The Yoga of inquiry into the nonexistence of mind stuff

Sri Vasista

1. -2 O Rama, Vitahavya, the best of munis, sat alone and once again started addressing the senses (strengthened) by his newly acquired all-wise intelligence. I shall narrate all that to you in clear terms. Listen and move towards the state of Absolute and become sorrowless.

3. O senses, your existence is unreal and yields only sorrows at the end. Give up such existence.

4. Your former existence must have decayed (by now) as a result of my teaching. Since your birth is due to ignorance it is not possible to decay without losing that ignorance.

5. O mind, your self-existence leads to you to grief. If one plays with hot gold, it surely burns the person.

6. Look, your existence whirls water into confusion. And all the world - rivers flow into the sea of time.

7. -14 Your presence causes the vortices of sorrows due to conflicting egoistic concerns. Many heart-rending and cruel and poisonous states, of having and not having, are springing up without limits. In this ancient tree of body, which is full of the sound of breath, the creeper of aging and death is blossoming. Ficklesome desire -spider is moving around inside. The bird of covetousness and avarice is tearing away with its beak the fruits and flowers called good qualities. The hen, called sensuous desire, is enveloping the heart and widening it with its feet. The owl, called ignorance, is fiercely wandering through the tree, called heart, on the dark night, called delusion. O senses, all these are happening due to your presence. Many other sinful things are happening like a demon in a night.

15. -22 . O my gentle mind, if you are not, all will be auspicious. The entire world will be greatly delighted like a lotus which blossoms in the morning sun. The dew and fog of delusion will disappear. The heart-sky will be free of the dust of 'rajoguna'. Doubts, indecisions and uncertainties will not occur. Friendship,which causes joy to everyone, which is sacred and peace-causing, will arise in all hearts. It will be like tender sprouts emerging on a tree. Worry- which breaks one's heart and is unaware of proprieties, which enthuses only fools-will fade and vanish like lotuses which shrivel due to deep fog. When ignorance declines and knowledge increases like sun coming out of clouds which are shattered by winds. Heart emerges tender and soft like a sea which becomes calm when winds stop flowing across it. Then a person becomes full of the nectar of bliss. He will shine radiant like a cool moon.

23. -26 . Knowledge becomes clear as ignorance declines, gets annihilated. All world of mobile and immobiles will subside. The full nature of Self of bliss will come into experience. This will not happen, however, to those attached to body. Leaves dry up and fall during autumn. But they reappear on the arrival of spring. People will get rejuvenated after the great trouble-ridden road of 'samsara' comes to an end. An intelligent person stations himself on the tree, called Self, to avoid falling into the mutable world. Many riches of good qualities also are obtained.

27. -31 . O mind, choose whichever states you want : existence or nonexistence. Whatever you consider beneficial, stay in that for a little while. O mind, worthy of respect, I think existence in Self is good for you. You contemplate within yourself what you want to be. It is foolish to discard happiness. You will become what you want by internal contemplation. Whoever will wish for your absence (if you choose to be in the Self)? However, you are (now) not in that state. You are in a state of untruth. O beautifull one, I am telling this truth (out of knowledge). And so, do not gloat in the belief that you are alive. That is false. You are in a contrived form. In fact you are 'not'.

32. -39 . O gentle one, what you believe you are, is purely due to lack of informed understanding. Now that belief is totally demolished after inquiry. By proper understanding (with effort) you can abide in an equal and proper form and state. You are like darkness due to lack of radiant light. You are the product of lack of understanding and inquiry. But, my friend, if investigated you will die/vanish. All these days I am with insignificant discrimination. And because of that I was like a child who imagines a demon. And you have firmly got established (in me). When my sense of duality vanished and you are gone. My salutations to that discriminating intelligence, due to whose grace, my earlier ignorance vanished. O mind, you are by yourself awakened. If your mind - consciousness vanishes, you will become Lord Parameswara like you were earlier. Even now due to enlightenment you have regained your original form. You are the desire free Parameswara. Whatever emerges due to nondiscrimination, gets destroyed by discrimination. When light arrives, darkness will vanish.

40. -48 . O gentle mind, whether you like if or not, inquiry into Self leads to your destruction. And this yields happiness (to people). All scriptures have established that you are non-existent. O mind, you were once the lord of senses. You have now crossed the mutable world. You were never existing earlier. Now also you are not. May happiness be to you! You will not be in the future. May you be happy! Fortunately I am now fully contented, sorrowless and peaceful. I am abiding in the 'turya' state in my Self. Since there is no abidance, mind does not exist in this world. Only Self exists and I am that Self. There is nothing other than me anywhere. I am the Self, the very embodimentof truth and knowledge. In this pure consciousness, there can not be even the comprehension that 'I am the Self'. And what to talk of other ideations and concoctions? And so I am silent without thinking of any imaginations or inventions. I am free of vasanas. I am free of all blemishes. I am free of all movements of 'prana' (except proper breathing). I am free of all movements of mind. I am free of desires. I am reposed (in my Self).