The Story Within the Story
Valmiki, the poet of the frame
The Yoga Vasistha opens as a story handed from teller to teller — and the poet Valmiki does what only the greatest tellers dare: he steps inside his own sunrise. This first song is the threshold. A drone, a bell, a voice close to your ear, and the quiet revelation the whole tradition rests on: you are not outside the story, listening in. You always were inside.
Om Om Shantih Shantih Shantih
The primordial sound, the door standing open; peace spoken three times — for the body, the mind, and the world they share.
Pranava & Shanti Mantra · the seed syllable and the threefold peace
You are the story, and the one it is being told to.
Om... Om... Om Before the world, a word was waiting Before the word, a silence sang A poet closed his eyes at daybreak And every universe began He wrote a river, wrote a mountain Wrote a prince with heavy eyes Wrote a sage whose voice was morning Then stepped inside his own sunrise This is the story within the story The dream that dreams the dreamer awake Listen: the teller becomes the telling The ocean singing itself as wave And you who hear it, you are in it A lamp inside a lamp inside a flame Whoever truly hears this story Will never be the same Om... Om... Om Om Shanti... Shanti... Shanti Every listener becomes the listening Every reader turns the page of themselves Om
The song, the book and the research are one teaching entering through three different doors.
Listen to all twelve songs here, with libreto, lyrics and mantra — and on Apple Music and Spotify.
The long-form reading and the YVH model, on the author's site.
OpenThe published research at the World Happiness Foundation.
Open