A short introduction to Yoga vashistha

Yoga Vashistha

Yoga vashistha says that individuality does not exists and presence of an independent identity apart from paramatmaa is an illusion. Lets discuss finer details of it.

You mean i dont exist ?

You exist, but your existence is not seperate from the things you see. You see variety in nature but it exists only at surface level. All objects have one soul and are not different from Paramatman. So you exist as paramatman will be more appropriate thing to say.

So why do i feel pain, when i get hurt. Paramatman should feel pain.

Find out the one who feels pain. You dont feel when your nails are cut but feelings are there when other part of body is hurt. Its because you are conscious of some parts of body and unconscious about some. Doctors perform operations on body under the effect of anaesthesia which make you unconscious and you feel nothing. So feeling of pain is dependent on consciousness. 

A mother attached to her child will feel pain if the child is hurt though she cant experience his/her pain.

So do you mean to suggest that we feel pain for those things which are related to us ?

Yes. You didnt suffer when the recent floods in Uttaranchal killed thousands. However the presence of someone you know in Uttaranchal would have changed the scenario.

Ok, If i am paramatman. Why am i limited in this body? Should i not be omnipresent ?

You are omnipresent. You are limited to this body due to attachment to it. You are watching this body since time and you have started to believe its you. 

Wait, Are you saying that i am merely watching this body ? I am acting too. I can lift my hand whenever i want. I can move. Thats my body as i control it.

Seasons come , Rivers ,Sun and Planets move on account of that power, they do nothing. Complex process of digestion of food happens on its own. Everything is happening on its own. When you watch a movie with full attention ? Do you exist then. A person feels at height of his work that he is not existing and is completely absorbed in his work.

Poets experience this and say that nature spoke through me. You work is an illusion, everything happens through gunas (nature).

Ok. I have experienced that i dont exist when i am fully absorbed in work. But why  am i conscious when i am partially absorbed ?

So you experienced that you were nowhere when you focused completely on your work. At that moment just the work existed.

When you are partially absorbed, you are focused on many objects at a time , world being one of them. Hence you are conscious of world and things that you have long identified as yours. Their presence leads you to imagine you are present too. That's why many scriptures advise practice of discrimination and detatchment, so that you dont see world then.

When i see the world , the world rises on account of me seeing it

... to be continued