About the Book Through his counselling spread over two thirds of the work, Vasishta prepares the mind of Rama to accept the final truth, that the world does not exist, that the avidhya does not exist and the non-dual blissful Brahman is ever manifest. The beautiful aspect is that at the end, it is the disciple who proclaims so. A distraught Jiva tossed about like a straw by the rough waves of the ocean of life floats now at the end of the discourse as a happy being on the surging waters of the bliss of the ocean of truth. "Indeed, nothing is born and nothing is destroyed. The world is Chit and there is only Brahman" says Sri Rama....
This supreme realisation of Rama is the result of the unique mode of instruction Vasishta employs and this spiritual technique is the secret of the Yoga Vasishta. Vasishta interacts with Rama throughout the discourse at two levels. His intellect addresses the intellect of Rama and his spirit communes with Rama's spirit....
Introduction The Yoga Vasishta of Valmiki is a supremely important scripture for, the Advaitic Experience as set out in Vasishta's teachings and attained by Sri Rama is singularly lofty. Even intellectual appreciation of it has enormous value. Through a series of discourses which lasted for several days in the assembly of the emperor Dasaratha, Vasishta takes the aspirant from the first step of the ladder to the dizzy height wherein he abides as the Absolute, the all-pervasive Consciousness, the blissful being. The great teacher speaks from different levels and about varied ideas during the discourses but what is their core? What is the nature of the Reality in the ultimate form and what is the precise and only mode of realisation? It is in one of the final chapters - where both the teacher and the disciple pursue the discussion at their best - we find the gist of Yoga Vasishta and the unveiling of the technique adopted by the seer in his attempt to transform a dejected prince into an illumined soul who shuns not life. In the chapters that follow the one mentioned, we find a different Rama, a Rama who claims to have attained the grandest and the noblest TJ: and what is the central teaching that these final chapters disclose?
Even at the outset Valmiki tells Bharadwaja that when through the realisation that the objective matter does not exist, the objective element of mind gets erased, there manifests the experience of beatitude.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
