The Yoga Vasistha

 Just as a silkworm spins a web and is caught in it, so do humans weave the web of their own concepts and are caught in them.

Yoga Vasistha (brought to me attention by Deepak Chopra)

I heard these words every morning I practiced  The Secret for Healing Mediation from Deepak Chopra and Adam Plack. They just kept catching me in their web each session. Every time I heard them I was tempted to stop and write them down, so afraid I would not remember them.  Today I did not forget them and went on a Google search to find their source.  All the poetic  meditation passages, Deepak Chopra tells us in the Preparation segment of the meditation,  including this one, come from Sutras of some Yogic text  I couldn't quite decipher.  I wanted to know that text, however...in fact, something in me "needed" to know. 

My search led me to information on The Yoga Vasistha, something I never before heard of.  I am  somewhat familiar with the Rigveda, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali  and the Mahabharata, a preceding text that contains the Gita among other great Hindu stories.... but not this one.  The Vasistha was supposedly written sometime between the sixth century to the 14th but, like many great texts or scriptures,  no one is really sure of the date of its creation. 

The information about it that I received on Wikipedia ( and yes I like and trust Wikipedia) tells me that it consists of six books.  The books speak to an Indian Prince named Rama's frustration with human suffering ; the desire for liberation and the nature of those who seek it; how that liberation comes only through a spiritual life, free will and human creative power and the books  proceed to show how meditation can lead to enlightenment and liberation as it did for Rama.  (Ummm...does that not sound oddly familiar?) It also proposes that "the whole world of things is the object of the mind".  In its discussion of Yoga it also teaches about non-duality, and illusion. 

I think I am drawn to this text not only becasue of the beautiful poetry it contains that touch some deep part within me, but because it adheres to my desire to connect all the great religions together under one theme.  I see elements of Buddhism and Christianity even in this text. 

What I found cool about the information I found ( whether it is valid or not and  I won't know until after I read a translation of the text myself) is that it offers four characteristics that determine if someone is ready for their spiritual journey:

1. he or she  sense the difference between Atman and Non-Atman, the soul and the personality, the "little me" and the Deeper I" , "lower consciousness and higher consciousness" 
2. is past cravings and attachments for things of the material world (including relationships) 
3. seeks to live by the ethical virtues of equality, self restraint, temperance, quite stillness, patience, faith and trust and a desire for unity and peace
4. longing for meaning and liberation

I mean I know I  have a ways to go but I think I am ready to venture down this road, according to the Vasistha.  What about you?

Hmm! As I investigate my desire to know this text more, I need to go to the quote above and remind myself...that a written text is full of concepts.  As beautifully and poetically  as these concepts may be written...I do not want to get all tied up in them. What I am longing for is to be cut free from the trappings of dogma and conditioned belief, not tied up in its cocoon.

But I do feel compelled to read and as I do I will keep reminding myself of the above passage  and also this one: 

Even a young boy's words are to be accepted if they are words of wisdom, else, reject it like straw even if  uttered by Brahma the creator. 

I want to read these texts and see if they resonate a wisdom within me. 

All is well in my world.

Deepak Chopra and Adam Plack (n.d.) The Secret of Healing (guided meditation). Spotify 

Wikipedia (Feb, 2022 [last edited]) Yoga Vasistha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Vasistha