. (All these examples show the strength of the soul, to consist in its close compactness) .
15. When the living principle comes to its end at any place, in course of time; the intellect takes it flight like some invisible force in open air, and mixes with the transcendent vacuum.
16. It gets freed from all its thoughts and thinkables, as when the calm sea is freed from its fluctuation ”

“ It is the intellect alone which extends over all the works of nature, and fills all bodies which overspread the vast ocean of the world, as the aquatic plants swim over the surface of waters.
34. The deluded mind wanders like a roving bee, and collects the sweets of its desire from the lotus of the body, and the intellect sitting as its Mistress, relishes their essence from within. ”

“ All living beings who have their souls enlightened by the light of philosophy, behold the sphere of the universe to be a blaze of the gemming sun of the intellect; and there is not the least tinge of the erroneous conceptions of the material world in it. ”

“ The fickle and playful painter of the mind, has sketched and stretched out the picture of the sky, as an arena for the exhibition of the three worlds, as its three different stages; where all deluded peoples are portrayed as joyful players, acting their parts under the encircling light of the supreme Intellect. ”

“ O! it is a wondrous illusion that has deluded the whole world, which does not perceive the divine spirit, that pervades every part of the universe.
6. He who looks on the world as a scenery painted in the tablet of the Divine Intellect, and remains unimpressible and undesirous of every thing, and quite content in his soul, has put an invulnerable armour upon himself (which no dart of error has the power to pierce) .
7. How happy is he who having nothing, no wealth nor support, has yet his all by thinking himself as the all intelligent soul. ”

“ All things are seen to rise and disappear in the vacuous sphere of the divine intellect, and the thoughts of our good and bad actions, are as the drops of rain which mix with the waters of the immeasurable ocean of the Divine soul. ”

“ The body is quite guiltless of all the pain and pleasure, which betide the living soul by turns; as the tree is wholly unconcerned with the fall of its fruits and leaves, which are dropped down by the blowing winds. ”

“ Know, O red eyed Arjuna! the picture of the world in the empty vacuum is as void as the vacuity itself; it rises and sets in the mind, as the temporary scenes which appear in imagination at the fit of a delirium. ”

“ When the snake of Egoism hisses hard in the hollow heart of the tree of the body, it is sure to be cut down by the inexorable hand of death, who fells the noxious tree like a wood cutter to the ground. ”

“ The calm and cold yogi, who is devoid of his knowledge of unity and duality, and views all things in the same light; who remains as quiet as a rock and without the pulsation of his heart, has yet the vibration of his intellect within him ”

“ The mind being weakened to unmindfulness, loses the chain of its desires from it; as a necklace of pearls being loosened from its broken string, tosses the precious gems all about the ground.
7. Ráma! they that are unmindful of the sástras, and mind to undermine them; resemble the worms and insects, that mine the ground wherein they remain.
8. The fickle eye-sight of the idle and curious gazer on all things, becomes motionless after their ignorant curiosity is over and has ceased to stir; as the shaking lotus of the lake becomes steady, after the gusts of wind have passed away and stopped. ”

“ Allegorically the Kalpatree is the tree of Desire, which branches out into the various objects of our wish. Its flowers are all our sanguine hopes and expectations, which are hidden under the dark mist of futurity. The crown dwelling in its dark hollow, is the undwelling obscure soul, which is hid under the impervious gloom of our ignorant minds and false egoism. ”

“ The mind of the ignorant is as a lake of envy, covered with the leaves of spite and calumny: jealousy is its lotus-bed, and the anxious thoughts are as the bees continually fluttering thereupon.
45. The ignorant man that is subjected to repeated births, and is rising and falling as waves in the tumultuous ocean of this world, is exposed also to repeated deaths: and the burning fire which engulphs his dead body, is as in the submarine fire of this sea. ”