The Yoga Vasishta is a well-known Vedanta treatise in Sanskrit. It has been a favourite book of spiritual seekers in India for several centuries. Its special appeal lies in its rational approach, and its presentation of Vedanta as a philosophy to bridge the gulf between the secular and the sacred, action and contemplation, in human life.
The following verse, which occurs several times in the scripture, seems to be the very essence of the teaching.
'This world-appearance is a confusion: even as the blueness of the sky is an optical illusion. I think it is better not to let the mind dwell on it, but to ignore it.' (I.3.2)
An oft-recurring expression in this scripture is 'kākatāliya' — a crow alights on a cocoanut palm tree and at that very moment a ripe cocoanut falls. The two unrelated events thus seem to be related in time and space, though there is no causal relationship.
Such is life. Such is 'creation'. But the mind caught up in its own trap of logic questions 'why', invents a 'wherefore' to satisfy itself, conveniently ignoring the inconvenient questions that still haunt an intelligent mind.
Vasishta demands direct observation of the mind, its motion, its notions, its reasoning, the assumed cause and the projected result, and even the observed and the observation — and the realization of their indivisible unity as the infinite consciousness.
Whichever the scripture taught by whomever and whichever be the path you choose, stop not till the psychological conditioning ceases entirely.
