The Yoga of controlling senses

Sri Vasista

1. -3 O Rama, Samvarta, the brother of Brihaspati, made such a type of inquiry. He himself told me so while he was staying on the Vindhya mountain. And so, you also adopt this attitude with your intelligent mind and inquire. Thus you shall cross this ocean of 'samsara'. Now listen to the way of enlightenment with which sage Vitahavya attained the supreme state.

4. -11 In olden days the effulgent sage Vitahavya searched among the forests of Vindhya for a place to conduct his 'tapas' leading to samadhi. He became dejected with the ways of the world and his activities in it which were the cause of physical and mental diseases. He developed an intense desire to reach the Supreme State through 'Nirvikalpa samadhi'. With that intention he gave up all his interests in the works of the world. He built a hermitage with banana pillars and decorated it with white flowers. He entered that and took rest on a deer skin (to relieve himself of the tiresomeness of the long search for a suitable place). After that he sat erect in a lotus posture. In that he looked like a small hill. Just like sun who withdraws his rays into himself at the time of setting, he slowly withdrew his rays into himself at the time of setting, he slowly withdrew his mind from all the sense borne phenomena, through appropriate methods. Soon his mind became free and pure. Then he started musing like thus.

12. -16 . Oh, what a fickle one is this mind ? In spite of great effort to control, this mind is unstable like a leaf floating on waves. It is dancing like a ball hit by legs, called mind, which is roaming around worldly phenomena prompted by senses. This mind is taking on fresh sense prompted movements even after rejecting the (old) movements. It is running after those movements which are prevented with effort. It jumps from pot to fabric and from fabric to a cart at a racy speed. This mind is chasing and moving among worldly purposes like a monkey which jumps from branch to branch. I shall now contemplate about the five doors, like eyes etc.

17. -25 . O senses, who are struck and smitten, you are fickle and unstable like waves in a sea. Are you not interested in my enlightenment? You are unstable and are full of fickleness. Do not hurt. Do not cause catastrophes. Remember your sorrowful movements and activities all the time. You bring phenomena into a mind saturated with them. What is the use of pouring water over waves of water? You are swelling like mirages. You are unable to recognize and realize the essential nature of Self. You are moving like a blind person. I am the lord, the consciousness Self. I am doing everything with a sense of witness. Why are you, who are already smitten, unnecessarily getting agitated? You are unreal and nonexisitent. You are leaping around inside me in an illusory manner, like a rope-snake illusion. There is no relationship between heaven and nether world. Similarly there is no relationship between the all-knowing Self and unenlightened eyes and such senses. The transcendent Self stays away from senses, like a pilgrim who avoids serpents and like a brahmin who stays away from low caste people. Sun stays away (from the world) even though he does the duties of the day. You are unnecessarily bewildered and perplexed in spite of the nearness of consciousness-existence to you.

26. -36 . O mind, O dancer and actor, O Charvaka, the materialist, O sceptic atheist, O beggar wandering around the four quarters, you are roaming around this world like a day without purpose and calamitously. 'I am consciousness' - such assertion on your part is untrue, purposeless. It is only a vasana. You are totally different from the One. There is no relationship of unity between mind, which is inconscient and consciousness. 'I am living' - this assertion by you is also untrue and of evil import. It shows your egoism. It is born of an illusion and so will cause grief. Abandon the arrogance that 'I will be there when ego is born.' O fool, you are really nonexistent. Why wobble purposelessly? Consciousness is knowledge. It is eternal. There is nothing other than that. O great fool, who are you in this body bearing the name 'mind'? Your desire for ownership and enjoyership of works is wasteful since what is born as nectar turns into poison at the end. Do not become a butt of ridicule depending upon the senses. You are neither a owner nor an enjoyer. You are inconscient. And so you have to be tutored by others. What is your relationship with pleasures and how are pleasures related to you. When, in reality, you have no shape or form, wherefrom have these relatives arisen? What is inconscient is not existent. If it exists it will be full of nonexistence. Because in the Self there can be no knowing, owning, enjoying or any other principle. All are impossible. If you are a witness-consciousness, then you will be the Self itself. Then you will be deprived of your state as mind which is full of becomings and nonbecomings. Listen now about the way I will wash off your illusory nature of ownership and enjoyership.

37. -41 . By your nature you are inconscient. There is no doubt in this. How can there be ownership of action? It will be like a stone dancing. If you want to really live become pure and take refuge in the lord. Why suffer the agony of coming and going? If someone does something with his own power, then it can be said that he has done it. A sickle is cutting because of the force of the person holding it. And so that person is cutting, not the sickle. If something is destroyed by someone's power, that someone will become the killer. Similarly if someone drinks from a pot, he is drinking, not the pot.

42. -46 . O mind, you are inconscient by nature. You are enlightened by that all- knowing, all-wise Supreme. Supreme Self has brought this world out by itself as one of itself. Otherwise you cannot happen. Supreme Lord is relentlessly teaching you in many ways. Fools have to be taught in multiple ways. You are sparkling because of the power and existence attribute of Self. You are staying because of the meaning given to the word 'citta'. Thus the mindstuff has emerged from the power of Self due to ignorance. However, you are getting destroyed by knowledge. You are melting away like snow by hot sunlight. And so, O mind, you are a fool. You are dead. You are nonexistent from the point of view of self perception. And so do not create unhappiness by your arogant assertion that you are the Self.

47. -50 . The fabrication by mind and of mind are untrue. They are like creepers created by magic. The principle of Self is widely abroad all over this world. Humans, immortal celestials and world forms emerge out of the prowess of Brahman. O foolish mind, if you are transcendent, you would have been constantly united with the Supreme State. If that is true, why are you grieving for anything else? That Supreme is immanent in all, is evident in all states of existence. He is all-form. Once that state is gained all is gained.

51. -54 . In fact, neither you nor this body exist. Only that great Brahman sparkles everywhere in this world. 'You and I' feelings are arising in that calm, vibrationless Self. If so, where is the grief for anyone? If you are the consciousness-Self, it is there everywhere. There is nothing like inconscience in Self. Everything is Self itself. All the three worlds are Self. There is nothing other than That. If you are separate from Self, then you are devoid of the Self principle. How can something that is nonexistent emerge out of Self. Can anyone be hurt by the horn of a rabbit?

55. -57 . There is nothing other than consciousness and inconscience. Can there be anything other third which is between shade and heat? When truth is perceived this division will die off. Only the Self remains and you are that Self. And so O mind, you are neither the owner nor the enjoyer of action. You are Brahman alone. Abandon your foolishness and become the possesor of Self.

58. -63 . You are created to teach and make people aware of knowledge. You are an instrument. How can mind, which is vibrationless, nonexistent, and inconscient perform works without some kind of prompting by the real owner of works and action? Without a owner, the instrument cannot get power for doing something. A sickle cannot cut without the owner of sickle. The power to cut and kill are lodged in the swordsman and not in the sword. And so, O my friend mind, you are not the actor nor owner of action. Do not purposelessly worry. It is not proper to grieve about natural works for the sake of others. You must grieve for another inconscient thing. not for a conscient one. Lord Iswara is unlike you. He has no use for anything that is done or not done in this world.

64. -69 . 'I am doing a favour (to Self)' - you are perhaps thinking like this. It is pure arrogance and shallowness to think so. You are only afflicting (the Self). Your purposeless existence is of no use. If, on the other hand, you feel that 'I am active for the sake of the Lord who is the enjoyer of every thing' - you are mistaken. Lord is always contented. There is nothing in this world that he desires. Consciousness- Self is self luminous. It is all pervading. This world is full of it. There is no design other than that. What is there that should be desired by it? Looking at you only, O mind, (people) get agitated. It is like youth who get amorously harassed seeing a queen? Only association with Self will make you beautiful. Only when a fruit is related with a flower, the fruit will come out.

70. -72 . When two things are similar, there can be a relationship and can move towards a relationship. Then what were two can become one. But you can not be a reason for such oneness. you are prone to multiple kinds of designs and appear in many forms. You are the cause of sorrows and joys. There must some similarity even partially between two things to have a relationship otherwise one of them will get destroyed (by developing a relationship).

73. The qualities of a material object depend upon the material (and not on any other thing). If you stay away from truth, you will get destroyed. Do not slip away from it, O mind.

74. To the extent you engage in meditation, the phenomenal world, which is grief-causing, will move out of you and you will be looking inwards. Engage yourself always in meditation and develop a self-perception.

75. O Rama, know that it is grief-causing to direct attention towards inconscient things like stones and such and body and mind and such.

76. How can there be ownership of action for mind? It will be like a flower blooming in the sky. Expel the mud of ideations and fabrications. Destroy all forms of thinking.

77. Even Self does not have any responsibility for or ownership of action. Self displays itself as many selves.

78. Sea springs out of itself waves, ripples and foam. Similarly the Self sparkles everything as its reflections (and in its likeness).

79. -80 . There can be no sparks of fire in water. Similarly there can be no second comprehension in the Self other than itself. In a stainless Self there can be no inconscient body or mind. In a perception-free Self, the essential (nature) is beauty only, nothing else. There can be nothing like this or that, auspicious or inauspicious.

81. -82 . Thus there is no fiction like nonexistence. It will be like a forest in the sky. Devoid of all sentience, all is wide and expansive truth alone. As such, how can there be any comprehension or contradiction like 'I and something else', in the eternal formless, all-pervading Self? How can anybody write Rigveda in the sky?

83. Sorrows and joys are my (Vitahavya's) mistakes and confusions. They are now declined due to the purity attained by me. Self is eternal. It is the essence of everything. It is all-pervarding. I have known this truth.