--> Skip to main content


Similes On Self From Yoga Vasistha

A collection of teachings from Yoga Vasistha on Self.

If you separate yourself from the body and abide at ease in Consciousness you will become one – the sole reality – everything else will be insignificant.

After rejecting, through reasoning, all that can be known as non-truth what remains as pure consciousness – regard that as your self.

A child superimposes a real elephant on a clay elephant and plays with it; even so, an ignorant man superimposes the body, etc., on the Self and carries on his activities.

The picture of a snake does not cause fear of a snake when it is realized to be only a picture.

Similarly when the jiva is clearly understood there is neither misery nor the cause of misery.

Just as the sky appears to be stained by dust, smoke and clouds, so also the pure Self in contact with the qualities of Maya appears to be soiled by them.

Just as fire thrown into a large sheet of water loses its quality, so also Consciousness in contact with the unreal and the inert seems to lose its real nature and becomes inert.

The Self is realized in the body only with effort, like sugar from the sugarcane, oil from sesame seeds, fire from wood, butter from a cow and iron from ore.

Just as the air in the universe pervades everything, so also the Self, the Lord, abides bodiless in everything.
Yoga Vasistha