Before reading further, understand what the great text aims at; because after Shuka's story, it is a full blast of abstract truths that rain like hail stones and destroy all the grand beliefs of reality and gods you have held on to till now.
It is better that you are made aware of the essence of Vaasishtam, before you venture into it s study.
GIST OF
VAASISHTAM
Vaasishtam
composed by the great Rishi Vaalmiki is also known by
the names of Jnaana Raamaayanam, Jnaana Vaasishtam, Yoga Vaasishtam, Mahaa
Raamaayanam, Aarsha Raamaayanam, and Vasishta Raamaayanam.
This text contains six Prakaranas or sections.
They are- Vairaagya, Mumukshu Vyavahaara, Utpatthi, Sthiti,
Upashama, and Nirvaana.
Vairaagya Prakarana contains Rama’s lamentation about the
disgusting nature of the world.
Mumukshu Vyavahaara contains the qualities to be practiced by a
seeker after liberation.
Utpatthi discusses about how worlds get produced.
Sthiti tells how the world idea persists in the mind.
Upashama is where the world appearance slowly subsides.
And Nirvaana is the description of a state of a JeevanMukta who is
in the Nirvaana state.
The total verses contained are 32, 000, Utpatthi section
comprising one third of the whole text and the Nirvaana section almost half the
text.
Vaasishtam is a
huge dialogue session between Rama the heir of RaghuVamsha and his preceptor
Maharshi Vasishta the Knower of all.
WHY IT IS CALLED YOGA VAASISHTA?
This great scripture with six Prakaranas is compared to a
Shatpadee (six-footed bee) which hums in the form of Vasishta in front of the
lotus faced Rama; and both melt off into the oneness of the honey of silence;
that is why it is called Yoga Vaasishtam. (Yoga means Union
without divisions.)
RAMA
Rama was the heir
prince of Ayodhyaa, son of the renowned warrior Dasharatha, and was the scion
of Raghu dynasty. He was
also an excellent Knower equal to Vasishta or Vyaasa, which is a fact not known
to many.
‘Jnaana Vaasishta
Raamaayanam’ is the story of how he attained Moksha even before he completed
his sixteenth year.
Later of course
he married Seetaa, lived for fourteen years in the forest, killed Ravana at
Lankaa, took over the ruler ship of Ayodhyaa, later gave off the kingdom in the
hands of his sons Lava and Kusha; and
finally gave up his body in Sarayu
River to bid a final
farewell to the life on earth.
He is said to be
an incarnation of Vishnu who came down to save the world from evil demons; yet
this is not the main purpose of his Avataar. A noble personage of the higher
world descends down not to just live a story that entertains people; but his
purpose is the spread of knowledge.
Rama spent a
longer span of his life time in only the forest regions and took to the transfer
of knowledge learnt from Vasishta to the various Rishis and Munis residing in
the wilderness.
Reducing the
‘Bhoo-Bhaara’ (burden of Mother Earth) does not mean just killing demons, but
spreading the Knowledge of the Aatman, so as to make most of the people reach out
to the state of Realization. With lesser rebirths, Mother Earth indeed would
feel happy.
Rama carried the
nectar of Knowledge given to him by Sage Vasishta and distributed it to all the
good souls he met, during his fourteen years of travel through the jungles and
villages of India .
Countless seeker
of knowledge would have turned into JeevanMuktas by his contact.
Unfortunately we
do not have any scripted form of those wonderful dialogues on Knowledge that
Rama would have had with other Sages.
VASISHTA
As his very name
indicates, Vasishta was a person of strict discipline; and expected his
disciples also to maintain perfect discipline. He is a MaanasaPutra (mind-created
son) of Lord Brahmaa, the creator of this world; and is also one of the
Saptarishis (seven great Rishis).
He was family
preceptor for the RaghuVamsha kings.
Vasishta has a
wife named Arundhati, renowned for her devotion to her husband. She was not
less in knowledge than Vasishta and was a revered counselor for the ladies of
the royal family.
WHAT THE BOOK
CONTAINS
This text is not
another philosophical view-point added to the existing lot of six Darshanas.
It is just a
training of Vichaara (rational thinking) offered by Vasishta to the seekers
after truth.
This text does not support any theory of any
philosopher, nor does it encourage blind religion, or propound a supremely
powerful godhead as the creator; and it does not support also, any body-based
Yoga practice (as usually misunderstood) by the students.
Vaasishtam does
not explain the creation by inventing fresh terms and weird explanations ; for,
according to Vasishta, there exists no emergent world at all (as an
absolute reality), and he proves this
view point by leading the student through many amazing mazes of stories and
leaves him at the fag end of the text with the most wondrous experience of the Reality where the emergent world
ceases to existence once for all; rather the student realizes as a true
experience that the emergent world was not there at any time as something real,
except as a panorama produced by the mind.
ESSENCE OF
VAASISHTAM
What is the gist of Vaasishtam? What are
its main view-points?
First of all, it
is not a religious text like Raamaayana or MahaaBhaarata.
It is not any
theory propounded by some thinker to explain the world around us.
It does not
propound a theory of Advaita or Dvaita also.
It does not state
that the Supreme Godhead is Shiva, or Naaraayana, or any other deity.
According to
Vasishta-
Reality (Brahman)
is not a god, though gods exist as our creator-lot and care for us from some
other dimension, as if it is doll-world made by them with effort.
Do gods exist?
If we earth
people exist here in this three dimensional world, nothing prevents any other
being residing in any other world unseen by us. We the humans are not the sole
proprietors of the universe as such.
God-world
(DevaLoka) is not denied in Vaasishtam, but reality is not an intelligent Godhead
according to Vasishta. This God-world that the earth people know of (through
Puranas) itself is just a dust mote in the countless worlds that exist unknown
and unseen by us.
WHAT IS REALITY
(BRAHMAN)?
Reality is an
unintelligent state which has no mind, no intelligence, no divisions, no
thinking, no words, and no theories; is not even aware of anything anywhere;
yet it exists as the awareness, as all the objects that are understood by any
one as some thing or other.
Reality is the
essence of all knowledge.
It is empty of
all; even the state of emptiness.
Reality is what
exists in all as the understanding ability, from a mite to a Brahmaa the
creator of this particular world. This understanding nature is the Aatman that
is common to all living beings.
A cow understands
grass; a mouse understands a cat; even an inert stone exists as its own self,
as itself. Humans have acquired words and imagination to explain all this; the
cats and cows and stones do not have such ability. That is all the difference
that exists between a 'not-walking not-talking stone' and us the 'walking talking flesh
masses'.
Everything is
conscious; everything is inert.
Conscious and
inert are just words invented by the talking walking flesh-masses to exhibit
themselves as some superior beings made especially by a special god.
A god (imagined
as a reality-entity with intelligence ruling the world) is just a brain-virus
produced by the disease of self-conceit about one’s superiority as a human; and
is never the resultant truth of any rational thinking process.
‘I’ am here’ ‘I’ need to be great, because a great God took the trouble
to create me; so I am great’
So says the
god-believing mind; and exists on the power of the God it has created by its
own imagination.
Vaasishtam is completely
against such irrational beliefs.
So say the
Upanishads too!
Vaasishtam is
atheistic in that sense; Shiva himself tells Vasishta, that there is no God who
exists as the supremacy of reality.
WHAT IS BRAHMAN
ACTUALLY?
What is Reality
(Brahman, the swelled up world-essence)?
According to
Vaasishtam, Reality is ‘Bodha’.
What is
Bodha?
Bodha is that
which you understand, that which you comprehend (or Information in the modern
vocabulary). Rather the world you see is the Bodha presented by your own mind
or intellect with its own limited data of life. World is nothing but the
information content of the totality of minds.
DIFFERENT MINDS
AND DIFFERENT WORLDS
You, as a
conscious being understand that the world is there outside of 'you' - 'the
so-called inert, living yet thinking body', through the mind which codes the
objects as taste, sound, smell, touch, and sight.
This coded
perception alone is understood by you as the world; and this perception is not
the same for all; it is different for different individuals depending on their
evolved state of brain, the genes that manufacture the bodies, the learning or
non-learning states, the faults of the brain, and what not.
The understanding
essence in all, filters through all this muck and presents some vague sort of a
world that is constant, as if by magic.
TRAPPED INSIDE A
LIFE
Though Aatman is
in all, the worlds seen through the tainted minds differ; yet all see a
coherent, interconnected web of a world running with so much precision and
perfection.
The wonder of it
all, do makes us wonder about why we are here, or who made us.
Or we may think
the other way also and feel disgusted with the entire created world and want to
run away from it like Rama did.
We are trapped!
Aren't we? We can go on running from one place to another trying to escape from
the life we are caught in, but perceptions hold on to us like shadows. World
exists wherever we run to.
Is killing the
body and brain, the only way to end all this process?
Rama laments!
Vasishta holds
the light of reason aloft and shows him the path of getting rid of the world;
yet enjoy its beauty thoroughly; like eating the cake and having it too.
He teaches you to
think, not believe.
MOKSHA/LIBERATION
Reality is not
what you believe it to be; but reality is that which is not dependent on your
belief or non-belief. This understanding of the supreme truth is referred to by
the term Moksha.
Moksha is not a
state waiting in the sky to swallow you up after you die.
Moksha is the
perfect state of knowledge you can attain when you are living here, now,
whatever you are, wherever you are.
Moksha is not
seeing a deity; Moksha is not the attainment of super-powers; Moksha is not
going to heaven, or Kailaasa, or Vaikuntha or any other place of enjoyment.
Moksha is
Knowledge.
You do not have
to die for attaining Moksha.
IS REALITY
BRAHMAN?
Reality is called
by different names by the scholars of yore; as Brahman, as Aatman, as Chit, as
Tat, as Tvam, as Aham and so on; again a play of the mind only.
Reality is
nameless; cannot be defined; cannot be explained.
It exist as all
this.
Seeing the actor
(Reality) behind his weird costume (world) is Moksha. When you realize this
truth, you stay liberated while living; as a better state than the
non-intelligent Reality.
‘To know’ yet not
to know is the goal of Vaasishtam!
Vaasishtam is a
magic wand that turns the mirage waters of the dreary desert into the cool Ganges waters of the heaven, and proves that
the desert was never there at all; and only Gangaa flows unhindered as
ever.
WHO IS QUALIFIED TO STUDY THIS SCRIPTURE?
This text is not an ordinary text that any and everyone can lay
hands on.
It is a tough book oozing with abstract knowledge.
It is the last resort for a seeker, who after studying countless
books of philosophy and religion, finds no peace yet and falls at the feet of
Vasishta at last, begging for help.
Others will find no use for it, because the study and
understanding of the book requires extreme purity of mind and a very high
intellectual level.
This book contains countless stories, big and small; yet this book
is not a collection of stories but the collection of extremely abstract thought
processes, concealed within the amusing unique tales that Vasishta presents
Rama with.
Who is fit to read this book?
If you are already a JeevanMukta (liberated while living) and have
understood what the perceived emergent world is, if you have no attachment to
any form of a deity or saint, if you are not addicted to any cult or philosophy
or religion as such, if you do not have even a minuscule of desire for anything
that is connected to the perceived world, if you are always silent in your own
essence of truth, then do not bother; this book is not for you.
Why should a person who is already
floating blissfully in the Sky of Truth, learn the process of growing wings?
If you are not at all familiar with any philosophy, or Upanishads,
or texts composed by Shankara and other great thinkers, and if you are not
dissatisfied with the life you live as a human stuck to earth, if you do not
have the curiosity to know why the world exists as the world or you as a you,
if you are not interested in attaining Moksha the final goal prescribed for all
humans by the ancient texts, then do not bother; this book is not for you.
If like Rama (learned in all the philosophies and Upanishads), you
feel dispassion rising in you through proper reasoning process, and you feel
trapped in this limited structure of a human life, and want to get out of it
like a man drowning in floods, then and then only get ready for the journey
through the knowledge path, holding the hands of great Sage Vasishta; you will
surely reach the end of all search.
When you start the study of this great scripture-
Be like a child which when fed up of all toys and games, starts
crying for its mother and collapses on her lap exhausted and tired; and
approach Vasishta like a child approaching a mother; he will indeed sing
lullabies of wonderful stories and slowly make you close your eyes peacefully
in the bliss of Aatman.
Approach this book with reverence and respect; for it is a
knowledge that is far beyond the level of the ordinary.
HOW TO STUDY THE
TEXT
Vaasishtam is an
experience; not a study.
You cannot read
it to gain merit; or add it to one of your collection of philosophical
thoughts.
You cannot also
read it verse by verse and try to gather its meaning step by step as you do
with any other Sanskrit texts, like Shankara’s for example. You have to grasp this
book, paragraph by paragraph; idea by idea and reason it out as a personal
experience at every point of the study.
As and when you
move from Prakarana to Prakarana, you have to swell up in knowledge (like
Brahman-Reality); and not also forget off the previous ones as if done with and
casually proceed to understand the later ones like reading an ordinary book.
Study of JnaanaVaasishtam
is a penance of Knowledge.
You cannot hurry
through it.
You have to
expand in knowledge as a JnaanaBrahman.
After the study
of the whole text, you must stay as the very essence of Vaasishtam, the very
knowledge of reality as 'you the essence of Reality' (Brahman).
If not, then
start once again from the beginning and ascend the Everest of Vichaara, till
you reach the summit of Knowledge-experience.
Vaasishtam is a
long climb up the mountain
of Vichaara where Sage
Vasishta holds your hand and walks you up slowly up the rugged mountain,
amusing you with intriguing stories of the highest sort. You will never be
aware of the climb at all and will find yourself suddenly on the peak point of
the Knowledge Mountain and have the most amazing
vision of Reality.
After that, there
is no coming down at all!
You can throw off
the book also as finished and done with.
The book takes
you to that level of knowledge where the book itself turns into just another
ordinary book that belongs to the world.
Even Vasishta
melts off; you also melt off; and what is left back?
The silent bliss
which is beyond the grasp of words and thoughts!
Later, whatever
life you live here in the life-stage, nothing matters; absolute silence alone
stands as the essence of all. Just the drama of life goes on, without an actor!
HOW TO ATTAIN
MOKSHA (KNOWLEDGE-STATE) BY THE MERE STUDY OF THIS BOOK?
Starting from Vairaagya Prakarana, you must develop dispassion as
you read Rama’s detailed description of the worthlessness of the world. You
must feel the disgust rising in your own mind.
Next you must practice the qualities suggested by Vasishta to
purify the mind. It cannot happen in a day or two. The muck that is collected
in the mind like hardened rock cannot be got rid off by just reading about the
qualities to be cultivated. You have to sincerely develop those qualities as
advised by Guru Vasishta.
Later as you enter the study of Utpatthi Prakarana, you must be in
a state to wonder and analyze from where forth this world came to about, who
made it, why I am here and so on.
In the Sthiti Prakarana, you will understand how the world
continues to be, as a product of mind only.
In the Upashama Prakarana, the waves of all doubts slowly subside
off.
In the Nirvaana Prakarana your mind is silenced into a peaceful
death; this is the first half of Nirvaana Prakarana. How to live in the world
after such a silent state is attained, is explained in the second half of
Nirvaana Prakarana.
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