Chapter XCVI: Section I: Abandonment of Desires

_Básaná Tyága._

The goddess continued:—

As objects seen in a dream, prove to be false as the dream, on being roused from sleep and upon knowing them as fumes of fancy; so the belief in the reality of the body, becomes unfounded upon dissolution of our desires.

2. As the thing dreamt of disappears upon waking, so does the waking body disappear in sleep, when the desires lie dormant in the soul.

3. As our corporeal bodies are awakened after the states of our dreaming and desiring, so is our spiritual body awakened after we cease to think of our corporeal states.

4. As a sound sleep succeeds the dormancy which is devoid of desires (_i.e._ when we are unconscious of the actions and volition of our minds); so does the tranquillity of liberation follow the state of our inappetency even in our waking bodies.

5. The desire of living-liberated men (_jívan-muktas_), is not properly any desire at all, since it is the pure desire relating to universal weal and happiness.

6. The sleep in which the will and wish are dormant, is called the sound sleep _susupta_, but the dormancy of desires in the waking state, is known as insensibility _moha_ or _múrchhá_.

7. Again the sleep which is wholly devoid of desire, is designated the _turíya_ or the fourth stage of yoga, and which in the waking state is called _samádhi_ or union with Supreme.

8. The living man, whose life is freed from all desires in this world, is called the living liberated—_jívan-mukta_, a state which is unknown to them that are not liberated (_amukta_).

9. When the mind becomes a pure essence (as in its _samádhi_), and its desires are weakened, it becomes spiritualised (_ativáhika_), and then it glows and flows, as the snow melts to water by application of heat.

10. The spiritualised mind, being awakened (as if it were from its drowsiness or lethargy), mixes with the holy spirits of departed souls in the other world.

11. When your egoism is moderated by your practice of yoga, then the perception of the invisible, will of itself rise clearly before your mind.

12. And when spiritual knowledge gains a firm footing in your mind, you will then behold the hallowed scenes of the other world more than your expectation.

13. Therefore O blameless lady! try your utmost to deaden your desires, and when you have gained sufficient strength in that practice, know yourself to be liberated in this life.

14. Until the moon of your intellectual knowledge, comes to shine forth fully with her cooling beams, so long you shall have to leave this body of yours here, in order to have a view of the other world.

15. This fleshy body of yours, can have no tangible connection with one which is without flesh; nor can the intellectual body (_lingadeha_), perform any action of the corporeal system.

16. I have told you all this according to my best knowledge, and the state of things as they are: and my sayings are known even to boys, to be as efficacious as the curse or blessing of a deity.

17. It is the habitual reliance of men in their gross bodies, and their fond attachment to them, that bind their souls down, and bring them back to the earth; while the weakening of earthly desires serve to clothe them with spiritual bodies.

18. No body believes in his having a spiritual body here even at his death bed; but every one thinks the dying man to be dead with his body for ever.

19. This body however, neither dies, nor is it alive at any time; for both life and death are mere resemblances of aerial dreams and desires in all respects.

20. The life and death of beings here below, are as false as the appearances and disappearance of persons in imagination, (or a man in the moon), or of dolls in play or puppet shows.

21. Lílá said:—The pure knowledge, O goddess! that thou hast imparted to me, serves on its being instilled into my ears, as a healing balm to the pain caused by the phenomenals.