Inquiry into Union (with the Self)
Sri Rama
O Bhagavan, what is attachment like? How does it bind? Who is called liberated? How is attachment cured?
Sri Vasista
O Rama, to place complete faith in body, abandoning the idea of the division between body and the embodied soul, is called appropriately as bondage due to attachment.
To come to a firm conviction that the infinitenes of the fundamental Self principle as finite and crave for joys and happinesses internally, is called bondage due to attachment.
'All this visible' world is Self. What do I desire and what do I reject'- such an attitude of detachment is the state of a liberated person (a jivanmukta).
'Neither am I nor others are. I am not concerned whether pleasures occur to me or not'- one who tells himself internally is worthy of liberation.
One who neither rejoices at nor welcomes inactivity and does not invite activity himself and is of equal attitude and renounces all consequent fruits is called a detached person.
One who is single mindedly devoted to Self and whose mind never comes into the grip of joys and sorrows, such a detached person is called a liberated one (a jivanmukta).
A person is called detached when he rejects and renounces all fruits of action with his mind and not through actions in a skillful manner.
All undesirable actions will remain under control because of detachment. They will be cured and good accrues.
All sorrows will be let loose wild and wide because of attachment. They will develop many branches like wild growth in a deep chasm.
A donkey in journey will be pulled by a nose rope. Attachment will swell in that poor, timid and frightened animal which is carrying heavy load.
What flows inside a stationary tree that is shaken by cold winds blowing across it is a swell of attachment.
An insect living inside a hole in earth decays in time with pain harassed limbs. What it suffers is a swell of attachment.
What goes on inside a frightened bird suffering from hunger and spending days with fear (of death) is a swell of attachment.
(What goes on inside a) tender grass-eating deer which dies due to the pain caused by a hunter's arrow is a swell of attachment.
People are born agian and again as insects. This is due to excessive attachment.
People take birth and die again and again like waves in a river. This is due to excessive attachment.
People lose their ability to move on by taking birth as grass and creepers. Such a sorrowful state is due to excessive attachment.
Creepers and grass thrive on the waters from soil. The forms that they acquire in the process are also due to excessive attachment.
This mutable world is full of calamities. All this is the fruit of excessive attachment.
O Raghava, attachment is said to be of two kinds : one praiseworthy and two barren (without fruits of the right kind). The former refers to that of knowers of truth and the latter refers to fools and stupids.
Firm attachment to the world without any knowledge of truth is called 'barren' (vandhya) attachment.
-29 . Attachment which is the result of knowledge and discrimination is called 'praiseworthy' attachment. Lord Vishnu is ruling over the three worlds involving himself in all kinds of activity. Sun is continuously and relentlessly journeying across the skies due to such attachment. Brahma is engaged in acts of creation due to such attachment. Because of the power of such attachment Lord Siva is sustaining himself in body and sporting with his consort Gauri. It is because of the inmense power of such attachment, all the celestial worlds are staying steady and steadfast in Brahman. And worlds like Maha, Jana, and Tapa are wearing the bodies which are free from againg and death.
Mind falls/swoops on pleasures like an eagle on a piece of flesh. This is due to the grip of attachment of a 'barren' type (vandhya) to pleasures with a (false) feeling that they are delightful.
-38 . Because of closeness (with the world) (and consequent attachment) air is blowing in the world regions. The five elements are sustaining each other and surviving. The world is actively moving. Because of the power of togetherness, the celestial beings in the heavens, humans on the earth, serpents and 'asuras' in the neitherwolds - are surviving in the universe like mosquitos in a 'medi' fruit. Because of the power of play of this 'samsakti' (attachment/ togetherness) all the beings in this world are dying and reincarnating like waves in a lake. Became of this 'samsakti', the disease- stricken beings are swallowing each other's linbs. They are whirling around like dried leaves. The stars are rotating in space like mosquitoes which move around a tree. Because of 'samsakti' moon has become like a football in the hands of time. Indra and his celestial beings have been hardened by many calamities during the aeons. Yet they are not abandoning their mind, the cause of their sorrows, due to attachment to it.
O Raghava, look at this wonder someone has sculpted this world in the consciousness ether due to some vasana.
This figure of the world has been drawn in the void of sky with the paint called 'union with mind'. This figure can never be real.
Those who move actively in the world with an attached mind are burnt by the fire of desire like a grass leaf which is swallowed by tongues of flame.
One can not count the water drops in an ocean. Similarly, one can not count the number of incarnations a person with attachment ridden mind will have to go through.
One can count the waves in the waters of river Ganga flowing down the slopes of 'Meru'. But one can never count the number of bodies that a person will have with an attachment ridden mind.
There are many hells that are designed and constructed for the residence of people who are deeply interested and attached to the world.
O Rama, a person with attachments will wither away due to sorrows. Such people will become firewood to the flames of hell. These fires will burn bright due to such people.
-47 . All the sorrows in the world are created for people with attachment ridden minds. Sorrows seek such people like rivers seeking an ocean.
Mind is the very embodiment of attachment. It has a heavy body. It goes through phases of growth and decline. All this is vast ignorance
O Rama, when attachment is absent, all divine powers manifested in the world will increase.
-51 . When attachment takes position inside, it scorches a person like herbs being burnt by fire. Attachment that resides inside is fire. Abandoning this is nectar- like. Know this.
-53 . A detached mind is peaceful like the infinite sky. Such a mind is like one which is 'not' and is always luminous. It always gives happiness only. One with truth consciousness is a liberated being.
