Yoga Vasistha 202: The Tortoise, the Cloud and the Seven Stages of Wisdom · Study guide

This class continues the Upasama Prakarana, moving toward Section 55 and the story of Sage Uddalaka. The sage has already overcome the three impediments, and Swami Jyotirmayananda, teaching on New Year’s Eve, names them before reading on: mala, gross impurity; vikshepa, distraction; and avarana, the veil of ignorance. Removing the veil begins with a correction about happiness itself. What the nervous system reports is not happiness but nerve titillation, and the happiness of deep sleep came from nothing in this world, because even the ego was absent. The sage who withdraws the world into the Self, as a tortoise withdraws its limbs, attains satta samanya, the homogeneity of consciousness, a sky that no cloud formation can shake. Holding on to that truth, Swamiji says, takes the personality through stages, and surrender to God comes progressively, not all at once. That opens the second half: a complete synopsis of the seven steps of wisdom, the saptabhumikas, given because the scripture mentions the sixth and seventh by name. The first step, subheccha, carries almost everything a seeker has to do: the qualifications of discrimination, dispassion, the sixfold virtues, and burning aspiration, and the sadhana of listening, reflection, and meditation. Listening needs clean ears, because two kinds of muck enter them. Reflection is chewing the cud. Meditation has to change daily conduct or it remains quantity without quality. From there the steps rise through inquiry and the thinning of the mind to sattvapatti, where the mind becomes a cloud that no longer blocks the sun and sings its praise as it dissolves. Beyond that lie non-attachment, in which death becomes like a child’s toy; the state where there is nothing left to detach from; and turiya. Swamiji closes with a tree, which grows in every part at once.

Where each passage begins

Three impediments

Uddalaka has overcome every impediment, and Swamiji enumerates them: “three stages: mala, vikṣepa, and āvaraṇa.” “Mala is gross impurity.” It is egoism, me and mine, identity with the body, anger, hate, greed, the simple distress of the mind. He plays on the word: “Malas are different from mālās.” “Mālā is meant to remove the malas, the beads of the mālā.” Once the impurity goes, “Mind becomes mālā in divine hands.” What follows is vikshepa. As impurity moves away, the future seems vast and interesting in every area, and there is so much energy. “One life is not sufficient.” Yet “In brief, you have no goal before you.” “Only purpose enters the mind. How can I secure my happiness in this world?” That movement is pravritti, securing bhoga and svarga: “Swarga is astral pleasure.” “The goal is to remove Avarana. Avarana means veil of ignorance.” “As long as the mind is trapped there, you must realize you are extremely a kid.” “That world is going to be the source of terror beyond your imagination.” When the veil is removed there is a revelation, I am Brahman, and Swamiji gives the picture he returns to all evening: the illuminations of the sun. “So you want to experience all these and there is no end to it.”

Happiness is not nerve titillation

Good karmas give clarity of will. “But your will in this stage is not the highest. Your will is how can I be happy?” Here the class turns. “But happiness is not something to be secured.” The first thing to understand is that happiness is not how it is interpreted through the nervous system. “That happiness is nerve titillation.” “Happiness is a world of senses.” “The real happiness, that’s where your attention has to go.” And then the line the whole lecture rests on: “Real happiness you don’t get it. You are.”

The lesson of deep sleep

Swamiji turns to the one experience everyone has. Going to sleep, “You didn’t plan to remove so many things that disturb your mind.” One simply slipped out of everything, and was so happy that being woken abruptly is upsetting. “So learn from it.” “That happiness was not coming from anything of this world.” “Because during that state even ego was not there.” So that reality is always there in one’s own personality. “Who am I?” “The real I am.” “He’s like the sun.” “Unreal I am is wandering through countless reflections.”

Satta samanya

Sage Vasistha continues: “Absolute consciousness is free of all impurities.” Impurities are whatever changes, perishes, and is illusory like a mirage. The world process “didn’t exist in the past, nor did it exist in the present, nor in the future.” Of all that keeps one entertained about past, present, and future, “None of them has any reality.” When the impressions of the world are eradicated, “A sage attains the state known as sattā-sāmānya.” “It is the pure consciousness of the Self.” “In other words, you are allowing a revelation to occur.” The mature one goes on seeing the illuminations, “But through every illumination you are recognizing the sun.” “Illuminations come and go.” “Similarly, the Self, the real I am, remains untouched.” “But easily said, that’s your goal of life. Goal of all humanity.” All religions are focused on it. “They don’t call it Om, they call it Amen.” “And what is the name of God? I am that.”

The tortoise and the sun

“Just as a tortoise withdraws its limbs into its own body, in the same way, the sage withdraws the world into the Self.” Swamiji maps the picture. “Here your limbs are, senses, mind, intellect, ego and all their functions are limbs.” “Consciousness is a hard shell.” “All this is pure awareness. That’s your turtle. Kacchapa-avatāra.” Then he adds a second mystery. “In reality, the turtle of consciousness doesn’t even have to withdraw it.” Consciousness is like the sun, which does not have to withdraw from its illuminations. “Illumination stretch out of the sun, like limbs of a turtle.” “Sattā means existence.” “Sāmānya ever the same” Deep down there is the revelation that the reality never changes. Catastrophe, terror, sorrow, or great fun and progress: “The reality remains just the same, Absolute Truth.”

The sky untouched by clouds

Satta samanya is “Vision. Vision that has become steady within your heart.” “You are not shaken.” “The sky is not shaken.” “No matter how the clouds create their formations.” “Human mind is constantly looking at the sky and being affected by it.” The deeper reality, I am, is ever untouched. To hold on to that truth, the personality has to go through changes, in three stages. The first is bodily: “Dehabuddhyā tu dāso’haṃ”, I am Thy servant. “Try to bring in bhakti devotion.” “Your whole body is marvel of marvels.” “Nothing belongs to your ego.” One moves from ego-based vision to the vision of being an instrument in the divine. “But everything is progressive.” “Surrender to God comes progressively, not all at once.” In satsanga one may claim complete surrender. “But it is a progressive movement.” “How long it takes doesn’t matter.”

Seven steps and the taste for listening

The scripture says the sage attains satta samanya in the sixth and seventh steps of wisdom, padartha bhavana and turiya. “Now therefore I have to give you a general synopsis of seven steps.” “Seven plays a great part. We have seven days in the week.” Hindu rituals go seven times around a fire. “Fire is wisdom, and every step you take is like going around.” These things must be heard again and again, until the unconscious develops a taste. “Śravaṇa-rati, you listen. Listening is so pleasing.” “And that’s how satsaṅga begins to influence your personality.” The influence is not always stored in the conscious mind. “It stays in the unconscious.” “And there lies your greater success.” Even when the benefits do not show, “That inner thirst goes on growing for spiritual experience.” “If that is happening, you are spiritually advanced.” That is the early stage. In the advanced stage, “Then there is a constant sense of inner joy.”

Subheccha: viveka and vairagya

“The first step is called śubhecchā.” Swamiji opens the word. “Śaṃ means maṅgalam, all auspiciousness.” “That’s what people are looking for in the New Year.” “Bha term relates to God, bhagavān.” “The Godward movement is śubha movement.” “Every step is meaningful, purposeful.” Put precisely: “Shubhechha implies you have to develop spiritual qualifications.” and begin one’s sadhana. “Viveka, discriminative knowledge.” “Vairāgya, allow your mind to not stay a kid.” However much is accomplished in the world, “But it has not given you real fulfillment.” “Viveka and Vairagya, they are supplement and complement to each other.” “The more viveka, the more you understand the real Me.” One speaks to the mind: “Why don’t you, oh mind? Why didn’t you go into the source of all taste and joy?” “What is closest, the mind moves away from it.” “Illusion doesn’t require real distance. It creates the distance.”

The sixfold virtues

“Śama, serenity of mind.” “Dama, control of mind and senses.” In every situation the Higher Self handles the lower self. “Lower self is sorrow, frustration, despair.” Each time a layer of illusion is overcome, one is brighter than before. “Controlling it not with stress.” “The source of energy that allows you to control is boundless.” Uparati is an inner distaste for “All attainments in the world that don’t lead you to liberation.” Even heavenly experience does not tempt, because “And so everything will end.” Blessed with decades of pleasure and not one headache, the child never asks what comes after; the mature one asks, and the answer is the same cycle. “But that is a childish development.” “This doesn’t mean that your practical life suddenly becomes impractical.” “Every detail when you are eating, don’t bite your tongue.” Still, “Whatever you are seeing is not the reality.” “Titīkṣā is endurance.” The student has to resist the countless feasts and parties: “Focus, keep the mind focused on your examination.” “Wait and watch, endurance is wait.” “With patience and watch with a positive mind.” “Śraddhā is faith.” It does not have to be obtained from anywhere. “The I am in you has the only way to go. I am Brahman.” “And faith can give you strength beyond your imagination.” Samadhana answers despair. “Don’t miss any aspect of your self effort. Leave no stone unturned.” “But at the same time, not with increasing internal stress.” “but increasing surrender to God.” The sense of contradiction says this should not have happened. “Samadhan means no matter how things are.” “Your relation with God cannot be taken away.” “Every reflected sun is related to the sun, no matter how things are.”

Burning aspiration

“And the last of the four is called Mumukṣutva.” “Burning aspiration simply means increasing hunger for attaining liberation.” “When hunger increases, it doesn’t really burn you.” “Burning aspiration is completely a positive task.”

Ears need Q-tips

While the qualifications develop, “Four aspects of sādhanā must go on.” “Śravaṇa, listening.” It begins with devotional music and satsanga talks, and creates a sensitivity “As if the whole world is saying something to you.” “Go to a forest, listen to the birds, listen to the whistling sound coming from the leaves.” “How sensitive can you be? There’s no limit.” “But ears need to have Q-tips.” “Two types of muck enter your ear: rāga and dveṣa.” “Always want to listen to things that your ego likes.” “And rāga contents simultaneously create dveṣa contents.” “So the mind becomes obsessed by listening to the defects.” Day by day, through all the news, one praises some people and hates others. “And what mind delights with the drama.” “But take these mucks out of your ears.” Then there is a sensitivity to the qualitative message. “The whole world can give you that message.”

Chewing the cud

“You see a chocolate before you. You listen to the advertisement.” “But the chocolate is nearby. Now, you put it in your mouth.” “You just don’t go on listening. You go on tasting.” “So that’s the difference between śravaṇa and manana.” “And manana leads you to nididhyāsana. Nididhyāsana is dhyāna state.” “During meditation, your mind goes into a totally different condition.” It ignores the deficiencies of daily life and enjoys inner expansion. But “So your meditation must impact upon your practical behavior in daily life.” “Previously you’re doing half an hour, now you’re doing 3 hours.” “But the real qualitative meditation you are missing.” Instead of following the winds of passion, “You learned when to close your windows.” “Vyavahāra is your daily practice. That’s called manana.” Otherwise listening is like the animals that swallow and chew later. “Manana is a kind of chewing the cud, and become a good cow.” The mind that stared at one troubled wave now looks at the ocean. “How all waves are just fun for the ocean.” “That movement is called brahmākāravṛtti.” It ends in sakshatkara. “Sakshatkar is your revelation.” “All these points don’t come to high level but to commence.”

Vicarana and tanumanasi

“Vicāraṇā is at the manana level.” The inquiry process moves away from delusional thoughts to the reality behind them. “And that leads you to tanumānasī.” “Anger, greed, pride, frustrations, all these are a headache.” Balm goes on it through surrender, devotional activities, and good karmas, and the mind is no longer enmeshed. “In other words, it is free of anger, hate, greed, and all their impacts.”

The cloud that praises the sun

“Next state is called sattvāpatti.” With impurity gone, the mind becomes like a cloud that is not obstructing the sun but letting it shine through. “Now you don’t have to worry about anything.” “The cloud will go on praising the sun.” “The more it dissolves, the greater it speaks of the glory of the sun.” “When it has completely dissolved, that’s the goal.” “First stage Jeevan Mukti when the mind has allowed the light to pass.” “Until cloud is no more. When cloud is no more, you call videhamukti.” “So in the fourth step, you attain enlightenment, you are a liberated sage.” In the stages after, the cloud grows fleecy, silvery, silky.

Asamsakti and the child’s toy

“No matter how things are, it will not contaminate you.” “And you gain the virtue of icchāmṛtyu.” “Death is constantly a terror on the head of everyone.” The mind comes to handle death like a child handles a toy. “He loves the toy, but there’s a time when the toy moves away, he’ll find he’s not losing.” “Try to understand. It simply means that death is no longer a source of pain.” “The cloud has been singing the praise of the sun.” “And Jeevan Mukti ends up with Videha Mukti. Disembodied.”

Nothing to detach from

In asamsakti one is aware of detaching from what taints. In padartha bhavana, “You are stuck with wonder, what am I to detach?” “First stage you detach by knowing it is a dream.” In the second, the dream is fading. “So there is nothing really to detach from. Simply look at your dream with a smile.” When it moves away completely, “Not a needle point of your dream is real.” “Not a needle point of this whole universe is real.” “When that state comes, all this is Brahman.” “That’s called the transcendental state, turīya.”

The tree grows all at once

The seven steps outline the movement from beginning to end. “But they are not to be viewed as a mathematical precision.” “When you study the tree, how does it grow?” “In study you have sequence.” “But for the tree, there is no sequence. All aspects begin to develop in the tree.” “The higher aspect highlights the purpose of the tree.” “And with this I conclude.”

Terms

mala — gross impurity: egoism, me and mine, identity with the body, anger, hate, greed
vikshepa — distraction; the restless energy that wants more and more with no goal
avarana — the veil of ignorance, whose removal is the revelation I am Brahman
pravritti — the outward movement to secure enjoyment and heavenly pleasure
svarga — astral pleasure, the plane of heavenly enjoyment
satta samanya — homogeneity of consciousness, existence ever the same
kacchapa avatara — God as the turtle; consciousness as the hard shell into which the limbs withdraw
dehabuddhya tu daso’ham — with the body idea, I am Thy servant; the first stage of surrender
saptabhumikas — the seven steps of wisdom in the Yoga Vasistha
subheccha — auspicious aspiration, the first step, carrying the qualifications and the sadhana
viveka — discriminative knowledge
vairagya — dispassion; the refusal to let the mind stay a kid
shat sampatti — the sixfold virtues: sama, dama, uparati, titiksha, sraddha, samadhana
uparati — inner distaste for attainments that do not lead to liberation
titiksha — endurance; wait with patience and watch with a positive mind
samadhana — settledness; no contradiction with what has happened, because the relation with God cannot be taken away
mumukshutva — burning aspiration, increasing hunger for liberation
sravana — listening, once the muck of raga and dvesha is out of the ears
manana — reflection, chewing the cud; meditation carried into daily practice
nididhyasana — the meditation state that assimilates what has been chewed
brahmakara vritti — the mind’s movement toward infinity, looking at the ocean rather than one wave
vicarana — inquiry, the second step
tanumanasi — the thinning of the mind, the third step
sattvapatti — the fourth step, where the mind becomes a cloud that lets the sun shine through
asamsakti — non-attachment, the fifth step; the world does not contaminate
icchamrityu — death at will; death handled like a child’s toy, no longer a source of pain
padartha bhavana — the sixth step, where there is nothing left to detach from
turiya — the seventh, the transcendental state in which all this is Brahman

For reflection

Swamiji says the happiness of deep sleep came from nothing in this world: what, in your own day, did you treat as the source of happiness that was only nerve titillation?
Which of the two kinds of muck, what the ego likes or what the ego dislikes, is your ear more full of this week?
Where has your meditation grown in quantity without yet changing one practical behavior, and which window could you learn to close?

About this lecture

Yoga Vasistha, Upasama Prakarana, the story of Sage Uddalaka. Lecture 202 by Swami Jyotirmayananda, Yoga Research Foundation, recorded December 31, 2019. The complete archive of Swamiji’s lectures is free to all.

This study guide is drawn from the archived teachings of Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda.