Учение Йога Васишта: мир — это иллюзия, а сознание — единственная реальность

By John Hierl Imagine you are at the movies with a friend but are not enjoying the show as much as you had anticipated and want to leave. Your friend, however, wants their money’s worth, and you end up staying. On the way home, you might regret having wasted your money. We may call such a situation the dilemma of life: by trying different things we expect will bring us happiness, we become deluded in the long term because the results we gain are gone too soon. However, even a visit to the movies can serve as a metaphor for spiritual growth. In Yog Vasisht, Ram is instructed by Sage Vasisht in the science of Self-realisation. One of its main messages may be summed up as ‘ svapnavrttam idam jagat’ — the world is but a dream. It is easy to understand the movie as a projected dream: after all, when you go home, you are no longer witnessing it. But what about yourself? Are you a dream? Sage Vasisht would say the movie projector is your ego, jiva, playing out its past karms on the screen, which represents maya. The friend is your body-mind living out an illusion due to ego attachment. Yog Vasisht teaches that the body only exists because of the mind. It is because of the mind that a jiva takes birth. Rag-dvesh , your likes and dislikes, act as a compass to the ongoing authoring of your life story in the form of experiences. In everyday choices, whichever the mind prefers is based on your personal narrative of past karm. In the movie hall metaphor, you are following the mind because you don’t want to have wasted your money. But what happens is that because of the mind, you don’t enjoy the show – it has turned itself into an enemy. To gain mukti, Sage Vasisht says the mind must be relinquished. How may a seeker on the way to liberation dissolve the mind? By becoming identified with the Atman. As a witness, it is always within you and wherever you are, because Brahmn is everywhere. It is independent and remains unaffected by the mind-body duality and relative space-time. As the Yog Vasisht teaches: “Know that the chidakash, space of consciousness, is more void than the other two: chittakash, space of the mind, and akash, ordinary physical space (III.17.10).” To understand this shlok, think of the cinema hall: it appears in akash, and you are the aware ego as the movie-witness – chittakash. Consciousness is the substratum for both. Sage Vasisht instructs Ram that it is void because consciousness is beyond space-time. We cannot ever come to understand Brahmn through the mind. Only Brahmn exists. Yog Vasisht says that the view of our lives as ‘movie-maya’ is to be understood as that of mithya: neither real nor unreal. We might think that our lives are real, but all is only an illusory dream. Nothing different exists from consciousness. This world is only a dream. The main message of Vasisht to Ram is two simple words: ‘Wake up!’ Next time you find yourself in a movie hall, ask yourself what in life you want to truly identify with. The right choice will gain you mukti. Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author's own.