Yoga Vāsiṣṭha

Yoga Vasistha is a Hindu spiritual text written by sage Valmiki, believed to answer all the questions that arise in the human mind, to help one to attain Liberation.

Quotes

• Remember that once upon a time there was nothing on this earth, neither trees and plants, nor even mountains. For a period of eleven thousand [great] years the earth was covered by lava. In those days there was neither day nor night below the polar region: for in the rest of the earth neither the sun nor the moon shone. Only one half of the polar region was illumined. [Later] apart from the polar region the rest of the earth was covered with water. And then for a very long time the whole earth was covered with forests, except the polar region. Then there arose great mountains, but without any human inhabitants. For a period of ten thousand years the earth was covered with the corpses of the asuras.
  • Yoga Vāsiṣṭha [YV 6.1] quoted in The Idea of India- Bhārat as a Civilisation -- Subhash Kak

The Supreme Yoga, 2003

Swami Venkatesananda The Supreme Yoga, 2003.

• Prayer:

Salutations to that reality in which all the elements, and all the animate and inanimate beings shine as if they have an independent existence, and in which they exist for a time and into which they merge.

Salutations to that consciousness which is the source of the apparently distinct threefold divisions of knower, knowledge and known, seer, sight and seen, doer, doing and deed.

Salutations to that bliss absolute (the ocean of bliss) which is the life of all beings whose happiness and unfoldment is derived from the shower of spray from that ocean of bliss.

• p. xvi
• Content: Contentment is the supreme gain. Satsangh (true friends) are the best companion to the destination. The spirit of enquiry itself is the greatest wisdom. And, self-control is the supreme happiness.

External links

• Yoga Vasistha translated by Swami Venkatesananda