Creation ... etc

[Swami Vishvarupananda]

Today I was reading in Yogavasishtha and chanced on this chapter:

STHITI PRAKARANA (The State of Existence)
1. The Denial of Birth and The Born
Sage Vasishtha said  Rama, hear this chapter. You will get enlightened and
attain salvation. So far, you are able to realise that the seen world, full
with the contents of 'I', 'Mine' etc, in toto is formless, empty, full of
illusion and unreality. Like a painted picture, very peculiar and varied,
devoid of a painter, painting colours etc. the world is born in the sky like
a dream, having no seer, no sleep and with no meaning in the form of
experience. It appears as if it is born in the mind 1ike a town of the
future. ... Like the great fog it spreads eluding our grasp with the hand or
mind. It is considered as dull, empty of essence, a vacuum and is made of
small atoms. The ignorant jiva thinks that he is the mixture of the five
elements but in reality he is beyond the physical qualities; he is formless.
His form appears as that of a ghost; it is false if understood well.
Sri Rama:  It is said that like the plant in a seed the world enters the
Great Self at the time of All Destruction and comes out again at the time of
the
new Creation. Is it knowledge or ignorance to think so? Please state.
Sri Vasishtha:  Rama, it is sheer ignorance to think so. The idea is the
result of illusion. The seed, the sprout and the leaves are visible to the
eye. So, it may be true to say that the sprout comes out of the seed. But,
the Great Self is beyond the reach of the mind and the senses, very small
and self-born. How can it be the seed of all creation? Subtler than the sky,
beyond all words, how can the nameless Paramatma be the seed of all worlds?
The only One, the Real Self - false only to the ignorant - can never be the
seed; there can never be the sprout. As pure and as empty as the sky, how
can the Great Self contain the worlds, the mountains, oceans and the sky?
The Great Self contains nothing, how can the great worlds exist in it? If
they exist, they would appear as they are. How can the shapeless thing
contain things of innumerable shapes? Did ever a mountain come out from the
empty sky of the pot? Will there be shadow in the sunshine, darkness in the
Sun and snow in fire? The shapeless Great Self can not have the Great
Mountain in it. The animate Self and the inanimate world can never be one
just as the sunshine can not contain the shadow in it. The seed and the
sprout are things with shape, hence the former may contain the latter; but
the formless Great Self can not have the vast world with form very
extensive. Things of other countries or other men seen by the senses can not
be understood by them as things seen or unseen are equally false. Rama,
leave aside the illogical discussions of action and its cause, the falsity
of both. Come to the right conclusion that the Great Self having no
beginning, middle and the end and having the real form of Self is in the
form of the world. (1-36)
2. The seed of existence
At the time of Deluge, there will be nothing else than the Pure
Consciousness. There is no creation other than the world. No creation is
possible without its creator. Pure Consciousness is the creator as we11 as
the created. If the Pure Consciousness is taken as the creator what then are
the co-causes, without which the creator can not create? To say that there
is creation without co-causes is to say that one is the daughter of a barren
lady. No one ever saw such a thing in the world. If you say that the Pure
Consciousness is itself in the form of the world, there can not be the idea
of the creator and the created. Without co-causes no creation is possible.
To say that the creation with the co-causes lies hidden in Pure
Consciousness at the time of Deluge is childish. The inevitable conclusion
then is that the world or creation never was, never is, and never will be
true. The Pure Consciousness shines as the world. It alone is true; the
world is false. All that is seen must be wiped out of existence and from our
memory. Without the destruction of the mind, the seen world can not be wiped
out of our memory. With the dawn of knowledge, the mind will not be
destroyed. Therefore to attain salvation, there is no other go except the
destruction of the mind with all its ignorance. That is Self-realisation,
the realisation that in toto that nothing but the Pure Consciousness exists.
Then one sees the forms, names etc as a wonderful false story. Thus, the
mountains, the earth, the islands, the moment and the long period of time,
the creation, the beginning of creation, the creation of the sky etc, every
thing of the past the present and the future, the seven islands, the
fourteen worlds, the seven oceans and the four Yugas are the contents of the
peculiar false story. The Pure
Consciousness exists as it existed before. All these things appear as the
smallest atoms, the forms of Pure Consciousness as all the particles of
light are the Sun himself. The Pure Consciousness churned by the mind emits
the varied, peculiar world, which is hence formless but not with form like
the picture of mud or painting on the wall. Like lines in the great stone of
the mountain, apparent but not real, in the Pure Consciousness innumerable
worlds are there unborn, undestroyed and unmoved. Like the formless part of
the sky in the formless sky, all the worlds in Pure Consciousness appear as
Pure Consciousness, Like liquidity in water, movement in the wind, whirls in
the ocean and virtues in the virtuous, the world lies in Pure Consciousness.
The One Solidity of Knowledge, the Peaceful and the Endless, the Pure
Consciousness spreads in the form of the world with birth, growth and
liquidation. To say that the world, in the absence of co-causes, like the
vacuum from nature, is born from Prakriti, the form of Pure Consciousness is
mad talk. Oh Rama, driving away all creations, fancies and imaginations from
your mind destroying completely the frustrations of disappointments,
demolishing the structure of deep long sleep, enlightened and invigorated,
shedding all kinds of fears and sorrows, adorn the eternal joyful earth of
enlightened souls.'' (1-25)