Two old books, retold in plain English

The Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra comes from the Shaiva traditions of Kashmir and is usually dated to the second half of the first millennium. It is short, and it takes the form of a conversation: the goddess asks Bhairava about the nature of reality, and he answers not with doctrine but with a list of methods: breath, space, sound, the gap between two thoughts. The methods are traditionally counted as one hundred and twelve dharanas. Here, dharana simply means a way of placing attention. Twentieth-century translations, among them those of Jaideva Singh and Swami Lakshmanjoo, brought the text to English readers, and Paul Reps’s free retelling in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones carried it far beyond them. This desk retells each method as a plain instruction. Beneath it, in smaller type, sits a closer rendering of the verse, made for this desk from the Sanskrit and checked against the published translations of Jaideva Singh, Christopher Wallis, and others. For a full scholarly translation, turn to theirs. Translators count the dharanas in slightly different ways. This desk numbers them from verse 24, where the methods begin, and always gives the verse number alongside.

The Yoga Vasishta is a vast philosophical poem, told as a conversation between the sage Vasishta and the young prince Rama. The Sara, or “essence,” distills it into ten short chapters on dispassion, the mind, the world, and the Self that sees it. Ramana Maharshi often referred to the Yoga Vasishta, and the English verses used here come from the version published by his ashram, Sri Ramanasramam, based on a translation by Swami Sureshananda. The verses are brief. They were meant to be read and set down, not collected into a system. This desk keeps that shape: one verse at a time, sometimes with a plain-English line first and the older line beneath. If a verse stays with you, keep it for tomorrow. If it does not, the next one will come.