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FESTIVALS THIS MONTH:

APRIL 6: RAMNAUMI

APRIL 11: MAHAVIR JAYANTI

APRIL 11: ID-UL-MILAD

APRIL 13: HANUMAN JAYANTI

APRIL 13: BAISAKHI

	Swami Suryadevananda

THIRD SECTION: BONDAGE

The third section of the Yoga Vasistha deals with the theme of �Creation or The Evolution of the World.� Why is it important to have any understanding of this topic? What has �creation� to do us at all? Knowing how things have unfolded, may give us some clues as to the binding factor behind the drama of the changing world that we find ourselves in that does not rest and demands a response in some form from moment to moment. The attempt here is to peek through the faces of change and try to get a glimpse of the unchanging that animates change.

The Yoga Vasistha tells us that what we see as creation is not a reality as an effect from a cause but an appearance, just as the dream condition. If creation is to be considered �real,� there cannot be hope of liberation. Our experience of bondage is rooted in the belief of the reality of the world appearance and here is the crux of the matter. As long as we believe that we exist as an individual, that others too exist as individuals and that everything that is perceived is external and apart from everything else, a need arises for establishing some sort of relationship with this mass of disconnected persons and things. But nothing stays in a uniform condition and since the nature of the visible is change, we find ourselves in a race to adjust and stay adjusted. Every moment, we are in this �adjustment game,� hoping that our adjustments can last forever or long enough to give some pause. However, this does not seem to happen and it seems that our entire life is nothing but a series of adjustments that are called for in different levels of existence.

Since life presents a stream of change, it seems that we can never become completely free of adjustments unless we find a way to adjust ourselves to the very principle that animates the changes we encounter in life. If this total adjustment is somehow possible, we may be free from the clutches of subjection of these moment-to-moment demands that pull us in all directions.

Bondage arises when we perceive something or someone as an externality, which is insisted upon by the senses, mind and intellect. It is this externality consciousness that requires a relationship and status as a classification, which is the seed of bondage. Each time we revisit this something or someone, we discover that the hands of change have impacted our own understanding, the object of perception or the space that envelops the subject and object. The relationship or status foisted upon the object of perception is challenged and we find ourselves making adjustments to better suit the present condition. This game goes on endlessly and demands unrelenting effort to cope with the hands of change.

To posit that there is no creation is a never-ending argument. Something seems to be there in front of us as the world but what that something is may not be clear. As long as we are embodied, we are susceptible to reports from the senses, mind and intellect. What is then needed is to empower the �higher mind� in the perception process that has been properly educated as the nature of reality. This �higher mind� is the best instrumentation we have though it cannot conceive the Absolute; it is what can be brought into play in our present condition.

The higher mind has to be educated so that our continued interaction with creation through thought, speech and action may be of recognizing the substratum of unity threading the myriads of shapes and forms.

Meditation is difficult if we are not reconciled with all that we see as creation and all that we are. The Yoga Vasistha tells that even if one is able to enter deeper stages of meditation somehow, this state will not last be everlasting as the world since creation will continue to insist on this condition. The idea of the phenomenal world is in the mind of the perceiving subject with such strength and if life is lived unwisely, this erroneous notion will only be strengthened.

THE FIRST CAUSE

Rishi Vasistha tells Rama the story of a holy man named Akasaja who lived a life of meditation and was always inclined toward the welfare of all. Messengers of Yama, Lord of Death, noticed that he had lived more than a full life and sought to devour him. They were unable to devour him inspite of repeated attempts. Having failed in every attempt, they returned and placed before Yama their failed encounters.

Yama replied that death does not really kill as it is the fruition of the karma of the dying person who through karma cooperates in the release from the physical body we call death. The holy man Akasaja was living as pure spirit, completely free of incurring any karma as the sense of �person� or �doership� was not even known to him. His very existence was like the purity of air without any smell or scent. The grip of ego was absent completely, and hence, there was nothing to grasp him by. The Lord of Death further went on to state that this holy man had never been born as an embodied being but was causeless and hence, pure consciousness manifest as a subtle body. This total absence of cause has made him as a vacuous being functioning in an ethereal arbor.

Rishi Vasistha goes on to tell Rama that the Creator�s thought can be said to have given rise to what is beheld as creation and therefore, this creation is thought only without the substance of matter. The Creator�s thought has spread itself as forms and beings endowed with intelligence. With the many forms and beings, self-forgetfulness can arise and till this state of self-forgetfulness continues, there is a freezing in the form of beings. It is only the thought forms that undergo this delusion and the Creator remains unchanged in any way. What we see as the universe is thought projection appearing as solid matter.

In the Upanishads, there is the commonly used analogy of the snake in the rope where in darkness, a coiled rope can be mistaken for a snake and there can be a reaction to it, though there is no snake in truth. In the dream condition, we have all sorts of experience though there are no objects and it is all the creation of the mind only. The subject, the objects, the space, the light that illumines the animation and the witness of this entire drama, all is the play of the psyche only. We can have pleasant experiences or otherwise and tangible reactions also. Solid objects are not necessary for tangible reactions and the play of the mind can inject a sense of convincing reality. It is not till we are in a state of waking that we realize the dream experience.

Rama then asks Rishi Vasistha what the mind is and this leads to a further exchange of answers, questions and more answers, which we will look into the next time.

Swami Suryadevananda, presently residing in St. Petersburg, is with the Divine Life Society founded by Sri Swami Sivananda in Rishikesh, India. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].