The Brilliance of the Yoga Vasistha

I had been to Blossoms book store this past Saturday with my mind set on getting hold of an English translations of one of the 16  puranas (I already have Ramesh Menon's Siva Purana and Bhagavadpuran). I spent a good one hour combing through the Philosophy section and met with no success. The fact that folks like me browse books and keep them at a different location from where they picked it up most of the time, means that the poor guys at the book store probably gave up trying to arrange the books in some kind of order. But I seem to digress.

I was just about to leave after having picked up a copy of the Panchatantra when I set my eyes on a fresh copy of the Yoga Vasistha. I never came across the name before and glanced at the back page for a review. The Yoga Vasistha apparently contains the pearls of wisdom shared by the great sage Vasistha with Lord Rama and his family. I picked up thinking it would contain a lot of stories similar to the Ramayana.

 I sat down to read the book later in the day and some of the concepts are truly mind boggling. I could not help but feel some kind of connection between what was said in the book and what one would come across in a book devoted to Quantum Mechanics or Cosmology. The concept of true consciousness and the planes its exists could very well fit into something like the String Theory and the multitude of dimensions that cosmologists and astrophysicists are today theorizing. 

A lot of what is said in the book needs to be read several times and digested slowly and for an ignorant soul like me some of it was truly mind numbing. But nevertheless I could not help but marvel at the insight of the seers of ancient India. Ours is truly a land that is blessed. Unfortunately not many realize this as we keep busying ourselves in material pursuits. Sad!