|
|
 |
|
| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 03 2013 : 6:58:32 PM
|
Online here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/75815994/Vasistha-s-Yoga-Swami-Venkatesananda
I actually heard about this through Deepak Chopra's Book of Secrets. I'd kind of written-off Deepak as a watered down spiritual materialist who rides on mass appeal before I really knew anything about him - good lesson in not judging.
When I opened my mind, on the urging of my mom, and read some of his stuff I actually found that his penetrating insight, and the quality and depth of his writing, pretty much surpass anything I've ever read in the 'New Age' category (broadly speaking). Now, IMHO, the man is a legend.
Book of Secrets is a good introduction to the path to enlightenment, recognizing your true nature as non-dual awareness, and moving toward unity. He writes in a very user-friendly way.
So I recommend this book. But also - the Yoga Vasistha, it ranks up there alongside the Ashtavakra Gita, Ribhu Gita and so on, in my view.
Love
josh  |
|
|
mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Jun 03 2013 : 10:30:38 PM
|
Additionally, you can download the entire audio version of Yoga Vasistha (32,000 lines), based on the translation by Swami Venkatesananda, and read by a Scottish guy here: http://archive.org/details/yoga-vasishta
It's public domain licensed so the download is completely legal and free. You can make a donation for downloading it, as I will do shortly, to it's reader here: http://www.williamgillies.me.uk/
If you look on the left hand side of the page (towards the top) there's a link where you can download all audios in one 7 gigabyte file (if you've got high speed internet).
I'm going to be listening over the next few weeks. Here's some quotes to give you a taste of what it's all about if you don't know already:
To one whose body is of pure consciousness there is neither birth nor death. Page 697
O Rama, you are not born when the body is born, nor do you die when it dies. To think that the space within the jar came into being when it was made and the space perishes with the jar is sheer foolishness. Page 294
How can infinite consciousness cease to be? The person is nothing but infinite consciousness. Who dies and when, to whom does this infinite consciousness belong and how? Even when millions of bodies die, this consciousness exists undiminished.
Sage Vasishtha
“You (Self) dwell in me in a state of equilibrium as pure witness consciousness, without form and without the divisions of time and space.”
— Supreme Yoga (Yoga Vasistha)
VALMIKI:
This world-appearance is a confusion, even as the blueness of the sky is an optical illusion. I think it is better not to let the mind dwell on it, but to ignore it. Neither freedom from sorrow nor realisation of one’s real nature is possible as long as the conviction does not arise in one that the world-appearance is unreal. And this conviction arises when one studies this scripture with diligence. It is then that one arrives at the firm conviction that the objective world is a confusion of the real with the unreal. If one does not thus study this scripture, true knowledge does not arise in him even in millions of years.
Moksha or liberation is the total abandonment of all vasana or mental conditioning, without the least reserve. Mental conditioning is of two types - the pure and the impure. The impure is the cause of birth; the pure liberates one from birth. The impure is of the nature of nescience and ego-sense; these are the seeds, as it were, for the tree of re-birth. On the other hand, when these seeds are abandoned, the mental conditioning that merely sustains the body is of a pure nature. Such mental conditioning exists even in those who have been liberated while living: it does not lead to re-birth as it is sustained only by past momentum and not by present motivation. |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Jun 03 2013 10:41:17 PM |
 |
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
| AYP Public Forum |
© Contributing Authors (opinions and advice belong to the respective authors) |
|
|
|
|
Yoga Vasistha
