Conclusion of Utpatti Prakaraṇa 9 part 2
9. The Conclusion of Utpatti Prakaraṇa
Part 2
Vālmīki said:
Oh Bharadvāja, hearken to what passed between Śrī Rāma, replete with good qualities, and Ṛṣi Vāsiṣṭha.
Rāma remarked:
This passes all belief. How is it possible for the universe to be afflicted with manifold pain through this illusory Māyā? Can a series of hills be bound and crushed by the filament of a lotus?
I would rather believe that a straw assumes the density of a diamond rather than that the universe becomes manifest in its present shape through the power of Māyā which is unreal.
Still another doubt flashes across my brain. Whence the pain of King Lavaṇa previously mentioned by thee?
Lavaṇa’s mental Yajña—Vāsiṣṭha answered his queries thus:
As Lavaṇa performed actions with an undefiled mind, his body did not share in their fruits.
This king was one day spending his time alone in his pleasure garden and fell into the following profound reverie:
He thought of performing mentally the Rājasūya-yajña which his ancestor, Hariśchandra, had done with his physical body.
Through his Saṁkalpa, he willed the existence of ploughs and other implements and the things necessary for Yajña and entering the place of Yajña according to Vedic procedure, appointed and worshipped Munis.
Then kindling a large fire and invoking the Devas through the chanting of Vedic Mantras, he worshipped Devas, Tapasvins and Brahmins for one year by feeding them and justly distributing to them all his wealth.
He thus concluded his Yajña and awoke from his intense reverie to find the night approaching.
You should gather from this episode that it is the mind alone which brings pleasure or pain itself and enjoys them through its strong inclination towards any particular object.
I will here narrate to you information about Śāmbarika, the Siddha:
When he appeared before King Lavaṇa who was seated in a conclave of courtiers, he deluded the king with his Indrajāla and then disappeared. I was one of the group and witnessed all these things.
Being questioned as to the mysterious disappearance of this Siddha by the powerful king and courtiers as well as others, I dived into my heart to probe into the three periods of time and gave the following explanation:
Oh Rāma, as it is a rule that all persons who perform Rājasūya-yajña have to undergo intense suffering for a period of twelve years, Lavaṇa had to suffer after the completion of his mental Yajña.
So it was that Indra sent a messenger of his to afflict the king with pain. This celestial messenger assumed the guise of a Siddha, meted out pain to the king and departed to his realm.
Jñāna and Ajñāna—Oh Rāmachandra, there are two states, Jñāna and Ajñāna. Each of them is septenary in its nature. They are mutually interdependent. Infinite, are the subdivisions which overlap one another in the septenary divisions of both these states.
The Jñāna path which enables one to cognize the one Reality is Mokṣa, whereas the other, which makes men forget the one Reality and identify ‘I’ with their bodies, etc. is bondage.
The following are the leading characteristics that differentiate a person who has cognized the one Reality from another who has not:
Those who are immovably fixed in the Jñāna Reality, the eternal, absolute Sat, have conquered their passions, anger and delusion, but those who ate not truly illumined are the slaves of their passions, etc.
The intelligence of one who dotes on the body and its organs leads him away from the > one Reality. The mind which makes one swerve from the path of Ātmic Reality is Moha or delusion. There is really no other Moha, in all the three periods.
(The one) Reality can be defined to be that Jñāna which exists without Saṁkalpa. This Jñāna is devoid of fancies and fluctuation and of the Vṛtti-Jñāna of the dream (Svapna) state or the Ajñāna of the dreamless, sleeping (Suṣupti) state.
That non-fluctuating certainty of mind, which is of the nature of bliss, in which all the conceptions identifying ‘I’ with the body, as well as all differences between Jīvātman and Paramātman are annihilated, is the true nature of Ātma-Jñāna.
The seven Ajñāna States—Now, listen to a detailed explanation of the seven states of Ajñāna, of which I spoke before.
They are called Bindu-jāgrat, Jāgrat, Maha-jāgrat, Jāgrat-svapna, Svapna, Svapna-jāgrat and Suṣupti. These seven different states interpenetrate one another and receive different appellations.
As the one Jñāna, which is nameless and taintless, is the substratum and the generating Bindu (the seed) of all that passes under the names and actions of Manas, Jīva, etc. evolving and flourishing, the first state is called Bindu-jāgrat. This is the first or primary state.
After the incipient manifestation of Jīva, the feeble conception of the differences of ‘I and he’ and ’mine and thine’ which arise, not having existed before, is the second or upper Jāgrat state.
The third state is induced, when, after repeated births, conceptions of the heterogeneity of man and the universe materialize in the individual.
Jāgrat svapna is that state in which the mind holds undisputed sovereignty over the things of the world in the Jāgrat state through previous effects, and overpowered by such objects, whether seen or unseen before, revels in them.
This Svapna state is enjoyed in the Jāgrat or waking state and is of various kinds, through the experience of various delusions, like the delusion of water in a mirage, silver in mother-of-pearl, two moons, etc.
Then in the fifth state of pure Svapna, a review is made of the innumerable events which one passes through in a moment as if in a dream or reverie, and the individual remembers them in his normal Jāgrat state.
The sixth state is Svapna-jāgrat in which one in the waking state, in trying to recollect things long past, has that Svapna consciousness, which makes past things appear clearly in recollection in the present, not as in Svapna but as in the Jāgrat state.
After crossing these six states, a Jīva reaches the Suṣupti state in which its intelligence finds all the Avasthās (states) to be beset with pain. All the worlds seem to be generated out of and perish in the mist of Māyā in these Avasthās or states.
These seven states of Ajñāna have countless ramifications, each being divided a hundredfold. Thus are the seven Ajñāna-bhūmikās (states).
The seven Jñāna States—Now hear of the seven Jñāna-bhūmikās, which are said to have infinite divisions. I prefer to classify them under a septenary head. The cognition of the real nature of these Jñāna states is Ātma-Jñāna. Their goal is the imperishable Nirvana.
The seven stages are:
1. Śubhecchā (spiritual longing for the bliss spoken of in the Vedas), 2. Vicāraṇa (inquiry therein), 3. Tanumānasī (the melting of the mind in inquiry), 4. Sattvāpatti (the passage of the mind in Truth), 5. Asaṁśakti (being without Saṁkalpa), 6. Padārtha-bhāvanā (knowledge of Truth), and 7. Turīya.
Persons who have known these states are never sunk in delusion.
That desire which arises in one to enjoy directly the Jñāna-essence through the path of indifference to objects after a study of Ātma-Jñāna Śāstras and association with the knowers of Brahman is Śubhecchā.
The second or Vicāraṇa is the mastery of the good qualities of the wise and of Ātmic contemplation, with the rise of spiritual desires.
When after these two states are fully developed in him, the aspirant abandons the natural desires and his mind is concentrated on one object at its will, then the mind is rendered fine (Tanu) and the third stage is reached.
All desires being eliminated from the mind by the above three processes, Tattva-Jñāna is developed and this is the fourth state of Truth.
Beyond these is the fifth state when he frees himself from Saṁkalpas by the blissful enjoyment of true Jñāna without association with objects.
When these five states are fully realized, he is lost in the bliss of Ātma-Jñāna and then he has no affinity for objects.
After the ripening of these five states and the development of quiescence through merging into one’s own self, all perception of objects, external and internal, is lost and the person, if at all he has any perception of objects, has it only through external compulsion. This is the state called Padārtha- bhāvanā.
Then the Turīya, the seventh state, is reached when, having rendered objective the hitherto latent Ātma-Jñāna, he firmly stays in his own Self, having completely divested himself of all conceptions of heterogeneity which arise through his experiences on earth.
This is the spiritual path of the perfected Jīvan-muktas.
Above this Turīya state of Jīvan- muktas, is the Turyātīta state of Videha-muktas. This, state is one that can be attained only by those Mahātmans (great souls) who have known their Self through Ātma-Jñāna.
Jīvan-muktas who have reached this imperishable Turīya state are not affected by the pairs of opposites.
They perform Karmas at the instance of their disciples or others, to maintain their body; and like a person in a reverie or just awake after sleep, they are not the actors of their present Karmas, though performing them, and enjoy Nirvāṇic bliss.
These Jñāna-bhūmikās can be cognized only by those who have fully developed Jñāna.
There is no doubt that if a person passes these seven states, he becomes emancipated whether he animates the body of a beast full of Ajñāna, whether he conforms to worldly observances or not, whether he is associated with a body or dies.
Tattva-Jñāna is the release from the trammels of one’s own mind. Such a release alone leads to the attainment of Mokṣa.
If the illusions of the world are considered as unreal as a mirage in a desert, then the Ajñāna in the man will end. If this Avidya or ignorance be considered unreal then it will be annihilated.
Those transcendentally holy personages who have cognized all the true Jñāna states through Samādhi which leads to the realization of their own Ātman, truly deserve the worship and meditation of all.
Those who have subjugated their longstanding foes which are the sensual organs and have reached thereby the supreme state in which they are reverenced by all,
and who regard as insignificant the position of even Devendra and emperors, are the knowers of these seven states. But those who have not attained these septenary states are drowned in the ocean of births.
The proper means to subjugate the mind is Jñāna or the development of spiritual wisdom. It happens only through the path of these Jñāna-bhūmikās, without whose aid the noble Brāhmic state can never be attained.
That is one, without destruction, name, highness or lowness, being or non-being, beginning or end, affinities, positive or negative (attributes) and diversity; it is above the reach of Manas and speech, the bliss of bliss and the Plenum of all, free of all desires.
This is that Brahman which you can reach through the septenary bhūmikās.
Now listen, Oh Rāma, to the marvellous effects of Māyā:
After the great king Lavaṇa had recovered from his trance, he saw, through the mirror of mind, the forests on the slopes of the Vindhya mountains,
and consulted his courtiers as to, whether it was possible for him to go and see those sites with, his physical vision and witness, if true, the events enacted therein;
and being resolved upon trying the experiment, he started with his retinue towards the south and came in sight of the Vindhya hills, like a king bent upon extending his conquests in all directions.
He roved about in all the quarters except the North, but in. vain. All at once (in the northern direction), he saw the forest he had lived in formerly, as if his thoughts had taken a tangible form.
Scrutinizing the scene, he observed the several places and towns in the forest he had passed through as a Nīca (outcaste), which were like the city of Yama.
To his great surprise, the king of kings observed, without exception, all the huts of Nīcas of both sexes who were tenanting them then; and his heart began to give way under the grief caused by his old associations.
At this juncture, a troop of old Nīca women turned up on the spot, full of sorrow, their eyes trickling with tears, and their bodies emaciated to the last degree.
One of the group, unable to overcome her grief, opened her mouth wide and, gasping, gave vent to a long and loud wail, recounting the incidents connected with her children and others who had died previously:
Oh my darlings, who have forsaken my lap and embrace only to perish in some foreign land, whither have you gone through your bad Karmas? How distressed will you be at the sight of strangers’ faces?
Oh my daughter, my daughter, when will you return to alleviate the scorching fire of my grief with the cool embrace of your arms decked with scarlet garlands.
Oh my son-in-law king, who came to us through our previous Tapas, like a treasure newly discovered, and led to the hymeneal altar my daughter, after having abandoned your harem containing ladies resembling Lakṣmī, have you forgotten us?
Will you again present yourself before us with your moon-like face on this very spot? Or are you estranged from us because of paltry, venial offences committed by my daughter?
Being caught in the snare of Karmas in the great ocean of births, you abandoned your regality, accepted my daughter’s hand and degraded yourself, a lord of men, into the most abject condition of an outcaste through such an alliance.
Our rebirths flash like lightning and are as impermanent. Hard indeed are the decrees of destiny.
So saying, she wailed more and more. The king, having heard her weep, told his handmaidens to go and pacify the old woman and bring her.
When the old woman approached him, he accosted her thus:
Who are you? Who is your daughter? And who are your children? Relate to me all without omitting any incident.
At which she replied:
In this hamlet of pariahs lived an outcaste who was my lord. Through him, I begat a daughter. She lived as the wife of a king who came to this forest like another Devendra.
Through her good fortune of a long time, she bore him three children and lived happily; to make amends for it, the fate became perverse and my children were subjected to misfortunes and died.
After my daughter and others had lived happily for a long time, the clouds became relentless and shed not a drop of water; there was a drought throughout the land and the outcastes fled in all directions and lay dead in piles of carcases, black as Yama.
We have survived all these shocks only to be alone and to suffer all the more.
Whereupon the king looked at his ministers, with great wonder, and ordered them to furnish the Nīca women with necessary things, relieve them of their distress and conduct them to his kingdom.
Having returned to his city, he reflected over the situation and becoming convinced of the seemingly real nature of the universe created by the potent power of Māyā, he sought initiation into the mysteries of Brahman at our hands and attained quiescence.
Oh Rāmachandra of rare bounty, this great Māyā generates such delusions as are uncrossable. Through the power of Māyā, Sat appears as Asat and vice versa:
So said Vāsiṣṭha when Rama questioned him thus:
Oh Guru of my race, how came the things enacted in the regions of the perturbed mind to objectivize themselves in the physical world?
To which the Ṛṣi replied:
You will be able to understand better the heterogeneous manifestations of Māyā later on, through the story of Gādhi, wherein Māyā is shown as producing diverse objects.
Like the coincidence of a palmyra fruit falling at the time of the perching of a crow on the tree, according to the wise, worldly actions appear to coincide through Vāsanās of the mind.
Therefore King Lavaṇa took as true, on the subsequent day, the illusion of being an outcaste, etc. which Śāmbarika, the Siddha, imposed on him the previous day through his Indrajāla.
The Chāṇḍālas living on the slopes of the hills mistook that illusion which was wrought on the king’s brain in his Jāgrat-svapna state to be real through their own mind.
Now what happened was this:
That which dawned on the king’s mind (as Jāgrat-svapna) was reflected on those of the Chāṇḍālas as Jāgrat (or waking reality) and what happened among the Chāṇḍālas again reflected itself on the mind of the king (as the same Jāgrat reality).
If this is the work of Māyā, who will be able to gauge its tremendous powers?
It is only to Jñāna light that all visible Māyāvic objects owe their existence in this world. Likewise all the objects which are observed through the five organs would be non-existent except for Jñāna.
Jñānātman occupies a state intermediate between the knower and the known. Hence Mokṣa may be said to be that state in which objects, their knower, and knowledge are not found, but which is yet the source of all three.
May you be ever impartite in that Chidānanda wherein are unified ‘That’, the Brahman and ‘thou’, the Kūṭasthā, which is the neutral state of mind when it passes from one object to another and which is without name, intelligence or inertness.
May you rest in your Self in an illumined state, having understood thoroughly your subtle mind, and having eradicated all the concepts of your mind which make you falsely believe yourself to be under the trammels of Saṁsāra.
Now, Rāma, you should rend asunder, through arduous effort, the long rope of Vāsanās which tie the vessels which are men who are swung about as if on waterlifts.
All the universes with their heterogeneity, though really Ātma-Jñāna, shine as worlds only through our illusory mind, like the blueness in the sky which is in fact non-existent.
If with the extinction of pain-producing Saṁkalpa, the mind is also destroyed, then the thick frost of Moha (delusion), affecting us from remote periods, will dissipate itself.
Then like an unobscured sky in the autumnal season, Brahman alone will shine, resplendent, blissful, imperishable, non-dual, formless and without birth or death.