Sunday, April 2, 2017
To move forward/backward through the talk, slide the gray bar that appears once audio is playing.
[/jbox]
While still a young prince, Lord Rama tours Ayodhya, the kingdom he is to inherit. He returns home depressed and disillusioned; his father worries that Rama will renounce the world.
King Dasaratha seeks advice from the Great Sage Vasistha, who assures him Rama has begun to understand profound spiritual truths and is ready for spiritual enlightenment.
Vasistha instructs Lord Rama for 21 days; his teachings are known as Yoga Vasistha. The essence of that discourse was translated into English by Swami Sarvadevananda as, “Nectar of Supreme Knowledge.”
Vasishta tells the young prince: “O my dear child! How strange is this world-bewitching maya! Being deluded by this maya, one cannot know the Self; though the Self has pervaded all through the limbs of the body … As (a magic show) or as the mirage water in the desert, are not true, in the similar manner this observable universe is not true.”
Vasistha explains: “This creation, which is merely of the form of a vibration of consciousness alone, is dissolved by accurate knowledge.”
In this talk we discuss those verses, and others that tell us how to escape maya’s “magic show” and realize the all-pervading, ever blissful Self that is our birthright.