The Concise Yoga Vasistha

Translated by Swami Venkateshananda

Introduction

For a period of about two years, The Yoga Vasistha was the only book that I read. I found it so potent and so entertaining that, thanks to Tony at 21st Century Books, I collected many versions and read them over and over again. (Sorry, Tony, for driving you nuts with all of those special orders!) Of all of the versions extant, this one was and still is my favorite.

It is an ancient classic, reminiscent of a Purana or of the epic Ramayana itself, presented as a series of short stories narrated by various persons, with one unique distinction. While most Hindu scriptures were narrated by God to His devotees, The Yoga Vasistha was narrated to God himself. It is the essence of the Vedantic teachings of the sage Sri Vasistha, imparted to Rama immediately before the latter realized his true status. According to Sri Vasistha:

"He is qualified to study this scripture who is neither totally ignorant nor enlightened, whose intelligence has not been silenced by a firm faith in the reality of this illusory world and the pleasures in it. The wise endeavor to remove the sorrow of those who are therefore ripe to undertake self-enquiry."

As the story begins, Rama is a young man who has just finished his formal education and, being a prince, is about to embark on a career of heroic deeds in his father's kingdom, when a deep dispassion suddenly overtakes him. He determines that he must first know the highest truth at all cost, and demands to know of his elders:

"Who are those heroes who have freed themselves from delusion? What methods did they adopt to free themselves? If you consider that I am neither fit nor capable of understanding this, I shall fast unto death."

And so saying, he remains silent. Every time I read this it gives me quite a thrill. I feel that if Sri Vasistha's reply is good enough for Rama, it is good enough for me. It is also reassuring to hear that even a very deep despondency is not necessarily pathological when viewed as a part of the big picture.

Theory

Process and Content

The Yoga Vasistha is a masterpiece of process as well as content. By "process," I refer to the many literary devices which are used to keep the reader's interest engaged. By "content," I refer to the Vedantic teachings which are embedded in the stories and even within the devices themselves. For example, consider the following exchange between Sri Vasistha and Rama:

Rama: How can ignorance and egotism arise in the Self?
Sri Vasistha: One should ask questions concerning the reality only, not concerning the unreal.
Rama: But how does this unreal world exist in the absolute Brahman? Can snow exist in the sun?
Sri Vasistha: This is not the right time for you to ask this question for you will not be able to comprehend the answer now.
Rama: But you exhorted me to enquire into the nature of ignorance.
Sri Vasistha: Yes, because at that time you were still not awakened. One should use common sense and suitable aids or tricks to awaken the seeker before imparting the knowledge of the truth.

The Yoga Vasistha follows its own advice, and employs many "suitable aids and tricks" throughout. The text is so highly organized that often the way that a story is presented seems to emulate what is being talked about within the story. Process and content thus become equally instructive mirror images of one another.

This fairly short version of the text includes about fifty stories and ten discourses, averaging about a half dozen pages each. All of them present the highest Vedantic knowledge, but different stories bring out different aspects of the teaching. I would like to focus here on one general point which is brought out in several different ways, of which I shall mention but three.

There's No Such Thing as "Context"

My dictionary defines "context" as, "surrounding conditions, the circumstances or events that form the environment within which something exists or takes place." The Yoga Vasistha is perhaps best known for the many colorful ways in which it shows us that, compared to the infinite contrast between reality and illusion, all other merely circumstantial distinctions are literally non-existent, as all forms of illusion have the same amount of reality: nil.

The Yoga Vasistha shatters context in all of its many forms. In the end, no amount of presumed context can alter the fact that there is nothing but Self, which expresses itself as being, consciousness, and bliss. There simply are no layers, levels, curtains or veils separating "us" from "It." If, as Sri Vasistha tells us, the illusory world is paper-thin—a puff of colored smoke—then we don't have to "go through channels" to get to the Self; we are always closer to God than we think.

On every page, in every story, we are reminded that, contrary to appearances, we are never really dealing with the "parts" of life; it's never not about wholeness. This line of thinking is constantly re-iterated in numerous creative ways throughout The Yoga Vasistha, and is very effective in drawing us out of our spiritual complacency.

No "Frames of Reference"

One of the main ways in which this point is made is by showing us that there is no real difference between various frames of reference. Here is an example, which illustrates this from "The Story of Vitahavya."

Rama: If the creation of the Sage (Vitahavya) was fictitious and imaginary, how were the embodied beings in it conscious and sentient?
Sri Vasistha: If the creation of Vitahavya was fictitious, O Rama, so is this! That and this are both pure infinite consciousness, their appearance being the result of the delusion of the mind.

As an illustration of my own, I'd like to tell you "The Story of the Tap on the Nose," and it goes like this: What if I were telling you about a dream that I had, and in this dream a man is watching a movie, and in this movie a girl is telling a joke, and in this joke one boy gives another boy a tap on the nose and, in the spirit of demonstration, I reach out and give you a tap on the nose? That one tap would suffice to dispel our mutual illusion that the dream, movie or joke (or any combination thereof) constitutes a real and substantial barrier between us.

No "Others"

Perhaps the most entertaining dimension of this point is that in which Sri Vasistha shows us that there are no real differences between the various protagonists within a given story. One of the most striking tales in the whole text is "The Story of the Hundred Rudras," in which Sri Vasistha narrates a fable with layer upon layer of identity changes, which I have abridged as:

"There once lived a mendicant who was devoted to meditation. One day he fancied birth as a common tribesman (and so became one). One day this tribesman got drunk and dreamt that he was a powerful king who indulged in royal pleasures and then slept and dreamt of a celestial nymph. This nymph dreamt she was a deer and this deer dreamt it was a creeper. The inner intelligence in the creeper saw in its own heart a bee. It therefore became a bee and the bee began to drink the nectar in the flowers on the creeper. At night an elephant approached this creeper and plucked it, along with the bee, and crushed it in its mouth. The elephant was captured by a king, but because it had seen swans in the nearby lake it became a swan. One day, while the mendicant was meditating upon the swan, he was overcome by death. In his heart there arose the conviction, "I am Rudra" and the memory of all that had taken place."

In this quote we find no solid lines between any of the characters. We also find no clear divisions between human, plant and animal, sentience and insentience, and even life and death. In other stories are many examples of non-distinction between states of mind, cause and effect, earthly and celestial realms, past, present, and future, etc.

In this story, each new object quickly becomes a subject, and vice versa. Throughout all of the transformations of name and form, however, the true identity of the protagonist never changes. Even though it is the only constant, its nature can only be hinted at. One would like to have something with which to compare it, an example of some type, but you guessed it…

No "examples"

Turning again to my dictionary, I see that it defines "example" as, "something that is representative by virtue of having similar features." Sri Vasistha shows us that, since there is nothing else like the Self, no mental image is truly capable of representing it, and since we are never really away from the Self, no example can bridge the imagined gap between it and the illusion of its absence.

This leads to the curious paradox that, while on the one hand no example is adequate to represent the Self, on the other hand, since only the Self IS, everything reminds me that "I am," and even the least example captures the Self perfectly and completely. Like William Blake's infinity in a grain of sand, any one name or form becomes a perfect proxy for the whole of creation.

Ironically, it seems that, although one can never really talk about Vedanta, one is always having a Vedantic discussion. Nothing is true, but everything is Truth itself. I have noticed in my own life that, as my thinking shifts gradually from Veda to Vedanta, I find increasingly that which I encounter that strikes me as "true," yet at the same time I seem to be losing my capacity to reject anything at all.

This perspective presented in The Yoga Vasistha would seem to simplify many issues. For example, the famous question in Buddhism as to whether or not a beetle (or a rock) has "Buddha-nature" (consciousness, soul, etc.) becomes moot because, without context, we are not able to exclude any "parts" from the whole in order to make and apply this distinction.

Fortunately, it also clarifies the whole notion of trying to improve upon one's relative personality and lot in life (prarabdha karma). Just as in a dream, I need not transform myself from being sick, poor, and foolish (all of which I currently am!) to being healthy, wealthy, and wise in order to "wake up" to my true Self-nature. I need not devote precious time to polishing my waking-state defects, which are, after all, downstream from my true nature. I don't really want to fix my dream, I want to wake up!

Eventually, the implications of the general assertion that there is no such thing as context become more and more global until they obviate such mainstay constructs of everyday life as memory and meaning and, as we saw at the end of the quote from "The Story of Vitahavya," even the manifest world itself.

Practice

The art of thinking backwards: Self-enquiry in The Yoga Vasistha

The rampant disregard for every kind of boundary which we have seen in The Yoga Vasistha makes one stop and wonder: what is to keep the story from turning around at any time, facing backwards, and demanding to know, "who are you (the subject of your experience) that is reading this review (an object of your experience)?" And, "who am I (the all-important "subject" to me, but just another "object" to you) that is typing it?" And, "who are we really?"

Sri Vasistha tells Rama that, while there is ultimately no difference between the subject and objects of experience (as we saw in "The Story of the Hundred Rudras"), in practice we must assume that there is until such assumption is experientially proven otherwise. The key to self-discovery is therefore said to be the development of the specific ability to distinguish clearly between the subject and objects of experience. This point is referred to explicitly in many places, for example, from "The Story of Bali": "Pure consciousness is but a word, it has no name. I am the eternal subject, free from all object and predicate."

As this quote suggests, although in theoretical terms it is but a part of the subject-object pair, in practical terms, the subject of experience is our direct link to the "pure subjectivity" of the Self and may be traced back to it! As Vedantic teachers have long been telling us, 1) we must turn our attention "inwards" or "backwards" toward the source of thought, and 2) the isolated subject of experience, the simple thought, "I," unassociated with any object, is the most effective "vehicle" on which to focus our attention while doing so.

Having a clear rationale for identifying the most potent instrument for inner work is a good start, but this understanding is as far as we can go relying on theory alone. Fortunately, The Yoga Vasistha offers an extremely potent technique to increase our awareness of the Self, or rather to increase our awareness that we are the Self. Throughout the text, Sri Vasistha is resolute in stating that the most direct path out of ignorance is regular practice of the technique of "self-enquiry" (atma vichara).

In "The World Within the Rock", Sri Vasistha tells Rama that, "Vain argumentation is like boxing with space," and exhorts him to undertake this technique to liberate himself from the world-illusion. In the truly amazing "Story of Shikhidvaja and Cudala," Sri Vasistha shows us the enlightened Queen Cudala (who is impersonating a Brahman boy named Kumbha in order to instruct her King, Shikhidvaja) saying, "All austerities are indirect methods. Why should one not adopt the direct method of self-knowledge?"

So often is this technique mentioned and so highly is it praised that I suggest that The Yoga Vasistha may best be viewed as a Purana-like treatise on its efficacy. The value of self-enquiry and glowing descriptions of its results are specifically elaborated in several other stories, including "The Story of Dama, Vyala and Katha" and "The Story of Ghadi." Sri Vasistha even guides Rama step-by-step through the technique in "The Story of the Foolish Elephant" and again in a discourse section titled "The Importance of Self-Effort." Speaking of the role of individual effort in spiritual practice (sadhana), let us take a closer look at it.

Tough love, Vedanta-style

In many different ways, Sri Vasistha encourages us to cultivate a genuine curiosity about the unique question, "who am I?" Nurturing a fascination with this question is said to be true self-directed research in consciousness, and is preferable to following, with the surface of our minds, the pronouncements of any Teacher, however qualified. After all, you are here and Sri Vasistha is not (except as your own Self), which means that only you can do the work that needs to be done to secure your freedom.

I believe that a lot of long-time seekers, having spent many years practicing object-based meditation, will intuitively recognize the value of practicing self-enquiry. One reason that more such capable people do not actively practice it (as distinct from reading, thinking and talking about it) is undoubtedly that it is simple but hard, whereas we would all prefer to spend our time on spiritual pursuits that are complex but easy.

The effort required to practice the technique is no doubt exacerbated by two prevalent myths. The first is that, "since the ego is what needs to be transcended, it is an unsuitable tool for inner work." While it is true that the ego is the enemy, it has excellent connections to the Self. What better strategy could there be than to harness one's adversary, put him to work and follow him to his home, especially as that home is also our goal? After all, what is more potent than the enemy? When used properly, even snake venom makes powerful medicine.

The second myth is that, "the path to the natural state should be easy." This sounds good, and I would sure like to believe that it's true, but in my heart I know that it's not. As long as we are willing to accept the "illusion of control" of our lives, we must also accept the "illusion of responsibility" for our inner growth, and apply ourselves earnestly to this most important activity. We are constantly engaging our faculty of discrimination anyway. If we were able to apply the same amount of energy to finding and holding the "I"-thought as we put into, say, choosing a movie or a restaurant, our work would be done that much quicker.

Full speed backwards!

I'd like to invite you to take one step backwards with me as you finish reading this review. Here's what I suggest: First, just notice that thoughts pass almost continuously through your mind without any real authorship on your part. Next, ask yourself "to whom do these thoughts come?" An inner response in the form of a sense or feeling of "I"-ness will naturally come to mind by itself.

Now, ask yourself, "who is this 'I'?", or "who am I?" Some thing from some where inside of you will resonate, as if to say, "here I am, it's me!" This is the "I"-thought, the object of your enquiry. Notice the direction from which it came, and that it just simply feels different from any and every other thought in your mind. Do you know that special feeling that you get when you find your face in a group photograph? It is the thrill of recognizing that which is most intimate and charming, the thought of one's own self, and it definitely has its own unique feeling.

Hold onto this feeling and it will lead you back the way it came. Since it is the "I"-thought, by holding onto it you will naturally come to identify yourself with it. It will therefore soon change from being an object-"I" (the object of your search) into the subject-"I" (you.) The shifting of identity to this "new" (subject) "I" is the crucial "backwards step", and is automatic once you have found and held onto the "I"-thought.

Now starting from here, you (as this "new subject-I") can again ask, "who am I?", from a position that is one step closer to the Self. Congratulations! You have just taken one step backwards in self-enquiry.

The overall process is not a matter of taking many superficial steps in quick succession, it is a matter of getting the feeling of taking one single step, holding onto that feeling and repeating the process from time to time during any kind of activity (not just when sitting with eyes closed). If you're like me it is hard work, but taking even one step in this direction can change your whole perspective.

This, finally, is true sadhana, something worthy of all of the intensity of attention that we can bring to bear upon it. Beyond this, Sri Vasistha tells us that there is nothing more we can do. As he tells Rama at the end of The Yoga Vasistha, "Dear Rama, now remain rooted in wisdom."

You won't need to spend two years with this classic saga to come to love it as I do. I hope that you'll begin your friendship with it today by driving Tony a little more nuts with a rush order. For theory, practice, and high entertainment, The Concise Yoga Vasistha is nearly impossible to beat.

Review by Michael Baxter