Tale 50 · The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
Nirvāṇa · second half · Mitra VI.2.56–70 · 24,003 words
Whole worlds open in the stone for eyes trained to see.
Weary of a world in which no one is content, Vasiṣṭha looks for a place no being can reach. Finding none on earth, he imagines a sealed cell in the empty sky and sits there in lotus posture for a hundred years, 'absorbed in a fit of hypnotism'; the century passes like a moment. On waking he hears a woman's voice with no visible source, dissolves his body-sense into space to find it, and beholds countless worlds, each unaware of the others. The voice belongs to a celestial woman who lives, she says, inside a stone. When he follows her there, the great sage sees nothing: she sees a world in the stone because she has habitually thought it, and he cannot because he has not. Only when he sits again in samādhi, on her instruction, does the stone appear as a crystal globe; he enters and meets its Brahmā, whose world is ending. Perception follows practised expectation, and a whole cosmos fits inside the densest thing, because the stone is the intellect itself.
Perception follows rehearsed expectation: the woman sees a world in the stone and the sage sees only crystal, because 'it is your habitual thinking of a thing as such, that makes it appear so to you' (VI.2.67.23); what a client cannot yet see may simply be what they have never practised seeing.
Felt time is set by absorption, not by the clock: a century of single-pointed attention 'glided away as quickly as a single moment' (VI.2.56.41).
Emergence is the vulnerable moment: as senses and breath return, egoism and desire seize the meditator at once (VI.2.56.42–43), so the return deserves as much care as the descent.
Guidance can flow upward: a self-described 'weak and young disciple' corrects the greatest sage (VI.2.67.25), and he deepens only by following her instruction (VI.2.68.2–3); the guide must be willing to be guided inside the other's world.
What feels most solid can be entered: the compact stone holds whole worlds because 'this intellect is the very stone' (VI.2.70.21); a problem experienced as rock is a structure of mind.
The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
The greatest of sages reaches the stone and sees nothing, and a self-described 'weak and young disciple' tells him why (VI.2.67.15, 25). His expert certainty is the Pride/Recognition face of the Shame wound. Its virtue, Humour, appears as the lightness with which he sits again at her word (VI.2.68.2–3). The tale dramatises Exploring the Shadow's Function: his blindness is traced to its origin, 'your habitual thinking of a thing as such' (VI.2.67.23).
The expert's fixed view of what a stone is must loosen before the world inside it can appear, which is self-referential rigidity giving way.
Patañjali notes that the same object is seen differently because minds differ. The woman sees a world in the stone and the sage sees rock, because 'it is your habitual thinking' that shapes the sight (VI.2.67.23).
Vasiṣṭha dissolves his body-sense into space to find the voice and beholds countless worlds (VI.2.59.14), close to the first formless attainment, the base of boundless space, where perception of form is left behind.
Several dhāraṇās of the Vijñāna Bhairava ask the practitioner to rest the gaze in empty sky until the mind takes on its spaciousness. The sealed cell in the void, where a century passes 'as quickly as a single moment' (VI.2.56.41), is that practice taken to its limit.
IEAF: Integrative Emotional Alchemy Framework (Gallardo, Frontiers in Psychology, 2026). FP20: the Fundamental Peace Scale. ITM: the Integrative Transformation Model. Parallels in other yogas are contemplative correspondences, not claims of influence.
Vasiṣṭha tells Rāma something he himself saw and did. Eager to know the one thing worth knowing, he resolved to leave the world and its usages. Everything in it tasted insipid; he never saw anyone content with his own state, and every bright appearance bred care. He wanted a place where no god, siddha or creature could find him. But the mountains roared with waterfalls and wild beasts, the seas were crowded with ships and monsters, the cities rang with business, even the deserts howled. So he rose into the sky, past cities of demons and gandharvas, the cars of sun and moon, regions of deluge and storm, until he reached a place where the air was mild and nothing could be seen 'even in a dream'. There he imagined a cell with no door, smooth as an unopened lotus, and sat in it alone in padmāsana.
For a hundred years he sat 'absorbed in a fit of hypnotism', immovable as a statue carved on the face of the sky. Then what he had sought sprouted in him of itself, like a seed sown a century before, and the hundred years seemed a single moment. His senses opened like trees in spring, the vital airs filled his limbs, and at once the demon of egoism, with its consort desire, began to shake him. Rāma asks how ego could seize one so free. No embodied being lives without it, Vasiṣṭha answers; the wise man knows it as a painted fire, and seeing this he lost the sense of personality while keeping full awareness.
Risen from the trance, he heard a soft voice, sweet as humming bees, reciting verses, but saw no speaker anywhere. To find it he decided to become air. Leaving his body seated with eyes shut, he gave up every sensation, then by degrees consciousness itself, until he melted into space 'as a drop of water mixes with water'. In that boundless body he saw myriads of worlds, each with its own Brahmās, Vasiṣṭhas and Rāmas, ages and deluges, none aware of the others. He was neither seated nor moving, but everywhere, seeing the universe in himself as one sees one's own limbs.
The voice belonged to a woman bright as liquid gold, who saluted him as a sage. At first he disregarded her and went on surveying the worlds; later, when she sat beside him, he spoke with her 'in my clairvoyant state', as people speak in dreams. She told him her story: she lives, with her ancient Brāhmaṇa husband and all their kin, inside a stone on a peak beyond the polar mountain; he made her from his own mind and has put off their marriage for ages; now both long for liberation. She invited him to come and see.
They flew beyond the polar mountain to the belt of the zodiac, and Vasiṣṭha asked where the worlds were: he saw only a crystal, burning with fire. She replied that she sees the world in this stone through her long-engraved preconceptions, and he is blind to it for want of them; whatever one habitually thinks, one sees. Practice turns a dunce into a scholar and pounds a stone to dust. Following her instruction, he sat in samādhi in a rock cavern, thought only of the intellect, and the stone appeared as a crystal globe in the clear sky of mind.
She entered the stone and he went in after her. There sat her husband, still as a rock in his yoga; at her call he 'awoke from his hypnotism', opening his eyes slowly as flowers open in spring, and gods gathered round him. He welcomed Vasiṣṭha and explained that he is the Brahmā of that world, a spark of the eternal intellect, and that the woman is no wife but the presiding deity of his own will. Today his kalpa ends; he will rest in the formless void, and his desire must die with him. He sends Vasiṣṭha back to his own seat of samādhi.
Passages from Mitra’s translation (1891–99), cited by book, chapter and verse.
“I sat in unwavering meditation, and was absorbed in a fit of hypnotism; I remained as quiet as the calm stillness of the air, and as immovable as a statue carved in relief upon the face of the sky.”“The hundred years which I passed in my meditation here, glided away as quickly as a single moment before me; because a long period of time appears a very short space, to one who is intensively intent upon a single object.”“By degrees I lost my consciousness also, I became a thinking principle only; and then I remained in my intellectual sphere as a mirror of the world”“I see the figures of all things in this, by reason of my preconceived ideas eternally engraven herein, while the want of your preconceptions of them, is the cause of your over sight or blindness of the same.”“Know, O sage, that it is your habitual thinking of a thing as such, that makes it appear so to you; just as a mechanic master’s art is by his constant practice of the same under the direction of its professor.”“Being thus addressed by her, the holy devotee awoke from his hypnotism, and his consciousness rose in himself, as a whirlpool rises above the sea.”“This intellect is the very stone (we have been talking of), and is either at rest or rolling on as roller or wheel; the worlds appertain to it as its appurtenances, and accompany it as motion doth the wind.”In the textA self-made enclosure, the lotus posture, closed eyes and withdrawal of the senses: he 'shut my eyes closely against all external sights' and gave up 'my sensations of all external objects of sense'.
In the clinicEye closure with sensory withdrawal and an imagined safe enclosure, the classic opening of a self-hypnotic induction and of 'safe place' imagery.
In the textDescent in stages: senses released, then 'by degrees I lost my consciousness also', then mirror-like awareness, then merging with space 'as a drop of water mixes with water'.
In the clinicGraduated deepening by successive release of sensory, then reflective, levels of awareness; the re-entry from a first trance (VI.2.56.37) into a second (VI.2.59.12) and a third (VI.2.68.2) resembles fractionation (Vogt).
In the textA century in 'unwavering meditation', 'intensively intent upon a single object'.
In the clinicAbsorption as a trait and state linked to hypnotic responsiveness (Tellegen & Atkinson 1974).
In the text'The hundred years ... glided away as quickly as a single moment before me', explained by the narrowing of attention.
In the clinicTime condensation, the shortening of subjective duration in hypnosis (Cooper & Erickson 1954), used clinically to shorten the felt length of pain, waiting or treatment.
In the textVasiṣṭha 'as immovable as a statue carved in relief upon the face of the sky'; the Brāhmaṇa 'as immovable as a rock (in his yoga hypnotism)'.
In the clinicHypnotic catalepsy and the effortless immobility of deep trance, often used as a ratifying sign of depth.
In the textHe leaves his body in its posture and 'with the vacuous body of my intellect' mixes with space; later he was 'neither seated in any one place, nor ... moving', yet saw everything in himself.
In the clinicSpontaneous or suggested out-of-body imagery and expansive body-boundary dissolution reported in deep trance and meditation.
In the text'Thousands of worlds are contained within the compact and solid body of a stone'; 'each mind has a world in it, and every world has its people also'; inside the stone sits another Brahmā with his own world.
In the clinicNested trance and nested metaphor (stories within stories), in which each inner frame carries its own reality and its own exit.
In the textA sweet female voice reciting verses is heard 'without knowing its author', though 'I find no visible being appearing to my sight'.
In the clinicPositive auditory hallucination in deep trance: a voice experienced as external with no external source.
In the textAt the stone he sees only 'a crystaline marble, and burning with fire', while she sees all its worlds; she ascribes his blindness to 'the want of your preconceptions'.
In the clinicNegative hallucination governed by expectancy: what is perceived depends on what is expected, as in response-expectancy theory (Kirsch 1985).
In the textThe woman instructs him to apply long practice to meditation on the spirit; he sits in samādhi 'according to the holy dictate of the nymph', and the stone then appears 'as a crystaline globe'.
In the clinicDirect suggestion followed by a reported perceptual change; the suggestion works through the subject's own practice, as in self-hypnosis training.
In the textHis senses expand 'as the withered arbors expand ... by the enlivening influence of the vernal season' and egoism returns; the Brāhmaṇa, called by name, 'opened his eyes slowly, as flowers open their petals'.
In the clinicGraduated re-alerting, with the return of self-reference and affect at emergence; a verbal cue from a trusted other terminates the trance.
Read upward — stage 1 at the bottom, stage 7 at the top
Integration zone
Pure-awareness trance and silent presence — not another state to enter but the ground recognised in every state. Jīvanmukti; Fundamental Peace.
Integration zone
Perceptual shift — the boundaries of things soften; consciousness expands past its usual partitions.
Integration zone
Post-trance integration — sustained non-reactivity carried into behaviour; what was seen in depth becomes how one lives.
Integration zone
Hypnotic absorption meets direct knowing — identity deconstruction at full depth. This is YVH's primary therapeutic zone, and the model's central testable hypothesis.
Integration zone
Progressive relaxation and deepening — the habitual self loosens enough for new pattern to take.
Integration zone
Self-inquiry joined to guided suggestion — narrative reframing and Socratic dialogue inside a gently focused state.
Integration zone
Therapeutic motivation — disillusionment with suffering becomes readiness for change. The first honest wish to be free is itself the induction.
A note on what this map claims. The alignment between stages of knowledge and trance depths is a clinical map — a heuristic correspondence proposed for research, not a claim of identity between contemplative attainment and hypnotic depth.
Bhūmikā 6 · Padārthābhāvanī
Under the woman's instruction Vasiṣṭha's 'erroneous view of the phenomenals, entirely subsided' and he 'could observe no material thing as the earth and water' (VI.2.68.5, 68.13): the melting of objects, padārthābhāvanī.
Zone · Somnambulistic
Behind a century of cataleptic immobility he travels, converses 'in my clairvoyant state' and experiences inner worlds as fully real (VI.2.56.37; 62.36), the profile of somnambulism; at VI.2.59.14–16 it touches the plenary.
In Calcutta in the 1890s, the translator chose the vocabulary of hypnotism to name these states. More →
I sat in unwavering meditation, and was absorbed in a fit of hypnotism; I remained as quiet as the calm stillness of the air, and as immovable as a statue carved in relief upon the face of the sky.VI.2.56.37Vasishtha’s hearing a faint sound after his hybernation and his coming to the sight of endless worlds afterwards.VI.2.59 (Argument)Relate to me, O sage, of your acts of a whole century, after you had risen from your trance, in the cell of your aerial abode.VI.2.59.1After I had awakened from my trance, I heard a soft and sweet sound, which <was> slow but distinctly audible, and was clearly intelligible both in sound and sense.VI.2.59.2Thinking so, I was about to forsake my material frame, by sitting in my posture of Padmásana, and betaking myself to my samádhi or intense meditation, and shut my eyes closely against all external sights.VI.2.59.12In this manner, O Ráma, I beheld in my meditative revelry, many worlds to be created and scattered without any cause, as a blind man sees many false sights in the open air.VI.2.59.63Vasishtha sees the siren songstresses in his Reveries and then turns to his meditation of the world.VI.2.60 (Argument)so from my elevation of yoga meditation, saw with my clair-voyance, all things situated far and near and within and without me.VI.2.62.15I conversed with her ideal figure, and in my clairvoyant state, just as men seen in a dream, talked with one anotherVI.2.62.36I retired to the cavern of a rock, where I sat in my posture of Padmásana (or legs folded upon one another); and became engaged in my samádhi-devotion (or abstract and abstruse meditation).VI.2.68.2The world is now approaching to its dissolution, and he has been sitting in his meditation, in as silent a mood as a stone and as immovable as a rock (in his yoga hypnotism).VI.2.69.8Being thus addressed by her, the holy devotee awoke from his hypnotism, and his consciousness rose in himself, as a whirlpool rises above the sea.VI.2.69.13Indications. The tale serves clients who experience a problem as rock: a diagnosis, a marriage, a habit of mind that feels simply given. The reframe is in the text: the stone is the intellect (VI.2.70.21), and what feels most solid can be entered. It serves perceptual and cognitive rigidity, and here the woman's teaching is a protocol. Practise the new way of seeing, repeatedly, "under the direction of its professor" (VI.2.67.23), until it becomes as habitual as the old. Rehearsal in trance, followed by daily self-hypnosis, is the modern form. Time condensation (VI.2.56.41) is a clinical tool for chronic pain, long procedures and anxious waiting, and the tale gives the client a vivid image of it: a hundred years that passed like a moment because the mind was given one thing to hold.
The tale is also a training text. A clinician long wedded to one theory may be unable to see what a client sees, because the theory has become habit (VI.2.67.22). Vasiṣṭha sitting where the novice told him to sit is a model for supervision.
How to use it. As metaphor, tell the zodiac scene alone: the sage who saw only burning crystal, the young woman who saw worlds, and her explanation. Clients understand at once that what they cannot yet see may be what they have never practised seeing. As protocol, use the practice below, which follows the tale's own sequence.
Cautions. The tale's metaphysics, "the world is a dream" (VI.2.62.38), can feed derealisation and depersonalisation. Do not use it with clients who have dissociative disorders, a history of psychosis, or current derealisation, and do not present the dream-likeness of the world as a suggestion. The opening flight from all company (VI.2.56.11–13) should not be offered as a model to isolated or depressed clients; the practice keeps the cell as a place to rest, not to stay. The woman's story contains the wish to die rather than live without love (VI.2.65.3, 13); if her chapters are used, screen for suicidal ideation, and frame her passage from longing to indifference to inquiry as the tale's real movement. Her account of a woman's worth as measured by a husband (VI.2.65.4–9) belongs to its period and should be named as such. Long deep trances need careful emergence, because, as the text shows, ego and desire can flood back at once (VI.2.56.43). Guide-figures help, but can invite dependence: return authority to the client's own practice, as the Brahmā returns Vasiṣṭha to "your own seat" (VI.2.70.28). Highly fantasy-prone clients (Wilson & Barber 1983) may engage the inner worlds too readily; keep time limits and strong grounding.
Practise with a qualified professional if you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis.
Into the Stone
Read slowly, aloud, leaving a breath between lines; twenty to twenty-five minutes. A guide may read it to you, or you may record it in your own voice.
Before you begin. This is a deep self-hypnosis practice for adults with some experience of meditation or hypnosis. Do not practise it unsupervised if you have, or have had, a psychotic illness, a dissociative disorder, episodes in which the world or your body seemed unreal, or trauma that still produces flashbacks; work with a clinician who knows your history. If you are low in mood or isolated, use only the first half, the cell, and do not stay there long. Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Sit rather than lie down. Set a gentle timer for twenty-five minutes.
How to return at any moment. Say aloud, "Back to my own seat." Press your feet into the floor, take one full breath, count up from one to five, and open your eyes on five. Nothing in the practice requires you to stay.
Sit down, and let the body settle.
Before you go anywhere, say quietly to yourself what has gone flat. The thing that pleased you once and does not now. The effort that no longer satisfies. Name it, without blame, the way the sage named it when he saw no one anywhere content with his lot. And let a wish form under it: I want to know what lies beneath this.
Breathe out.
Now let the mind go looking for a quiet place, and be honest about each one. The mountain: waterfalls, wind, animals. Not here. The sea: ships, the weight of water. Not here. The city: voices, engines, business. Not here.
Leave them below you. Rise past the clouds, past the places where the weather is made, until the air grows mild and there is nothing to see, not even in a dream.
Here, in this mild and empty air, make yourself a room.
Make it in imagination; that is how it was always made. Let it have no door, because no one needs to come in. Let it be smooth and closed like a lotus bud before it opens, and bright like the full moon. Let it smell of jasmine. It is yours. No one else can reach it.
Sit inside it. Let the legs fold as they can. Let the hands rest.
Let the eyes close, gently, against every outside sight.
Now let the senses go, one by one. The sounds of the room: let them be far away. The touch of the seat: let it soften until it is hardly there. The taste in the mouth, the scent of the air, the light behind the lids: let them all be released. What remains is only the feeling of being aware.
And now, if it comes easily, let even that soften. Not into sleep. Into something clear and still, like a mirror with nothing in front of it. Like a drop of water let into water.
Time can change here. An hour can pass like a moment. Let it.
(Pause: half a minute.)
Somewhere in this stillness there is a sound. Soft. Perhaps like bees, perhaps like a string, perhaps like a voice reciting something in a measure you almost know. You do not need to see where it comes from. Just listen.
Let the sound come nearer. And if a figure forms around it, let it. A guide. Perhaps bright, perhaps plain. The sage first walked past her; you do not need to. Greet whoever comes. Let them sit beside you.
Your guide says: come and see.
Go with them, out of the room, through the mild air, past the last mountain at the edge of the world, to where a great stone hangs in the sky.
Look at it.
Perhaps you see only stone, bright and hard, burning a little like crystal in the sun. That is all right. The greatest sage saw only that, the first time.
Your guide says: I see worlds in it, because I have practised seeing them. You can borrow my way of seeing.
So do as the sage did. Sit down again, here, in the cave of a rock. Let go of every thought of bodies and solid things. Think only of the mind that is looking. Of the looking itself.
Breathe out. And again.
Let the stone become clear. Not by force. The way a window clears when the breath on it fades. Let it become a globe of crystal in the clear sky of the mind.
And when you are ready, follow your guide inside.
(Pause: a few breaths.)
Inside, someone is sitting very still, as still as stone. Someone who has been in this place a long time.
Your guide calls them, gently, by name, and asks them to welcome a guest.
Watch them wake. Slowly. Consciousness rising in them like a whirlpool rising in the sea. The eyes opening the way flowers open in spring. The limbs warming as a plant warms when the sap returns.
Let them look at you. Let them offer you a seat.
And let them tell you, in a few words, what this world is. What it has been built from. And what in it is now ready to end.
Listen. You do not have to agree or do anything. Just let it be said, and heard.
(Silence: one to three minutes.)
Now the one inside the stone says to you: go to your place, in your own world, and have your peace in your own seat.
Thank them. Thank your guide. Leave the stone the way you came, and let it close behind you, clear and whole.
Come back now through the mild air, down past the clouds, toward the room where your body has been sitting all this time.
Feel the senses return, slowly, the way bare trees put out leaves in spring. Sound first: the room, its ordinary noises. Then touch: the seat beneath you, the weight of your hands. Then the breath, filling the chest and belly.
And notice: the sense of I comes back too. The plans, the cares. Let them come. Know them as you know a fire painted on a wall: you can see it clearly, and it does not burn.
I will count from one to five, and on five the eyes open, clear and rested.
One. The breath is full and ordinary.
Two. The feet are on the floor. Press them down a little.
Three. The hands and fingers move. Stretch them.
Four. Take one deep breath and let the shoulders roll.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Sit a moment before you stand. Say your name aloud, today's date, and where you are. Name three things you can see and one thing you can hear. If you feel at all distant or slow, count again from one to five, stand, walk a few steps, drink some water. Do not drive for ten minutes.
Later, write down one thing you could not see before and could see once you borrowed another way of seeing. Practise that seeing once a day. It is practice that makes the stone clear.
Meta Pets World · Your ally · Meta Pet 31
I sound the depths of my being with courage.
Sounding the Depths walks with this tale because the greatest of sages arrives at the stone and sees nothing. His certainty that nothing is there is the Arrogance of the expert; his willingness to sit again at a celestial woman's word is Leadership received before it is given; and the stone opening into a whole world is Humility, the depth with no bottom.
Arrogance: at the stone the great sage sees only rock, and she tells him plainly that his blindness comes from 'the want of your preconceptions' (VI.2.67.15).
Leadership: she teaches him that seeing is 'your habitual thinking of a thing', learnt like a craftsman's art under a master (VI.2.67.23), and the great teacher lets himself be taught.
Humility: sitting again in samādhi, he finds a whole world inside the stone and learns that 'this intellect is the very stone' (VI.2.70.21).
The wisest sage in the sky once stood before a stone and saw nothing. So he sat down again and listened. Your turn: whose way of seeing could you borrow today?
If no depth has a bottom, which stone in your life have you stopped looking into because you already know what it holds?
Tonight, write one honest sentence about something you could not see today until someone else showed it to you.
Light trance, eyes open if you prefer. For the full, deeper script, see “The practice” above and its cautions.
You sounded the depths: each day of the Bond, find one stone you thought was empty and ask who sees a world in it.
Bhutanese · Paro Valley, Bhutan · Om Muni Muni Mahā Muni Śākyamuni Soha
Visit Tashi, the Bhutanese nun and education reformer of the Paro Valley, who leads by kneeling to learn from her pupils, much as the great sage sat down again at a celestial woman's word.
Guided Meditation
#31 · Sounding the Depths
Aim. To help the client notice where expertise has hardened into blindness, and to practise being led as part of leading.
ITM 3 Gift Discovery. Clients usually arrive already aware of their arrogance; the work is Gift Discovery, finding that the capacity to be taught, seeing as 'habitual thinking' (VI.2.67.23), is the root of real leadership.
In a circle, tell the tale up to the moment the sage sees nothing in the stone, and pause there. Place a plain stone in the centre and invite each person to say what they see in it; the variety teaches without commentary. Lead the practice at light depth for about fifteen minutes, ending at the crystal globe rather than entering the world inside. In threes, each person names one field in which they are the expert and receives one question from the others. Close with the whole circle speaking the koan, and check orientation individually before people leave.
Training and certification in the Meta Pets Method: metapetsworld.org/facilitators ↗
The correspondence between tales and Meta Pets is contemplative: the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha does not contain the Meta Pets; each tale enacts its ally’s arc. Felicia is an artificial-intelligence companion; her words are contemplative reflections, not clinical advice.
From the cycle The Sixty-Four Tales
Título: La piedra que aprendí a ver
Figure — Vasiṣṭha, master of sages, who sees nothing in the stone, and the woman of the sky who has thought its worlds so long that she sees them
Where in the text — Book VI (second half, Nirvāṇa-prakaraṇa), Mitra chapters 56–70 (VI.2.56–70)
Hypnotic phenomenon the song enacts — HAL and DIR: a negative hallucination governed by expectation (the master sees only burning crystal where the novice sees worlds), lifted by her instruction and his practice; the song trains the listener's ear the same way, with a melody hidden in the chorus from the first bar that is heard only the second time.
Mantra — Sarvabhūtastham ātmānaṃ sarvabhūtāni cātmani / īkṣate yogayuktātmā sarvatra samadarśanaḥ (सर्वभूतस्थमात्मानं सर्वभूतानि चात्मनि । ईक्षते योगयुक्तात्मा सर्वत्र समदर्शनः ॥) — Bhagavad Gītā 6.29; the bridge sings the second half. Meaning: "One joined in yoga sees the self in all beings and all beings in the self, and sees the same everywhere": sight that comes from practice, as the sage sees the worlds in the stone only after he sits again in samādhi (VI.2.68.2–9), and the yogi, says the woman, beholds one form "in all places" (VI.2.68.43).
[Performance: the sub-bass is the stone and never stops. Chorus 1 is a bright, still shimmer; a melody is hidden in it, and almost no one hears it. The woman's lines are sung alone, unaccompanied, in a lilting chant. Chorus 2 is the same shimmer, but the hidden melody now comes forward, because the ear has been told where it is. In the outro the bass thins, strings warm, and the eyes open.]
Verse 1 — Vasiṣṭha The earth was loud with waterfalls. I rose past the sun's car and the moon's to where nothing was seen, not even in dreams, made a doorless cell, a lotus not yet open, sat a hundred years, a statue carved on the sky. The years went by like one moment.
Verse 2 — Vasiṣṭha, then the woman Then a voice, sweet as humming bees, a woman's verses in the Āryā measure, and no one in all ten quarters. She was fair as liquid gold: — I live inside a stone beyond the polar mountain. Come, sage, and see.
Chorus 1 — Vasiṣṭha I looked: the stone was crystal, burning with fire. Where are the mountains? Where are the seas? I saw nothing.
Verse 3 — the woman, then Vasiṣṭha — I see the worlds in it because I've thought them so long; you don't, because you haven't. What you think by habit is what you see: so a dunce turns scholar, so pounding turns stone to dust. I sat in a rock cave, thinking only of the mind, and the inner sky went clear as autumn.
Chorus 2 — Vasiṣṭha (the hidden melody comes forward) I looked: the stone was a crystal globe. There ran the rivers, there lay the seas, there came the gods like swans to a lake, and I saw.
Bridge (mantra) īkṣate yogayuktātmā sarvatra samadarśanaḥ (who sits in yoga sees one thing everywhere)
Outro Inside, an old man, still as rock; she called, and he opened his eyes slowly, as flowers open in spring. "The stone is the mind," he said. "Go to your place, in your own world." My senses came back like trees coming into leaf, and I opened my eyes on my own world.
[Interpretación: el subgrave es la piedra y no se detiene. El Estribillo 1 es un brillo quieto; dentro hay una melodía escondida que casi nadie oye. La mujer canta sola, sin acompañamiento, en un canto mecido. El Estribillo 2 es el mismo brillo, pero la melodía escondida pasa al frente, porque al oído ya le han dicho dónde está. En el final el bajo se adelgaza, entran cuerdas cálidas y se abren los ojos.]
Verso 1 — Vasiṣṭha La tierra era ruido de cascadas. Subí más allá del carro del sol y el de la luna hasta donde nada se veía, ni en sueños, hice una celda sin puerta, loto aún cerrado, me senté cien años, estatua tallada en el cielo. Los años pasaron como un solo instante.
Verso 2 — Vasiṣṭha, luego la mujer Entonces una voz, dulce como zumbido de abejas, versos de mujer en metro āryā, y nadie en los diez lados del cielo. Era clara como el oro líquido: — Vivo dentro de una piedra, más allá del monte del polo. Ven, sabio, y mira.
Estribillo 1 — Vasiṣṭha Miré: la piedra era cristal, ardiendo en fuego. ¿Dónde están los montes? ¿Dónde los mares? No vi nada.
Verso 3 — la mujer, luego Vasiṣṭha — Yo veo los mundos en ella porque los he pensado tanto tiempo; tú no, porque no los has pensado. Lo que piensas por costumbre es lo que ves: así el torpe se hace sabio, así a golpes la piedra se hace polvo. Me senté en una cueva de roca, pensando solo en la mente, y el cielo de dentro se aclaró como en otoño.
Estribillo 2 — Vasiṣṭha (la melodía escondida pasa al frente) Miré: la piedra era un globo de cristal. Allí corrían los ríos, allí yacían los mares, allí venían los dioses como cisnes al lago, y vi.
Puente (mantra) īkṣate yogayuktātmā sarvatra samadarśanaḥ (el que medita ve lo mismo en todas partes)
Final Dentro, un anciano, quieto como roca; ella lo llamó, y él abrió los ojos despacio, como abren las flores en primavera. "La piedra es la mente", dijo. "Vuelve a tu lugar, a tu propio mundo." Volvieron mis sentidos como árboles desnudos que echan hoja, y abrí los ojos a mi propio mundo.
EN: You see what you have practised seeing: the stone holds worlds. ES: Ves lo que has practicado ver: la piedra guarda mundos.
The album's deepest track, and its most practical. Vasiṣṭha, master of sages, sits a hundred years in a cell he imagined, hears a woman's voice with no one there, and follows her to a stone she says is full of worlds. He sees burning crystal. She sees it all, she tells him, only because she has thought it so long: what we think by habit is what we see. He sits in a cave of rock and practises, and the stone becomes a globe he can enter. Every clinician knows the law: expectation shapes perception. Sub-bass for the stone; a shimmer hiding a melody you hear only the second time. Then: go to your place, in your own world.
Source: Vihari-Lala Mitra, The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki (1891–99), public domain.
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