Sage Vashishtha describes to Sri Rama about the path of auspicious and inauspicious mental tendencies and gives him the means to cultivate auspicious tendencies in the mind too.
In the Yoga Vashishtha, the rishi says that by making the mind of one monotonous frequency and Experiencing the unity of the mind with the self, one’s joys and sorrows are destroyed and it becomes one single cause for supreme joy.
Once Vashishthaji asked the creator Brahmaji about how this world of changing names and forms is called samsara, the source of all sorrow. He told Rama that it was by learning the royal knowledge of the self that all the kings of yore became free of all sorrow. People generally move about in life with a feeling of rendezvous as if they stood under a palm tree, a crow came there and a palm fruit fell down—thinking that the three things were connected. They are engrossed all the time in action, and going round and round in the wheel of birth and death.
They are united all the time with their body and hence do not see the truth. Just if they were to be united with the knowledge of the true self, then they will be able to cross over the unfathomable ocean called samsara or change.
In order to traverse this ocean, the first thing we should do is maintain a great distance from the people who cannot discriminate between the truth and untruth, people who worship ignorance and seek bad company. On the contrary, those who praise and seek the truth should be sought after and this leads to discrimination between the self and the non-self. The two fruits of the tree of right discrimination are enjoyment and liberation.
There are four gatekeepers to the entrance of the palace of liberation. They are —shamah or peace of mind owing to quietening of all desires to acquire some object, person or experience; vichara or right enquiry into the nature of the true self, contentment to what we have right now with us and never wanting for more; and a constant opportunity to meet with people of self-realisation.
Either all the four, three or even two qualities should be focused upon. Even if one of them is achieved, it is equal to achieving all the four, says the rishi.
The qualities can be cultivated with the help of constant practice—abhyasa—of all the four or through vairagya or dispassion towards all that do not help in the attainment of these four qualities. The sharp intellect should be cultivated with the sole aim of achieving freedom from the bondage of change.
The sage concludes that a person, whose mind has become so calm, becomes like a natural flower that blooms with all grace under the light of the sun, shedding its fragrance and beauty upon all passers-by.
Brahmacharini Sharanya Chaitanya
(www.sharanyachaitanya.blogspot.in)