ON DURATION AND TIME AND THOUGHTS OF THE MIND.
Argument. The reason of introducing the two Lílás in the tale. The one
as the counterpart of the other.
Vasishtha said:—I have related to you this tale, prince! for removing
your error of the phenomenal world. Mind this tale of Lílá, and
renounce your misconception of the gross material world.
2. The substantiality of phenomena is a _nil_ by itself, and requires no
pains to invalidate it. It is hard to disprove a reality; but there is
no difficulty in effacing a falsehood from the mind.
3. True knowledge consists in viewing the visibles as void, and knowing
the one vacuum as the sole unity and real entity; one loses himself at
last in this infinite vacuity. (Vasishtha was a _súnya vádi_ or vacuist,
which Sankaráchárya was at the pains to refute in his Dig-vijaya).
4. When the self-born Brahmá created the world from nothing, and without
the aid of any material or elementary body; it is plain that there was
an eternal void, and all these are but manifestations of the vacuous
soul. (The _Teom_ and _Beom_ of Genesis, corresponding with _Tama_ and
_Vyom_ of the Veda, were the origin of creation).
5. The same creative soul, has spread the seeds of its consciousness in
the stream of creation, and these produce the images as they incessantly
appear to us, unless we take the pains to repress them.
6. The appearance of the world, is but a perspective of the sphere of
divine intellect; and contained in the small space of human intellect
within the soul; as in a transparent particle of sand.
7. Such being the case, say what is the essence of this erroneous
conception, and what may be our desires of reliance in it, and what can
be the meaning either of destiny or necessity? (The predestination and
chance, to which the Fatalists ascribe the origination of the universe).
8. This entire whole which is visible to the eye, is but a false
appearance as that of magic; and there is no truth nor substance in a
magic show.
9. Ráma said:—Oh! the wondrous exposition of the world, that you have
now explained to me. It refreshes my soul, as the moon-beams revive the
blades of grass, that have been burnt down by a conflagration.
10. It is after so long, that I have come to know the truly knowable;
such as what and how it is, and the manner whereby, whence and when it
is to be known.
11. I have my peace and rest in pondering on this wonderful theory, and
your elucidation of the doctrines of the Sruti Sástras.
12. But tell me this one thing to remove my doubt, as my ears are never
satiate, with drinking the nectarious juice of your sweet speech.
13. Tell me the time, which transpired during the three births of Lílá’s
husband. Was it the duration of a day and night in one case, and of a
month in another, and the period of a whole year in the case of
Vidúratha?
14. Or did any one of them live for many years, and whether they were of
short or longer durations, according to the measure of men, gods or
Brahmá. (Because a human year is a day and night of the polar gods, and
a moment of the cycle of Brahmá. And revolution of the whole planetary
system to the same point makes a day of Brahmá).
15. Please sir, kindly tell me this, because little hearing is not
sufficient to me, as a drop of water is not enough to moisten the dry
soil or the parched ground of summer heat.
16. Vasishtha said:—Know sinless Ráma! that whosoever thinks of anything
in any manner at any place or time, he comes to feel the same in the
same manner, and in the same place and time.
17. Take for instance the destructive poison, which becomes as ambrosia
to venomous insects, that take it for their dainty nourishment; and so
is an enemy turning to a friend by your friendly behaviour unto him. (In
both cases the evil turns to good by our taking it as such).
18. And the manner in which all beings consider themselves, and all
others for a length of time; the same they seem to be by their mode and
habit of thinking, as if it were by an act of destiny. (_i.e._ They
consider their thoughts of things as their destined nature, which is not
so in reality; for fair is foul and foul is fair; according as our
judgments declare).
19. The manner in which the active intellect represents a thing in the
soul, the same is imprinted in the consciousness of its own nature.
(Here the _Chit_ is said to be the _intellectus agens_ and
consciousness—_Samvid_—the _intellectus patiens_. The motion of the mind
gives us the impressions of the swiftness and slowness of time).
20. When our consciousness represents a twinkling of the eye as a
_Kalpa_, we are led to believe a single moment an age of long duration.
(As a short nap appears an age in dreaming), and (a long age as a moment
as in the case of the seven sleepers of Kehef).
21. And when we are conscious of or think a _Kalpa_ age as a twinkling,
the _Kalpa_ age is thought to pass as a moment; and so a long night in
our unconscious sleep, appears as a moment upon waking.
22. The night appears a longsome age, to the long suffering sick, while
it seems as a moment, in the nightly revels of the merry; so a moment
appears as an age in the dream, and an age passes off as a moment in the
state of insensibility. (The length and shortness of duration, depending
on our consciousness and insensibility of the succession of our ideas.
(See Locke and Kant on our idea of time)).
23. The notions of the resurrection of the dead, and of one’s
metempsychosis, and being re-born in a new body; of his being a boy,
youth or old man; and of his migrations to different places at the
distance of hundreds of leagues, are all but the phenomena of sleep, and
retrospective views in a dream.
24. King Haris Chandra is said, to have thought a single night as a
dozen of years; and the prince Lavana to have passed his long life of a
hundred years as the space of a single night. (So the seven sleepers of
_Kehef_ passed a long period as one night, and so of others).[1]
25. What was a moment to Brahmá, was the whole age of the life-time of
Manu (Noah); and what is a day to Vishnu, constitutes the long period of
the life-time of Brahmá. (This alluded to the comparative differences in
the cycles of planetary bodies presided by the different deities; such
as Jupiter’s cycle of 60 years round the sun, is but one year to the
presiding god of that planet).
26. The whole life-time of Vishnu, is but one day of the sedate Siva;
for one whose mind is motionless in his fixed meditation, is unconscious
of the change of days and nights and of seasons and years. (Since the
meditative mind is insensible of the fluctuation of its ideas, or that
there is an utter quietus of them in the quietism of the Yogi’s mind).
27. There is no substance nor the substantive world, in the mind of the
meditative Yogi (who views them in their abstract light); and to whom
the sweet pleasures of the world, appear as bitter, as they are thought
to be the bane of his true felicity.
28. The bitter seems to be sweet, by being thought to be so; and what is
unfavorable, becomes favorable as that which is friendly comes to be
unfriendly by being taken in their contrary senses. (The mind can make a
heaven of hell and a hell of a heaven. Milton).
29. Thus Ráma! it is by habitual meditation, that we gain the abstract
knowledge of things; as on the other hand we forget what we learnt, by
want of their recapitulation. (Habit is second nature, and practice is
the parent of productions).
30. These by their habitude of thinking, find every thing in a state of
positive rest; while the unthinking fall into the errors of the
revolutionary world, as a boat-passenger thinks the land and objects on
the shore, to be receding from and revolving around him.
31. Thus the unthinking part of mankind, and those wandering in their
error, think the world to be moving about them; but the thinking mind,
sees the whole as an empty void, and full of phantoms, as one sees in
his dream.
32. It is the thought (erroneous conception), that shows the white as
black and blue; and it is the mistake of judgment, that makes one
rejoice or sorrow at the events of life.
33. The unthinking are led to imagine a house where there is none; and
the ignorant are infatuated to the belief of ghosts, as they are the
killers of their lives.
34. It is reminiscence or memory, which raises the dream as her consort;
and which represents things as they are presented to it, by the thoughts
of the waking state.
35. The dream is as unreal as the empty vacuity, abiding in the hollow
receptacle of the intellectual soul; it overspreads the mind like the
shadow of a cloud, and fills it with images like those of a puppet-show
under the magic lantern.
36. Know the phenomena of the revolving worlds, to be no more in
reality, than mere resultants of the vibrations of the mind, in the
empty space of the soul; and as the motions and gestures of the fancied
hobgoblins, to the sight of children.
37. All this is but a magical illusion, without any substance or basis
of itself; and all these imposing scenes of vision, are but the empty
and aerial sights of dreams.
38. Just as the waking man, beholds the wondrous world before him, so
also does sleeping man see the same; and both of them resemble the
insensible pillar, which finds the images of statues engraved upon it
(because the soul is ever awake in every state of all living bodies).
39. The great monument of the Divine Spirit, has the figure of the
created world, carved in itself in the same manner, as I see a troop of
soldiers passing before me in my dream. (All these appear to be in
action, in their true state of nullity and inaction).
40. So is this waking world asleep in the soul of Brahma, and rises in
his mind as the vegetable world springs from the sap lying hid in the
earth, which gives it its growth and vernal bloom.
41. So likewise does the creation lie hid in, and spring from the
Supreme Spirit; as the brightness of gold ornaments is contained in, and
comes out of the material metal. (The Divine Spirit is both the material
and efficient cause of creation—_ex quo & a quo_.)
42. Every atom of creation, is settled in the plenum of Divine spirit;
as all the members of the body, are set in the person of their
possessor.
43. The visible world has the same relation, to the bodiless and
undivided spirit of God; as one fighting in a dream bears to his
antagonist (both believing in their reality, while both of them are
unreal in their bodies).
44. Thus the real and unreal, the spirit and the world, all dwindled
into vacuum, at the great _Kalpánta_ annihilation of creation, except
the intellect of God which comprises the world in itself.
45. The causality of the one (_i.e._ the spirit of God), and the
unreality of the world cannot be true (since nothing unreal can come out
of the real). Except Brahm—the all (_to pan_), there is no other cause,
as a Brahmá or any other; the Divine Intelligence is the only cause and
constituent of its productions.
46. Ráma asked:—But what cause was it that represented the citizens,
counsellors and ministers of Vidúratha’s royal house also to Lílá’s
vision, in the same manner as her lord the king, (who was alone the
object of her thought)?
47. Vasishtha said:—All other thoughts are associated with the principal
one in the intellect, in the same manner as the high winds are
accompaniments of the storm.
48. The association of thoughts, follows one another in a long and
perpetual train; and caused the succession of the sights of the
ministers, citizens and subjects of the king, in Lílá’s vision one after
the other.
49. In this way the thought that the king was born of such and such a
family, naturally introduced the thoughts of his palace and city, and of
those that dwelt in them.
50. It is in vain to enquire into the cause and manner, of the
intellect’s being combined with its thoughts at all times; since it is
called the gem of thoughts (Chintámani), and must be always accompanied
with its radiating thoughts, like a brilliant gem with its rays. (_i.e._
Thinking is the inseparable attribute of the mind).
51. Padma thought to become a king like Vidúratha, in the proper
discharge of the duties of his royal family; and this constant thought
of himself as such, cast the mould of the mind and manner of Vidúratha
upon him (_i.e._ he looked himself in the light of that king).
52. All animate beings of every kind, are but models of their own
thoughts, like looking-glasses showing their inward reflexions to the
sight. (The innate man appearing in his outward figure, is a verity in
physiognomy).
53. The mind which is fixed in the meditation of God, and remains
unshaken amidst the turmoils of the world; is fraught with perfect rest,
and preserves the composure of the soul, until its final liberation from
the bondage of the body.
54. But the thoughts of the fluctuating enjoyments of this world,
alternately represented in the mirror of the mind, like the shadows of
passing scenes upon a looking glass.
55. It requires therefore a great force of the mind, to overcome its
worldly thoughts, and turn them to the channel of truth; as the greater
force of the main current of a river, leads its tributaries to the
ocean.
56. But the mind is greatly disturbed, when the worldly and spiritual
thoughts, press it with equal force to both ways; and it is then, that
the greater force leads it onward in either way. (There is no midway
like that of the _Mádhyamikas_ between this world and the next).
Gloss. The worldly and spiritual thoughts being equally forcible, they
naturally struggle in the mind, and that which is of greater force
overcomes the other.
57. Such is the case with all the myriads of beings, whether are
living, dead or to come to life; and the same accidents take place in
the particles of all human minds (like the concussions of atomic
forces).
58. All this is the empty sphere of the Intellect, all quiet and without
any basis or substratum. It is neither peopled nor filled by any thing
except its own native thoughts.
59. All these appear as dreams, even in our unsleeping states, and have
no form or figure in the sight of the wise. The perception of their
positive existence, is but a misconception of their negative
inexistence.
60. There really exists but one omnipotent and all pervasive Spirit,
which shows itself in diverse forms like the flowers, fruits and leaves
of trees, all appearing from the self-same woody trunk (which like the
great Brahma is the origin of all its off-shoots.)
61. He who knows the increate Brahma to be the measurer, measure and the
thing measured, (_i.e._ the creator, created and the creation), to be all
one and himself, can never forget this certain truth of unity, nor ever
fall into the error of dualism of the cause and effect.
62. There is but one Being (SAT), who is Holy and without beginning; and
who, though he appears to be of the forms of light and darkness, and of
space and time, doth never rise nor set anywhere. He is without
beginning, middle or end; and remains as a vast expanse of water,
exhibiting itself in its waves and currents.
63. The notion of myself, thyself and the objective world, are but
effusions of our perverted understandings; and it is ignorance only that
shows the One as many within the Sheath of the mind, according as it
imagines it to be.