evil (or slaughter), being inherent in your nature (from your past
profession of huntsmanship), you neglected to stoop down to the
goddess, and pray unto her for your liberation.
31. It is well known since the creation of the world, that the
intrinsic gist forms the nature of man; and this truth being evident to
all from their boyhood to age, there is no body to ignore or repudiate
it at any time.
32. The purity or impurity of the inner heart, to which one is
habituated by his long practice or custom, continues to predominate
over all his qualities and actions to the very last, and there is no
power to contravene it in any manner.
CHAPTER CLVII.
THE ULTIMATE EXTINCTION OR NIRVANA OF SINDHU.
Argument:--Description of the nature of Sindhu, his resignation
of the kingdom, his discrimination and final liberation.
Then Sindhu will say:--Tell me sir, what kind of a vile-person and how
ignorant I had been before whereby I still retain the evil propensities
of my past life, and am doomed to be reborn in this earth (the vale of
misery).
2. The minister will say in his reply:--“Hear me attentively, O king,
for a while; and I will tell you this secret, which you require me to
relate, and will surely remove your ignorance.”
3. There is a self existent and undecaying Being from all eternity,
which is without its beginning or end, which is designated the great
Brahma, and passes herein under the little of I and thou, and of this
and that &c.
4. I am that self same Brahma, by the consciousness of my self
cogitation (_ego cogito ergo sum_). This becomes the living principal
with the power of intellection (_vivo qui intellego_ I live because I
think). This power does not forsake its personality; (but retains its
_persona_ of I am that I am).
5. Know this Intellect to be a spiritual or supernatural substance,
having a form rarer and more transparent than that of the subtile
ether; it is this which is the only being in existence, nor is there
anything which is of a material substance. (This passage maintains the
immateriality of the world).
6. This formless takes the form of the mind, by its being combined,
with volition and its views of this and the next world, (_i.e._ its
worldly enjoyments and future bliss), in its state of life and death,
and of waking and sleep. (That is the mind is sensible of these passing
and alternate phenomena).
7. The mind, though formless, stretches itself into the form of the
phenomenal world; just as the formless air dilates itself, in the form
of force or oscillation in all material bodies.
8. The world is identic with the mind, as the seeming and visible
sky is the same with empty vacuity; so the corporeal is alike the
incorporeal, and there is no difference whatever, between the material
and mental worlds.
9. This net work or least of worlds resides in the mind, in their
immanent impressions in it, and the outer world is in reality. And
that the cosmos consists of ideas in the formless mind, its formal
appearance has no real substance in it. (The immaterial ideas of the
mind are real, and not the material objects or the sober reality of the
subjective only).
10. There arose at first the pure (satya) personality of the impersonal
and universal spirit of God (Brahma), in the person of the creative
power known under the title of Brahmá. This personal god assumed to
himself the appellation of ego from his will of creation, and the
undivided spirit, was divided into many impure personalities (rájasa
and támasa), from its desire of becoming many (aham bahu syam-sim multa
and plurimá).
11. The sindhu will say: Tell me sir, what you mean by rájasa and
támasa bodies (or impure personalities); and how and whence are these
appellations at first _in primo_ to the supreme being--_parapada_--the
Indefinite One.
12. The monitor will reply saying:--As all embodied beings herein, are
possessed of members and limbs of their bodies; so the bodiless spirit
is comprised of an infinite variety of minor spiritual forms under it,
which are known as the good or bad spirits.
13. The selfsame spirit then designates all these several parts of
itself by various appellations, and the incorporeal spirit assumes to
itself, an endless variety of material and terraqueous natures and
names. (That changed through all, yet in all the same; known by this or
that or one or other nature and name).
14. Thus the universal spirit continues to exhibit in itself, all the
various forms of this visionary world at its own will; and gives a
distinct name and nature to each and every one of these representations
of itself.
15. When the Divine spirit, deigned to covert itself into the
personality of Brahmá, and in those of me or thee and other
individualities; it became altered from its state of original holiness
and purity to those impurity and foulness, known as _rájasí_ and
_támasí_. (When God breathed his spirit into the nostrils of Adam, it
lost its purity and sanctity by contamination of flesh).
16. The unalterable pure nature of the holy spirit of God, being thus
transformed to unholiness, it passed into different states of impurity
in the living souls of beings. (The same living soul passing different
degrees of purity and impurity).
17. The spirit of God being blown at first as the living soul (in an
animal body); the soul that comes to perceive its incarceration in
flesh and its doom to suffering, is said to be of the pure nature of
sáttikí.
18. Those who while they are living in the world, are possest of
politeness and good qualities; they are said to be merely of a good
nature _Kevala sáttiki_.
19. Those who being born in repeated regenerations are destined to
the enjoyments of life, and to their final liberation at last, are
designated as the राजस राजसी.
20. Those again who being born in this nether world, are inclined to
the practice of their manly virtues only; such souls are famed as the
merely rájasí (shining), and are few in their number.
21. Those souls which have been undergoing their repeated
regenerations, ever since the beginning of creation; and are
continually roving in the bodies of inferior beings, are said by the
wise, to belong to the species of the most impure _támasa támasí_;
though it is possible from them to attain their salvation at last.
22. Those which have been wandering in many births, in the forms of
vile animals, and until they attain their salvation at the end; such
souls are designated as merely vile _Kevala tamasi_ by the wise, who
are versed in the science of psychology.
23. In this manner have these philosophers classed the emanated soul of
beings into many grades and species; among which O my respected sir,
your soul is reckoned among the vilest of the vile _tamasa tamasí_.
24. I know you to have passed through many births of which you know
nothing; and these have been as various as they were fraught with the
variegated scenes of life.
25. You have in vain passed all your lives in doing nothing that is
useful; and more particularly your late aeronautic life, with that
gigantic body of yours.
26. Being thus born with the vile species of thy soul, it is difficult
for thee to obtain thy liberation from the prison house of this world.
27. Sindhu will then say in his response:--Tell me sir, how can I
divest myself of this inborn vile nature of my soul; that I may learn
to abide by thy counsel, and try to purify my soul and rectify the
conduct of my life.
28. There is nothing in all these three worlds, which is hard to be
acquired by means of earnest endeavour and intense application.
29. As a fault or failure of the previous day, is corrected by its
rectifications to day; so can you purify your pristine impure soul by
your pious acts of the present day.
30. Whoever earns for any thing and labours hard to earn it, is sure to
gain it in the end, wherein the remiss are sure to meet with failure.
31. Whatever a man is intent upon doing, and tries to effect at all
times; and whatsoever one desires with earnestness, and is constantly
devoted to the same pursuit, he is to succeed in it, and have his
object without fail.
32. The sage related:--The king being thus remonstrated by his
minister, was resolved to resign the burthen of his state, and to
renounce his realm and royalty even at that very moment.
33. He wished to retire to some far distant forest, and prayed his
ministers to support his realm; but he declined to take the charge,
though the state was free from all its enemies (_i.e._ though it was a
peaceful realm).
34. He then remained in the company of wisemen, and was enlightened by
their discourses; as the sesame seeds became odorous by being placed
amidst a heap of flowers.
35. Then from his inquiries into the mysteries of his life and birth,
and into the causes of his confinement in this world, he obtained the
knowledge of his liberation from it.
36. It was thus by means of his continued inquiries into truth, and his
continual association with the wise and good, that the soul of Sindhu
attained a holy sanctity in comparison with which, the prosperity of
Brahma even, is as a straw or the dried leaf of a withered tree, which
the winds of the sky toss about to and fro.
CHAPTER CLVIII.
FALL OF THE HUGE BODY OF THE HUNTER.
Argument:--The aerial body of the Hunter, and its downfall from
the high heaven.
The sage resumed and said:--I have thus related these future events,
as if they were past accounts unto thee; do now, O huntsman what thou
wishest and thinkest best for thyself.
2. Agni the god of fire said:--Hearing these words of the sage, the
huntsman remained aghast in wonder for a while; and then rising with
the sage, went to bathe themselves to the nearest pool.
3. In this manner they continued together, to conduct their religious
austerities and discussions at the same spot; and remained in terms of
disinterested friendship with one another.
4. After some time the muni met with his final extinction--_nirvána_,
and by casting off his mortal body, obtained his last repose in the
state of transcendent tranquility.
5. In course of time and the lapse of ages, it pleased the god Brahma
to give him a call, in order to confer upon him the object of his
desire.
6. The huntsman being unable to resist the impulse of his longing,
begged to obtain the very same boon of his god which the sage had
predicted to him.
7. Be it so, said the god, and he repaired to his favourite abode;
and the huntsman flew aloft into the open air, in order to enjoy the
fruition of his austere devotion.
8. He flew with incredible velocity, to the extensive vacuous space,
which lies beyond the spheres of worlds; and it was in course of an
incalculable duration, that the ever expanding bulk of his body, filled
the regions of the upper sky, as a mountainous range is stretched along
and across this lower world.
9. He fled with the force and swiftness of the great Garuda (the eagle
of Jove), up and down and to all sides of heaven: until the huge bulk
of his body, occupied the whole area of the open air, in the process of
an indefinite period of time.
10. Thus increasing in his size with the course of time, and infatuated
in the maze of his delusion, began to grow uneasy in himself.
11. From the great anxiety of his mind, he suppressed the respiration
of his breath; until he breathed out his last breath of life in the
air, and his body dropped down as a carcass in the nether earth.
12. His mind accompanied with his vital breath, fled through the air
into the body of Sindhu, who became the ruler of the whole earth, and
the great antagonist of Vidúratha.
13. His great body resembling a hundred mountainous ranges, became a
huge mass of carcass; which fell down with the hideous clattering of
thunders, as one earth falling upon another.
14. At a certain time, it shines as a _Kesandraka_, at others it
appears as a covering of the huge range of buildings in sky.
15. I have already related to thee, O learned sir, how this huge
carcass had fallen from above, and filled the surface of the globe of
this earth.
16. The globe of the earth, where upon this huge carcass had fallen,
resembled in every way this earth of ours, which appears unto us as a
city in our dream.
17. The dry and big bellied goddess _chandí_, then devoured this
carcass, filling her bowels with its flesh, and stuffing her entrails
with its red hot blood.
18. The earth is called _mediní_ or fleshy from the flesh of this
corpse, which overspreads its surface with its prodigious bulky frame.
19. It was this huge fleshy body, which was reduced to the substance of
the earth in time; and had the name of the earth given to it from the
dust of this body.
20. This fleshy earth gave rise to forests and habitable parts; and the
fossil bones rose high in the forms of mountains from underneath the
ground, which grew everything useful to men.
CHAPTER CLVIX.
WANDERING OF VIPASCHIT.
Argument:--The god of fire, after directing Vipaschit to wander
over the world according to his desire, disappeared from his
sight.
The god of fire added:--Go now O sapient Vipaschit, to your wished for
abodes, and with the steadiness of your mind, conduct with propriety
every where on earth.
2. Indra the lord of the assemblage of creatures, has been performing
his hundred fold sacrifices in his celestial abode; and there I am
invited to attend by an invocation of him.
3. Bhása said:--Saying so, the lord Agni disappeared from that place;
and passed through the transparent ether like the electric fire of
lightning.
4. I was then led by my predestination to roam about in the air; and
direct my mind into the investigation of my allotted acts, and the
termination of my ignorance.
5. I beheld again an innumerable host of heavenly bodies, roving about
in the air; holding their positions at different stations of the
firmament, and containing inhabitants of different natures and customs.
6. Some of these were of one and same form, resembling floating
umbrellas in the sky; and attracting the hearts of men, by their
shining appearance and slow motion. (The great velocity of heavenly
bodies, appear to be slow when they are seen by the naked eyes of men
from this distant earth).
7. Some of them are of earthy substance, but shining and moving onward
like mountains in motion.
8. Some were of woody appearance, and others of stony substance;
but they are all lightsome bodies, and all moving onward in their
uninterrupted course.
9. I beheld also some figures like carved statues of stone, standing
in the open space of my mind, and talking together all their live-long
days.
10. In this manner I beheld for a long while, many such figures like
images in my dream, and was quite bewildered in my utter ignorance of
them.
11. I then intended to perform my austere devotion, in order to obtain
my liberation; when the god Indra appeared unto me and said: “no
Vipaschit, you are doomed to become a stag again, and not entitled to
your liberation now.”
12. You are propelled by your previous predilection to prefer the
pleasures of heaven; therefore I must direct you to dwell in my
paradise, and wander there amidst my gardens of _mandara_ trees.
13. Being thus bid by him, I rejoined and said to him: I am weary, O
lord, with the troubles of the world, and want to get my release from
them; ordain therefore my immediate emancipation from them.
14. The god listened to my prayer and said: emancipation attends on
the pure soul, which is purged from all its desires; and this had been
already expounded to you by the god of fire (in his narrative of the
sage and hunter); ask therefore some other boon, said he, and I begged
him to tell me of my next and future state.
15. Indra replied and said:--I find you to be fated to be changed to
the state of a deer hereafter, from the fond desire of your heart, to
wander about and feed freely in the fields.
16. By becoming a deer, you will have to enter the holy assembly (of
Dasaratha); where another deer like you, has obtained his liberation
before, by listening to the spiritual instructions formerly delivered
there by me.
17. Therefore be born as a deer in some forest on earth with your
pensive soul; and you will then come to recollect your past life from
its relation by Vasishtha (in the court of king Dasaratha).
18. You will learn there, that all this existence is but the delusion
of a dream, and the creation of imagination; and the account of your
future life depicted in its true colour.
19. After being released from the body of the deer, you shall regain
your human form, and perceive the rays of holy light shining in your
inward spirit.
20. This light will then dispel the long prevailing gloom of ignorance
from your mind, and then you shall attain your _nirvána_ supineness, as
the calm and breathless wind.
21. After the god had said so, I had the presentiment of being a deer
in this forest, and entirely forgot my human nature, under my firm
conviction of having become a beast.
22. I have been ever since residing in the recess of these woods, under
the impression of my being changed to a stag; and feeding ever since
upon the grass and herbs growing on the mountain top.
23. Here I saw once a body of troopers coming to a hunting excursion;
and being then affrighted at the sight, I betook myself to flight.
24. They then laid hold of me, and took me to their place; where they
kept me for some days for their pleasure, and at last brought me hither
before Ráma.
25. I have thus related to you all the incidents of my life; and the
magical scenes of the world, too full of marvelous events.
26. It is the production of our ignorance, which pervades over all
things, and branches out into innumerable forms in everything that
presents itself to our view; and there is nothing whatever to dispel
this darkness, except by the light of spiritual knowledge.
27. Válmíki relates:--Then as Vipaschit had held his silence after
speaking in this manner; he was accosted by the well minded Ráma with
the following words.
28. Ráma said:--Tell me sir, how a person without any desire of his
own, sees the object of another’s desire in himself; and could the deer
thought of by yourself, come to the sight of others in Indra’s Paradise?
29. Vipaschit replied:--Let me tell you that the earth where upon the
huge carcass had fallen, was once before trodden upon by Indra, with
the pride of his performance of a hundred sacrifices.
30. There strutting along in his haughty strides, he met the anchorite
Durvásas sitting still in his meditative mood; and believing him to be
a dead body lying on his way, he knocked it down with his feet.
31. At this the angry anchorite threatened the proud god with
saying:--O Indra! as you have dashed me with your feet by thinking me a
lifeless corpse, so will a huge carcass shortly fall upon this ground
and slash it to pieces and reduce it to dust.
32. And as you have spurned me as a dead body, so art thou accursed to
be crushed under the falling carcass on earth.
33. He transformed into a deer, as he was king of kings before, and
remained in his appearance according to his ideas.
34. In truth neither is the actual world a reality, nor the imaginary
one an unreality; it is in fact the one and same thing, whether we
conceive it as the one or other (_i.e._ either as the real or unreal).
35. Listen now, O Ráma, to another reason, which appertains to this
subject, and clearly settles the point in question. (That God being
Almighty and all in all, it makes no difference whatever, whether the
world is viewed as his creation or as a pantheon).
36. He in whom all things reside, and from whom everything proceeds;
who is all in all; and who is every where in all must be the One that
you may call all, and beside whom there <is> none at all.
37. It is equally possible to him, to bring forth whatever he wills to
produce; as also not to produce, whatever he does not wish to bring to
existence.
38. Whatever is desired in earnest by any body, must eventually come
to pass to him in reality (as the desired doership of Vipaschit); and
this is as true as the instance of light, being ever accompanied by its
shade.
39. If it is impossible for the desire and its act, which are opposite
in their nature, to meet together in fact; then it would be impossible
for the omnifarious God to be all things both in being and not being;
therefore the objects of our desire and thought, are equally present
with us as the real ones.
40. There is a reality (or entity of God) attached to every form of
existence, and there is nothing which of itself is either an entity or
nullity also.
41. O the great magic or illusion, which is overspread every where, and
pervades over all nature in every form and at all times; and binds all
beings in inextricable delusion.
42. The nature of the great God comprises the community of spirits
in his spirit, and combines in itself all laws whether permissive or
prohibitive acting in concert and eternal harmony.
43. It is his infinite power that has displayed the ignorance or
Illusion, which spreads over all the three worlds from time with or
without its beginning; and it is our delusion only, which depicts all
things in their various forms to our view.
44. Or how could the creation that was once destroyed by the great
deluge, come to resuscitate again; unless it were a _réchauffé_ of the
reminiscence of the past one, else the elementary bodies of air, fire
and earth, could not possibly be produced from nothing.
45. Therefore the world is no other than a manifestation of the divine
nature; and this is the verdict of the sástras, and the conviction of
mankind from the very beginning of creation.
46. Things which admit of no sufficient proof for their material
existence, are easily proved to exist, by their being considered under
the light of the understanding.
47. Things of a subtile nature, which are imperceptible by the senses,
are known in their essence by the understanding of the learned; hence
the essence of Brahma is pure understanding, of which we are quite
ignorant owing to our ignorance of the Intellect.
48. The world is obvious to us from its figure, as the air is evident
by its vibration; hence no body is born or dies herein, (save that it
appears to or disappears from our sight).
49. That I am living and the other is dead, are conceptions of our
mind; hence death being but the total disappearance of the visible
world from our view, it must be as pleasing to us as our sound sleep
itself.
50. If it be the recognition of the visibles, which is called the life
or revivification of man; then there are no such things in the world,
as are commonly termed the life and death of beings.
51. At a time, the intellect appears a duality, and at other an unity,
both are nothing but intellect.
52. It is the Intellection of the Divine Intellect, that infuses its
intelligence into all minds; hence what is life without the intellect
and the faculty of intellection.
53. The intellect being free from pain, there is no cause of complaint
in any intellectual being; since the word world and all that it means
to express, are but manifestations of vacuous intellect.
54. It is wrong to say, that the intellect is one thing and the
body another; since the unity is the soul of all and pervades all
multiformity; and as the waves and whirlpools are seen in the waters,
so are all these bodies known to abide in the Supreme being.
55. The universal pervasion of divine essence, as that of the subtile
air, is the cause of causes and the sole cause of all; hence the world
is a subtile substance also, being but a reflexion of the Divine
Intellect.
56. It is wonderful, how this subtile world appears as a solid body to
us; it is only our conception of it as such that makes it appear so
unto us; but conception is no substance at all, therefore the world has
no substantiality in it.
57. It is the demon of error that reigns over us in its aerial form,
deludes us to take the shadowy world for the substance; while in fact
this creation of error is as nil and void, as the vacuous creation of
the intellect. (_i.e._ The sensible world is as void and null as the
ideal one).
58. Hence this nether world below and the etherial worlds above, are as
void as the hyperphysical world of the Divine Intellect; and all these
being but reflexions of the Divine mind, are exhibited in various ways.
59. The Intellect being a subtile entity, there is nothing as a solid
substance anywhere; the phenomenals are all unsubstantial rarities,
though they appear to us solidified realities.
60. The knowledge of the true verity and that of the unreality, are so
blended together; that we must remain in mute silence like a block of
wood or stone, to pronounce anything in the affirmative or negative
about either.
61. The visible whole is the infinite Brahma, and this universe
displays the majesty of the great God; and all these bodies are the
various forms, exhibiting the infinite attributes of the deity.
62. In this manner, is the substance of the Divine Intellect displayed
in itself; and it is the vacuous spirit of God, that manifests this
unsubstantial world in its own vacuity.
63. The number of living beings, since the beginning of creation, is
unlimited in every place; and of these there are many, that exist
either in their corporeal or incorporeal forms.
64. There are other siddha and spiritual beings, abiding with their
subtile natures and tenuous forms in the supreme Being; they live in
groups in all elements, but never come to see one another of their own
kind.
65. The exuberance of the visible world, being purely of aerial and
vacuous form; they are never seen in their true and intellectual light,
except when they appear to us in their aerial shapes in our dreams.
66. The world being well known, remains as it does in our inward
conception of it, in the form of a hazy mist appearing to our sight at
the end of night (_i.e._ dark and obscure).
67. It is a dark and indistinct maze, with nothing distinguishable in
it when seen from a distance; it becomes clearer at a nearer view, and
by keeping yourself afar you lose sight of it altogether.
68. As the particles of water fly off, and fall again into the sea; so
do the atoms of intellect in all living beings, continually rise and
subside, in the vast ocean of the Divine Mind. (So doth every thing
proceed from and recede into the Divine Spirit).
69. This grandeur of creation is as the crowding throng of our dreams,
which ere before lay slumbering; in the hollow space of the Divine
Mind, therefore know these effusions of the divine Intellect, as calm
and quiet as the unruffled spirit of God (that ever reposes in its calm
felicity).
70. I have seen the infinite glories of creation, and have felt the
various results of my deeds to no end; I have wandered in all quarters
of the globe for ages; but I found no rest from the toils and troubles
of the delusive world, except in the knowledge of my vanities of the
world.
CHAPTER CLX.
DESCRIPTION OF HEAVEN AND HELL.
Argument:--The Breaking and Rejoining of the Court and the
dissolution of the Ignorance of Bhása and his Liberation in Life.
Válmíki related:--As Vipaschit was going on saying these things, the
sun wishing to put an end to his speech, proceed with his rapid strides
to enlighten another world.
2. Loud trumpets gave the alarum of the departing day, and filled the
air on all sides with their swelling sound: and all the quarters of
heaven seemed to re-echo in their joy, the fanfare of victory.
3. The king Dasaratha gave Vipaschit, many gifts in money, maidservants
and houses; and bestowed on him many rich and royal presents worthy of
kings, and then rose from his seat.
4. The king, Ráma and Vasishtha, having taken leave of the assembly,
and saluted one another in their proper order, retired to their
respective abodes.
5. Then having bathed and refreshed themselves, they passed the night
in ease and repose; then resorted to the assembly in the morning, and
were seated in their respective seats.
6. The sage Vasishtha then resumed the subject of the last discourse;
and spoke his sweet words with such complacence of his countenance, as
if the comely moon was shedding her ambrosial beams, from her bright
and cooling face.
7. Let me tell you, O king, that Vipaschit has not been able with all
his endeavours, to ascertain the true nature of Ignorance; nor is it an
error of the mind which makes the unreal appear as real.
8. The nature of Ignorance as long as it is unknown, appears to be
eternal and endless; but being understood, it proves to be as null and
nothing, as the limpid water in a mirage.
9. You have already heard, O wise monarch, the narration of Bhása the
minister of Vipaschit; and shall now hear of his liberation in his
living state.
10. It is likely that he will come to be acquainted with truth from
some other source or discourse, and then he will be liberated in his
life time; by being freed from his ignorance.
11. And because this ignorance or Avidyá, is ever accompanied with
Intellect of the Lord himself, it is for this very reason, that the
unreality is erroneous by taken for the reality itself.
12. If this ignorance--_avidyá_--nescience, be an attribute of
God, then it is no other than the very God; and the unknown or the
mysterious nature, is not otherwise than the inscrutable nature of God.
13. This ignorance is infinity (in the infinity of created things), and
is productive of endless shoots like the sprouts of spring, some of
which are insipid and others sapid, some are luscious, while others are
mellow and inebriating.
14. Some growing as thorny plants, all hollow within and hollow
without, while others are straight and herbaceous as the succulent
reeds or sugar cane.
15. Some of them are unfruitful and unprofitable, and others are
attractive of the heart by their untimely blossoming, which is
predicative of evil only and no desirable good. (Early blossoms are
ominous).
16. Avidyá or Nescience has no form nor shape, save that of its
shapeless bulk, which fills all worlds; it is a long and broad mass of
darkness, and infested by demons and devils (that take in the dark and
at night).
17. Like false light and phantasms in the open air, and like the linked
and twisted motes of light curling about in the sky; do all these
visibles appear to our view in the clear firmament, and are in reality
but fallacies of our vision.
18. The variegated views which are stretched all about the empty air,
without any connecting chain or link between them; are as the many
coloured rainbows of heaven, which are described by the falling rains
and melt into the empty air.
19. The world resembles a rainy river, with all its orbs appearing
as the countless waves of water, with the dirty and foaming froths
floating over it; and the fearful eddies and whirlpools, resembling the
revolving planetary bodies.
20. The world is a vast and dreary desert, ever exhibiting the waters
of mirage on its surface; while in reality but a body of dust, and
filled with the ashes of dead bodies.
21. As a man wandering in the fairyland of his dream, finds no terminus
of his journey; so have I been roving forever in the land of my waking
dream, without finding any end to my travelling.
22. The web of desires that I have been fondly weaving so long, proved
at last to be fragile and frail; hence men of firm minds learn betimes,
to abandon their desires for the whole range of visible objects.
23. All those objects (ideas) that are contained in the empty space of
the Intellect, are as precious germs safely stored in the casket of
the mind; and appear by our misconception of them, as visible objects
placed in the open space of air.
24. Those worlds are as the celestial cities of the siddhas, which
are situated in the air and are quite invisible to us; but these that
appear to our view, are non-entities, and mere phantoms of our fancy.
25. The heavenly abodes of the siddhas or godly souls, are feigned as
teeming in gold, precious gems and rubies, with rivers yielding pearls
and fields of diamonds; they abound with victuals and eatables, and
rivers running with limpid and drinkable waters.
26. They are said to abound in honey and wines, in milk and curds, in
butter and clarified butter also; there are streams of sweet beverage,
and celestial nymphs in groups.
27. There fruits and flowers grow in the gardens at all seasons, and
heavenly damsels sport in the bowers at all times; and all sorts of
gains and enjoyments, readily attends on the immediate desire of every
body.
28. There a hundred suns are shining, on one side, and a thousand moons
on another; and some inhabitants are dressed in gold and purple, while
others are quaffing their fill of ambrosial draughts.
29. There is a spontaneous darkness in one place, and full sunshine
in another, and an everlasting joy in some place; and the siddhas or
perfected spirits are continually wafted as by a breeze, from one of
these to another, with their light and ponderous bodies.
30. Some meet with their birth and death at each moment, while there
are others that live to enjoy their everlasting joys of heaven.
31. There are magnificent palaces and great dignities of all sorts; it
is fraught with the delights of all seasons, and filled with whatever
is desirable to mind, and delectable to the spirit.
32. But these desirable blessings, attending upon the pious deeds of
virtuous; find no place in the quiet minds of the righteous (which
fixed divine felicity alone).
33. There is nothing that is desirable to the soul, which is devoted to
the contemplation of Brahma only; say therefore, O ye unholy, of what
good are all these blessings, if they do not lead to divine felicity.
34. If in the beginning there was no creation at all, owing to its want
of a creator; say then what is this world, of what it is composed, and
how came it to existence.
35. If the world is not the act of causality and nothing in reality,
then how does <it> appear to be existent? It is the everlasting will of
God, that manifests itself in the manner in the Divine Mind; just as we
see the display of our rising thought and wishes in our mind.
36. It is even so, O ye simpletons, that you or I or he, come to see
our imaginary castles in the air; by the stretch of our imagination, or
the liveliness or flight of our fancy.
37. He who has the single object of divine felicity, for his sole
pursuit in life; comes to attain the same supreme bliss, after he
forsakes his mortal body.
38. But whoso pursues after the two fold objects of heaven and heavenly
bliss, by means of his religious rites and sacrifices in this life;
acquires both of them afterwards, as the unity of purpose secures one
only to one.
39. The siddhas reign in the said manner, according to the thoughts in
their minds; while the unholy are doomed to the torments of hell, owing
to the sinful thoughts of their minds.
40. Whatever one thinks upon, he feels the same in himself, as long as
he possesses his mortal body; and after he loses his material body, he
feels it in his mind, which is but a part of the body.
41. When a living person quits one body for another, he carries with
him the same mind into the other that he had in the prior one, and sees
the same things in its thoughts, which he was accustomed to look upon
before.
42. A good conscience has all goodly prospects before it, as a vitiated
soul meets with ghastly aspects on all sides; the airy mind sees only
such aerial shapes in its vacuity.
43. Pure souls only come to enjoy the sights of these siddha cities in
the air, but impure spirits are subjected to suffer their torments in
hell.
44. There is a continual rotation of the unwieldy stones of grinding
mills, for crushing the vicious souls; and the hurling of wicked into
blind wells or dark pits, out of which they can rise no more.
45. There some bodies are cast amidst the frozen snows, where they are
petrified to stones; and many are thrown into the burning coals of
devils, or led amidst the burning sands of trackless deserts.
46. The clouds dropped down living fire, and the skies poured forth
fiery showers; and red-hot bolts and arrows darted down from heaven.
47. Stones and disks and swords, were floating on the running stream of
the sky; and falling like fragments of clouds upon the breasts of the
accurst, and breaking them as with the strokes of felling axes.
48. The hot iron sleets and brimstones, falling with a hissing sound;
and weapons were hurled from engines, with a loud tremendous noise.
49. Missiles and bolts and discs, together with pikes and clubs, and
swords and shafts were falling in showers; and traps and tackles and
malls and mallets were striking in hundred.
50. There the hot and burning sands, buried the passengers under the
ground; and there burning meteors were falling like torches; while
large ravens were devouring the dead bodies around.
51. Blazing piles also ingulfed the dead, from which they could never
get out; while darts and spears and bolts and arrows, were piercing the
other bodies all about.
52. Hunger and dismay and excruciating pains, tormented by turns, the
bodies of dead apostates; while others were hurled down from high hills
and heights, on rough and hard stones below.
53. Some were weltering in blood, and rolling in pools of dirt, rotten
flesh and disgusting pus; and others were crushed under stones and
weapons, and beneath the feet of horses and elephants.
54. Hungry vultures and owls, were picking up and tearing the dead
bodies, out of caves and places; and their limbs and members, were
mangled and scattered all over the ground.
55. It is thus that men are prepossessed, with these thoughts of the
punishment of their guilt, from the sacred writings; and thereby come
to suffer the same, both in their bodies and minds, from their inward
impressions of them.
56. Whatever form or figure, ever appears in the vacuum of the
Intellect; or whatsoever is dreamt or thought of at anytime; the same
holds fast the imagination, and presents itself before the mirror of
the mind of its own accord.
CHAPTER CLXI.
EXPLANATION OF NIRVÁNA.
Argument:--Manifestations of the self-existent Intellect. Its
light guiding to Divine knowledge, and ignorance thereof leading
to darkness.
Ráma said:--Tell me sir, whether these various events incidental to the
lives of the hermit and hunter, were owing to any cause, or of their
own spontaneity (_i.e._ whether they were the effects of any cause, or
of their spontaneous occurrence as mere dreams and phantasies).
2. Vasishtha replied:--These occurrences are as the appearance of
eddies, in the vast ocean of the unknown soul (or mind); and are known
to be in their continual rotation in the vortex of the soul, of their
own accord and in their airy forms.
3. As the oscillating particles of air, are ever in motion in the
air; so the current of thoughts is continually in action, in the vast
vacuity of intellect (or mind).
4. Whatever issues from its source in any shape, retains its original
form unless it is converted to and restrained in any other form; so
the aerial thoughts of the vacuous mind are always aerial, unless they
are drawn in painting or exhibited in another form. (Just so a clod of
earth is always the earth, till it is moulded to the form of a pot or
any other thing).
5. It is the vacuous essence of the Divine Intellect, that inheres
in every form that is exhibited by and derived from it; so it is the
substance of the body, that permits through out all its members and
limbs; as it is the woody substance of the tree, that is diffused
through all the leaves and branches, that shoot forth from it. (Gloss.
The difference consists in the permanence of the permeating principle,
and the temporiety of the pervaded growth).
6. Brahma appears to remain permanent in some existences, as in the
four elemental forms of earth etc.; while he seems to be transcient and
evanescent in others, as in the frail bodies of mortal bodies, all of
which abide in their aerial state in the vacuous spirit.
7. All these various objects therefore, being but reflections of the
Intellect impressed upon the soul; it is impossible for us to determine
which of these is substantial or unsubstantial or real or unreal.
8. All these are altogether unknowable except that we know them as
reflexions in the inanity of the Intellect; say ye therefore that are
wholly ignorant of all what you think this visible world to be, whether
a reality or unreality.
9. Whatever you behold anywhere in the universe, is but an exhibition
in the vacuum of the Divine Intellect; and what avails it to you that
know the truth, whether you believe it as such or not. Rely therefore
in your belief of it as it is.
10. These forms of reflexions rise of themselves in the Divine Mind,
as the waves and billows exhibit themselves on the surface of the
sea; they are the spontaneous offspring of the Divine Spirit, and are
of themselves both their causes as well as effects (or self caused
effects).
11. It is the display of the transcendent vacuum of the Divine Mind,
that passed under the appellations of its will or volition, or its
imagination and creation, or the creation of its imagination; hence
this world is to be understood under any one of these senses, and not
of its being composed of earth and water.
12. It is this appearance of the Divine Mind, that appears in this
manner and nothing besides; it is the Divine itself that resides in the
Divinity, and passes under the title of Avidyá or Ignorance, from our
ignorance of its nature.
13. There is no material grossness in the integrity of the Divine
Intellect; which is purely vacuous and immaterial; and composes the
whole universe, this is transcendental knowledge, and its perfection is
liberation.
14. It is the reflexion of the vacuous Intellect, which spreads over
the whole universe; it is rare and uncompressed, and ever calm and
quiet, and passes by the name of the world.
15. The meditative man whose eye-sight is fixed in his musing, whose
body is emaciated in devotion, and whose mind is abstracted from the
concrete, and is absorbed in intellection, is only capable of seeing
the Intellectual world.
16. Whatever the vacuous essence of the intellect, exhibits in any form
at any place; the same appears to be present there of its own nature.
17. The unthinking man and unreasonable soul, sees only erroneous
sights in the midst of skies; as one who is dim-sighted and purblind by
birth, does not cease from seeing the double moon in the sky.
18. Whatever is seen anywhere, is no other than the unpolluted Brahma
himself; and the vacuous sphere of the Intellect being for ever clear
and transparent, is never sullied by any foulness (of gross matter).
19. The intellect without forsaking its pure form of
self-consciousness, exhibits varieties of gross objects in the form of
dreams within itself. So also is our consciousness of the world, in the
manner of our dreams.
20. By comparing the dicta of the sástras with one another, and
weighing them well with acute judgement, one will find his rest in
himself; but the man of shallow understanding will not find it so.
21. The ignorance which floats upon the sea of your understanding, does
not contaminate my mind, in the manner of dirt polluting a pure and
clear stream.
22. As there is neither the earth nor any earthly thing, to be met with
in our sleep, though we are conscious of them in our dream; so also the
phenomenal world has no real existence, though we are conscious of it
in our waking.
23. As the clearness of the Intellect, like sunlight or flaming fire,
shows us many things in our sleeping dreams, so doth its light exhibit
the visibles to our view in our waking dreams also by day.
24. There is no difference between the two states of dreaming and
waking, they are both of the same nature, and the difference lies in
the modes of our apprehension of them.
25. The waking man never apprehends his waking state to be a dream; but
the dead man that rises again to life in the next world, thinks his
past life to have been but a state of dreaming.
26. The shortness and length of time, occupied by the two states
of dreaming and waking, is generally considered to constitute the
difference between them; but during the time of their presence, they
are both considered alike the other (_i.e._ the dreaming man thinks
himself as waking).
27. The sleeping and waking dreams, bearing alike the same quality of
presenting false objects to view, are necessarily of the same nature;
and there is no difference whatever in their outward features, as there
is neither elder and younger of two twin brothers. (Dreaming and waking
are twin brothers, like sleep and death neither of which is more or
less).
28. Whatever is the waking dream, just so is the waking in dream also;
neither of which leaves anything--being, behind the two states of
waking and dreaming. (They present many things when present, but leave
nothing lasting in their absence or when they are past and gone).
29. As we know the inconstancy of hundreds of dreams, all along the
length of our life time; so the unredeemed and unenlightened soul, sees
hundreds of waking states (in its repeated transmigrations in life,
_i.e._ in this living world).
30. As the living mortals may well recollect the very many sleeping
dreams, they have seen throughout their lives; so the immortalized
souls of siddhas well remember, the number of waking dreams which they
had seen, in their past transmigrations in different bodies.
31. Thus our waking is equipollent with our dreaming, and our dreams
are equivalent with waking, in their correlation with one another in
like quality, and our perception of both alike.
32. As the word worlds and phenomenal, are significant of the one and
same meaning; so the terms dreaming and waking are homonymous, and
interchangeable to one another--_mutatis mutandis_.
33. As the fairy-land in a dream, is as clear as the open space of the
Intellect; so is this world an inane void and blank, and without the
grossness of _avidyá_ which ignorance imputes to it. (Ignorance views
the fair ideal world as a foul material one).
34. The world is a vacuous substance, and represented as a gross stuff
by ignorance; so I am as free as air and any airy thing in the world,
and it is my imagination only, that binds me to my grossness.
35. Therefore do not confine your free and unconfined nature, in
the bondage of gross matter; and never change the pure vacuum of
your person to a material stuff, nor disfigure your formless and
intellectual self in a gross and finite form.
36. There can be no bondage nor liberation, of aught whatever in this
visible world of our ignorance or _avidyá_; because all things herein
are mere reflexions of the formless void of the Divine Intellect.
37. Here there is no display of ignorance, nor any misconceptions of
ours of any thing; there is neither any bondage nor release of aught
whatever, and nothing that is either existent or inexistent (since all
are but reflexions of Divine Intellect).
38. There is nescience, nor knowing of anything here by us; because it
is the uncreated Intellect alone, that manifests itself in this manner;
it reflects all forms in itself, as if they are all its dreams or
creations.
39. As a man passing from one place to another, has his mind kept in
abeyance in the interim; so should we keep our minds quiet and still
betwixt our sight of the visibles and our dreams. (In action of the
mind is reckoned as _nirvána_).
40. As one has his body and mind, quite quiet and calm in his sleep at
night; and in the respite of his sights and thoughts, in the states of
his waking and dreaming; this very state of insensibility is called
_nirvána_ of the yogi.
41. Know our knowledge of the difference of objects (as the one is
immaterial and the other material), is equally untrue as that of
our waking and dreaming states; because it is impossible for us to
conceive any other thing as matter, to consist in the immaterial
Intellect.
42. Our knowledge of identity and diversity, proceed however from the
same vacuous intellect; which combines the unity and duality also, in
unbroken union or harmony in itself.
43. Knowing all as parts of undivided whole, all these are the same
whatever they appear to be; hence the visible however diversified they
may appear, are all one and the same principle.
44. Hence the etherial sphere of Brahma, contains all in itself; and
who as an aerial point concentrates all in it; and the creation is the
unity of Brahma, together with all its varieties.
45. Knowing all things as full of God, you must however reject them all
(as mere reflexions of the Deity); and rest yourself at last in the
vacuous Intellect, as the great rock of your refuge.
46. Now, O fortunate Ráma, remain to act in conformity with the rules
of your order, and laws of society and the statues of your position
and dignity; continue to go on, eat and drink and rest in your usual
course, rely in your desired object, and ever recline in the glorious
and holy lord of your intellect, and the supreme God of all.
CHAPTER CLXII.
ANNIHILATION OF IGNORANCE.
Argument:--Here Duality is reduced to the unity of Brahma; and
good counsels given for subversion of ignorance.
Vasishtha continued:--All objects being convertible to the conceptions
of the vacuous intellect, the whole universe is supposed to have its
seat in the hollow mind; and therefore both the outward sights of
things, as also the inward thoughts of their forms, are all but ideal
images in the empty mind.
2. The world being but a dream, and of the form of an ideal city in the
mind, has nothing substantial in it; and is therefore a quiet vacuity
in itself, without having anything of any kind, or any diversity
whatsoever contained therein.
3. It is the uniform display of the Intellect, appearing as multiform
unto us; and this variety though unsubjective to the soul, is looked
upon by it within itself, as we view the fairy-land of our dream,
rising from ourselves. (Query:--whether our dreams are subjective or
objective to us?)
4. In the beginning this world appeared, as the aerial castle of a
dream in the vacuum of the Intellect; it was a mere reflexion of the
Divine Mind, and though it was of the form of a false shadow, remained
as substantive to the supreme spirit.
5. The knowing theosophist well knows this mystery, which is mysterious
to the unknowing ignorant; because the word creation bears the sense of
both the reality as well as unreality in it.
6. The knowing spiritualist as well as the unknowing agnostic, both
acknowledge the reality of creation; but they can neither understand
how it exists, nor communicate to one another their right conception of
it.
7. They both know the meaning, of the word creation in their minds; the
one having the sense of its sedateness ever wakeful in their minds
(from their spiritual view of it); and the other having the sense
of its unsteadiness always waking in them (from their sight of the
changeful scenes of the outer world); so they resemble the sober and
drunken men, that view the world in its steady and shaking states.
8. As the liquid waters in a river, rise incessantly in restless waves;
so the rolling worlds, push forward into being, in the vast expanse of
the Divine Mind.
9. These creations which are not of the nature of the intellect, have
yet their sites in the Intellect, like the thoughts that rise and fall
in it; and these though they are invisible in their nature, appear as
visible things, like the fair objects and fairy cities in our dream.
10. It is spreading shadow of the divine Intellect, which pass under
the name of the world; and this formless in itself, appears as having a
form, like the shadow of anything else.
11. It is a gross error, to take the unsubstantial shadow for a
substantial body; as it is a gross error to suppose the empty shadow of
a ghost as an embodied being.
12. The world is as unreal as an imaginary city, and as false as a
string of rain drops; why then do you rely in an unreality, which is
palpable from the testimonies of both the ignorant and knowing men.
13. The words then that are used to express this thing and that, are
mere empty sounds, as those emitted by a splitting block of wood or a
bamboo; or those heard in the dashing of waves or blowing of winds; it
is the current air which conveys the empty sound into the open vacuum
of the sky, but they are all unreal and meaningless, and bear but a
conventional sense, with which it has no connection whatsoever.
14. It is light of the lord that reflects itself in his creation, and
the reflexion of his _fiat_ that reverberates through the whole; while
in reality there is neither any sound nor substance, that is to be
heard or seen in the universe (except the voice and the sight of the
Lord).
15. Whatever shines or exists herein, is the transcendent reality
of the Lord; otherwise there is nothing that could appear at first
without its cause (all being but parts of the one undivided whole--to
_pan_).
16. Therefore from (thy knowledge of) the distinctions of words and
things; know the one as all in all, and remain as quiet and calm as the
indefinite and infinite void itself.
17. Forsake the fickleness of thy mind, by means of the calm repose of
thy soul; the purity of thy understanding, and by an even tenor of thy
disposition; because an inconstant soul is troublesome in life.
18. It is one’s self that is a friend or enemy to himself, and if one
will not try to guard and save himself by his own self, there is no
other to do so for him. (He who is no friend to himself, is his own
enemy himself).
19. Get over the ocean of the world while you are young, and make your
good understanding the ferry boat, to bear your body safely to the
other shore.
20. Do what is good for you today, and why defer till tomorrow; you can
do nothing in oldage, when your body becomes a burden to yourself.
21. Know your<self> as oldage (if it is fraught with learning); and
account decrepitude as death itself in your lifetime. Youth is verily
the life of the living, provided it is fraught with learning.
22. Having obtained thy life in this living world, which is as
transient as the fleeting lightning; you must try to derive the essence
from this dirty earth, by availing yourself of the benefit of good
_sástras_ and the company of the wise.
23. Woe to the ignorant! that will not seek their salvation in life;
that are sinking in the pits of mud and mire; and never striving to
lift themselves above them.
24. As the ignorant rustic is afraid at the sight of the earthen images
of ghosts, and bends down to them; which those that are acquainted with
the meaning of the word ghost never do.
25. So those that see God in an idol or in his visible creation, are
misled to think it their god and adore it as such; but those that know
the true meaning of the term, never pay their adoration to any visible
object.
26. As things in motion come to rest afterwards, and the visible
disappear from the sight of the learned, who are acquainted with their
true meaning. (The world recedes, and the light of God opens to their
view).
27. As the sights in a dream, seeming to be true in the state of
dreaming, disperse at last upon waking, and upon the knowledge of their
unreal nature.
28. So doth this world, which is conceived as something existing in the
vacuum of the understanding; melts at last into empty air and nothing,
upon our knowledge of its intellectual nature.
29. This living world is as a wilderness, burning with the
conflagration of various evils attendant on life; and here we are
exposed as weak antelopes, living upon our precarious sustenances; and
here we are governed by our ungovernable minds and restless passions
and senses of our bodies; all these require to be subdued in order to
obtain our liberation from repeated births and deaths.
CHAPTER CLXIII.
MEANS AND MANNER OF GOVERNING THE SENSES AND SENSIBLE ORGANS.
Argument:--Government of the senses and fixedness of the Mind,
and the study of yoga sástra.
Ráma rejoined:--I know sir, all knowledge to be in vain and useless,
without proper government of ourselves and senses; tell me therefore
how these may be kept under control, in order to give us the true
knowledge of things unbiased by the senses.
2. Vasishtha replied:--Addictedness to enjoyments and display of
manhood, and devotedness to the acquisition of the means of life or
wealth; are preventives of self-controul and liberation of one’s self,
as blindness is an obstruction to one’s sight of a light.
3. Then listen to this least advice of mine as the shortest and best
means, for the government of yourself and your senses; and this is sure
to lead one to his successfulness, by his own endeavour and with no
toil or trouble.
4. Know the intellect as the man that mans you, and its power of
intellection which makes you a living man; and whatever the living
soul thinks of within itself, it verily becomes the very same (but the
ignorant man becomes effeminate).
5. Let the strength of your consciousness, ply the pointed goad of
your acute good sense; and you will doubtless subdue your ungovernable
elephantine mind, and come off victorious shortly at last.
6. The mind is the captain of the army of your bodily and mental
senses; subdue therefore this leading mind, and you will conquer the
whole host of your senses. Just so does a man walking on boots, tread
over the thorns lying by his way.
7. [In order therefore to subdue your mind], you must settle your
self-consciousness in your consciousness of the omnipresent vacuum of
the Divine soul, and rest yourself quiet in the recess of your heart;
and then your mind will sit quiet of itself, as the snows of winter
settle down of themselves in autumn.
8. Thus by stopping the action of your consciousness, you will
also shut up your mind, and put a stop to the operation of all its
faculties; as you can never been able to do by means of all your
devotion and austerities, your pilgrimages, your knowledge and
sacrifice, and all other ceremonies and acts and duties.
9. Whatever comes to occur in the consciousness, the same must be
forgot or buried in the consciousness of the great God alone; and so
the forgetfulness of all enjoyments and their objects, amounts to our
victory over them. (The way to overcome the pleasures of life, is to
bury their remembrance in oblivion).
10. We must try by all means, to shut out the objects of sense from
our consciousness; and this state of our unconsciousness of them, is
tantamount to the state of godliness or heavenly bliss.
11. Again the contentment which arises, from our acting in conformity
with the rules of our order, is another cause of preserving the
steadiness of the mind; therefore remain firm in the practice of your
particular duties, and seek no happiness besides.
12. He who relinquishes his inclination, towards the attainment of
what is unlawful for him; and remains content with earning his lawful
gains, is verily said to be a man of subdued appetites, and one who has
governed.
13. He who is pleased with his inward and conscious gratification, and
is not grieved at the unpleasant things all about him, is said to have
well governed and benumbed his mind.
14. By suspension of the action of consciousness, the mind too comes to
forget and forsake its activity, and the sensations also being relaxed
from their restlessness, pursue their discrimination and judgement.
15. The discriminative and judging soul, becomes ennobled and
magnanimous, and keeps its command over the feelings and senses; and
is not impelled by the waves of its desires, to be tossed about on the
surface of the wide ocean of this world.
16. The man of well governed senses comes, by his association with the
wise, and his constant study of religious works, to know all things in
the world in their true light.
17. All worldly errors are dispelled by the light of truth; or else
one must fall into the pit of misery, by his mistake of falsehood for
truth; as the ignorant traveller is ingulfed in the dreary sands, by
his mistake of the mirage for water.
18. Knowing this world as the unknowable intellect itself, that is the
knowledge of the material world as the immaterial mind of God; is the
true light in which the cosmos is viewed by the wise, who have neither
the fear of their falling into the snare of error, nor require their
release from it.
19. As the dried up waters of a river, are seen no more to glide even
slightly in their course; so the formless phenomenals of the world,
never appear in the sight of the wise, nor leave their slightest
vestiges behind in their mind.
20. The knowledge of the world as an infinite void, and freed from the
erroneous individualities of myself and thyself; leads to the knowledge
of a supreme-self, which is apart from all, and the only ego that fills
the whole.
21. All this conception of our subjective egoism and the objective
world, are but errors of our brain proceeding from ignorance; they are
all situated in the void of Intellect, and are void of themselves; and
all bodies are but empty shadows in air, and as quiet as quietus or
nullity itself.
22. This world appears as a shadow of the Intellect, in the vacuity
of the very Intellect; it is a void amidst the void of the Intellect,
which is certainly a void itself.
23. No body can deny its similitude, to the shadowy sight in a dream;
it is an unreal notion, and as unsubstantial as all notions can be, and
as the notion of a void is void itself.
24. This dream is no other than our consciousness of it, and the airy
realms that it presents to our view for the time; so doth the Intellect
show us the sight of the world, without any action or passion or
instrumentality of itself.
25. So I am of the substance of the very Intellect, which is without
its activity, passivity and instrumentality; and the world being
unassignable to any causality or instrumentality, subsists only in our
simple conception of it.
26. As the conception of one’s death in a dream, is no reality at
all; and the sight of water in the mirage, is a visual deception only
(so the sight of the world appearing to view, is no real existence or
entity at all).
27. The vacuous intellect reflects its thoughts at first, in the clear
mirror of its vacuity (or concavity); which is a mere hap-hazard of
chance, and has no firm base or support (nor any form or figure of
itself).
28. The world appears as fixed and firm, without its foundation
anywhere; and seems to be shining brightly, with its darksome opacity;
know then this fixity and this brightness of it, to be the diuturnity
and glory of the eternal and glorious God.
29. The vivacity of living beings, displays the spirit of the ever
living God; the air is his vacuity, and the running waters, show the
vortiginous current of the eternal soul.
30. As every member of the body is constituent part of the whole frame;
so all the various parts of animated and inanimate nature, constitute
the entirety of the one cosmical deity. (These are but parts of one
undivided whole, whose body nature is and God the soul. Pope).
31. As the crystal mirror shows the shade of everything in itself, so
doth the transparency of Divine soul, exhibit the reflexions of all
things in it; the silent soul is as quiet as the mute crystal, but
shows the varying scenes of nature, as interminably as a clear mirror
reflects everything.
32. There is no beginning or end of the supreme being (nor of his acts
and attributes, which are displayed in nature); it is the intermediate
of the two that is dimly seen by us, the rest is all enveloped in
ignorance, though there is no ignorance in the Omniscient.
33. The living soul wakes from its sleeping dream, to fall back to its
waking dream again; and thus it continues for ever in its dreaming
whether waking or sleeping which are both alike to it.
34. The soul finds its rest only, while it remains in the fourth state
of its sound sleep; or else it passes all along from dreaming to
dreaming, in both its state of sleeping and waking, which continually
haunt after it, unless it is drowned in its _susupti_ or sound sleep of
_hynotism_, the only resort of the wise.
35. But waking and sleeping and dreaming and sound sleep, are all alike
to the enlightened soul; which is equally indifferent in all states,
and whether it is asleep or awake, is never infested by dreams nor set
beside itself.
36. The knowledge of unity or duality, and that of Ego _and tu_ or the
subjective and objective; never disturbs the enlightened; who views the
whole as an empty void, and is alike insensible of all as well as null.
37. The distinction of unity and duality, made in the meaningless
speech of the unwise, is laughed at by the enlightened and wise, as the
aged and intelligent men laugh to scorn, at the pranks and prattlings
of young lads.
38. The controversy of unity and duality, is of spontaneous growth in
the heart like an indigenious plant; which without its pruning will not
put forth its blossoms, to perfume the atmosphere of the understanding.
39. The discussion of unity and duality, is as benificial to man as
his best friend; in sweeping away the dirt and dross of ignorance from
their minds, as they drive away the dust from within the doors of their
houses.
40. Then the minds of men are settled in the Divine Mind, when there
ensues a mutual communion between themselves, and a communication and
participation of their reciprocal joys and felicity with one another.
41. These men being always joined together in their fellowship, and
serving one another with the mutual delight and obligingness of
their hearts; attain to that state of the enlightenment of their
understandings, whereby they are admitted into their communion with the
Most High.
42. It is possible for a man to be benefited, even by his careful
preservation of a trifle (at some time or other); but it is never
possible for any body, to attain the most recondite knowledge of God,
without his diligent inquiry into the same.
43. Whatever highest position one may enjoy in this material world, is
to be recognised by all as nothing, provided that one does not remain
aloof from all kind of vices.
44. What is that happiness which is gained by the possession of a
kingdom, which at last is no better than mere botheration of the mind;
while the mind that has gained its peace and tranquility in truth and
Divine knowledge, spurns at the state of gods and kings as mere straws
to him.
45. The sleepy as well as the wakeful, are alike apt to see the
visibles, and are rapt with the sight; but the saints that are calm and
quiet and at rest with themselves, are averse to sight-seeing, and see
the only one in themselves.
46. Without painstaking, and your continued practice of contemplation,
you can not succeed to attain this state of infinite felicity; for know
this state of transcendent bliss, is the fruit of intense devotion only.
47. Thus have I said at length, to impress in you the necessity of
intense devotion; but to what good is all this say the evil-minded to
me, and thus slight and take no heed of all that I have been so long
delivering unto you.
48. It must be by means of steady attention to these lectures, and
by long and repeated practice of devotion; as also by hearing these
sermons and discoursing upon them that the ignorant can come to the
right light of truth.
49. He who having once read this spiritual work, slights it afterwards
as already perused by him; and turns to the study of unspiritual books,
is a vile wretch that collects the burnt ashes after the fire is
extinguished. (Irreligious works are the ashes of the fiery religious
ones).
50. This excellent work is to be read always, like the recital of the
vedas, which are embodied herein; and this is calculated to reward the
labor of the student, by its being constantly read with reverence, and
rightly explained with diligence.
51. The student will learn from this _sástra_ all that he expects to
find in the vedas; because it embodies both the practical as well as
spiritual doctrines of the sacred scriptures, and a knowledge of both
of them, is available by proper perusal of this work.
52. By learning this book, one may have a knowledge of the doctrines
of the vedánta, tarka and siddhánta _sástras_, because this is the
only work, that treats of the tenets of all schools. (Here the word
drishti is homonymous with _darsana_, which is rendered as a school of
philosophy by Colebrooke).
53. It is from my sympathy for you all, that I propound these doctrines
to you; and by way of imposture, that I impose these lessons on your
credulity. You are best judges of my discourse and can well detect,
whether there is anything as deception in my prolusions.
54. The knowledge that you may derive, by weighing well the
instructions given in this great work; will serve you as salt, in order
to season and relish the teachings of other _sástras_, that are at best
but sundry dishes before it.
55. The materialist who is conversant with the visibles, disparages
this book for its occult teachings of spiritualism; but don’t you be
the killer of your souls as to neglect your eternal salvation, in order
to revisit this material world, and to be busied with your temporal
affairs.
56. Biased minds cling to the dogmas of exploded systems, and ignoble
men drink the foul water of tanks, dug by their ancestors; you are
reasoning men yourselves, therefore do not remain for ever fast bound
to your ignorance.
CHAPTER CLXIV.
UNITY OF THE DIVINITY AND THE MUNDANE WORLD.
Argument:--Intromission of the Living soul and all bodies, that
is the subjective and objective into the Divine Essence.
Vasishtha continued:--The atoms of living souls in the world, are as
the particles of rays in the orb of the sun (or as the sparks of fire
in a furnace); and as all these parts taken collectively, make the one
undivided whole; so there is no division of the unity of the Deity,
throughout the whole creation.
2. By attaining the transcendental knowledge of all being the One, and
the One as all; every thing loses its shape and form before us, and
there remains nothing whatever as a distinct being or duality.
3. The true believer or knower of truth, sees the self-same object
in all states and forms of things; and this is the transcendent and
translucent Brahma only, and nothing else whatsoever at any time.
4. He is the same, that is known to the ignorant, as their objects
of sense; but we do not recognize either ourselves or others, or the
sensible objects of the ignorant as such.
5. The belief of the ignorant man in the reality of himself, thyself
and all others, does not affect the knower of truth, as the delusion
of mirage never overtakes the man on Mount Meru: (where the deceptive
sands of the deserts are wanting).
6. As the man intent upon one object, has no consciousness of any
other thing in his mind; so one enrapt at the sight of God alone, is
conscious of nothing besides.
7. There neither is nor was nor shall ever be, any such thing as the
material world at any time; the world in _esse_ is the image of Brahma
himself, and abides in his spirit.
8. The world is the splendour of the chrystalline vacuum of the Divine
Intellect, and subsists in the vacuity of the supreme soul itself;
it is in this light that the universe is seen in the _dhyána yoga_ or
abstruse contemplation of <the> yogi.
9. As there is nothing in an empty dream or in the aerial castle of
imagination except the clear atmosphere of the Intellect; so there is
no essence or substance nor form or figure of this world, that we view
in our present waking state.
10. At first there was no creation of any kind, nor this world which
appears to us (in its material form); it exists in its aerial form
in the Divine Mind from all eternity; and there being no primary or
secondary cause of it, how is it possible to call it a material thing
of its own spontaneous growth.
11. Therefore there is nothing that sprang itself out of nothing at
first, nor was there ever a creator called Brahmá or other by the
ignorant, in the beginning; there is nothing but an infinite void from
eternity to eternity, which is filled by the self-born or increate
spirit, whose intellect exhibits this creation, contained for ever and
ever in its vacuity.
CHAPTER CLXV.
ON THE SIMILARITY OF WAKING AND DREAMING.
Argument:--The steadiness of the Intellect in waking and
Dreaming, which are alike to one another.
Vasishtha continued:--In the state of waking dream the dream passes
under the name of waking; and in the state of dreaming wakefulness,
this waking goes by the name of sleeping.[2]
2. The dream terminates into waking, and the waking man rises from his
dreaming, and falls back into it again; so one awakened from his dream
like waking, falls afterwards to his waking dreams.
3. The dream of the waking dreamer, is to be called a dream also, as
the waking dream of this world; and so the waking (or consciousness) of
the sleeping waker, is to be styled his waking state.
4. Therefore that wakefulness (or consciousness) of one, remains
in his dreaming state, is to be called his waking likewise and not his
dreaming; so also the waking dream (of the existence of the world),
and the imaginations of airy castles while one is waking, is to be
designated his dreaming and never as his waking.
5. Whatever lasts for a short while, as a temporary delusion or flight
of imagination, passes under the name of a dream even in one’s waking
state; and so the short watchfulness of consciousness in the state of
dreaming, is known as dreaming and never as waking.
6. Therefore there is no difference whatever, between the two states
of waking and dreaming, beside the absence of one of these two in
the other (_i.e._ the absence of shortness in waking, and that of
durability in the dream). Again they are both unreal, owing to their
blending with one another (_i.e._ dreaming blended with the view of
the phenomenals in waking; and the wakeful consciousness blending with
dreaming).
7. The waking dream of the world, vanishes under its unconsciousness in
death; and the consciousness of dreaming is lost, under the knowledge
of its being an airy nothing. (The world recedes as heaven opens to
view. Pope).
8. The dying person that does not come to perceive the vanity of the
visionary world at his death-bed can have no sight of the state of his
waking (or resurrection), in the next or future world.
9. Whoever believing himself as alive, among the varying scenes of this
vacuous world, lives content with them; he can never come to the sight
of the visions, which await upon him.
10. As the intellect displays its wonders, in the exhibitions of the
various scenes of worlds, to the sight of one in his dream; so doth
this universe appear before the minds of men, at the time of their
waking.
11. These creations which are so conspicuous to sight, are at best but
nothing in their transcendental light and all the forms of things, are
as the empty shadows of them appearing in our dreams.
12. As the world with all its varieties of visible objects, appear in
its inane and shadowy form in the dream; so it is seen in its vacuous
and intellectual form only, in our waking state (although it seems to
be tangible body).
13. It is the nature of the vacuous Intellect, to show the form of the
world in its own firmament; so doth this earth appear unto us, amidst
the spacious atmosphere, like the orbs of light in the skies.
14. It is the wondrous display of the Intellect, that shines before
us under the name of universe; and these wonders are as inborn and
innumerable in itself, as the watery and earthly particles, are connate
with, and diffused throughout nature.
15. What thing is there in it, which you can mistake for a reality in
this unreal world; that is situated as a vacuous body in the infinite
womb of vacuity.
16. The words recipient, receipt and reception, or the percipient,
perceived and perception (_i.e._ the subject, object and attribute),
are all meaningless with regard to this vacuous world; and whether it
is a reality or unreality, we have no perception of it. (Because the
presence of everything is lost, at the absence of its properties, which
are adscititious only).
17. Whether it is so or not or be it anything otherwise (as others
may have it); yet why should mistake it for anything at all, in
whatever light you take it, it will amount to your mistake of an
empty ball for a fruit (so says the vedánta:--जगद्ब्रह्म स्वरूपत्वात्
प्रागभाब तथा प्रध्रंसाभाब एबं अन्यान्य भाबानाम दुर्निरूप्यत्वात् केबलात्यन्ताभाबोऽस्ति ।).
CHAPTER CLXVI.
ON THE ATTRIBUTES OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT: IN THE FORM OF A DIALOGUE.
Argument:--Definition of supreme soul and its synonyms and its
simile to a blue stone.
Vasishtha continued:--The true sense of the word soul or self, is to
be understood from the title which is applied to it; and this title of
the soul is borne out by the simile, of the solid and transparent blue
stone.
2. It is from the beginning of creation, that the vacuous soul is
thus diffused in itself; and the reflexion which it casts in its own
vacuity, the same passes under the name of this world or creation.
3. There runs no river in it, nor there rises nor sinks any rock in the
same; it is the mere vacuum subsisting in its infinite void, wherein
the intellect reflects itself without any action or bidding or fiat of
it.
4. This reflexion of the Divine Intellect, was without its utterance of
“word” and quite without its “will” or “thought”. It was also without
the appliance of any subsequent material (as matter), and this is the
true sense of the word soul or self.
5. The soul itself is the whole world, which has no other expression
for it; and being devoid of a name, it is expressible by no other name
though they give many names to it.
6. Its name being nameless, whatever appellation they put to it, is not
opposite but inappropriate to it; what is the good therefore of giving
it a name or no name at all.
7. Its namelessness or giving it a misnomer or improper expression, is
all the same; since all what is visible, is no other than a display of
the wondrous fabric of the Divine Mind.
8. Whatever shines in any manner, in the empty space of the Divine mind
at any time; the same shines forth even then and in that manner, as
the rays of that Intellect (emanating therefrom, and concentrating into
all other minds).
9. It is denominated by one as soul, by another as _asat_, and by some
as nothing; all these are the mystery of intellect only, but in fact,
all are the attributes of soul.
10. The word itself conveys the meaning of self--soul. It is without
beginning and end, and no language can express it; in fact, it is an
undivided whole.
11. Now listen to a long narrative which hangs on this subject, and
which will serve to gladden your hearts and ears, by removing the
duality from your sight, and by enlightening your understanding (with
knowledge of the unity).
12. Know that there is a very large crystal stone, extending itself to
thousands of leagues in space; and stretching like the solid cerulean
fabric of the firmament, or as the blue sky all around us.
13. It is all of a piece without any joining of parts in it, and is as
dense and compact as the hard adamant; it is thick, big and bulky in
its size, but at the same time as clear and far as the face of the sky.
14. It continues from countless times, and endures to endless duration;
and with its comely and pellucid body, it appears as the clear
firmament, or the blank vacuum on high.
15. No one ever knows its nature or genus, from his having never seen
anything of the same kind, nor does any body know from when and where,
it hath come to existence. (All know it is, but none knows how and
whence it is).
16. It does not contain anything substantial, as the material elements
within itself; and yet it is as dense and solidified in itself as a
crystalline, and indissoluble as an adamant.
17. Yet it is composed of innumerable streaks and strokes, which are
embodied in itself; and these resemble the veins and fibres on lotus
leaves, and the marks of conches etc. in Hari’s feet.
18. These marks are named as air, water, earth, fire and vacuum, though
there are no such things to be found therein; except that the stone
was possest living soul, which it imparted to its marks.
19. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how that stone of yours, could have
life or sensibility in it; the stone is an insensible thing, and could
not give names to the marks on its body.
20. Vasishtha replied:--That immense and luminous stone, is neither a
sentient nor inert body; no body knows its nature and state, and there
is no other like it.
21. Ráma said:--Tell me sir, who ever saw those marks, which are
imprinted in the bosom of that stone; and how could any one ever break
that stone, in order to see its contents and its marks.
22. Vasishtha replied:--It is hard to break this hard stone, nor has
anybody been ever able to break it; by cause of its extending over
infinite space, and encompassing all bodies within its bosom. (So
says the sruti:--There is nothing but is encompassed by it--the all
pervading soul).
23. It is full of numberless spots in its spacious cavity; and these
consist of the marks of mountains and trees, and of countries, towns
and cities.
24. There are also small and large dots in it, with any form or figure
of them; but serve to represent the forms of men, and gods and demigods
in them, as an outline shows the images of things.
25. There is a long line drawn in it in the form of a circle, which
represents the great circle of the visible sky or horizon; and this
contains the two central points, signifying the sun and moon.
26. Ráma said:--Tell me sir, who ever saw those marks of such forms;
and how it is possible for any body, to look into the cell of a solid
or hollow ball.
27. Vasishtha replied:--It is I, O Ráma, that beheld those marks of
different forms in that impenetrable block; and it is possible for you
to look into it, if you will but like to do so.
28. Ráma said:--How could you sir, look into those marks inside that
solid stone, which you say, is as stiff as adamant, and incapable of
being broken or perforated by any means.
29. Vasishtha replied:--It was by means of my being seated, in the
very heart of that stone; that I came to see those marks, as also to
penetrate into their meanings.
30. Who else is able to penetrate into that rigid stone beside myself,
who have been able by my penetration, to pry and pierce into the
mysteries of those hidden marks.
31. Tell me sir, what is that stone and what are you yourself; explain
to me where you are and what you are speaking, and what are those
things that you have seen and known to mean.
32. Vasishtha replied:--It is the supreme soul, which is the sole
entity and sober reality; and this is represented by figure of speech,
as the great stone, of which I have been speaking to you.
33. We are all situated in the cavity of this supreme spirit, and the
three worlds form the flesh of this Great being, who is devoid of all
substantiality.
34. Know the spacious firmament to be a part of this solid rock, and
the ever flying winds as fragment of its body; the fleeting time and
evanescent sounds together with all our varying actions and desires,
and the imaginations of our minds, to be but the fugacious particles of
its substance.
35. The earth, air, water and fire, and the vacuum and understanding
also, together with our egoism and sensibilities, are the portions and
sections of its totality.
36. We are all but bits and parcels of the great rock of the supreme
soul, and every thing whatever there is in existence, proceeds from
that source, and we know of no other cause or causality whatsoever.
37. This large stone is the great rock of Divine Intellect, and there
is nothing whatever, which is beside and beyond its intelligence. Say
then if there be any such thing and what it bears.
38. All things are but mere notions of them, as those of a pot or cot,
a picture and all others; they appear in us as our dreams, and rise
before us as the waves of water (which are no other but water).
39. It is all the substance of Brahma and the essence of the great
Intellect, which fills and pervades the whole; know therefore all these
as one, with the substantiality of the Supreme spirit, and all as quiet
and calm as itself.
40. Thus all this plenum is situated, in the bosom of the great rock
of the intellect; which is without its beginning, middle and end, and
without any hole therein, or doorway thereto. Therefore it is the
Supreme soul only which contemplates in itself, and produces (as the
object of its thought), this ideal creation of the universe (or the one
converted into many), and which passes under the title of the visible
or phenomenal world.
CHAPTER CLXVII.
ABSENCE OF THE THREE FOLD STATES OF WAKING, DREAMING AND SLEEP.
Argument:--Refutation of the four fold Appellations of the World,
and the three fold states of the Living soul.
Vasishtha continued:--The four titles, namely, the self-styled, the
misnamed, the nameless, and the otherwise named, under which the
world passes in their different senses; are all meaningless to the
spiritualist (who view the world in its spiritual light, and as
selfsame with the Supreme spirit, as it is related in the preceding
chapter).
2. These different words do not disturb the mind of the spiritualist,
whose soul is at rest in the Supreme spirit, and who pays no regard to
the use of words (or terminology of theology).
3. All these visibles rise from the Intellect only, and bear no names
of their own; they are of the nature of pure vacuum, and appear unto us
in their simple vacuous forms (as phantoms in the air).
4. This is the soul, and this its title (that is giving a name to a
nameless spiritual thing), is an erroneous conceit or coinage of the
brain. The spirit admits of no expressions; therefore take heed of no
word but mind its meaning.
5. Whatever appears to be moving or staying or doing any action, is as
calm and clear as the void air, and devoid of action as the Divine soul.
6. All things however sounding, are as silent as the still stone said
before; and though they seem to be ever moving, they are ever as quiet
as the void of the sky, and as still as the quiescent stone.
7. Though all things appear to be acting in their various ways, yet
they are as motionless as the unmoving vacuum; and though the world
appears to be formed of the five elements, yet it is but a void and
devoid of its quintessence.
8. The world with its fulness of things, is but a congeries of your
conceptions; it is full with the all pervasive and pellucid Intellect,
which shows the visions of great cities, like the vacant sights in our
dream (or as a dumb and shadowy show, without any sound or substance in
it).
9. It is full of action and motion, without any activity or mobility
in it, like the passing city of our imagination; it is the air built
castle of our error, and as the fairy land in our dream.
10. It is a false conception or notion of the mind, and as the fading
shadow of a fairy; it is creation of our fancies, but altogether
unsubstantial in its substantiality.
11. Ráma rejoined:--I ween this world as a waking dream, and
reproduction of our remembrance of it; because it is reminiscence of
the past only, that presents the absent to our view, and brings the
outer objects to our knowledge. (Hence remembrance is the cause of
resolving everything to our knowledge of them).
12. Vasishtha replied:--No Ráma, it is the reflexion which the glassy
mirror of the Intellect, casts before us at anytime, the same appears
to us even then in its vacuous form; and there is no idea or thought
of anything, that lays a firm hold on the mind, or has its foundation
there. (Refutation of innate conceptions and prior reminiscence).
13. Therefore the phenomenon always belongs, to the noumenon of the
Supreme spirit; and the fluctuating phenomenals ever abide in it, as
the undulating waves play in the calm waters of the sea.
14. The uncaused world, exists of itself in the Supreme soul; and
becomes extinct of itself, in the vacuity of the universal soul.
15. The world is viewed in the same light by every one, as it is
reflected in himself, hence the ignorant are always in fault in having
a wrong view of it; but not so the wise, who know it as nothing.
16. Again the lord god Brahma himself, has exhibited the lucid nature
of his being, according to the four states or conditions, which are
natural to the soul.
17. These are the three states of waking, dreaming and sleep, together
with a fourth called-the _turíya_ or the state of sound sleep, and
these names are applied to the soul by the Supreme soul itself.
18. But in reality none of these quadruple states, belongs either to
the Divine or the living soul, which is always tranquil, and which is
of the nature of an indefinite void.
19. Or it may be said in respect to the soul, that it is either always
wakeful, or in its ever dreaming state; or in a state of continuous
rest and sleep. (The Divine soul never sleeps. Sir W. Jones. The ever
wakeful eyes of Jove. Homer).
20. Or it is ever in its fourth state of _turya_, which is beyond all
these triple states; but whether it is in this or that or what state,
we know nothing of, being ourselves always in a state of disquiet and
continued agitation.
21. We know nothing of the inanity of the vacuous soul, as to whether
it is as the chasm in the foam or froth, or whether it is as the air in
a bubble or spray; or whether it is as the gap amidst waves of the sea
or what it is at all.
22. As a thing is known to be in its imagination, so it is impressed
also in our conception of the same; and as anything appears either
as real or unreal in the dream, we retain the like idea of it in our
waking also.
23. All this is the display of our consciousness, and whatever
reflexion it exhibits unto us it is but an empty shadow in the hollow
of the vacant mind, which resides in the vacuity of the vacuous
intellect, that pervades the infinite vacuum of the soul.
24. Consciousness is the pith and marrow of vacuous Intellect, and
retains this form (of its quiddity) at all times; it neither rises nor
sets, and this world is inherent in it (_i.e._ it is subjective and
derived from within).
25. The creations on the beginning, and the dark nights of dissolution,
are but parts of its body, and resemble its nails and hairs. (_i.e._
The light which was the first work of creation, likened the whiteness
of its nails, and the darkness of the universal deluge, equalled the
blackness of its hairs).
26. Its appearance and disappearance, that is its clearness and
dimness; are no other than as the breathing air of the great Intellect.
(_i.e._ The exhaling and inhaling breaths of the Intellect, are causes
of its expansion and contraction).
27. Therefore what means the waking, sleeping or dreaming of the soul,
and what signifies the term sound sleep or the turíya of the soul
(which is ever awake) So the word volition and nolition are meaningless
when applied to the soul, which is always composed and indifferent.
(These attributes belong to the mind only).
28. It is the inward consciousness, that exhibits its inner concepts as
outward objects; how then is there a duality or anything objective, and
what means this remembrance of extraneous matter.
29. Therefore all these that appear to our sight, are without their
base or foundation; they are the reflexion of our consciousness in open
air, which is wholly devoid of any material object.
30. Though the external world is said to be a reality, it is because of
its being a concept of the divine mind, out of which it has risen to
view; and reminiscence is said to be its cause also, by reason of our
remembrance of the first creation, which continue all along with us.
31. But there is no outward object at all, owing to the absence of
material elements; and the want of the five principles of matter,
before and at the time of first creation.
32. As there are no horns of hares, and no trees growing in the air,
and as there is no son of a barren woman, nor a dark moon shining in
the sky.
33. So this visible world, and these personalities of ourselves; which
are mere misrepresentations of our ignorance, are things invisible and
inexistent in themselves, and are seen and known by ignorant only.
34. To them the world appears as an erroneous body, and our
personalities and abstractions of persons; but there is nothing as
fictile or abstract to the spiritualist, who view them all in one
undivided whole--the Divine spirit or soul.
35. It is consciousness the pith and marrow of the soul, that exposes
all these concepts of it to light; and the manner in which it displays
them to the imagination, so do they make their appearance to our sight.
36. Whenever our misconception portrays its concept in a material form,
or gives a name and form to an airy nothing; we come to see the same
form in our imagination, in the empty void of our mind.
37. The great Intellect has the appearance of the sky for itself, which
in the ordinary use of language, is expressed by the word matter, as
consisting of the four elements, and the endless void which is devoid
of them.
38. The unchanging and undecaying intellect, bears to itself the form
of air only; which it conceives by mistake as the stable earth; just as
imaginary men believe the air built castle to a reality.
39. The intellect being an incorporeal substance, has neither this
form nor that nor of any kind at all; it has its pulsation and rest of
itself, like the breath and stillness of winds in the air.
40. As the intellect manifests itself in its own sphere in the two
states of its volition and nolition (or action or inaction); so the
world seems to be in its states of motion and quiescence; which take
place in the bosom of vacuum.
41. As the sphere of the Intellect remains unchanged, at the rise and
subsidence of its thought; so doth the sphere of air remain unvaried,
with all the creation and its dissolution in its bosom.
42. The world is always in the same unvaried state, whether you call it
so or otherwise; and the seeming revolutions of bodies and succession
of events, are well known to be nothing to the learned and wise, and
not to others.
43. Because the wise soul dwells in the hearts of all, which it views
alike as its own self; but the ignorant soul is unconscious of its
identity, from its sight of the outer world, and its knowledge of the
difference of bodies from one another.
44. What is there the interior or exterior of it, and that what is
visible and invisible in it; all this is in the Lord whether active or
quiescent, know all to be the _om_ or _on_ and rest quiet.
45. There can be no reasoning, without an insight into the meanings of
the significant terms and their significates; and it is consideration
of both sides of the question that leads to our right judgment. Hence
it is reasoning that leads us to truth, as the light guides us amidst
the darkness of night.
46. Therefore drive off the multitudes of multifarious desires and
doubts from your mind, by means of the clearness (light) of your
understanding (obtained by your habit of right reasoning), and also
by your attention to the true interpretation of the _sástras_; and
then rise and fly aloft to the higher region of light and truth, and
attain the highest, best and most perfect state of Divine felicity and
self-liberation.
CHAPTER CLXVIII.
STORY OF THE HEWN STATUE OR CARVED IMAGE.
Argument:--The false and ignorant Attribution of creation, to the
increate and self-manifest world.
Vasishtha continued:--As the unconscious tree, displays various forms
in its branches; so doth the unconcerned spirit of God, exhibit the
airy semblance of creation in air.
2. And as the ocean describes the whirlpools, insensibly upon its
surface; so doth the spirit of God, exhibit this rotatory worlds
unconcernedly, on the surface of its own vacuum, and as they are seen
by all.
3. The Lord gives also to the sensible part of his creation, their
internal faculties of the mind, understanding and egoism, as also many
other powers under different appellations.
4. The phenomenal world is the production of the insensible Intellect,
whose volitive faculties are as loose as the rolling eddies of rivers
and seas.
5. The mind and understanding and all mental faculties, proceed from
the Divine Intellect; in the same manner as the whirlpools and eddies,
and waves and surges rise on the surface of the sea.
6. As a picture is nothing except its canvas, so the world which is no
more than a painting, is drawn on the substratum of the intellect; and
this is a vacuous substance, with the lustre of the world in it.
7. What I have said before of the insensibility of the tree and sea,
in the production of the branches and whirlpools by them; the same
instance applies to Intellect also, which shows the creation rising in
its vacuity, not by an act of its intention or will, but by ordinance
of fate, which governs all things, (and rules over Jove himself). This
is the doctrine of fatalism.
8. And as a tree exhibits its various forms, receiving the several
names of a plant, a shrub, a creeper &c.; so doth the intellect display
its many features, like its flowers &c., and called by the different
appellations of earth, air, water &c.
9. And as the branches and leaves of a tree, are not different from the
tree itself; so the productions of the great Intellect, are no other
than its very substance (or are essentially the same with itself).
10. And as there are many things, made of the substance of a tree,
bearing different names to themselves; so the productions of the
Intellect, and the offspring of a living being, pass under several
forms and appellations (of boy, girl, infant, adult and the like).
11. The offshoots of the Intellect are all these creatures, which grow
in and rise from the mind (of their own spontaniety); they appear to be
the works of the mind as their cause, but are no better than the dreams
(arising of themselves in the mind).
12. Should you say, why these conceptions of creation rise in vain in
the mind (if the creation is nothing in substance); I answer that they
rise in the manner of dreams in the state of sleeping, which you cannot
deny to enjoy. (The thoughts of creation like those of imagination and
the conception in our dreaming, are not unattended by a certain degree
of delight, during the time of our enjoyment of them. Gloss).
13. As the tree displays various forms in the productions, and the
imagination presents different shapes to our mental sights; so the
intellect is employed in realizing many such creations in empty air.
14. As the odours of flowers fly about invisible in the open air, and
as pulsation abides inherent in the wind; so the intellectual powers,
are intrinsic in the very nature of the soul.
15. These creations likewise are ingrained in the Divine spirit, as
fragrance is inborn in flowers and vacuity is ingenite in the air; and
as vacillation and velocity are innate in the winds.
16. As the air, wind and the flower, are receptacle of inanity,
oscillation and odours respectively; so the Intellect is container of
creation, although it is literally but an empty vacuity.
17. Vacuity is no other than vacuum itself, as fluidity is not separate
from liquids; fragrance is as inseparable from flowers, as pulsation is
never to be the disjoined from the wind.
18. Heat is not disparate from fire, nor is coldness apart from snow;
know thus the world to be no way different nor disengaged from the
transparence of the vacuous Intellect.
19. In the beginning, the Divine Intellect sees the creation appear
in itself, as a dream rising in the mind; thus the world having no
extraneous cause, and being subjective to the Intellect (as derived
from within itself); is no way a heterogeneous mass or different from
the Divine mind.
20. The instance of the dream is the best illustration of creation, and
you can judge it well by the nature of the dream you dream every night;
say what is there substantial in it, beside its being essential to the
universal soul.
21. The dream is not the effect of any impression in the mind, nor the
result of remembrances stored in the memory; because it shows us many
sights, unseen and unthought of before; say therefore how these come to
pass.
22. If what is seen in a dream, comes to present itself at the time of
our remembrance of the dream?
23. Therefore these revolving worlds; are as the rotatory whirlpools
(in the wide ocean of the infinite mind); they are the fortuitous
appearances of chance, and whatever occurs in the mind, passes
afterwards for its dreams.
24. The creations being insensibly produced from the Divine Mind,
like the waves and whirlpools in the ocean; receives its stability
and continuity afterwards, in the manner of the continuation of the
whirling waters and ever rolling billows.
25. Whatever is born without its cause, is equal to the unborn; because
the unborn are forever similar to those, which have no cause for their
birth.
26. As the precious gems growing insensibly of themselves, have their
lustre inherent in them; and as this brilliance is no substance
or anything real at all, so the appearance of the world has no
substantiality of itself.
27. Some how or other, the world has its rise, like the wave or eddy
in a river; and then it continues to go on as the continuous course of
the stream.
28. There are numberless worlds of intellectual forms, gliding in the
vast vacuity of the Intellect; and passing as aerial dreams without any
cause whatsoever.
29. All these again become causes and productive of others, and they
<are> all of vacuous forms including even the great Brahmá and the gods
and angels (all of whom are aerial beings, and others of the same kind).
30. All that is born in and produced from void, are null and void also;
they grow in the void or air, and return also into vacuity.
31. It is the vacuum that appears as the _plenum_, as in the instance
of an empty dream seeming as something; the man that denies his own
percipience of it, is no better than a boor or brute.
32. The unreal appearing as real, is the fabrication of error and
ignorance; but the spiritualist who knows the truth, views the world as
the wondrous display of the Divine Mind and falsification.
33. It is the longstanding and deep rooted prejudice, that produces the
erroneous conceptions of the creation and destruction of the world; it
is wisdom to know it in its true light, and foolishness to take the
wrong view of it.
34. The light of the Divine spirit, being once seen in this causeless
void of the visible world, it continues for ever before our sight;
as the dream that we see in our vacant minds in sleep, remains ever
afterwards in our remembrance.
35. It happens that the intellect comes to present, the adventitious
appearance of the world to our minds; in the same manner, as the sea
shows its whirls and waves to our sight, of its own nature.
36. Such is the nature of the Intellect also, that it shows itself in
this manner (as the sea); and exhibits the revolving worlds, in its own
etherial essence only (of its own accord).
37. Then the aerial Intellect, by a retrospective view in itself,
invented certain worlds afterwards, significant of the mental
and intellectual powers as well as of material elements and their
properties.
38. Ráma said:--If it is so sir, that all these powers are the
spontaneous growth of chance, how can the mental power of memory be
produced on a sudden, when it is well known to be the product of
remembrance or former impressions in the mind. Please explain me this.
39. Vasishtha replied:--Hear me Ráma, and I will destroy your doubt, as
the lion kills an elephant; and will establish the one invariable unity
as the broad day light of the sun.
40. There is an only universal soul, that is invisible amidst the
vacuum of his Intellect; as the uncarved doll remains unseen, in the
wood of every forest tree. (All things are contained in the Divine
soul, as the future images in blocks of wood and stone. Aristotle,
Addison).
41. We see the carpenter that carves out the puppet, from the wood
of the tree (and the mason who hues out the statue from the block of
stone); but we know not the soul, which chisels out the figure of the
world from the great bulk of Instinct.
42. The statue does not appear in the rugged block, unless and until
it <is> hewn out by the skill of carver, so the hidden world does not
make its appearance in the Intellect, till it is brought to view by the
ingenuity of the Mind (the universal architect).
43. The uncarved body of the world (_Corpus-mundi_), does yet appear
<in> its aeriform state; which is original and genuine form in the
Divine Intellect (until <it> is moulded in this its fictitious shape by
creative mind).
44. In the beginning of creation, the inventive Intellect forms of its
natural originality, the concept of the future world; appearing as an
airy dream in the sight of the soul (and then the imaginative mind
frames it according to its conceit in various forms).
45. The vacuous Intellect conceives in its empty bosom, the airy ideal
of the world; as if it were a toy or doll gliding of itself in itself.
46. It conceives itself as the essential part of the great Brahma, and
the seed of the mundane system; and then imagines itself as the source
of life and the living soul, and the receptacle of egoism.
47. It imagines itself as the understanding and the mind also; and to
be the reservoir of space and time. It deems itself as the root of the
knowledge of I, thou, he, and others, and as the quintessence of the
quintuple elements.
48. It sees in itself the congeries of the inward and outward senses,
as also of the eight faculties of the mind; and both the spiritual as
well as the elemental bodies contained in itself.
49. It thinks itself as the great trinity, consisting of the three
persons of Brahmá, Vishnu, and Siva; and sees the sun, moon and stars
all in itself. It considers itself as the whole creation and the
interior and exterior part of everything.
50. All these being the imaginary creations of the Intellect; there
is nothing whatever beside itself; but it is quite transparent in its
essence, there is no concrete matter in it; and neither remembrance
of gross materials is ever attached to it, nor any duality whatsoever
subsisting in the unity of its nature.
51. The world is a causeless, uncaused and increate thing; and a
nothing at all in reality; its creation is a dream, and its appearance,
is as that of a delusive shadow in empty air.
52. It appears as a phantom in vacuum, and as an intelligence in the
Intellect; it is intelligible as it is, and that is in the sense of a
nihility.
53. What is the remembrance of a thing, any more than the dream of
something, which is nothing in reality; and what is time of which we
have no conception, except it be an imagination or devise of the mind
in empty air.
54. What is contained in the inside of the compact intellect, the
very same appears on the outside of it; but in reality there is no
substantiality in the exterior object of sight, as there is naught in
the interior object of thought; all which are but the glitterings of
the Intellect.
55. Whatever issues out of the bodiless and nameless something, which
is forever quiescent and calm in its nature; are deemed as causeless
and uncaused productions, appearing before the blinded sight.
56. Know therefore that this world, is to be viewed in the same
intellectual light; as you see the supreme Brahma himself; and know it
to be the very aerial castle of your dream, as it is represented in the
vacuous space of your mind in your sleeping state.
57. There is no such thing, as the visible or phenomenal world at any
time; where can you find any dust on the watery surface of the sea; and
how can you see anything visible, in the invisible spirit of Brahma.
58. If the world should appear as anything at all to your sight, you
must view it as the manifestation of God himself, in his unthinkable
and incomprehensible nature. (Nature is the body of God).
59. The world is full of the glory of God, from the fullness of Divine
glory; nor is the one derived from the other; but a full representation
of Divine splendour on the face of nature.
60. Though I have been repeatedly giving these lectures, yet the
deluded minds of men are far from receiving them; they believe the
world of their dream as if it were in waking, and knowing even its
unreality they will never get rid of their rooted prejudice.
CHAPTER CLXIX.
DESCRIPTION OF THE CALM AND TRANQUIL MIND.
Argument:--Character of the unexcited and self-liberated man and
his happiness in Life.
Vasishtha continued:--He who is <neither> delighted with his delights,
nor dejected in his distress; who looks only within himself for his
peace and solace, is verily called the liberated man in his life time.
2. He is called the self-liberated man, whose mind is <not> moved from
its steadiness in solid rock of intellectuality, towards the worldly
enjoyments that are spread before him (and which are ever attractive of
unrestrained minds).
3. That is called the liberated soul, which reclines in its
intellectuality, and has its mind ever fixed in it; which delights in
intellectual culture, and has repose therein.
4. He is verily styled the liberated soul, who reposes in the supreme
soul; whose mind does not slide from divine contemplation, nor takes
any delight in visible objects all around.
5. Ráma said:--Sir, I ween the man that feels no pain in pain, nor
derives any pleasure from what is pleasurable, and is entire insensible
of both, to be a mere block, and devoid both his senses and sensibility.
6. Vasishtha replied:--We call him the self reposed, who rests in his
vacuous intellect only; and whose soul derives a spontaneous delight
from the purity of his understanding, such as it finds in nothing and
no where besides.
7. He is said to have his rest in the supreme soul, whose mind is
cleansed of its doubts in all things; and who has obtained by means of
his discrimination, the true and certain knowledge of everything. (So
says the sruti: No doubts disturb the mind of one, whose soul confides
and has found its rest in God).
8. He is said to rest and have his repose in God, who takes no delight
in any earthly thing whatever; and though he is outwardly employed in
discharging the duties of his life, yet his soul is fixed in his god.
9. He is known to have his quiescence, whose activities are all without
any aim or expectation; and he goes on and lives content, with whatever
he gets and offers itself to his lot.
10. He alone is happy and successful, in this world of woe and misery;
who in his long restless, helpless and tedious journey in it, has
found his repose in the supreme spirit, by means of his intellectual
improvements.
11. They who after running their long race, in the active course of
worldly life; have come at last to set themselves at ease and quiet,
at the latter end of their lives, are as men that appear to fall fast
asleep, and enjoy their repose after the vexatious dreams of their busy
days.
12. They shine and pass as brightly, in the open sphere of their
intellects, as the glorious sun rises in the sky, and runs his daily
course without stopping any where.
13. Good people seem to be sleepy in their minds, though they are seen
to be wakeful and employed in business with their bodies; they remain
as inactive as any inert body, though they are never dormant in their
souls (which are ever awake to their eternal concerns).
14. They who lie asleep on their beds, and are drowned in their
reveries and dreams; are said and believed to be sleeping: though they
are not insensible of the workings of their minds.
15. When the tired traveller, halts after his long and wearisome
journey, and ceases to utter a word owing to his hard breathing, such
dumbness does not bespeak his dead silence or torpidity.
16. The man of transcendent knowledge, and perfect peace and
tranquility of his mind and soul; remains as blind to the splendours
of day as the purblind owl, and as quiet as any body in the darkness
of night, when the whole creation sleeps in the gloom of ignorance and
unconsciousness.
17. That man is happy, who sleeps over the varied scenes of this
visible world, and does not sights of woe, which it presents to view
at the time of waking. (The gloss quotes a corresponding passage from
the _Bhagavad Gítá_).
18. He who pays no regard to ceremonial rites, and remains sincere
to the welfare of his soul; such a man is said to be self satisfied,
from his communion with himself, and is never, O Ráma, deemed as dead
himself.
19. He who has passed over the miseries of this world, and got to the
other side of it (next world); remains supremely blest in himself, by
his sense of heavenly bliss in his inward soul.
20. He who is fatigued with his long and tiresome journey in this
world, and is ever deluded by four senses and sensible objects; gets
weary of and cloyed with his enjoyments in life, and meets with the
spectres of despair at the end.
21. Being overtaken by hoary old age, he is battered and shattered
by the hoar-frost of diseases; and then like the old and worn-out
antelope, he wishes in vain to traverse his native forests and plains.
22. Forsaken by the supreme soul, the sole and faithful guide in our
journey through life; we are exposed to the intricate maze of thorns
and thickets, till the weary traveller is at a loss of the shady grove
whereto take his rest.
23. Here we are robbed of our passport and passage money, by the
highway men of our sins and sensualities; till we are overcome by our
weakness, and exposed to numberless dangers and difficulties on the way.
24. He that is possest of his soul by means of his spiritual knowledge,
gets over the ocean of the world to the spiritual regions; where he
rests calmly in the bedstead of his spirit, and without the bedding of
his body.
25. The man who moves about, without any aim or attempt of himself and
without his dream and sound sleep; whose mind is ever wakeful and whose
eyes are never closed in sleep, such a man sleeps softly in the lap of
his soul.
26. As a horse of real breed, sleeps in his standing as well as
running; so the self-possest person sleeps in himself, even though he
<is> employed in the acts of life among mankind.