Rama responds to Valmiki's questions by recounting his life and reflections on the world. He describes growing up in his father's palace and traveling to learn customs. Through discrimination, he discarded thoughts of sensual pleasures, seeing that worldly objects provide no stability and attach us through imagination. Rama became disgusted with the world, questioning its nature, progress, and how to alleviate misery. He feels heavy burdens but cannot show tears, waiting to understand positive and negative states. Rama sees prosperity as a seducing cheat that impairs qualities and spreads miseries.

1. 1
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 12
Rama’s Reply
Book I, Chapter 12
Rama’s Reply
1Valmiki related:
Being thus asked by the chief of the sages with soothing
words, Rama answered in a soft and graceful speech
replete with good sense.
2“O venerable sage, untutored though I am, I will tell
you in truth all the particulars as you asked. For who
would disobey the bidding of the wise?”
Rama speaking:
3Since I was born in this my father’s palace, I have
remained here, grown up, and received my education.
4Then, O leader of sages, desiring to learn good
customs, I set out to travel to holy places all over this
sea-surrounded earth.
5By this time, a series of reflections arose in my mind
that shook my confidence in worldly objects.
6I employed my mind to discriminate the nature
of things, which gradually led me to discard all
thoughts of sensual enjoyments.
7What are worldly pleasures good for, and why do
men multiply on earth? Men are born to die, and
they die to be born again.

2. 2
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 12
Rama’s Reply
8There is no stability in the tendencies of beings
whether movable or immovable. They all tend to vice,
decay and danger, and all our possessions become the
grounds of our poverty.
9All objects of sense are detached from each other like
iron rods from one another. It is only imagination
which attaches them to our minds.
10It is the mind that pictures the existence of the world
as a reality, but if we know the deceptiveness of the
mind, we are safe from such deception.
11If the world is an unreality, it is a pity that ignorant
men should be allured by it, like deer tempted by a
distant mirage of water.
12We are sold by none, yet we are enslaved to the world.
Knowing this well, we are spell-bound with riches, as
if by the magic wand of Sambara.
13What are the enjoyments in this essence but misery?
Yet we are foolishly caught in its thoughts, like bees
caught in honey.
14Ah! After long, I perceive that we have insensibly
fallen into errors, like senseless stags falling into
caverns in the wilderness.
15Of what use is royalty and these enjoyments to me?
What am I and where do all these things come from?

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 12
Rama’s Reply
They are only vanities. Let them continue as such
without any good or loss to anybody.
16Reasoning in this manner, O holy Brahmin, I
came to be disgusted with the world, like a
traveller in a desert.
17Now tell me, O venerable sir, is this world is
advancing to its dissolution, or continued reproduction,
or is it in endless progression?
18If there is any progress here, is it the appearance and
disappearance by turns of old age and decease, and of
prosperity and adversity?
19See how the variety of our trifling enjoyments hastens
our decay. They are like hurricanes shattering trees in
the mountains.
20Men continue in vain to breathe their vital
breath like hollow bamboo wind-pipes having no
sense.
21The thought that consumes me like wildfire in the
hollow of a withered tree is, “How is misery to be
alleviated?”
22The weight of worldly miseries sits heavy on my heart
like a rock and obstructs the breathing of my lungs. I
have a mind to weep, but I am prevented from shedding
tears for fear of my people.

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Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 12
Rama’s Reply
23My tearless weeping and speechless mouth give
no indication to anybody of my inner sorrow. My
consciousness is silent witness to my solitude.
24I wait to think on the positive and negative states, as a
ruined man bewails to reflect on his former state of
affluence.
25I take prosperity to be a seducing cheat, for it deludes
the mind, impairs good qualities, and spreads the net of
our miseries.
26To me, like one fallen into great difficulties, no riches,
offspring, consorts or home affords any delight, but
they seem to be misery.
27Like a wild elephant in chains, I find no rest in my
mind reflecting on the various evils of the world, and
thinking on the causes of our frailties.
28There are wicked passions prying at all times, under
the dark mist of the night of our ignorance.
There are hundreds of objects which, like so many
cunning rogues, are about all men in broad daylight,
lurking on all sides to rob us of our reason.
What mighty champions can we delegate to fight with
these other than our own knowledge of truth?
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5. 5
Yoga Vashishtha of Valmiki
Book I, Chapter 12
Rama’s Reply
[Rama’s observations herein above are a lesson for all
seekers of Truth. One must carefully reflect on the
transient nature of this world and look for a realized
teacher of our time for necessary guidance and who can
also help us free our soul from the bondage of physical-
astral-causal bodies.]
[As observed by Rama, we are sold by none, yet we are
enslaved to the world. We must make an effort to end
this slavery.]
[Sambara: One of the Asuras of Vedic myth who were
vanquished by Indra. A demon in the Vedas whose
ninety nine (99) fortresses were destroyed by Indra in
the ecstasy of Soma. Indra finished off the demon in the
hundredth.]
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