Table of Contents
Yoga Vasistha: Janaka Maharaja on the Equanimity of the Mind
In the Yoga Vashishtha, Sri Janaka Maharaja says “ My mind is Unsteady. It gives me no room for happiness. Hence it is better to reach the State of Equanimity.
I will only experience peace, bliss, and Truth in such Equanimity.
This Equanimity requires that the mind unclutches its reasoning of what is happening and what is not happening in one’s life. The mind should attain a state where it stops unnecessarily rationalizing people, events, circumstances, and opinions.
This type of living, Janaka calls, non-volitional.
Yoga Vasistha: The Perfect State of Mind
Doing what is to be done without the mind trying to find reasons to be happy or unhappy. This is the perfect state to be in.
Consciousness has to exist in pure form, which means, without conceptualization.
Yoga Vasistha: Philosophy of the Purified Mind
Bhakta Prahlada expresses his mental state to Bhagawan Vishnu. He says, “Whatever comes, let it come, Whatever goes, let it go. Let notions of varied experiences arise or set in my body.
I am neither in them nor they in me. A steel blade cuts through a heated steel beam, just as the knife easily cuts through butter. Similarly, I have a purified mind, that has subdued my mind.
I have cut through all my misgivings, cravings, ignorance, and foolishness by their very opposites that are the property of my purified mind.
End of the Ego and Pleasure-Seeking Tendencies
Prahalada continues…
My Ego has been subdued and my body functions with that inherent energy of the subdued ego. The past tendencies, mental conditions, and other mental limitations have been completely destroyed.”
“I wonder how the mind trapped me in the sense of I and mine through so many ages!
However, now I am freed from this dependency on the limited Ego. I was a slave once to the habit of thought and driven by desires and cravings. But now, I can see that clearly, I see all that by Your Grace. I am free from pleasure-seeking tendencies and from amplified revelry.
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My mind has reached quietude.
With this realization, all my sorrow has come to an end. This has made way for the light of Supreme Bliss which has bathed my Being with its radiant caress and Love.
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Sri Vishnu: On Becoming Free
Hearing this, Bhagawan Vishnu replies to Bhakta Prahlad. “Even though you seem to occupy the body, you do not have a body, you are bodiless. You are the observer, which is immaterial intelligence. Air exists in Space but does not attach itself to Space. Hence it is free from Spatial Limitations.”
Enlightened men, though they appear to engage in constant activity, they do nothing.
They do not reach the state of inaction through non-action. This state of non-action that enlightened beings reach, frees you from all experiences. There can be no harvest because they have not sown the seeds. The Notions such as “I do” and “I experience” do not exist anymore.
There remains only peace. When such peace dawns upon the soul, it attains liberation.
Yoga Vasistha: Importance of Self-Enquiry
Sri Vishnu says that without self-inquiry and attaining inner tranquility neither devotion to Sri Vishnu nor self-knowledge is possible.
Hence, one should resort to self-inquiry and practice the end of distortion.
If one becomes successful in this, one attains perfection. If one is unaware of the inner workings, that person is non-different from a four-legged animal.
Being Unaware of inner tendencies highlights the peaks of ignorance. Sri Rama Reveals the Deceptions of the Mind
Sri Rama gives his understanding of the Teachings of Sage Vashishtha, in the court of His father, King Dasharatha.
He says that Paramatman Alone is Real and everything else illusory.
One should be aware of the deceptions of the mind. The mind portrays the world as real. The Lord said that he was trying to find out a way that would relieve Him of the pain of repeated births. He further says that this thought consumes Him like wildfire.
It should be noted that Sri Rama, the Lord is simply a representative to present the teachings.
Wherever the Lord says “I”, it is on behalf of the living entities of the material world. It is a Scriptural fact that the Lord is beyond adjuncts of birth, death, and disease.
Yoga Vasistha: Reality of Wealth
Wealth cannot give happiness. It can be a great source of Misery. Wealth is temporary and unsteady. It is never stable and moves from one hand to another. Being a source of evil it tempts people to perform heinous acts.
The more money one has, the harder his heart is. It destroys all good qualities very easily and gets people caught in the cobweb of materialistic desires.
The fire of desires chars the heart of man. These are Wealth’s inducements.
Yoga Vasistha: Reality of Body
The body is an amalgamation of flesh, bones, fat, nerves, tendons, marrow, and blood.
It is the home to all difficulties and disease since it is filled wholly with impurities.
The ego lives because the body becomes the master of the soul and greed is the mistress of the body. The body is ever stung by the servant of ever-increasing desires of the five senses.
When this fact of the body is unknown or not traced, men fall prey to the conjuring tricks of the body. Knowledge starts to disappear and minds begin to droop, thus shortening our lives.
The body is like a bubble that will burst at any time. The shining skin will be recked by wrinkles of old age. Life is temporary and perishable.
Yoga Vasistha: Reality of Ego
It is the ego that generates actions, desires, and pain.
It is the source of all evil. The nature of Ego is delusory and it traps people falsely in the net of self-welfare.
It belongs to the worldly people. Ego spurts out of deep ignorance. Pride nurtures Ego. Ego is seated in the mind and makes a man commit wrong.
The ego is responsible for portraying good as evil and evil as good, thereby perting or inverting by nature.
Now, the six evils such as lust, anger, greed, illusion, self-pride, and envy are direct offsprings of Ego. The real secret to permanent happiness is to investigate the source of ego.
Through the dedicated path of Self-enquiry or through devotion to Bhagawan, Ego can be defeated, opening the doors to Liberation.
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