LECTURE ON TRUTH.
Argument. Nature of the Active and _Living_ Soul (Jíva) and its
Sensations.
Ráma said:—Leaving the mind please tell me more about the nature of the
living soul; what relation it bears to the Supreme soul, how it sprang
from the same and what is its essence.
2. Vasishtha replied:—Know Brahma is omnipresent, and the Lord of all at
all times; He manifests himself in whatever attribute he assumes to
himself at his free will. Ex arbitrio suo.
3. The attribute which the universal soul assumes to itself in the form
of perception (chétana), is known by the term living soul, which
possesses the power of volition in itself.
4. There are two causal principles combined with the living soul,
namely: its predestination resulting from its prior acts and volitions;
and its later free will which branch forth severally into the various
causes of birth, death and subsistence of beings.
5. Ráma said:—Such being the case, tell me, O thou greatest of sages,
what this predestination means and what are these acts, and how they
become the causal agents of subsequent events.
6. Vasishtha replied:—The intellect (chit) is possest of its own nature
of the properties of oscillation and rest, like the vacillation and
stillness of the winds in the air. Its agitation is the cause of its
action, otherwise it is calm and quiet as a dead lock—_quietus_ itself.
7. Its oscillation appears in the fluctuation of the mind, and its
calmness in the want of mental activity and exertions; as in the
nonchalance of Yoga quietism.
8. The vibrations of the intellect lead to its continual
transmigrations; and its quietness settles it in the state of the
immovable Brahma. The oscillation of the intellect is known to be the
cause of the living state and all its actions.
(The moving force of the mind is the animism of Stahl, and its rest is
the _quietus_ of Plato).
9. This vibrative intellect is the thinking Soul, and is known as the
living agent of actions; and the primary seed of the universe. (This is
the _anima mundi_ or moving force of the world,—the doctrine of Stahl).
10. This secondary soul then assumes a luminous form according to the
light of its intellect, and afterwards becomes multifarious at its will,
and by means of the pulsations of the primary intellect all over the
creation. (This luminous form is represented by the red body of Brahma
and the red clay of which Adam was formed. (It was the All—_to pan_ of
Pantheism, and the _Principium hylarchicum_ or first principle of Henry
Moore)).
11. The pulsative intellect or soul, having passed through many
transformations (or transmigrations), is at last freed from its motion
and migration. And there are some souls which pass into a thousand
births and forms, while there are others which obtain their liberation
in a single birth (by means of their Yoga meditation or unification with
God, which is the final aim of Platonism and of the Chinese Laosin).
12. So also the human soul being of its own nature prone to assume its
dualism of the motive intellect, becomes by itself the cause of its
transmigration and sufferings, as also of its transient bliss or misery
in heaven or hell. (There is no rest for the restless soul, until it
rests in the bosom of the all-tranquil and Universal soul).
13. As the same gold is changed to the forms of bracelets and other
things, and as the same gross matter appears in the different forms of
wood and stone; so the uniform soul of God appears as multiform
according to his various modes and attributes. (The soul modifies itself
into many forms of activity and passivity).
14. It is the fallacy of the human mind, that views the forms as
realities, and causes one to think his soul which is freed from birth
and form, to be born, living and dead, as a man sees a city to rise and
fall in his delirium. (The appearances and forms of things are objective
and false fabrications of the intellect).
15. The varying intellect erroneously conceives its unreal egoism and
_meitatem_ as realities, from its ignorance of its unity with the
unchangeable reality of God, and also from its felicity of enjoyments
peculiar to its varied state. (The भोगाशा or desire of fruition is the
cause of the revolution of the soul in endless states of beings).
16. As Lavana the King of Mathura, falsely deemed himself as a Chandála,
so the intellect thinks on its own different states of existence and
that of the world (from its desire of enjoying its pleasures which are
deeply rooted in itself).
17. All this world is the phantom of an erroneous imagination, O Ráma!
it is no more than the swelling of the waters of the deep. (The world is
the expansion of the self-same soul and its evolution is the volition of
Brahma).
18. The intellect is ever busied with the intellection of its own
intelligences, and the innate principles of its action; in the same
manner as the sea is seen to swell with its waters moving in waves of
themselves. (The continuation of the intellect in the association of its
preconceived ideas, is carried on by law of continuity).
19. The intellect is as the water in the wide expanse of Brahma; its
inflation raises the waving thoughts in the mind, resembling the bubbles
of water, and produces the revolutions of living souls like eddies in
the sea of this world.
20. Know thy soul, O gentle Ráma! as a phenomenon of the all pervading
Brahma, who is both the subject and object of his consciousness, and who
has posited in thee a particle of himself, like the breath of a mighty
lion.
21. The intellect with its consciousness, constitutes the living soul,
and that with the will forms the mind; its knowing power is the
understanding, and its retentiveness is called its memory: its
subjectivity of selfishness is styled egoism, and its error is called
_máyá_ or delusion. (Consciousness is perception _qua mens de presenti
suo statu admonitur_. The living soul is psyche or animus. The intellect
is the mover of the will. The _intellectus_ est prior voluntate, non
enimést voluntas &c. The understanding has the power to acquire
knowledge, and memory has the power of retention &c.).
22. The mind by its imagination stretches out this world, which is as
false as the phantom of Utopia—Gandharva-nagaram or an air drawn city.
23. The objective knowledge of the world in the mind, is as false as the
appearance of chains of pearls in the sky, and as the visionary scenes
in a dream. (The objective is the feigned fabrication of the mind, and
therefore unreal).
24. The soul which is ever pure and self sufficient in its nature, and
remains in its own state of tranquility; is not perceived by the
perverted mind dwelling on its delusive dreams.
25. The objective world is referred to waking—Jágrat, because it
is perceived in the waking state of the soul; and the subjective
mind is allied to sleep—_swapna_, because the mind is active during
the sleeping and dreaming states. The ego is related to deep
sleep—_sushupta_, when we are unconscious of ourselves, and the fourth
or pure Intellect—_turíya_ or _turya_, is the trance or hybernation of
the soul.
26. That which is above these four conditions, is the state of ultimate
bliss, _ecstasis_; and it is by reliance on that supremely pure essence
of God, that one is exempted from all his causes of grief and sorrow (in
his ecstatic delight).
27. Everything is displayed in Him and all things are absorbed in Him
also; this world is neither a reality here or there; it presents only
the false appearance of strings of pearls in the sky. (Sensible forms
are empty appearances, and are only believed as real by materialists).
28. And yet God is said to be the cause and substratum, of all these
unobstructed phantoms rising to the view, as the empty air is said to be
the receptacle of the rising trees. Thus the uncausal God is said to be
the cause of this uncaused world, which only exists in our illusive
conceptions, and presents itself to our delusive sensations of it.
29. As a polished piece of iron gets the reflexion of a grosser piece,
so do our finer or inner sensations take the representations of the
gross forms of their particular objects (though the senses and sensible
objects are both untrue, as mere delusive and delusions).
30. These sensations are conveyed to the mind, and thence again to the
living soul and intellect, in the same manner as the roots supply the
sap to the stem, and thence to the branches, and lastly to the fruits of
trees. (_i.e._ The Divine Intellect is the last receptacle of the
impressions of the senses).
31. As the seed produces the fruit, and the same contains the seed in
itself; so the intellect producing the mind and its thoughts can not get
rid of them; but is contained in, and reproduced by them in successive
transmigrations.
32. There is some difference however in the simile of the insensible
seed and tree; with the sensible intellect and mind (which are freed
from reproduction by their attainment of liberation); but the thoughts
of the creator and creation like the seed and tree, are reproductive of
one another without end. (Because the thought of the creator accompanies
that of the creation, and so the _viceversa_; owing to the unbroken
chain and interminable concatenation of the ideas of causality and its
effect).
33. But there is this difference between the insensible seed and
sensible intellect, that the former is continually productive of one
another, while the latter ceases in its process upon its attainment of
liberation; yet the ideas of the creator and creation are reproductive
of each other _adinfinitum_.
34. Yet our understanding shows it as clearly—as the sun light sets
forth the forms and colours of objects to view; that there is one
eternal God of truth, who is of the form of intellectual light, which
shows the forms of all things, that proceed from Him (as the colours of
objects originate from the solar light, and are shown again by the same
to our optical vision).
35. As the ground which is dug presents a hollow, so the reasoning of
every system of sound philosophy establishes the existence of the
transcendental void as the cause of all. (An unknown first cause without
any attribute, is the unanimous conclusion, arrived at every rational
system of Philosophy. See Kusumánjali. Here Vasishtha establishes his
vacuous rather than a personal cause).
36. As a prismatic crystal represents various colours in its prisms,
without being tinged by the same; so the transparent essence of Brahma
shows the groups of worlds in its hollow bosom without its connection
with them. (This variety of vision is caused by our optical deception).
37. The universal soul is the source, and not the substance of all these
vast masses of worlds; just as the seed is the embryo, and not the
matter of the trees and plants and their fruits and flowers that grow
from the same. (The _to on_ is the only principle called God, all other
objects are but phenomenal modifications of his essence).
38. Ráma said:—Oh how wonderful is this world, which presents its
unreality as a reality in all its endless forms unto us; and though
situated in the Divine self, appears to be quite apart from it. O how it
makes its minuteness seem so very immense to us. (What are these worlds
but as particles subsisting in the divine essence, when they are
compared with the immensity of the Divine spirit and mind—the finite
with the Infinite).
39. I see how this shadowy scene of the world appearing in the Divine
soul, and becoming as an orb, by virtue of the ideal _tanmátras_ or
particles of the divine essence in it. I find it as a snow ball or
icicle made of frozen frost.
40. Now tell me Sir, how the spiritual particles increase in bulk, and
in what manner the body of the self born Brahmá was produced from
Brahma. Say also in what manner do these objects in nature come to
existence in their material forms.
(Brahmá the Demiurgus was an emanation of God according to Gnostics; and
Vaishwánara was the same as the soul of the world according to
Plotinus).
41. Vasishtha replied:—Too incredible is this form and without a
parallel, which sprang of itself from its own essence. It is altogether
inconceivable how some thing is produced of its own conception.
42. Just fancy, O Ráma! how the unexpanded phantom of a Vetála or ghost,
swells in bigness to the sight of fearful children; and conceive in the
same manner the appearance of the living spirit from the entity of
Brahma. (Evolution of the Living God from the inert Brahma, is as the
springing of the moving spirit from the dormant soul).
43. This living spirit was a development of Brahma—the universal soul;
it was holy and a commensurable and finite being, and having a
personality of its own; it remained as an impersonal unreality in the
essence of the selfexistent God. Being separated afterwards from its
source, it had a different appellation given to it. (This is the Holy
spirit or ghost in one sense, as also the Divine _Logos_ in another, and
in whom there was life).
44. As Brahma the all extended and infinite soul, became the definite
living soul at will; so the living spirit, became the mind by its
volition afterwards. (There is a trinity or triple division of the soul
into _soma_ or the universal soul, the _pneuma_ or anima or the living
spirit, and the _nous_ or mens or mind).
45. The mind which was the principle of intellection, took a form of its
own; and so likewise the life assumed an airy form in the midst of
vacuity. (The mind is the state of the impersonal soul with a sense of
its personality, and life is animation or the vital principle in the
form of the vital breath).
46. The wakeful living god (who had no twinkling of his eyes), whereby
we measure time was yet conscious of its course by means of his
thoughts; and had the notion of a brilliant icicle of the form of the
future mundane egg in his mind. See Manu’s Genesis of the World. I.
47. Then the living soul felt in itself the sense of its consciousness,
and by thinking ‘what am I,’ was conscious of its egoism. (Why is the
non-ego of the objective world put before the ego? The objective orb of
the world should follow the subjective consciousness).
48. This god next found in his understanding the knowledge of the word
taste, and got the notion of its becoming the object of a particular
organ of sense, to be hereafter called “the tongue.” (_Rasaná_ or the
instrument of the perception of _rasa_ or flavour. _Rasa_ abiding in
water is reckoned first of the elements on account the Spirit of God
resting on it before creation, wherefore God is himself called _rasa_ in
the Sruti—_rasa vaitat_).
49. The living soul then found out in his mind the meaning of the word
‘light,’ which was afterwards to sparkle in the eye—the particular organ
of sight.
(The Bible says, _lux fiat et lux fit_—Light to be the first work of
creation; though the Vedas give Priority to water as in the passages
“_apa eva sasarjádau_”, Manu. _Yasrishtih Srasturádyá._ Sakuntala).
50. Next the god came to know in his mind the property of smell, and the
organ of smelling; as also the substance of earth to which it appertains
as its inseparable property. (The Nyaya says: _prithví gandhavatí_—the
earth is smelling. It followed the creation of light).
51. In this manner the living soul, came to be acquainted at once with
the other sensations, and the organs to which they appertain as their
inseparable properties and objects. (The word _bhavitá_ means the
spontaneous growth of these faculties in the soul or mind, and
_kákatálíya_ signifies the simultaneous occurrence of the senses, and
sensible objects, and their sensations in the mind).
52. The unsubstantial living spirit which derives its being from the
essence of the substantial Brahma, comes next to acquire the knowledge
of sound, the object of the organ of hearing, and the property
of air. (So Nyáya:—“_ákásh sabdádharah_”; and “_yá Sruti visaya
gunáh_”—Sakuntala).
53. It then comes to understand the meaning of the word touch (twak) as
the medium of feeling, as also to know the tongue as the only organ of
taste. (According to schoolmen, taste is the object of the palate and
not of the tongue).
53. It finds the property of colour to be the peculiar object of the
eye—the organ of sight; and that of smell to be an object peculiar to
the nose—the organ of the sense of smelling (ghránendriya).
54. The living soul is thus the common receptacle of the sensations, and
source of the senses, which it developes afterwards in the organs of
sense in the body. It perceives the sensation of sensible objects
through the perceptive holes, that convey their perceptions into the
sensorium of the mind. (The common sensory is variously placed in
Western philosophy, such as the heart, brain, pineal gland, the
ventrialis &c.).
55. Such, O Ráma! as it was with the first animated being, is still so
with all living animals; and all these sensations are represented in the
Soul of the world—_anima mundi_, in its spiritual form—_átiváhika_,
known as the _súkshma_ or _lingadeha_—the subtle body. (The spiritual
body has 17 organs of sense viz, 5 Internal, 5 External, the mind and
Intellect and others (called _the saptadasha lingátmaka linga saríra_)).
56. The nature of this abstruse essence, is as undefinable as that of
the spirit; it appears to be in motion, when it is really at rest, as in
our idea of the soul. (Spiritual bodies are said to move and fly about,
because the spirit is the motive, and life the animating principle as
the soul is that of consciousness).
57. As measure and dimensions are foreign, to our notion of Brahma—the
all conscious soul, so are they quite apart from that of the spirit
also, which is no more than the motive power of the soul. (Magnitude,
figure, motion, rest, number, place, distance, position, &c. are all
objects of the senses).
58. As the notion of the spiritual, is distinct from that of all others
which are material and corporeal; so the notion of Brahma is quite apart
from every thing, except that of his self-consciousness.
(God says in the Scripture, “I am that I am,” which proves his
consciousness of himself to constitute his essence).
59. Ráma said:—If consciousness is self-same with Brahma, and our
consciousness of ourselves as Brahma, make us identic with Brahma
Himself; then what is the use of devising a duality of the soul (as the
divine and human souls), or of talking of the liberation and final
absorption of the one in the other? (If what the Sruti says, Brahmásmi—I
am Brahma; as the scripture declares—“In Him we live and move,” then
what means our redemption or return to Him?).
60. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma, your question is irrelevant at this time,
when I was going to prove another thing. Nothing can be appropriate out
of its proper time and place, as the untimely offering of flowers to
gods is not acceptable to them. (A question beside the mark is _apropos
de bottes_, and brought in by the head and shoulders).
61. A word full of meaning, becomes meaningless out of its proper place;
like the offering of flowers to gods and guests, out of their proper
season. (So all intempestivous acts, go _mal a propos_, unless they are
done in proper time).
62. There is a time for the introducing of a subject, and another to
hold silence over it; so every thing becomes fruitful in its proper
season. (Tempus coronat opus).
63. But to resume our subject; the living soul afterwards appeared from
Him, as the human soul appears in dreaming; and thought in himself that
he was the great father of created beings in time to come. (_i.e._ He
would become the Maker of the world).
64. He uttered the syllable Om (on or ens), and was conscious of the
verification of its meaning in his mind, which soon displayed all forms
of beings to his mental vision. (_i.e._ The All One became many, which
displayed themselves in the mind of the living God as visions in a
dream).
65. All these were unrealities, that were displayed in the empty sphere
of the divine mind; and the shadowy world seemed as a huge mountain,
floating before him in the air.
66. It was neither born of itself, nor was made by Brahmá; nor is it
destroyed at any time by any other power. It was Brahma himself,
appearing as the phantom of an aerial city.
67. As the living Brahmá and other spiritual beings, are unreal in their
nature; so also are the essences of other beings, from the big giant to
the little emmet, but mere unrealities in their substance.
68. It is our erroneous understanding, that represents these unrealities
as real ones unto us; but the clear understanding will find all things,
from the great Brahmá down to the minutest insect, to vanish entirely
from its sight. (Errors of the mind breed errors in the brain; and these
lead to errors of vision again).
69. The same cause that produces Brahmá, produces the insects also; and
it is the greater depravity of the mind, that causes its transmigration,
into the contemptible forms of worms.
70. The living being that is possest of a rational soul, and is devoted
to the cultivation of the mind, attains to the state of man; and then
acts righteously for attaining a better state in after life. (These are
the states of gods and angels in heaven).
71. It is wrong to suppose one’s elevation, to be owing to the merit of
his acts, and his degradation to the condition of worms, to result from
his former acts of demerit; because there is the same particle of
intellect in both of them, and this being known, will destroy the
mistaken difference between the great and small.
72. The notions of the measurer, measure and measurable, are not
separate from the intellect (or mind); therefore the controversy of
unity and duality, is as futile as the horns of a hare or a lake of
lotuses in the air. (This means the ideas of the producer, production
and product, are always one in the Absolute subjective. Schelling).
73. It is our misconception of the blissful Brahma, that produces the
wrong notion of solid substances in us; and this imagination of our own
making, binds us as fast as the silk-worms are fast bound in the
cocoons; formed by their own serum (or ichor or serosity).
74. It is the case of the knower, to perceive everything in his mind, as
it is revealed in it by Brahma; and also to meet with every thing as it
is allotted by God to his share. (God is the revealer and giver of all
things. Or—Man meets his fate, as it is meted to him by his Maker).
75. It is the immutable law of nature, that nothing can be otherwise
than what it is ordained to be; and there is nothing in nature, which
can change its nature for a minute in a whole kalpa-age. (Nature derives
her power from the will of her Maker, and her course is, according to
the immutable order, fixed by the ordainer of all).
76. And yet this creation is a false phantom, and so is the growth and
dissolution of all created beings, as also our enjoyment of them. (All
visible Nature is the working of the invisible Spirit).
77. Brahma is pure, all pervading, infinite and absolute. It is for our
misery only, that we take him for the impure matter and unreal
substance; and as the definite and limited pluralities.
78. It is the vitiated imagination of boys, that fancies the water and
its waves as different things; and makes a false distinction between
them which are really the same things. (Hence whatever differences there
appear in objects, they are all as the fallacy of a snake in the rope
with the unknowing. There is no difference of antagonistic powers felt
in the spirit of Brahma, who is equal in all, and to whom all things are
equal; though there seems a constant opposition in the natures of
things).
79. It is His undivided self which expanded itself in visible nature,
and which appears as a duality, like that of the waves and the sea, and
the bracelets and gold. Thus He of himself appears as other than himself.
(_i.e._ The difference appearing in the visibles, disappears in the
indifference of the Divine Mind).
80. We are led to imagine the visible and mutable world, to have sprung
from the invisible and immutable spirit, which manifested itself in the
form of the mind that produced the Ego. Thus we have the visible from
the invisible, and the mind and the ego from the same source. (The
absolute Brahma manifesting itself in two forms, the mind or ego and
nature or non-ego. The Ego of the mind is infinite, which produced the
finite ego or human soul, personified as the first male (Adimapurusha or
Adam)).
81. The mind joined with the ego, produced the notions of elementary
principles or elemental particles; which the living soul combined with
its intellect, derived from the main source of Brahma, and of which it
formed the phenomenal world. (These notions were the intentive concepts
of the formal and reflexive world, existing primordially in the essence
of Brahma, as its material cause or (_upádánam_). So says the
Vedánta:—_Yato viswamvá imámi bhutani &c._).
82. Thus the mind being realised from Brahma, sees before it whatever it
imagines; and whatever the intellect thinks upon, whether it is a
reality or unreality, the same comes to take place. The reflexion verily
passes into reality. (The imagination is the faculty representative of
the phenomena of internal and external worlds. It is both productive and
reproductive. _Sir Wm. Hamilton._ Here intellect means the Supreme
Intellect, the wisdom of God and his design in the works of creation.
All beings and things are manifestations of one Eternal and original
mind God).