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Download pdf / photo composite Yoga Vasistha in PoemChapter VI: Dealing with Liberation4. The Way of Yoga and Meditation (...continued) Meditation (with attributes) Such is the Lord—worthy of adoration
Constantly worshipped by holy ones
The same lord is approached in different ways
Hear now some ways for his worship
He is pure intelligence, most radiant
More effulgent than a thousand suns
The light that illumines all lights
The inner light of all and everything
The gods and deities are his body hairs
Cosmic potencies are his energy
Time stands watch as his gatekeeper
Thousands of heads and limbs has he
He dwells in all as the indweller
The unseen innermost self of all is he
All beings and things—he is the all
Thus meditate ceaselessly and realize
This is supreme meditation and worship
Continuous unbroken awareness
Of the indwelling presence, consciousness
Realize oneness and attain liberation
Even a few seconds of real meditation
Bestows more than rites or rituals
'Tis the supreme yoga—highest action
Meditation unfolds divinity from within
Meditation (without attributes) Internal worship of the self
Is the greatest of all purifiers
It destroys darkness immediately
It is perpetual unbroken meditation
First discover and establish in inner self
The manifest consciousness or self-awareness
This is what comes, goes through the body
Engaging in diverse external activities
As prana he moves the vital airs
Sense contact is rendered to experience
Dwelling within as the innermost self
He alone is knower and experiencer
Between inhalation and exhalation
Between the eye-brows is he as well
In the throat, palate and in the heart
The prompter of all thoughts is he
He alone shines as pure consciousness
Immediately everywhere is his presence
Pure experiencing in all experiences
He alone appears as every object
The mind is the Lord's messenger
Energy of knowing and action his consorts
Diverse aspects of knowledge his ornaments
The organs of action are his gateways of travel
Thus you will thoroughly purify self
Of all conditioning and limitation
Hence worship the Lord indwelling all
As intelligence pervading the entire body
Your every action should be worship
Eating, drinking and every experience
Including life, death, joys and sorrows
Poverty, prosperity and noble qualities
Worship is unbroken abidance in truth
Being established in supreme equanimity
Regarding everything as good and auspicious
Realizing everything is the one self only
In all forms and their modifications
The same self indwells and animates
Inner distinctions are walls that separate
Worship the self in all appearing forms
Soar beyond mind's insistence on division
See that all walls are in the mind only
See that they do not exist in what is seen
Act in accordance with the unity of things
Worship is not just in the prayer area
Just like breathing—it stays unbroken
The mind must thus always be balanced
Quiescent, in equal vision—free of division
Those who worship the inner intelligence
Are free from perversion and conceit
As the same inner intelligence is in all
Verily masquerading in different forms
All that you do from morning ’til night
Offer all as worship unto the Lord
Pure consciousness, indwelling presence
Second to Him—none can exist
This cosmic consciousness is what is seen
As the world outside of people and things
What a wonder it is—such forgetfulness
Appearances masking the unchanging reality
Beginningless and endless is the supreme Lord
Only existence and indwelling presence
The mind and senses can never experience
Rise beyond all limitations and faculties
Soap too is an composite of substances
But it can wash the dirt as it washes out
So too with this catalytic subtle ignorance
It washes the coarse and itself out too
Handling charcoal turns the hands black
Washing the hands renders them clean
But playing again will blacken them again
So best not to play with charcoal at all
Reject appearance and inner conditioning
Life is an opportunity for unbroken inquiry
The self is roused by the self this way
Gradually the self becomes aware of itself
The guru, teaching and sacred scriptures
Are all means to realize the self
But you have to do what has to be done
And realize the truth for your own self
That which IS after senses cease functioning
After like, dislike and such notions vanish
That is the Self—indicated by truth and reality
Existing even when ignorance is center stage
But these gods, sages and enlightened ones
Different scriptures and different religions
Are not different—there is no diversity
Though it appears so even in this somehow
Pure consciousness alone appears as all
It is this we call Brahman the absolute
Appearing as this subject-object tangle
Giving rise to delusion though not deluded
Time and space are self creations
Put together by the ego-sense only
Vital energy assembles the individual
To experience what is felt to be experienced
If ignorance remains at the time of death
One reincarnates again to work it out
And realize the truth for one's own self
For this one comes, for this one lives
The dream is real to the dreamer
This world is real to the ignorant
He will continue from dream to dream
Till he awakens and realizes the self
Why do you defend these vile notions
They bring untold suffering and pain
Conditioning itself is great sorrow
It is based on ignorance—abandon it!
Conditioning itself does not really exist
But it still continues to wreak great havoc
Like a ghost it dances on the mind’s stage
Slay this by the sword of self-inquiry
Those wishing to sleep must be left alone
Life will teach them lessons quite sternly
They will be made to abandon foolishness
And will have to exert as others have done
The unreal perceives the unreal
The unreal experiences the unreal
Due to the unreal influence of unreality
Mere imagination imagining within itself
Early on when I was first instructed
By the Lord himself—on these truths
I have constantly engaged myself in this worship
Of the undivided self with natural means
Adopt the yogic inner attitude
Be devoid of any and all attachment
Roam free in this forest of samsara
You will not suffer in the least bit
Circumstances change and change they must
People and things come and go
They do not belong to you at all
And you do not belong to them either
Unattached mentally do what needs be done
The organs of action will act naturally
Delight from sensual pleasure is deceptive
A fleeting promise which leads one to great peril
In time you will attain experience of self
Do not store it in the mind as a memory
Avoid making it an object of desire
Live in the light of self's omnipresence
When you stop pursuing sensual pleasures
Experiencing only what comes unsought
You are in a state of perfect equanimity
Free from latent tendencies and memory
With the slightest movement in the mind
This world-appearance is roused into action
Make the mind unwinking by prana's restraint
Destroy latent tendencies by inquiry's flame
Ignorance and its effects are self-binding
Be self-disciplined—do not cooperate
Follow the instruction of the preceptor
And the teachings contained in scriptures
The mind has to be made 'no-mind'
It has to be drained of all its energy
Pranayama is vitally important in this
Inquiry restores the natural state
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