Vasishtha, and ushered him to his high seat or pulpit; and they all
poured forth their praises to him, after that sage was seated in the
rostrum.
45. Now the lotus-eyed Ráma, who sat before the king and the holy sage,
oped his lotus like mouth, and spoke in the following manner, with his
natural good sense, and usual elegance of speech.
46. Ráma said:--O Venerable sir, that art acquainted with all
religions, and art the great ocean of knowledge; thou art the axe of
all knotty questions and doubts, and remover of the griefs and fears of
mankind.
47. Please tell us whatever more is worth our hearing and knowing;
for thou knowest best whatever there remains to be said, for the
edification of our knowledge.
48. Vasishtha replied:--Ráma you have gained your full knowledge, and
have nothing more to learn; you have attained the perfection of your
understanding, and obtained the summum bonum which is sought by all
(but found by few), and wherewith you are quite content in yourself.
49. You better consider in yourself and say, how do you find yourself
and your inner mind at present; and what else is there, that you wish
to know and hear from me.
50. Ráma rejoined:--Why sir, I find myself fully perfected in my
understanding; and being possest of the peace and tranquility of my
mind, with the blessing of Nirvána or ultimate beatitude of my soul, I
have nothing to ask or desire of thee.
51. You have said all that you had to impart to me, and I have known
all that is worth my knowing; Now sir, take your rest with the Goddess
of speech, who has done her utmost for the instruction of us all.
52. I have known the unknown and knowable One, that is only to be known
by us as the true reality; and knowing this all as the One Brahma, I
am freed from my knowledge of the duality (of the living and supreme
soul); and having got rid of the deception of the diversity of the
visibles, I am released from my reliance in all worldly things.
CHAPTER CCIV.
IDENTITY OF ABSTRACT INTELLECTUALITY AND VACUITY.
Argument:--The abstraction and intellection of all knowledge,
merging in the infinite vacuum.
Vasishtha resumed and said:--Hear me moreover, O Ráma, to tell thee,
a few words on transcendental knowledge, that the mirror of the mind
shines more brightly, by expurgation of the external images that are
reflected on it, than when it is eclipsed by those outward shadows.
(_i.e._ Wipe off visibles from the mind).
2. Again the significant words that <are> the symbols of the objects of
our knowledge, are as insignificant as the hissing murmurs of waters
and waves, and the phenomenal is but a semblance of the noumenal, as a
dream is the _réchauffé_ or reflexion of the mind, and the visible world,
is but a recast of the visionary dream.
3. The waking state is that of dreaming, and its scenes are those of
our dreams; and presenting themselves before us in both these states
from our remembrance of them: they are the inward concept of our
consciousness, and appearing to be situated without it. (_i.e._ They
are the innate ideas of our minds, and not perceptions of our outward
organs of sense).
4. As I am conscious of the clearness of my intellectual sphere,
notwithstanding the view of the fairy lands in its state of dreaming;
so I find my mind, to be equally clear in my waking also of all its
imaginary forms of the three worlds and their contents, which in
reality <are> a formless vacuity only.
5. Ráma rejoined:--If all things are formless amidst the formless void
of the universe, as in empty vacuity of the intellect; then tell me
sir, whence arise these endless shapes and forms, as those <of> earth,
water, fire and those of these hills, rocks and pebbles?
6. Tell me why the elements are of different forms and qualities and
why the empty air, space and time have no forms nor properties of
theirs; what makes the wind so very fleet, and what is the cause of the
motions and actions of waving bodies.
7. How came the sky to be a vacuum only, and why is the mind of the
same nature also; these are all the various natures and properties of
things, <that> require to be well explained from my knowledge therein.
8. Vasishtha replied:--You have well asked these questions, Ráma, as
they naturally suggest themselves to every inquirer after truth; but
tell me in one word, why do you see the varieties of earth and sky, as
well as of all other things that you see in your dream.
9. Whence do you see the waters in your sleep, and how are the pebbles
scattered about you in your dream; why do you see the flaming fires in
your vision, and all sides of heaven appearing before your sight.
10. Say how you have the idea of time in your dreaming, and perceive
the actions and motions of persons and things at that time; and tell
me from where do all those accidents proceed, that you see to occur in
your sleeping and dreaming moments.
11. What is it that creates, produces and gives the formless dream its
fascinating form, and then dissolves it to nothing at last; you find it
produced and presented to your view, but cannot say how it acts and of
what stuff it is composed.
12. Ráma replied:--The dream of the dreaming world, has no form nor
position of its own; its soul and substance is mere void, and the earth
and rocks which it presents to sight, are nil and _in nubibus_ (and
leave not a rack behind).
13. The vacuous soul only, is its sole cause, which is likewise as
formless and supportless like itself; The formless void is never in
need of a support for it.
14. Nothing whatsoever of it is ever produced, nor bear any relation
with our consciousness; they are the reflexions of the intellect only,
and are situated in the recess of the mind.
15. The mind is the evolution of the intellect, which reflects the
images of things in the form of ideas upon the mind; hence the notions
of time and space, and of air, water, hills and mountains, are all
reflexions of the intellect upon the mind.
16. Our consciousness is also a void, and receives the impressions of
vacuum in the form of its vacuity; and those of the stone, air and
water, in the forms of their solidity, fluidity and liquidity. (_i.e._
The vacuous mind receives and retains only the abstract ideas of all
concrete bodies in the universe).
17. In reality there is nothing as the earth or any solid body or its
form or sight in existence; but they all exist in their abstract states
in the great void of the intellect, and are equally void in their
natures with itself.
18. In fact there is nothing in reality, nor anything which is visible
to sight, there is only the infinite vacuity of intellect, which
represents all things in itself, and is identic with all of them.
19. The intellect has the notion of solidity, in the abstract in
it; and thereby conceives itself in the forms of the earth, rocks
and hills. (The idea or conception of solidity, gives rise to the
perception of solid bodies, and not the perception of solids, that
produces the abstract idea of their solidity; or that the innate ideas,
give birth to appearances in the concrete).
20. So by its conception of oscillation and fluidity, it perceives the
form of air and water in itself; and so also by its inward conception
of heat, it feels the fire in itself without forsaking its intellectual
form.
21. Such is the nature of this intellectual principle, in its airy and
vacuous form of the spirit, soul or mind; that developes itself in all
these various modalities and schemes, without any cause or incentive.
(These modes or states of being, are here called _nishkáranaguna_,
and _Akárana gunotpannaguna_ in Nyáya philosophy, and same with the
_Vibhu-nishthaguna_ of Vedánta; all meaning them to be the increate and
eternal qualities or attributes of the supreme soul or deity).
22. There is nothing any where in nature, beside these intellectual
attributes of itself; as there is no sky or vacuum without its vacuity,
nor the vast expanse of the ocean, devoid of the body of waters in it.
23. Know then there is nothing else anywhere, nay not even the sense of
thyself or myself or any other, except in the recess of intellectual
vacuity; so commit thyself to that all teeming void; and remain quite
sedate in thyself.
24. As you see the earth and heaven and all their contents, in thy
dream and creation of thy fancy, in the recess of thy mind and in the
midst of this house of thine; so should you behold everything in their
incorporeal forms to be contained in the ample space of the infinite
vacuum of the divine intellect and its all-knowing intelligence.
25. The vacuum of the intellect shines forth as the substratum of all
bodies, but without a body of its own in the beginning of creation;
because nothing having any prior material cause for its corporeal
existence, it is the intellect alone which must be understood, to
exhibit all formal existence in its vacuous space and to our ignorance.
26. Know your immaterial mind, understanding and egoism, together with
the material existences of the elemental bodies, these hills, skies and
all others, to be situated as dull and dumb stones, in the quiet, calm
and clear sphere of the infinite intellect.
27. Thus you see there is nothing produced nor destroyed, nor anything,
that may be said to exist of itself; this world as it appears to exist,
exists in this very form (of its immateriality); in the vacuity of the
divine intellect.
28. It is the sunshine of the intellect, that manifests the world in
its visible shape and form; as the sunlight shows the hidden objects of
darkness to view, and as the fluidity of water, gives rise to the waves
and bubbles.
29. This appearance of the world, is no real appearance; it is the
representation of the intellectual vacuum only, in its true and proper
senses and light, as it is viewed by the wise; though the ignorant may
view it in any light as they please.
CHAPTER CCV.
REFUTATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CAUSALITY OF CREATION.
Argument:--The existence of the world in its spiritual sense, and
nullity of its creation, destruction and material existence.
Ráma rejoined:--If it is so, sir, that the whole plenum is vacuum, as
the phenomenon in our dreams; it must follow therefrom, that the world
we see in our wakings is vacuity also, and there can be no doubt in it.
2. But tell me sir, in answer to this important question of mine; how
the formless and bodiless intellect appears to become embodied in all
these various forms of bodies, that we see in the state of our waking
dream. (_i.e._ The vanishing visions of our sleeping dreams, prove
them to be quite vacuous and nil; but not so the lasting scenes of our
waking state which appear to be substantially positive; and how does
the negative intellect assume this positive form).
3. Vasishtha replied:--Ráma, the visibles that appear to view in our
waking dream by day light, are all vacuous bodies; owing to their being
born, resting and supportance in empty vacuity; hence you cannot on any
reason doubt about their vacuousness (whose or when their production,
sustentation, substance and supportance, do all depend on the infinite
and all comprehending vacuum, which is the very attribute of the unity
of the formless deity. Gloss).[7]
4. This infinite and eternal void, being entirely devoid of all the
material causes (_i.e._ earth, air, water and fire, which are necessary
for the production of anything); it is impossible that creation could
come out from this nothing in the beginning. (_Ex nihilo nihil fit_).
5. And as the formless intellect could not bring forth the earth &c.,
for the formation of solid bodies; it is impossible to believe this
phenomenal appearance, to have their real existence in nature. (The
subtile mind cannot make or become any solid body).
6. Therefore the airy intellect sees the visibles in the day time,
in the manner that it sees the visions in its dreams by night. It
sees them all rising, in their intellectual light within itself; but
appearing as real and formal objects, set without it by its delusion.
(Máyá or Illusion).
7. It is the reflexion of the workings of the intellectual soul, that
appears as real within the hollow sphere of the intellect; it resembles
the representations of the memory in the mind in our sleep, and takes
the name of the visible world.
8. It is the clear perception of these intellectual representations, in
the vacuum of the mind only, that is styled by us as a vision or dream,
while it is the gross conception of them in the mind, that is called
the gross or material world.
9. It is thus the different views, of the same internal thought and
ideas, have different names and appellations, given to them by the very
intellect itself; the finer and purer ones being called as thoughts,
and the grosser ones, as sensible and material objects.
10. Thus it is the same reflexion of the intellectual, which takes the
names both of the dream as also of the world; the working of the mind
and its reflexion in itself are natural to intellect, and though the
visions subside with the disappearance of the dream upon waking, yet
the working and reflecting of the mind are never at rest, either in
waking or dreaming.
11. Many such visions of creation rise and set alternately, in the
vacuity of Brahma’s mind, and are never apart from it; just as the
empty air is either in motion or at rest in the hollow of the great
void, and always inseparable from it. (Hence the air, vision, dream
&c., are all void, and the world is but a phantom in it).
12. Ráma said:--Sir, you have spoken of millions of worlds to me
before; tell me now which of them are situated within the sphere of the
mundane egg, and which of them are beyond this egg (or supermundane
ones).
13. Which of them are the terrestrial globes and which the vacuous
spheres; which of them are igneous bodies in the sphere of fire, and
what are the airy bodies in the regions of air.
14. Which are the superfices of the earth, situated in the midst
of vacuity; of which the hills and forests set at the antipodes,
are opposed to one another on both sides, and hang up and down
perpendicular in empty air.
15. Which are the aerial bodies with their living souls, and which the
inhabitants of darkness with their darksome shapes; what are they that
are formed of vacuum only, and what can they be, whose bodies are full
of worms and insects.
16. What sorts of beings settle the etherial sphere, and what are they
that live in the midst of rocks and stones; what are they that dwell in
the vessels and basins of water, and what be they that people the air
like the aerial fowls of air.
17. Tell me, O thou greatest of philosophers, how this mundane egg of
ours is situated among them. (These are questions of cosmogony, and
bear no relation to theology).
18. Vasishtha replied:--These wondrous unknown, unseen and unheard
of worlds, are mentioned and described in the sástras with their
exemplifications also; and they have been received and believed as true
by their students.
19. Ráma, the cosmology of the world, has been described--given by gods
and sages, in hundreds of their sástras called the _Ágamas_; all of
which you are well acquainted with.
20. Now as you are well acquainted with the descriptions, that are
given of them in the sástras; it is not necessary to relate them again
in this place. (The cosmology of the world has been given before in the
narrative of Lílá).
21. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me yet, O Venerable sir, how the great void of
the intellect came to be produced from divine spirit; tell moreover its
extent and duration in time and space.
22. Vasishtha replied:--The great God Brahma, is without beginning and
ever existent and without decay; there is no beginning, midst nor end
of him, nor are there any shapes of figures in his transcendent vacuum.
23. The vacuum of Brahma is without its beginning and end, and is
spread unspent and unbounded to all eternity; it is this which makes
the universe, which is ever without its beginning and end.
24. The reflexion of the intellectual vacuum in its own vacuity, is
called the universe by itself to no purpose (_by itself_ or the human
mind, which views the world in the wrong light of creation, and not as
the Divine Mind itself. Gloss).
25. As a man sees a fair city in his dream by night, so is the sight
of this world to him, in his dream by day light. (The Sanskrit word
_Bhano_ in the text meaning reflexion, corresponds with the Greek Phano
to see, and hence phantom or false sights).
26. Think not the solid rock to have any solidity in it, nor the fluid
waters any fluidity in them; do not think the empty firmament to be a
vacuity, nor the passing time to have any flight or counting of it.
(All these are seemingly so, but they are nothing in reality).
27. All things are fixed in their formless, invariable and ideal states
in the divine intellect; but it is the fallacious and fickle nature of
the human mind, to give and view them in different forms, according to
its own fancy.
28. The mind views the non-created eternal ideas of the intellect, as
created objects before its sight, just as it sees rocks where there are
no rocks, and the sky in a skyless place in its dream.
29. As the formless and insensible mind, sees the formal world in its
sleep, as if it were in its waking state; so does it see the invisible
and formless world in its visible form, during its waking hours of the
day also.
30. As the motion of air always takes place amidst the air at rest
(_i.e._ as the winds fluctuate amidst the still air); so also doth the
spirit of Brahma, oscillate in his own spirit incessantly, and without
its rise or fall.
31. This world resides in the same manner in the divine spirit of
Brahma as the property of fluidity is inherent in water; and vacuity
appertains to vacuum; and as substantiality is essential to all
substances in the abstract.
32. The world is neither adventitious nor extraneous to the soul, and
does not occur to or transpire from it, in the life or deaths of any
body; it is causeless and comes from no cause, and is neither joined
with nor set separate from the divine spirit.
33. The One that has no beginning nor end; nor has any indication of
itself; that is formless and is of the manner of the intellectual
vacuum only, can never become the cause of the visible and material
creation. (Therefore the world is to be supposed to exist in its ideal
and immaterial form, in the vacuity of the divine intellect).
34. Thus as the forms and features of a whole body, are but parts and
properties of its entirety _tout ensemble_; so is this vacuous world
situated, in the undivided and formless vacuity of Brahma (“as parts of
one undivided whole”, Pope).
35. All this is a hiatus and quietus, without its support and
substratum, it is but pure intelligence, without any grossness or
foulness herein; there is no entity nor nonentity here, nor can
anything be said to exist or not exist (independent of the Divine Mind).
36. All this is but an air drawn city, of our imagination and dream;
and everything here, appears to be stretched out in a fairy dance all
about us; but in reality it is only a calm and quiet vacuity, full with
the unchanging and undecaying spirit of God.
37. The whole is the hollowness of the divine heart, and the vacuous
sphere of the Omniscient Intellect; it is its intellection, that
reflects many a transparent image in its own sphere and to no end. This
it is which is called the world or the image of the divine soul, which
continues forever and ever, (and is said--the world without end. Amen).
CHAPTER CCVI.
THE GREAT INQUIRY, OR QUESTIONS OF THE BUDDHIST.
Argument:--Entity of Brahma and non-entity of the world,
illustrated in the story of the king of Kushadwípa.
Vasishtha resumed:--The uncreated phenomenon of creation, that appears
to view, is nothing in reality. It is the transcendental principle of
supreme Brahma, that is the only true reality.
2. It was on this subject, that I was once asked by some one, to my
reply to a certain question of his; which I will now relate to you,
O high-minded Ráma, for strengthening your understanding to the full
knowledge thereof.
3. There is the great island of Kushadwípa, surrounded by the seas on
all sides; like a watery belt about it, and this land is renowned (for
its beauty), all over the three regions of the world.
4. There is the city called Ilávatí, situated on its north eastern
side, and is beset by a colonnade of pillars, gilded all over with
gold, and glittering with radiant beams, reaching from earth to the
skies.
5. There formerly reigned a prince, known by the name of Prajnapti; who
ruled on earth as the god Indra in heaven; and to whom this earth or
land paid its homage (as the skies do to the regent of heaven).
6. It was on one occasion, that I happened to alight at the presence of
this prince; as the sun descends on earth on the last day of desolation.
7. The prince hailed and adored me with offerings of flowers and
presents, made me sit by him with due reverence; then in the course of
my conversation with him, he fondly asked me as follows.
8. Tell me sir, said he, what becomes of the world after the
destruction of all things; and when the causalities of recreation are
all extinct and annihilated, in the undefinable vacuum of desolation.
9. What then becomes the prime cause of the causation of things, at the
recreation of the world; and what are accompanying elements for the
reproduction of objects, and how and whence they take their rise.
10. What is the world and what was the beginning of its creation; what
was the primeval chaos, and whence is this earth? What is the air the
support of the seas, and what is hell, which is filled by worms and
insects? (_i.e._ Whence are these varieties from the one source of
Brahma?)
11. What be the creatures contained in the womb of air (_i.e._ the
celestials), and what are they that are contained in <the> bosom of the
mountains (_i.e._ the demons); what are the elementary bodies and their
productions, and how the understanding and its faculties have come to
existence?
12. Who is the maker of all these, and who is their witness; what is
the support of the universe, and what are these that are contained
therein? I am quite certain, that the world can never have its ultimate
destruction.
13. All the Vedas and sástras are opposed to one another, in their
different views and interpretations; and every one of them has made a
supposition, according to its particular view.
14. From our knowledge of the world, we know not whether it is
indestructible or an unreality in itself. (_i.e._ If it is an ideal
unreality, it needs have no cause nor is it destructible at all; but
should it be a reality and destructible thing, then what must be the
cause of the production and destruction thereof? Gloss).
15. Again tell me, O thou chief of sages, what is the form and cause of
those bodies that are doomed to dwell in hell; after the demise of men
on earth, and cremation and destruction of their bodies here.
16. What are the accompanying causes of the regeneration of bodies,
after their destruction on death? The virtues and vices of departed
souls, being both of them formless things, cannot be their
accompanying causes, towards the formation of their corporeal frames.
17. It is quite an absurd reasoning, that want of matter could possibly
produce a material body; just as it is impossible to believe, that
there should be an offspring, without the seminal cause of its parents.
18. Tell me sir, what else should be the cause, of the production of
material bodies (after death); and for want of any such cause, it is
improper also, to deny the existence of a future state.
19. It is contrary to the dictates of Vedas and sástras, as also to the
conviction and common sense of mankind, to deny the future state of
our existence. The resurrection of our bodies is as unavoidable as our
transportation to a distant land by decree of law, though it be against
our wish or will.
20. How are beings born and actuated in the course of their lives, by
invisible causes which are quite unconnected with them (_i.e._ by the
merit or demerit of the acts of their past lives, which are altogether
detached from their present bodies?). Just as the pillars of stone were
converted to gold (by word of the Bráhman), and without being gilded
over by it. Say, sir, how this vast treasure was obtained in a moment
by the Bráhman. (_i.e._ What could be the cause of this preternatural
event).
21. How that to be called a great one, which remains for a moment only?
further what necessity is there to frame strict laws for the present
to reap harvest in future, when that does not stand good on sound
reasoning?
22. Tell me sir, how do you reconcile such discordances in the Vedas,
which mention the existence of a being and not being in the beginning;
and tell us also that, the Not being existed before creation, and
then the Being or creation was born of the not being. (The discordant
passages are असद्बा इदमग्र आसीत् उतो सदजायत । again असदेब इदमग्र आसीत्
सदेब सोम्य इदमग्र आसीत् ।).
23. How could the primeval nonentity become Brahmá, or how could the
latter be produced from the former; or if it were the mighty vacuity
which gave birth to Brahmá, then tell me sir, why there were no other
Brahmás also, born of its spacious womb.
24. Tell me how the vegetable and other creations, could be produced
without their different sources; and how they derived their nature of
propagating their kinds, by their own seeds and property.
25. Tell me why the life and death of one man, are coeval with those of
his friend or adversary; and do people happen to obtain their wishes in
their next lives by dying in the holy places of Prayága &c.
26. Should the wishes of men, be crowned with success in their next
lives; then tell me sir, why the sky is not filled with myriads of
moons, when the worshippers of that luminary, are daily seen to be
dying with the expectation, of becoming a brilliant orb like it, in the
next state of their existence in heaven.
27. Say how can men succeed to their wishes in future, when most of
them desire to gain the same object, and it falls to the lot of one of
them; just as a maid expected to be wedded by many, is destined to and
secured by one man only.
28. Again how can a woman be called a wife, who is either unchaste, or
leads a life of celibacy even when dwelling in her husband’s house?
29. Say sir, what is the difference between the blessing and curse,
which are pronounced on the Bráhman brothers, for their sovereignty
over the seven continents on the one hand, and their having no such
thing on the other; when they remained thinking themselves as monarchs
of the world in their very house.
30. The acts of piety consisting of charities, austerities and
obsequious ceremonies, which are productive of unknown rewards in the
next world, and are of no benefit to their observers on earth; then
what is the good derived from them, if they are not attended with any
earthly benefit to the earthly body, but to a future body with which no
one here has any concern. (Lit. to which none bears any affection).
31. Should it be said that the soul of the pious observer, reaps
the reward in its future state; this also is impossible because the
disembodied soul is incapable of enjoyment; and should it have another
body to enjoy hereafter, but of what use is that distant body to the
person of the present observer (of the pious acts)?
32. Should these acts be accompanied with any reward, either in this
life or in the next, they could be known to the actor, but in want of
this, their observance appears to be an irreconcilable incongruity.
33. These are my doubts (in the sástras and practices of men), which
I beg you will kindly remove by your cool and clear reasoning, as the
moon-light disperses the evening twilight.
34. Now sir, deign to dispel my doubts in my inquiry after
transcendental truth, that it may conduce to my good in both worlds;
because the company of the righteous, is ever fraught with very great
blessings to all people.
CHAPTER CCVII.
REPLIES TO THE AFORESAID QUERIES (OF THE BUDDHIST).
Argument:--Desultory replies of the sage to the foregoing
questions in the three following chapters.
Vasishtha replied:--Hear me prince, and I will clearly expound to you
the doctrine, which will root out your doubts all at once.
2. All these entities in the world, are inexistent nullities for ever;
though they appear as realities in our consciousness.
3. Whatever appears in any manner in our consciousness, (either as
existing or non-existent, or as so and so); the same is thought as real
as it seems to be, without our consideration of its true nature of a
reality or otherwise.
4. Such is the nature of this consciousness, that it is thought to be
one and same with the bodiless soul, by every one who knows what it is
(by his acquaintance with the science of psychology).
5. It is this knowledge (or the idea) of a thing in the mind, either
in waking or dreaming, that they call to be its body; hence it is this
erroneous consciousness of anything, that is believed as its body, and
there is nothing else beside this that they call a solid body.
6. The world shines (or shows itself) before us, like the sights seen
in a dream; and the privation of all causes towards the production of
the (material) world, prove it to be not otherwise than the phantom of
a dream.
7. Thus this pure and immaculate knowledge of the universe, is termed
the very Brahma himself (because God is said to be infinite knowledge
only. सत्यं ज्ञानमनन्तं व्रह्म). The very same shines as
the world, which is not otherwise than that.
8. Thus doth the world remain quite pure and unchanged, from ever
before and forever more; and so it is thought and said to be, by the
Vedas and all good and great sástras, as also by the joint assent of
all thinking men, in all ages and countries.
9. They are the most ignorant fools, and resemble the croaking frogs
dwelling in the recess of dark caves and pits; who deny the sole
existence of the beings which is impressed in the consciousness of all
beings, which is full and perfect every where, and is acknowledged by
all great souls.
10. There are many at present, who are deluded by their notions of
the appearances of things, and the evidence of their senses, and have
fallen into the error of understanding the gross body, as the cause
of consciousness and inward impressions (_i.e._ they maintain the
objectivity of their knowledge as derived from without, and deny the
subjective consciousness derived from within).
11. They are giddy with their wrong notions, and are not worthy of
our discourse; because no conversation can be held with them that are
intoxicated without intoxication, and are learned with their ignorance
or learned fools.
12. When the discourse of the learned, is not capable of removing the
doubts of men in all places; such discourse is to be understood as the
foolish talk of the universe.
13. He who relies in his belief in the sensibles only, and regards the
believer of the invisible as a fool; such a man (_i.e._ the Buddhist or
Charvaka), is considered for his unreasonable reasoning, as a block of
stone or stony block head.
14. The fool that maintains this (materialistic) doctrine, in
opposition to all rational philosophy, is said to be a frog of the dark
cave (or as a blind mole of the hole); because he is blind both to the
past which is out of his sight, as also to the invisible future and is
concerned only what is present before him.
15. It is the veda and the sayings of wisemen, and the inferences
of their right reasoning (in support of the invisible), as I have
maintained in these lectures, that can remove the doubts in these
matters.
16. If the sensible body (_i.e._ its sensation) be consciousness
(according to the Buddhist); then why is the dead body unconscious
of anything? (To this the Buddhist retorts by saying:) Should the
conscious and all pervading soul be the body, then why doth not
the dull corpse think as the living body? In reply to this foolish
question, it is thus said in the veda:
17. This world is an imaginary city of the divine mind, in its form of
Brahmá--the creator; and it is hence that the phenomenon of the world,
appears to our minds as a phantom in our dream (or as a reflex of the
same).
18. Therefore all this that you see, is but the creation of the divine
intellect, and an intellectual entity in itself; and you are not amiss
in your judgement, if you consider them as phantoms in your dream, and
appearing in the vacuity of your mind.
19. Hence this earth and the skies, these hills and cities, are all but
appearances in the void of the intellect, and conception of your mind,
as those appearing in the reveries of dream, or as air built castles.
20. It is the dense vacuum of self-consciousness, which is called the
great Brahmá or the personal god of creation; and it is the display
of his will in the concrete, which is known as Virát or the visible
universe; thus is the pure and discrete consciousness of Brahma,
condensed into the form of the world.
21. Whatever is imagined in the imaginary city of Brahma, the same is
conceived as existent in reality; as you conceive the objects of your
desire or fancy, to be present before you in actuality (_i.e._ The
thought of a thing appears as the thing itself).
22. So whatever is thought of in the fancied city, or fairy land of
one’s imagination at any time; the same seems to be present before him
for the time being, as you see in the air-drawn castle of your fancy.
23. Hence as Brahma in his form of the mind, thinks of the action of
living and quietus of death bodies; so are they thought of by all
mankind.
24. After the great dissolution of the world (and dissolution of all
things), it is said to be reproduced and renovated anew from nothing;
but as the want of any material cause, cannot produce the material
world, it is certain there is no material being in existence.
25. Brahmá--the lord of creatures, having got rid of the world upon
its dissolution, was freed also from all his remembrance and ideas of
creation for ever; therefore it is the reflexion of divine light only
which appears as the world before us.
26. Thus the supreme soul of Brahma, reflected itself in itself in the
beginning, in the manner of an imaginary castle of his will, which was
air-drawn as the visible sky in the invisible vacuum, and known as the
cosmos or world subsisting in empty space.
27. As an imaginary castle is the creation of the brain or intellect,
and presents to our minds only its intellectual form alone; so does the
world appear to us in its intellectual form, and only as an evolution
of the intellect, and without having any other cause for its appearance.
28. Whether there be any body or not any where, there is the vacuous
intellect which is every where (_i.e._ the hollow space of the mind
comprehends both the plenum as well as the vacuum of the world). And
know the divine spirit to pervade all over this totality, whether it be
the embodied duality or vacuous unity.
29. Hence the vacuous mind of a dead body, beholds the figure of the
whole world within its vacuity; the empty mind of a living being, sees
the shapes both of solid and subtile bodies, in its imagination or
dream. (It means to say that, the death of the body does not involve
the death of the mind).
30. As the living man thinks this immaterial world, to be a solid mass
of dull matter; so doth the dead person think this vacuous universe, as
a solid and substantial existence lying exposed before him in its mind.
31. But as the enlightened or awakened soul of a living body, sees no
trace of scenes of its dream upon its waking; so the redeemed soul of a
dead being sees no trace of the objects-sight in this world, upon its
redemption and beatification in the next world.
32. The very same is the case with the enlightened soul, of every body
in this world; that it bears only the inward conception of it within
itself; but no outward perception thereof without. Therefore there is
no material reality in existence, as there is no substantial causality
in vacuity.
33. As the sleeping man sees the visionary world of his dream, in
the light of a real existence; so the unenlightened person views the
phenomenal world, as a sober reality before him; and so do the souls
of the dead, deem the empty void of air as the world of their departed
spirits. (Thus there are three different worlds, for the sleeping,
waking and departed souls of men).
34. The unpeopled or open air, appears as the earth and heaven, and
full of mountains &c. as before to the souls of the departed (from
their bearing those impressions with them even to the next world, and
so on throughout all their future transmigration).
35. The departed soul perceives its separation from a dead body, and
thinks of its regeneration in another frame on earth; where it will
have its enjoyments and suffering again as before.
36. The soul never gets rid of this delusion of its regeneration, (and
of its desire of renovation also), so long as it neglects to resort to
the means, of obtaining its salvation and final liberation; it is by
means of its knowledge of truth and absence of desire, that is freed
from its error of reproduction.
37. Hence it is the consciousness of the soul, of its righteous or
unrighteous desire; that represents the picture of this airy world, in
the hollow sphere of the mind. (Thus the world is only the picture and
production of one’s own desire).
38. The world is therefore neither of a substantial nor vacuous form,
but the display of divine intelligence; the want of this knowledge
is the source of all misery to man, but its true knowledge as
representation of divine wisdom, is fraught with all bliss and joy.
CHAPTER CCVIII.
SOLUTION OF THE GREAT QUESTION.
Argument:--Answer to the question of _future rewards_ and
punishment of departed souls in another world.
Vasishtha continued:--Hear me now to tell you, why men happen to meet
with their (unexpected) good or fortune at home; and in the same manner
how rewards and retributions, come to attend on departed souls from
unforeseen causes in the far distant (or next) world.
2. You know the whole world to be the volitional city (or fabric) of
Divine will, and appearing as phenomenal to our outward sight, and
as noumenal in the light of our inward insight of it, and as Brahma
himself in its spiritual light. (_i.e._ God has so willed the world,
as to be viewed in the triple light of the physical, intellectual and
spiritual also).
3. In this volitional city, everything appears in the same light, as
one would behold it in any of its different aspects.
4. As in your own house, you are master of the direction of your
offspring, and of the disposal of your things and affairs as please;
so is the Lord the sole disposer and dispensator of all things in this
world of his will, as he likes of his own accord.
5. As in the desired dwelling of your liking, you find everything to be
as well disposed as you wish it to be; so doth he direct and dispose
all things in this world of his.
6. The disorder that there appears to take place in the order of
nature, is to be attributed to the Divine Will as the sovran law of all.
7. The good or evil which waits on men, owing to the obedience to or
transgression of law; is both attributable to the Divine Will (which
has originated the laws and ordained their results).
8. It is the dispensation of the Divine will also, whereby all living
bodies have their perceptions of worldly things; just as they have
the conception of the existence of the world, which in reality has no
entity of it.
9. It is by will of the divine intellect, that everything appears to
be existent before us; as it is the oscitation and occlusion or the
gaping and closing of the intellect, which causes the appearance and
disappearance of the world to our view.
10. The king said:--Tell me sir, if the world was the production of the
divine will, why was it not known to exist before with the eternity of
the Will divine, and why and when it came to be manifested and known
to others afterwards; tell me also, whether the world is an unstable
and vanishing appearance in the air, or it has any fixity in the divine
mind or stability in nature.
11. Vasishtha replied:--Such is the nature of the vacuous and
volitional city of divine intellect; that it comes to being and not
being in succession, in the states of repeated waking dreams of
creation, and in the sleeping oblivion of its desolation.
12. Like the mud built house of playful boys, and the air drawn castles
of fanciful men, do the appearances of creation, appear both as real
and unreal in the divine intellect as well as to our minds.
13. As you build and break your imaginary city in the air, and make
and unmake a fabric of your will elsewhere; whether it be of your own
or choice or for any other reason, so it is with the Divine will,
to construct and protract or retract or annul any of its works _ad
libitum_.
14. Thus are all beings, continually rising and falling, in this
vacuous city of the divine will; which is ever shining in its nature,
with the pure light of the divine mind. (God throws his own light on
the work of his will).
15. The whole plenum of the world is a vacuum, and full with the
dense intelligence of omniscience; therefore it is this omniscient
intelligence, which doth still whatever it thinks upon and wills. (This
passage shows that the Vedánta Brahma, is not inactive or Nishkriya as
many believe; but the living God, and sole agent of all things and
director of all accidents in this world).
16. Therefore it is not the hidden but self manifest God, that does all
things even at the distance of Millions of miles, and myriads of ages,
as if they lay before him at the present time.
17. So there is nothing in any country or in any world, which is not
known nor thought of by the sole and unhidden soul of all. (The gloss
applies it to every individual soul, which is conscious of its merits
and demerits everywhere).
18. As a brilliant gem reflects its light and shade within itself, so
doth the gem of the intellect reflect by its own light the various
vicissitudes of the world in itself. (_i.e._ The human mind is sensible
of its deserts).
19. Laws and prohibitions, which are necessary for the preservation
of people, are implanted in the human soul. (As they are the eternal
varieties of the divine mind), and accompany it every where with their
just rewards.
20. The soul never sets nor rises (_i.e._ It neither dies nor revives,
but supposes itself as such by its error only); It is Brahma himself
and his reflexion in others, and emanating always from the divine soul
its source and origin.
21. As from being the viewer, it supposes itself to be the view, and
thinks its imaginary world as a visible phenomenon; (_i.e._ believes
itself both as the subjective as well as objective); so it thinks
itself to be born, living and dying (by the like error of its own).
22. When the soul of its own nature ceases to cast its reflexion, or
suppresses it within itself, and remains quietly in the vacuous sphere
of divine intellect, by assimilating itself with the universal soul of
Brahma, it is then said to be _quietus_ of quiet in death. (The word
for death in the text is _Sánta-Samita_ or extinct, or instinct in the
divine soul).
23. The emission and intromission of its reflexion, are as natural to
the ignorant and imperfect living soul of animal beings; as oscillation
and calm are congenital with air (or as respiration and inspiration
with breath).
24. Now as you see in the city of your imagination, the growth, decay
and death of people, at different times and places;--
25. So it is the nature of this imaginary city of God, to exhibit these
changes everywhere, as in the cases of animals, vegetables and all
things in all the three worlds.
26. But God neither wills nor does everything himself, in this creation
of his will, but he acts by general laws and secondary causes, as
in the cricket play of boys, and growth of grass from grass, and
production of trees and their fruits &c. from seeds.
27. It is the nature of the almighty intellect of God, to bring forth
forthwith to being whatever it wills to be and appear. (The almighty
thought, will or word, is variously said to be the prime cause of all).
28. All things being originally of intellectual form, appear afterwards
in various forms, and with different natures; as the almighty intellect
invests them with.
29. Hence everything here, is verily of an intellectual form, by their
originating from the divine intellect; and as the intellect includes
all things in itself, it is omniform and shows itself in any form it
likes.
30. This very intellect is the omniscient and universal soul, without
having its beginning, middle or end; it is omnipotent and something
which is nothing, and an entity appearing as non-entity; It appears
such as it remains anywhere, and shows itself as anything; it is the
origin of all things and beings, and the source of all vegetables and
grass.
CHAPTER CCIX.
ON THE CONSCIOUSNESS OR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF EXTRANEOUS EXISTENCES.
Argument:--Reconciliation of the opposite results of virtuous and
sinful acts, on one and same person at the same time.
Vasishtha continued saying:--The life of a person is dear and useful to
him, as long as he lives and not afterwards; but hear me tell you the
good of a man’s dying in some holy place, with a wish for future reward
in his next life.
2. God has ordained certain virtues and merits to certain places, even
from the beginning of his imaginary city of this world (as to all other
things at their very beginning).
3. Whatever merit is assigned to any place, the same awaits on the soul
of the person, after its release from bondage, by his performance of
the acts of piety enjoined by the sástras.
4. Hence any great sin that is committed by any body anywhere, is
either partly or wholly effaced by the good act of the person,
according to comparative merit of the holy place, or the degree of
absolution in the mind of the penitent sinner.
5. In any case of the insignificance of the sin, with regard to the
greater sacerdotalism of the place; there the sinner is quite absolved
from his guilt, and attains the object of his wish (in his future life).
6. But in case of the equality of the merits of penitence, with the
holiness of the place; the penitent man receives two bodies in his next
life, that is both a physical body and spiritual soul.
7. Such is the effect of the primeval guilt and merit of mankind, that
they are endowed with double bodies, consisting of their physical
frames and spiritual souls (the one maculate and the other immaculate)
and such the divine soul even from before.
8. The principle is called Brahma in its sense of the whole, and as
Brahmá--the totality of the living soul _jíva_; and also as _aham_
or the ego, meaning any living soul in particular; and as he remains
in any manner of the whole or part, so he manifests himself in his
semblance of the world.
9. The reflexion of purity acquired in some holy place, appears to the
penitent soul in the same manner; as it appears in its contrary light
to the guilty soul, which is not so absolved from its sin in any holy
place. (These different reflexions, present the appearance of heavenly
bliss to the soul of one, and that of hell torments to the other, as in
their visions of paradise and Styx in dream).
10. The one sees the visions of his own death, and the weeping of his
living relatives; and deems himself as a departed ghost to the next
world, all alone and without a single soul beside him.
11. He sees also the deaths of his friends there, and thinks also that
he hears the wailings of their relations at that place; he sees the
chimeras of all these in his phrensy, as a man of deranged humours sees
the spectres of bugbears in his delirium.
12. So it happens with great souls also, to see the sights both of good
grace and affright, according to the measure of their merit or guilt
in this life; and thus thousands of hopeful and hideous shapes, float
about in the imaginations of men, owing to the purity and depravity of
their natures.
13. The friends of the dying man, lying insensible as a dead body; weep
and wail over his corpse, and then take him to the funeral ground for
his cremation.
14. But the guiltless man being accompanied by his self-conscious and
righteous soul sees the approach of his decrepitude and death, with
firmness and without any feeling of sorrow (as if he had no decay nor
death).
15. With his present body he sees himself to be a living being; and
with his invisible part or inward soul, he sees his conquest over death
by the merit of his holy pilgrimage (and the immortality of his soul in
the future world).
16. The guiltless man is in fear of his death for a moment only, but is
conscious of the indestructibility of his inward soul, as a man clad
in mail, is dauntless of the shafts of his unarmoured antagonist. (The
pure soul is invulnerable to the shafts of death).
17. In this manner the relatives of the deceased, find his pure soul,
to obtain its immortality after his death; and that life and death are
indifferent to the virtuous and purified person.
18. The sights of all the three worlds, are equally fallacious both in
their tangible and intangible forms; as the vision of one object in a
dream, is as false as another in their visionary nature. (The gloss
says that, one error succeeds another, in the same way as one lie is
followed by another).
19. We have clear conceptions of the fallacies, arising in our minds,
both in our dreams and imagination; but the fallacies of our waking
dreams by broad daylight, are more obvious and never less conspicuous
to our apprehension than either of them (the latter being more general
and lasting than the former ones).
20. The king said:--But tell me sir, how virtue and vice, both of which
are bodiless things (as being the abstract qualities of our actions),
assume to themselves the bodily forms of living beings, in the course
of the transmigration of our souls. (Virtuous souls being blessed with
human bodies, while vicious spirits are doomed to suffer in various
brutish forms).
21. Vasishtha replied:--There is nothing impossible to the creative
power of Brahmá, to be produced in the imaginary fabric of this world
of his mind; nor is it impracticable to the substantive divine will to
give substantial forms to understand things. (The substantive will is
called _satyasankulpa_ which brings the inexistent to real existence).
22. There is nothing which is unimaginable, and cannot be produced by
the mind of Brahmá; as it is with us to have no idea of anything and
nothing in being, of which we have no imagination in our finite minds.
(Brahmá has given forms to all the imaginary ideas of his mind, which
we cannot do to our formless and abstract idea of any).
23. A visionary city in the dream and an imaginary castle of fancy, do
both present the like ideal form to the mind; and yet both of them are
composed of a train of ideas, which appear as real objects for the time
being. (So the ideal seems as real for a time).
24. All the numerous thoughts, which lie as a dead and dormant mass, in
the states of our deep and sound sleep; appear to us in endless forms
in the vision of our dream and waking our imagination and leave their
traces in the memory.
25. Who is there that has not had the notion, of the aerial castles of
his dream and imagination; and found them not to be composed of our
concepts only, in the airy world of our vacuous consciousness.
26. Therefore what thing is there, that is not capable of being
produced in this ærial world, which is the production of the airy
imagination of the vacuous intellect; and what thing also which is
substantially produced therefrom? (The creatures of the mind, have
mental forms only).
27. Therefore it is this fallacy only, which appears in the form of
the visible universe; where there is nothing in real existence or
inexistence; but all things appear to be _in esse_ and _non esse_, in
the _Nabhas_ and in the _Nubibus_ of the divine mind.
28. Anything that is perceived in any manner, the same is thought as
a manifestation of its Áker in the same manner; and the enlightened
seekers of truth, find no impropriety in their belief as such. (These
as they change, are the varied God. Thomson’s “The Seasons”).
29. Hence when a man is taught by the tenets of his religion, to hope
for the enjoyment of flowery banks (lit.--hills), and streams flowing
with nectar in paradise (lit.--heaven); it is very probable that he
will meet with the same things, in his future life in the next world.
(So the Moslem is taught to expect the gratification of all his carnal
desires in heaven, as the promised rewards of his holy Koran. The
Hindus likewise have bodily delights to expect in their different
heavens).
30. Hence the acts that are done in this world by any body, are
attended with their like rewards unto him in the next; and there is no
inconsistency in this belief, though it appears so to the unbeliever
(The adage--as you sow, so shall you reap, holds equally true in every
religion with regard to future retribution, as in every case here
below).
31. Should there be anything, which may be said to be permanent in this
world, it must be ever present in the view of its viewer; let then any
man say upon this criterion, which he does not lose the sight of all
other things before his eye sight, except the ideas of things in his
mind, which are ever present in his knowledge, and never lost sight of
in his consciousness.
32. I have given you the analogy of our dreams and thoughts, to prove
the essentiality of our notions and ideas; and whereas the worlds
appertain to the will and subsists in the mind of omniscience, they are
not otherwise than the essence of the Great Brahma Himself.
33. As there is nothing wanting or impossible to be produced, in the
ærial castle of your imagination; so there is nothing which does not
and cannot exist in the will and mind of the almighty.
34. Whatsoever is thought of in any form, in the Divine Mind, the
same remains fixed therein in the very form; and the same appears to
be situated in the same nature before our views in its photo or in a
scenography.
35. Hence this semblance of the Divine Mind, is perceived only by our
internal senses, and not perceptible to the external organs, or to both
of these at once; because it is for our minds only to perceive the
impressions of the eternal mind, and to impel the internal organs (by
their inward efforts), to receive those reflexions.
36. As the lord has willed everything at first, so it lasts with him to
the very last of his creation (_i.e._ from the very beginning of his
Sankalpa, to the end of the kalpa epoch); when his will of creating the
world anew, gives another form to the state of things in future.
37. The Lord manifests himself as he wills, in the manner of his will,
and in the form of another world in every kalpa duration of creation;
as the minds of men come to see another world and another state of
things in their each successive dream.
38. There is nothing which does not exist, in this worldly city of
Divine will, and all that exists therein is naught but the production
of the Divine Intellect; therefore this world is to be known, as full
of the forms of the productive mind of God.
CHAPTER CCX.
REFUTATION OF THE CONCEPTION OF A DUALITY IN UNITY.
Argument:--End of Vasishtha’s Replies to the important queries,
and his showing the unity of the world with Brahma himself.
Vasishtha resumed and said:--Now hear me tell you in reply to the
question, why the heaven is not filled with a hundred full moons, if
it were the wish of a hundred persons to shine as such a luminary on
future, and if the wishes of all are crowned with success in their next
state of being. (The souls of the pious are said to twinkle as stars in
heaven).
2. Those that aspired to become as bright as the full moon of heaven,
became actually so in their conception of themselves as such in the
sphere of their minds; and not by their situation in the vault of the
sky or in the orb of that luminary.
3. Say who has ever and anywhere, got into the imaginary city of
another; and who has ever got any fancied treasure, except the framer
of the fancy and the fabricator of the wished for wealth. (Every one is
the master of his own Utopia and delights in his hobby horse).
4. Every one has a heaven of his own, in the utopia of his creation;
wherein he is situated and shines as a full bright moon, and without
its phases of the wane and waste.
5. All those aspirants to luminosity, had thought of entering into the
moon of his own mind; and there he found himself to rest at last, with
full light of that luminary and delight of his conscious soul.
6. Each of them thought of entering into the disc of the moon shining
in their minds, and felt themselves glad in their situation, as if they
were seated in the orb of the celestial moon.
7. Whatever one seeks and searches after, the same becomes con-natural
with his consciousness; and in the case of his firm belief in the same
state, he thinks and feels himself to be the very same.
8. As every aspirer to the state of the full moon, came to be such in
his respective conception of that luminary; so the suitors of the same
bride in marriage, became wedded to her according to his own conception
of hers. (Every one imagines his doxy, as a fairy paragon of beauty).
9. The one pure maiden that is thought of being taken to wife, by
many men in their minds; is never defiled by any one of them in her
character, by their simple enjoyment of her ideal only. (The ideal is
not tangible possession).
10. As the sovereign ruler of the seven continents, holds his sway over
them, without ever going out of his city; so the soul passes to them
all, by remaining in the precincts of its body: and so does every man
see his imaginary castle, in the sphere of his own house.
11. When the whole universe owes its origin to the imagination of its
omniscient originator--the self born Brahma; what can it be otherwise,
than an intangible vacuum and quite calm and quiet in itself. (The
moving bodies are the fixed figures of the divine mind, and appear to
be turning round like the pictures in a panorama or the objects in a
scenograph).
12. Now hear me tell you of the unknown and invisible results of the
acts piety, such as charity, obsequeous rites, religious austerities
and the mutterings of holy mantras, which accrue to the departed ghosts
of bodily beings in the next world.
13. The souls marked with traces of pious acts in them, come to view
them vividly as their actual works, and painted in as lively colours as
their dreams, by fabrications of their lively intellects.
14. The carnal mind distrusting the reality of these impressions of
consciousness, and disregarding the internal operation of the inward
intellect; becomes restless for its sensuous enjoyment and exercise of
the outward organs of action, until by abatement of this fervour, it is
restored to its inward peace and tranquility.
15. It is the theme of early poets which tells us, that the impressions
of the acts of piety and charity which are imprinted in the intellect,
are reflected over the passive soul in the next world, when the
conscious soul continues to keep the gratification of those acts.
16. Thus the rewards of charity and uncharitableness, are equally felt
in the gratification and dissatisfaction of the soul in this world
also, where everything is by our feeling of it.
17. Thus have answered fully to whatever you have asked of me; and now
know from all this, that the sensible world is an intangible dream, and
an air drawn spectacle of the mind.
18. The prince rejoined:--But please to tell me sir, how could the
intellect alone and itself before the production of the body; and how
can a light subsist without its receptacle of a lamp or lantern.
19. Vasishtha replied:--The sense in which you use the world body, is
quite unknown to the spiritualist, who discard the material meaning of
the term, as they reject the idea of the dancing of stones in air. (The
learned know the spiritual body only).
20. The meaning of the word body, is the same as that of Brahma (who is
all in all); and there is no difference in the meaning of the two, as
there is none between the words fluid and liquid.
21. The body is a visionary appearance, and the great body of Brahma,
is likened unto the figure of a phantom in vision, which represents
the forms of all things as in dream in the stupendous fabric of the
universe. [Brahma is more likely the phantasmagoria that shows all
forms in it. Gloss].
22. But the difference between thy dream or vision and spectrum of
Brahma, consist in the former representing the figures of thy previous
thoughts alone, which disperse and vanish upon thy waking; but the
universe which is exhibited in spectrum of Brahma, is not so evanescent
as that of other.
23. What is thing then we call the body, and how does it appear into
us in the shape of something in our dream; and why doth anything
appearing as a reality in dream, appear as nothing and vanish as an
error upon our waking.
24. There is no waking, sleeping or dreaming, nor any other condition
of being, in the _Turíya_ or transcendent state of Brahma [as in those
of the divine hypostases of Brahmá, Virát and others]. It is something
as the pure and primeval light and as the transparent air, all quiet
and still, [as the infinite eternity].
25. It is the same as the unknown and inscrutable light, which shows
and glows before us to this day; It is the same primeval and primordial
light, that showed first the sight of the world to view, as if it were
a dream in the gloom of night. (Light was nature’s first born, and
brought forth all nature from it).
26. As in passing from one district to another, the body though
proceeding onward, is ever in the midst of its circuit, and yet never
fixed at any spot; so are all things in their endless rotation in this
world, whether singly or collectively.
27. The sight of the world, like that of a dream, presents <a> favourable
aspect to some minds, but it presents a clear and serene prospect to
men of unclouded intellects.
28. The vacuum as well as the plenum of objects, and the reflexion
as likewise the eclipse or adumbration of things; the existence and
inexistence of the world and matter, and the unity and duality of the
divine entity, are all but the extraneous phases or aspects of the same
vacuous intellect.
29. The world is entirely or completely evolution from the fulness of
the deity; and stands as a complete counterpart of the original; it is
neither a shining or unshining body by itself, but is as bright as the
contents of a crystal within its bowels.
30. Wherever there is the evolution of the world in the intellect,
there is the presence of the subtile soul also at that place, and
whenever there is a jot of thought anywhere, it is attended with the
thought of the world also. (The mind and soul are one with creation,
and the same thing).
31. The vacuum of intellect is present everywhere (pervading and
comprehending the whole). And this omnipresence is the divine presence
(which engrosses and envelopes this all) which is termed the world.
[The word world-jagat passing [in our right], is spiritually _sánta_ or
quiet].
32. The divine soul is as quiet and unchangeable, as this universe is
stable and stationary; and it is the fluctuation of the supreme mind,
which causes these variations in the face of the city of the divine
will [or the world].
33. The impossibility of any other inference [of the world’s duality
or its being aught otherwise than the divine entity]; proves it
necessarily to be of the very same essence. Any unreasonable hypothesis
of sophists is inconsistent with this subject [of the absolute unity].
34. The joint assent of the common belief of mankind, the testimony
of the sástras, and the dicta of the Vedas, are established and
incontrovertible truths. Hence nobody can have any doubt in regard to
the real entity of the Divine spirit.
35. This being confessed it becomes evident, that the world is the
deity itself; and when the world appears as one with the deity, it
is seen in our clairvoyance to be extinct in the Divine essence.
(Clairvoyance is _charama-sákshat kára_ or the last sight of creation
at one’s dying moment; when the world disappears, and eternity appears
full open to view. Gloss).
36. From this analogy of the ultimate evanescent sight of the world, it
will be evident to the living soul, that the sight of the phenomenal
is wholly lost before it in the noumenal. This is the doctrine of
cosmotheism, wherein whole nature is seen in nature’s God.
37. He who is acquainted with the sphere of his intellect, is not
unacquainted with the fact of the dependency of the arbour of the world
to it, he sees the three worlds in himself, in either of his two states
of bondage and liberation. (The fettered soul is fastened to the sight
of the material and temporal world; but the liberated soul views it in
its spiritual light).
38. The visible world though so manifest to view, is entirely lost to
sight upon its right knowledge; and the knower thereof in its light,
becomes like the setting sun, wholly invisible to public sight, and
remains as mute as a clod of silent stone.
39. The way that is established by the Vedas, and received by the
general assent of wisemen; is to be acknowledged, as the right path
leading to sure success (vox populi vox dei).
40. He who adheres steadily to his own purpose, by utter disregard of
all other objects in his view; is said to be firmly fixed to his point,
and is sure to reap his success at the end.
41. Everything appears to one in the same light, as he is accustomed to
view and take it for; and whether this object of his faith is a true
or false one, it appears just the same to any body as he is wont to
believe it.
42. This is the conclusion of your question, as I have determined and
delivered to you; now be quick and walk your way with perfect ease of
your mind, health of your body and agility of your limbs.
CHAPTER CCXI.
LECTURE ON TRANSCENDENT TRUTH.
Argument:--Relation of Brahma as the all-pervading spirit, and of
the means of the presentation of spiritual being before one.
Vasishtha resumed:--As I was sitting relating these things to the
prince, he honoured me with his obeisance; and then thinking I had
dispensed my task to him, rose up to proceed on my aerial journey (from
the Ilávrita-Varsha of Kushadwípa).
2. Thus I have related unto you this day, O most intelligent Ráma,
regarding the omnipresence of the Divine spirit; keep this vacuous view
of Brahma before your sight, and proceed everywhere with the peace of
your mind (as you are ever living and moving in the Lord).
3. Know all this to be Brahma itself, and a nameless and unsubstantial
void only; it is something unborn and increate, all calm and quiet, and
with out its beginning, middle and end. (It is infinity in space and
eternity in duration).
4. It is said to be the reflexion of the intellect, and named as Brahma
from its immensity, it is termed the most transcendent, and something
without any designation at all.
5. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how can we have the sights of the
celestial, and of the Siddha and Sádhya spirits, of Yama, Brahmá and of
the heavenly Vidyádharas and choristers; and tell me also sir, how the
people of the other spheres can be visible to us.
6. Vasishtha replied:--The celestial siddhas, Sádhyas, the gods Yama
and Brahmá, and the Vidyádhara demigods; these together with all other
beings of great souls and wondrous might;--
7. Are all visible to you both by day and night, and above, below,
behind and ever before you, if you will but look at them with the eyes
of your mind; but if you shut your mental eye against spirituality, you
can never have the sight of spirit presented before your view. (This
passage is illustrated in the story of Chudaloka. Gloss).
8. These beings being habituated to be viewed in our minds, are never
afar from us, and as they are represented to be volitive or self willed
beings, they are said to be ever roving everywhere. (The spirits are of
two kinds; some stationary in their particular lokas or spheres; and
others to be wandering about. Gloss).
9. These volitional beings are as fickle as the living creatures of
this earth of ours; and as the volatile winds, which are blowing at
random in every direction.
10. These resemble the airy creatures of your imagination and dream,
which hover and gather about you by day and night; while the others
are devoid of their volition and motion, and are settled stationary in
their respective spheres.
11. If you can in the calm quietness of your mind and soul, secure
the reflexion of any of these spirits in your silent and steadfast
meditation; you can without fail, have the visitation of the same in
the inmost recess of your soul (and hold your secret communion with it
also. Gloss).
12. In this manner do men see the gods as they see the siddhas, arrayed
with all their majesty and glory, as they are feigned to be in their
intense meditations. (Dhyánenaivapara-devah).
13. Now as men of steady minds, find themselves to be soaring to
heaven, in the company of the siddhas and clad in all their glory;
those of fickle and unsubdued minds, have to take great pains, in order
to confine the fleeting object of their contemplation under their
control. (It is often dangerous to the unadept novice in meditation, to
let slip the object of his contemplation from his grasp).
14. The world is altogether an unsubstantial and imperceptible thing;
and is ever as silent and a serene void, as the vacuum of the intellect
(or the Divine mind). It appears however as a solid and compact mass,
according as the notion we have of it in our consciousness. (_i.e._
This nothing is thought of <as> something, according to our mistaken
notion or conception of it).
15. It does not exist in our unconsciousness, nor does it appear to be
in existence or otherwise it is not dull, insensible and unthinking
beings; it is a vacuity and nullity, and utterly an intangible and
imperceptible thing in our sensibility and unconsciousness of it.
16. It is the nature of the intellect to reflect in itself, and all
that is seen about us, is the shadow of that reflexion; the knowledge
of substantiality in this shadowy reflection, proceeds from the vanity
of the intellect, and not from its nature which <is> free from mistake.
17. There can be no talk of causation, production or vegetation, in
the nature of the universe; which being an absolute void, is entirely
devoid of the elements of cause and effect. (Ex nihilo nihil fit &c.).
18. That which appears to be produced, is only a void in the midst of
primeval vacuum (teo et beo); nor can there be the attribution of unity
or duality to the infinite vacuity.
19. Yet the world appears as something existent in your mind; and as
visible before your eyes; and this happens in the same manner as you
have the consciousness and sight of your dreams; in the unruffled calm
of your hollow sleep.
20. As imagination causes the mountains and mountainous regions, to
rise in the hollow sphere of our minds; but neither is the one nor
the other found to be really existent therein; such is this creation
an airy working of the divine mind (and leaving no trace of it left
behind).
21. Hence it is the nature of the wise and sapient, to remain as quiet
and mute as motionless blocks of wood or stone; and the character of
great minds, to manage themselves as wooden puppets, moving wholly as
they are moved by the prime mobile power of God alone (Without being
actuated by their own desire, or deeming themselves as free agents).
22. As the waves are seen to roll about on the surface waters, and as
the eddies are whirling round and hurling headlong into the deep; so
the whole creation and all created things, turn about the pivot of the
great Brahma alone. (Not an atom herein, has an excentric course of its
own).
23. As vacuity is inborn in the firmament, and undulations are immanent
in the air; so are these creations inherent and inseparably connected
with the divine spirit, in their amorphous or formless and ideal
shapes. (This passage maintains the idealistic theory of the ancients).
24. As an air drawn castle of our will or imagination, presents
a substantial shape before us with all its unsubstantialness; so
does this world appear as a compact frame exhibited before us,
notwithstanding its situation in the formless mind of Brahma.
25. All these three worlds, that we are accustomed to believe as real
ones, and as seats of our temporal as well as spiritual concerns; are
all void and formless, and as unreal ones as the airy castles of our
imagination.
26. As it is the thought of our minds, that creates full populous
cities in them; so it is the thought of the mind of God, that creates
these numerous worlds, and presents them to our minds and eyes.
27. Though ever and all along thought as a reality, this visible world
bears no meaning at all; and resembles the sight of a man’s own death
in his dream.
28. As a man sees the funeral of his dead body, conducted by his son in
his dream; so the unreal world is seen as a reality, in as much as it
is reflected as such by its supreme contriver.
29. Both the entity and non-entity of the cosmos or world, constitute
the corpus of the immaculate deity; just as a fictitious name applied
to a person, makes no difference in his personage.
30. Whether what I have said is true or not (that the siddhas and
others are mere imaginary or spiritual beings), you have nothing to
lose or gain therefrom (because we have no concern whatever with them);
and as it is useless for wise men to expect any reward by casting
fruits into the Phálgu river, so it is of no good to the intelligent
who have known the true God, to take the pains of invoking the aid of
the minor gods instead of Him.
CHAPTER CCXII.
ON ASCERTAINMENT OF TRUTH.
Argument:--Thinking God as the Ego, Brahmá and the creation, and
the description of God.
Vasishtha resumed:--The man that considers himself as the Ego, from his
possession of the intellect and intellectual powers in him; elevates
him to the rank of Brahmá and contains the whole world in himself.
2. As the Lord Brahmá or Hiranyagarbha remained in this state (of the
totality of souls) he was not then the creator of the world; but was
alike the increate Brahma--the everlasting God, as he continued from
all eternity. (Brahmá assimilating himself to the impersonal God, had
no personality of himself, so the holy trinity was all One, before
the Lord caused his coeternal son to create the world; as nothing was
created but by the son).
3. It is in our consciousness, that the world appears in this manner,
and is like the mirage in a desert, where its very unreality shows
itself as a reality. (Hence our consciousness, is not always the test
of truth).
4. It is since the creation, that the primeval vacuum began to present,
the blunder or falsity of the world in itself; but how and whence
arose this blunder, unless it were the presentation of Brahma himself.
(Delusion is God also).
5. The world is a whirlpool (a revolving sphere), in the vast ocean
of Brahma (_i.e._ in the great expanse of vacuum). Where then is the
question of unity or duality in this, or the talk of the dualism of
the eddy from the waters of the deep, or how can there be the topic of
unity in want of a duality. (The world is therefore Brahma-dharma or an
hypostasis of God. Gloss).
6. The great Brahma is profoundly quiet, and having his intellect
inherent in himself, he is conscious of his being the great or sole
Ego (or the totality of beings) in his mind, and sees himself as the
midst of the vast expanse of vacuity.
7. As fluctuation is inherent in air, and heat is inbred in fire; and
as the moon contains its coolness in itself, so does the Great Brahma
brood over the eternal ideas of things, contained in the cavity of his
fathomless mind.
8. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how does the divine mind come to think
of and brood upon his creation; when the eternal intellect is ever
employed in its process of intellection. The course of Divine thought
being unobstructed from eternity to eternity, its even tenor cannot
be supposed to be now and then turned to the act of creation, or even
said to be brought in its action and motion, since the time that this
creation first began to exist (There can be no talk of the beginning or
end of the world before eternity).
9. Vasishtha replied:--It is even so, O Ráma! the great Ego of God
always thinks of everything in itself; and the increate and ever
existent spirit of God, has never anything unknown to his knowledge.
(The evolution and involution of the world, are known by the terms of
its creation and annihilation).
10. The vacuous is ever and every where present both in creation and
non-creation (_i.e._ both before as well as after it); and there
is nothing that is known to him as existent or nonexistent at any
time (since the ignorant know the world as existent, and the learned
consider it a nihility; but the Lord knows them all in himself).
11. As the mind is conscious of its fluctuation, and the moon of her
coldness; and as the air knows its voidness, so doth Brahma know
himself as the Ego, and never thinks himself without the other. (They
are Misra or combined together).
12. Such is the entity of God, and never unlike to or otherwise than
this; and whereas the world is without its beginning and end, it must
be as imperishable as Brahma himself. (The world is without end).
13. It is only from your want of sufficient intelligence, and hearing
of or prejudice in the word _non-ego_; that you are led to the belief
of a duality, in the undualistic unity of the Deity.
14. Never does any body nor anything here, think of itself of anything
whatever; there is none and naught whatsoever, that can think unless it
is the same with the Divine Ego.
15. The apparent threefold world, ever appears in this manner; as one
with and inseparable from God that dwells alike and evenly in all,
which composes one uniform whole, without admixture of any diversity or
duality (all which blend together in harmony in one universal unity).
16. Know O Ráma, that is nothing like a rock or tree, is produced in
empty vacuity; so these seeming solid worlds, can never be produced in
the vacuous spirit of Brahma (but are all mere phantoms of what they
appear to be) know this, and go on freely in your own way.
17. Precepts to men of little intelligence and doubtful minds, fail to
persuade them to the knowledge of truth; and so long as they can not
comprehend the unity, they are ever apt to believe in the multiplicity
of objects.
18. Neither precepts nor sástras, can lead the ignorant to the
knowledge of truth, unless they can get rid of their prejudice of
diversity, which the creator Brahmá, has spread over the minds of men.
19. Ráma rejoined:--I understand sir, what you say (regarding the ego
as the agent); but I beseech you to explain it by some illustration,
for my clear knowledge of it.
20. What does the supreme Brahma do, by his assuming the title of
ego or thinking agent to himself; you know all this (by your vast
knowledge), though it is not quite satisfactory to your audience.
21. Vasishtha replied:--The supreme One that was quite indistinct
before (as the undistinguishable chaos); becomes after his assumption
of the title ego to himself, divided and distinguished into the
distinct essences of vacuum, space and its directions and time with all
its divisions. (The ego itself is diversified into these various forms).
22. The ego then assuming its personality, finds many such distinctions
appearing before itself; which are quite imperceptible in its state of
impersonality. (The personal soul only, is conscious of these).
23. The knowledge of these vacuous principles, their qualities and
attributes, which is preserved in the soul in the forms of their
abstract ideas; is expressed afterwards by certain symbolical sounds
or words, which are also as void as air. (A word is a breath, and the
breath is air).
24. It is thus the formless and vacuous principle of the ego,
entertains in itself or its soul, the notions or knowledge of times and
space in their ideal forms.
25. This universe which appears as the _réchauffé_ or reflex of the
ideal of the ego, and seems as the visible and substantial world, is in
reality but the intangible Brahma, and appearing as the tangible non
Brahma to view.
26. The world is verily the quiet spirit of Brahma, it is one with Him,
and without its beginning, middle or end; it is verily the void of
Brahma, who assumes to himself the titles of Ego and the living soul,
vacuous himself in his own vacuous self, as this vast and extensive
phenomenon, and as something otherwise than what He is. (The world is
the mirror of the divine Mind and its thoughts).
CHAPTER CCXIII.
NARRATION OF RÁMA’S PRIOR PUPILAGE UNDER VASISHTHA.
Argument:--Vasishtha’s relation of a lecture delivered to Ráma in
a former birth.
Vasishtha continued:--O Ráma, the destroyer of thy enemies, this very
question that you have asked me today, was put to me once before, when
you had been a pupil under my discipline.
2. In a former age, there was once this spiritual discourse betwixt
ourselves, when you had been a pupil of mine in a certain forest
(according to Metempsychosis), the present is but a repetition of a
past life. The wheel of life rolls and revolves incessantly from age to
age.
3. As I sat there as your preceptor, and your sitting in my presence as
my pupil; you then had put this very question to me, with the gravity
of your understanding.
4. The Pupil said:--You sir that know all things, now deign to remove
this doubt and difficulty of mine, regarding what things die and perish
at the great deluge, and what things are not liable to destruction.
5. The Preceptor replied saying:--Know my son, that the relics of all
things are utterly destroyed at the last deluge; as your thickening
dreams disappear in your sound sleep.
6. The hills and rocks on all the ten sides of the earth, are all
destroyed without any distinction, and of the actions of men and
routine of their business, there remains nothing behind.
7. All beings are destroyed at the end, and the great void (that is the
receptacle of all bodies), becomes a perfect void.
8. The gods Brahmá, Vishnu, Indra, Rudra and others, that are the prime
causes of the causal agencies of this world, do all become extinct at
the end of the world, and there remains no vestige of them at last.
9. There remains only the great vacuity of the divine intellect, which
is ever existent and undecaying; and this appears from the divine
spirits remaining as the witness both of annihilations as also of the
regeneration of the past and future worlds.
10. The entity never becomes a non-entity, nor the non-entity never
comes to be an entity; tell me therefore where the past world
disappears, and from whence the future world comes to existence.
11. The Preceptor replied:--This world, my boy, is not wholly destroyed
nor does it become altogether extinct; and it is quite true that
nothing ever goes to nothing, nor does anything, nor does anything
ever proceed from a nihility.
12. That which is an entity in reality, never becomes a non-entity in
anywise, and how can that which is inexistent of itself, ever become a
nil and null afterwards (Ex nihilo nihil fit &c.).
13. Where is water to be had in the mirage, and when are the two
seeming moons to be seen in the sky; where are the delusive hairs found
to be floating in the air, and when does a false conception prove to be
true. (So the seeming world is a nullity, although it appears awhile as
something to our deluded sight).
14. Know my son, all these phenomenals to be mere delusions, and
without any reality in them; they appear as cities and towns in our
dreams, and are ever obtrusive on us.
15. They are however liable to vanish away quite out of our sight at
last, as our dreams disappear upon our waking, and as our waking scenes
are lost and hid under the veil of our sleep.
16. As we know nothing where the city of our dreaming, vanishes away at
last upon our waking; so we are quite ignorant about that chaotic void,
wherein the universe submerges upon its exit.
17. The Pupil rejoined:--If the world is a nullity as you say, then
sir, be pleased to tell what is it that thus appears to and disappears
from us by turns; and what is that vacuous intellect which presents
this extensive view before us; as also how does the void present its
reflexion of the plenum and to what purpose.
18. The Preceptor replied:--It is the vacuous sphere of the intellect,
my boy, that thus shines with its transparency; and it is this
reflexion of it which is called the world, which is no other than this.
19. It is the reflexion of the widely extended substance of the great
void of the intellect; and this apparently solid figure of it, is no
other than the same transpicuous form of that intellect. (So says the
sruti, Brahmá reflects his twofold forms to us, the one opaque and seen
with our naked eye, and the other translucent and viewed by our mental
sight).
20. The incorporeal Brahmá like all corporeal bodies, presents both
a fair as well as a dark complexion (the one being his clear or
intellectual form seen by the clear sighted, and the other his hazy
figure viewed by gross understandings). He also discloses himself some
times and closes at another, which cause the creation and annihilation
of the world. (Manu calls it the waking and sleeping of God, and others
the evolution and involution of the divine spirit).
21. The clearness of the divine spirit, ever remains the same and
unaltered, both before and after the creation and its dissolution;
as a fountain of limpid waters is always clear, whether it reflects
the shadows of its bordering arbours or not. (No change in nature can
affect the spirit of God).
22. As a man remains unchanged in his sleep, whether he be dreaming
or enjoying his sound rest; so the spirit continues alike in its
intellect, whether it is in the act of creation or annihilation.
23. As the ideal world appears to be calm and quiet, both in the dream
of the dreamer, as well as in the sound sleep of the sleeper; so this
visible world of ours is ever viewed in its calmness, in the tranquil
spirit of the Lord and of the contemplative saint.
24. Hence I do not recognize the existence of a vacuum or sky, anywhere
and independent of our soul; nor can we expect the same sphere
appearing in the souls of others, as it does in ours according to our
view of it.
25. If we can perceive the light of our intellect, even at the point
of our death, and disappearance of the world from us; why should we
not conceive the same to be the case with others, and that they do not
perceive the same intellectual light also in their consciousness. (This
is an evidence of the immortality in our souls).
26. The Pupil rejoined:--If such is the case, that others who are
awake, have the same view of the world, as the dreamer has in his
dream; then I believe that all those that are living, have the same
view of the world as those that are dying, (_i.e._ A mere faint idea of
it and not a substantial one).
27. The preceptor replied:--So it is, O my intelligent lad, the world
then does not appear in its real form (of a solid body to the dreamer
and the dying), as it appears as a reality to the intellects of others
(that are waking and living). Idealism presents the true picture of the
world.
28. The world does not appear and is not anything, and nothing that is
real or has any reality in it; it is a mere reflexion of the intellect,
and there can be no reality in our false sight of it.
29. It is apparent everywhere, and seems to be in every way at all
times; but it does not exist <in reality> in anyway, anywhere or at
anytime.
30. And because it is both the real and unreal form of Brahma, it
is both a reality as well as unreality likewise; and being of the
intellectual void, is never destructible nor ever destroyed.
31. The vacuous entity of the supreme intellect, which exhibits the
phenomena of creation and its destruction (in repeated rotation),
abounds with our misery only, if we attend to its occurrences with any
degree of concern; but it does not affect us at all, if we can but
remain altogether unconcerned with its casualties.
32. All these appearances exist every where at all times, in the same
manner as they appear to the ignorant; but in truth, they appear in no
where, in any manner or at any time to the wise and learned (who know
the nature of worldly delusions).
33. It is the one self-same Being that appears as a god in one place,
and as a pot or clod in another. Here he is seen as a hill and there as
a rill or dale; He is an arbour here, of furze or bush there, and the
spreading grass in another. He is the moving and movable some where and
the unmoving and unmovably else where; and He is the fire and all other
elements also everywhere.
34. He is entity and nonentity, and both vacuity and solidity also; He
is action and duration, and the earth and sky likewise. He is the being
and not being, and their growth and their destruction likewise, and He
is good as well as the evil, that attends on one and forefends another.
35. There is nothing that is not He, who though one is always all
things in all places; He is in and out of everything, and extends
along the beginning, middle and end of all things. He is eternity and
duration and the three divisions of time also; (_i.e._ the present,
past and future, called the triple time).
36. He is all, and existent in all things, in all places and times; and
yet He is not the All, and neither existing with anything at any time
or place (but is but dimly seen in these His lowest works. Milton).
37. Know now, Ráma, that Brahma being the universal soul, He is all
in all places and times; and because Brahma is the conscious soul, He
exhibits all things to our consciousness, as if they were images in our
dreams or the creatures of our imagination. (_i.e._ A corporeal God
only can form a formal and plastic world; but the intellectual soul of
God, can make only a formless and immaterial creation, as we see in our
dream and phantasies).
38. The maker of the terrene world, must have an earthly body; and the
framer of the woody arbours must have a wooden frame, but the Lord God
of all, has neither a corporeal body nor a material shape. (Thus they
frame a fire, air and water God, but the true God is none of these
elements).
39. Others make a mountain God as the Lord of all; and some even make
and worship a human figure as the supreme God (and so are all the
heathen gods represented in human figures).
40. Some make a picture the Lord and maker of all; and others make some
image as such, and worship it as the great God of all.
41. But there is only one supreme Being, who is the maker, supporter
and the Lord God of all others; He is without beginning and end, and
the Lord Brahma, whose spirit upholds and supports all others.
42. A straw made image or an earthen pot, is attributed with divine
powers, and represented as the Most high; and so the formless God is
shown in frail images, which are made and destroyed by human hands.
43. An outward object is made the actor and enjoyer of acts; but the
wise know intelligence only, as the active and passive agent of all
actions.
44. But the truly wise (_i.e._ the vacuist) acknowledges no active nor
passive agent of creation; although many among the wise (_i.e._ the
Páshupatas) recognize one God alone, as the only actor, and enjoyer of
all.
45. All these views may be probable, and well apply to the most high,
who is the sole object of all these theories; and as there is nothing,
which can be positively affirmed or denied of Him. (Here the vacuist
Vasishtha is a tolerator of all faiths, as suited to the capacities of
the different understanding of men).
46. All these believers look to their desired objects, as manifest to
their view in the vacuous space of their intellects, and by viewing the
whole world in themselves, they remain undecayed at all times.
47. All visibles and all laws and prohibitions, together with all
desires and designs of men; are confined with their knowledge of them
in themselves. Hence those that are true to their faiths, and firm
in the observance of their duties and performance of their acts, are
verily of the nature of the divine soul, by their viewing all nature in
themselves.
48. This very doctrine was inculcated to before, when you had been a
pupil under my preceptorship; but as you could not fully comprehend
it then, you are doomed to another birth, to learn it again from me.
(Vasishtha means to say that he is immortal, though Ráma may have his
transmigration in many incarnations).
49. The world representing the longsome dark and dreary winter night,
presents the pure light of knowledge, shining with the serene and
cooling beams of the autumnal lunar disk; now O Ráma! as you <are>
edified by your pure intelligence, shake off the dross of dull
ignorance from you, and continue in the discharge of your duties, as
they have lineally descended to you and to your royal race.
50. Do you remain released from your attachment, to all things of this
temporal world; and relying solely in the One supreme and universal
soul, whose pure nature is perceptible throughout all nature; then be
as lucid as the pellucid sky, with the peace of your mind and transport
of your soul, and learn to rule your realm with justice and equity.
CHAPTER CCXIV.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT JUBILEE OF THE ASSEMBLY.
Argument:--Demonstration of the exceeding exultation of the
audience at the close of the long winded lengthy lecture.
Válmíki related:--As the sage had finished saying these things, or so
far, the celestials sounded their trumpets from heaven, as the clouds
resounded in the rainy skies, with showers of nectarious rain drops (on
the earth below). The face of the sky was whitened on all sides, as by
drifts of snowfalls in hoary winter, and the surface of the earth was
covered by rain drops, dropping like showers of flowers. (The sound of
celestial trumpets, is ever accompanied with or followed by a shower
<of> refreshing rain).
2. The earth appeared to be blessed with prosperity in the beauty of
the flowers, stretching their pistils and peduncles like beauties in
their evening decorations, and sending afar the fragrance of their
farinacious dust, like the perfumery on the persons of fairies, their
outer garniture and inner cool sweetness are verily the gifts of the
gods.
3. The falling flowers of heavenly arbors, dropped down from their
dried boughs, by the rampant and apish hurricane of heaven, are now
vying with the glittering stars, scattered all over the face of the
firmament, and deriding at their grim laughter with their bashful and
blushing smiles.
4. The lowering clouds accompanied with sounds of trumpets, and
drizzling rain drops and falling of flowers (which bore resemblance
to one another); next lighted upon the court hall, like the shadowy
snow fall on Himálaya’s head, and filled the assembly with wonder, and
gaping mouths and staring eyes.
5. The assembly seated in their order, took hold of handfuls of these
heavenly flowers; and poured them upon Vasishtha with their obeisance,
and cast away all their earthly cares and woes with those celestial
offerings to the sage. (Every offering confers and recurs, with an
equivalent blessing to the offerer).
6. The King Dasaratha said:--O wonder! that we are so lightly released
of our cares and woes, in this wide extended vale of miseries of the
world; and that our souls are now lightened of their throws by your
grace, like the heavy clouds lightened of their weight, and floating
lightly at last on Himálayas.
7. We have reached to the goal of our acts, and seen the end of our
miseries of this life; we have fully known the knowable One (that is
only to be known), and have found our entire rest in that supreme state
(by your good grace alone).
8. We have known to rest in the ultimate void in our meditation, and to
get rid of our erroneous thoughts of bodies, by means of our intense
application to the abstract (or Platonic abstraction).
9. It is by our riddance from the coinage and vagaries of our
imagination, and by our escape from the feverish fervour for the sights
of the dreaming world; as also by our ceasing to mistake the shells and
cockles for silver, and by our deliverance from misdeeming ourselves as
dead either in our sleep or dream, (that we may be enabled to the true
knowledge of ourselves &c.).
10. It is by our knowledge of the identity of the wind and its
oscillation, and of the sameness of the water with its fluidity; as
also by our distrust in this talismanic world, and in this fairy land
of our fancy (that we can attain to the knowledge of truth &c.).
11. It must be by our discredit in the magical scenes of this world,
and in the aerial castles of fairies; as also by our mistrust in the
limpid currents of the mirage, and in the aerial groves and double
moons of heaven (that we can come to know the truth).
12. It is no earthquake, if our tottering foot steps should shake and
slip in our drunkenness; nor can we view a ghost in a shadow as boys
do, nor see the braids of hair hanging down from the clouds in heaven.
13. From these and other instances, which you have given for our
instruction; you have sir, at once effaced our credit in the visible
sights of this world.
14. Ráma added:--My ignorance is dispelled, and I have come to the
knowledge of truth by your good grace; and O thou chief of sages,
I acknowledge thee to have brought me to light from my impervious
darkness.
15. I am freed from my doubts, and set to the light of the true
nature of God; and I will now act as thou sayst, in acknowledging the
transpicuous truth (or viewing God as manifest in nature, and not as
hidden under her veil).
16. Remembering and reconsidering thy words, that are so fraught with
ambrosial sweetness and full of delightsome taste; I am filled with
fresh delight, though already satisfied and refreshed by their sense
(_i.e._ the more I think of them, the happier I seem to feel my-self).
17. I have nothing to do for myself at present, nor is there any left
undone or remaining to be done by me. I am as I am and have ever been,
and always without any craving for me. (This state of self-satisfaction
and self-sufficiency, is the highest bliss for man).
18. What other way to our true felicity can there be, than this that
has been shown by thee? or else I find this wide-extended field of the
earth, to be so full of our woe and misery.
19. I have no foe to annoy me nor a friend to give any joy to me; I
have no field to work in, nor an enemy to fear nor a good soul to
rely in. It is our misunderstanding that makes this world appear so
troublesome to ourselves, while our good sense makes it all agreeable
to us. (If the world will not suit thee, suit thyself to it).
20. How could we know all this (for our happiness) without thy good
grace unto us; as it is never possible for a boy, to ford and cross
over a river, without the assistance of a boat or bridge.
21. Lakshmana said:--It is by reason of your removing the doubts, that
had been inherent in and inherited by me in my repeated births; and it
is by virtue of the merit, that I had acquired in my former births;
that I have come to know the truth this day, by the divine sermon of
the holy sage; and to feel the radiance of a holy light in me, shining
as brightly as the cooling beams of moonlight.
22. It is strange that in disregard of this heavenly bright and vivid
light, that men should be entangled in a thousand errors, and be
burnt at last as dried wood or fuel, by their foul mistake and great
misfortune.
23. Viswámitra said:--O! it is by our great merit, that we have come
this day, to hear this holy lecture from the mouth of the sage; and
which has at once expurgated our inner souls, as a thousand lavations
in the clear stream of Ganges.
24. Ráma rejoined:--We have seen the highest pitch of all prosperity,
and the best of all that is to be seen; we have known the end of all
learning, and the last extremity of adversity; we have seen many
countries and heard many speeches; but never have we heard, nor seen
nor known anything better than the discourse on the beauty of the soul,
which the sage has shown to us to-day.
25. Nárada added:--Our ears are purified to-day, by the hearing of what
we have never heard heretofore; to be preached by Brahmá or the gods
above or men below.
26. Lakshmana rejoined:--Sir, you have entirely dissipated all our
inner and outer darkness also; and have shewn us the transcendent
light, of the bright sun of the Divine soul.
27. Satrughna said:--I am satisfied and tranquilized, and uncomposed
in the supreme soul; I am for ever full and perfect in myself, and sit
quite content with my solity.
28. Dasaratha repeated:--It is by the merit of our deeds, done and
acquired in our repeated lives, that we have been, O thou chief of
sages, sanctified this day by thy sacred and sanctifying speech.
29. Válmíki related:--As the king and his courtiers, were speaking in
this manner, the sage oped his mouth again, and thus bespoke his words
fraught with pure and purifying knowledge.
30. Vasishtha said:--Hear me, O thou moon like king of Raghu’s race,
and do as I bid you to do; Rise now and honour the assembled Bráhmans,
who deserve their due honour at the close of a discourse.
31. Rise therefore, and satisfy their desires with thy ample gifts; and
thou will obtain thereby, the merit that attends on the learning of the
vedas, and doing thy duties according to their dictates.
32. It is incumbent on even a mean worm-like man, to honor the Bráhmans
to their utmost at the termination of a sermon on salvation; how much
more important must it then be on the part of a monarch to acquit
himself of this necessary duty.
33. Hearing this behest of the sage, the king held his reverential
silence; and beckoned to his heralds to proceed to all the ten sides of
his dominions, and invite thousands of Bráhmans, that are acquainted
with the vedas forthwith (to the royal court).
34. He bade them to go to Mathura, Suráshtra and Gauda, and to bring
with them with due respect all the Bráhmans, that are born of Vedic
families, and are abiding in those districts and lands.
35. There then assembled more than ten thousands of Bráhmans to the
royal palace, and the king fed them all alike and paying particular
regard to the more learned among them.
36. He treated them with the best sorts of food and rice, honoured them
with their honorariums, and gave them a good many gifts; and after
honouring them in this manner, he offered his oblations to the manes of
his ancestors, and gave his offerings to the tutelar gods of his house.
(A Bráhman has his precedence in a feast to the gods and _patres_; but
the merit of giving a feast is lost unless it is followed by other
gifts).
37. The king next treated his friends and relatives with proper repast,
and then fed his companions and servants and the citizens all on the
same day. His attention was at last directed to the feeding of the poor
and needy, and of the lame and blind and lunatics.
38. Having discharged to his utmost the duties of the festival, he
commanded a great festivity to be held in his hall, all over decorated
with silk and embroidery, and with gold, gems and pearls.
39. The city then being adorned and lighted, like the ever bright
mount of Meru, there went on a merry dance and ball of giddy girls and
players in every house (as a sign of general joy).
40. There was a ringing of bells and sounding of cymbols all about,
with the beating of drums and trimbrels at every door; flutes and
wind instruments were blowing on every side, and guitars and wired
instruments were playing with loud gingling, and vying with each other.
41. The markets were closed, and the marketers stopped in their course;
the air appeared as an arbour of plants, shaking with the uplifted and
quavering and waving arms of the merry dancers in the streets; and it
seemed as the starry heaven, by the glittering light of the teeth of
strolling players, displayed in their comic dance and loud laughter.
42. There was the heroic dance attended by the loud shouts of the
players, and melodramas accompanied with the soft and sweet strains of
the performers, there was also a staggering and strutting dance on one
foot and leg, and thumping the ground with the other.
43. Here they flung wreaths of flowers glittering like stars and
falling down in showers; and there the scattered flowers, which were
strewn over the ground as rain drops, were indiscriminately trodding
down under the feet of passersby.
44. Here the actresses dance about with their loose ornaments and
gestures of love; and there the bards chanted their hymns with
clearness, as the Bráhmans recited them and the songstresses sang.
45. Here the sots and topers drank their fill of wine; and the food
mongers fed upon their eatables of various kinds (_i.e._ some were seen
to be indulging their drink and others in their eating).
46. The insides of houses were daubed with wine, as the outer bodies of
the princes with ointment of moon light hue.
47. The attendent servants and waiting maids on the king, sauntered
about trimmed in gaudy attires of various colours; and graced the royal
festival with their decorations of necklaces and sweet perfumes on
their persons.
48. The sprightly ballet girls, being besmeared with a paste of all
perfumeries (called the yaksha dust), and decorated with glittering
ornaments, repaired to the ball at the royal hall with all alacrity.
49. Thus the king Dasaratha held his entertainment for a whole week,
and passed full seven nights in festive mirth and rejoicing; while he
distributed his gifts and food for as many days, which redounded to
exhaustless prosperity on earth.
CHAPTER CCXV.
EULOGY ON THIS WORK AND THE MODE OF ITS RECITAL.
Argument:--Válmíki speaks in praise of this work to this pupil
Bharadwája, and blesses him to be as blessed as the divine Ráma
with the hearing of it.
Válmíki said:--O most intelligent Bharadwája, and the chief of my
pupils, you have now heard how the great Ráma and others, came to the
knowledge of the knowable One (that is only to be known), and passed
across this vale of misery and sorrow, by their attention to these
lectures.
2. Do you thus fix your sight to the light of Brahma, and conduct
yourself gladly, by abandoning all your affections and cares of this
world, and by remaining dauntless with your living liberation and
tranquility of mind.
3. Know, O thou sinless one, that the learned and the meek, that do
not mix with the society of worldly men, but remain steady as Ráma
and others in their right principles, are never liable to be deluded
although they are beset by temptations on all sides.
4. Thus these men of great natures, as the king Dasaratha and the
prince Ráma and his brothers, together with companions, have attended
to the state of the living liberated (even in their life time).
5. Thou my son Bharadwája! that art naturally of a liberal mind, hast
now become more liberated at present, by thy hearing of these sermons
on the salvation of our souls.
6. It is possible even for boys to obtain their liberation, by their
attention to those holy lectures, as the most evident and surest means
to salvation; and cannot therefore fail to convince thee of the truth
thereof.
7. As the high minded and sinless and sorrowless sons of Raghu’s race,
have attained to their holy state of perfection and self-liberation;
so do thou also obtain that best and highest state, by your attending
to the lectures of the divine sage Vasishtha.
8. It is by advice of the good and service under the great, as also by
means of humble inquiries to and explications of the learned; that weak
men of good understandings, can know the knowable, as the Rághavas and
others did under Vasishtha.
9. The ties of avarice and affection that have fast bound the hearts of
the ignorant (to this world); do all tend to debar them like playful
boys from inquiring into the means of their liberation, until they
become too old to benefit by their knowledge.
10. Those that can discern the minds of high minded men, can only come
to their knowledge of truth; and such men only have no more to return
to this world of woe; and this is the substance of all that I can speak
to thee (_i.e._ know and have the minds of the great, in order to
become as great thyself, so says Gay in his Fables. (Hast thou fathomed
Tully’s mind, and the vast sense of Plato’s head)).
11. Having first received your instruction from the preceptor, you must
weigh well and digest its meaning in yourself; and then communicate its
sense, to the most sensible and intelligent student. This is said by
sages and saints, as the trivium of science; know this and you need no
more, to become wise when your boyhood is over.
12. Whoso will read this book, not without understanding its sense and
whoever will manuscript it without the expectation of getting its fee;
as also anybody who will recite or cause it to be recited (to a public
audience), either with or without any desire of reward, shall have his
ample recompense in the land of Áryas (both in his present and future
lives). (So it is with the public preaching of its doctrine).
13. These men receive the reward, awaiting on the performance of the
Rájasúya sacrifice, and are entitled to their heavenly seats in their
pure essence; as often as they ascend to it after their demise on
earth, and until they attain their final liberation, which attains
on them as prosperity does on the meritorious (after the third
transmigration of their expurged souls).
14. It was at first that the god Brahmá of unknowable form, had
composed this work in his excellent diction; and then considering it
as the only means to the liberation of mankind, had revealed it to
the assemblage of saints (of which Vasishtha or Válmíki has made this
version). Let nobody therefore take the truthfulness of this saying for
an untruth.
15. At the close of the recital of these lectures, on the means of
human salvation, it becomes every sensible man of good sense, to honour
the Bráhmans with diligence; and to serve them with their desirable
gifts of food and drink, and furnish them with goodly houses for their
lodging.
16. They should also be rewarded with their honorariums, and supplied
with monies to their hearts’ desire, and to the utmost capacity of the
donor; and then the giver or master of the ceremony should rest himself
assured, of having acquitted his duty to and reaped its merit to the
intent of the sástras.
17. I have thus rehearsed to you the great sástra, in elucidation of
divine knowledge and its pure truth; with addition of a great many
tales and stories, serving as example and illustrations of the abstruse
doctrines for your clear understanding of them. May your hearing of
these, serve to lead you to your utter indifference of this world, and
to the desire of your liberation in it, while you are alive herein. May
this tend also to your continued prosperity, in order to engage your
attention towards the perfection of your knowledge and devotion, and to
the discharge of the duties of your station without failing.
CHAPTER CCXVI.
CONCLUSION OF THE CELESTIAL MESSENGER’S MESSAGE OF LIBERATION.
Argument:--Acknowledgment of the obligation of _Arishtanemi_ and
others, to their preceptors and preachers.
Válmíki continued to say:--I have thus related to you, O prince,
whatever the pot born Vasishtha had taught and preached to the princes;
and it is certain that you will attain the same elevated state, as they
did by the hearing of these lectures on sacred knowledge.
2. The Prince Arishtanemi replied:--O Venerable sir, your kind look is
enough to extricate us from bondage in this world; and it is hence that
I am not only brought to light, but saved from the ocean of this world
by your favour.
3. The Heavenly Messenger said:--After saying so, the said prince
seemed to look amazed in his look; and then he began to speak these
words to me with a graceful voice.
4. The Prince said:--I bow down to thee, O Messenger divine, and wish
all safety to attend on thee; it is said that the friendship of the
good is attended with seven benefits, all which hast thou conferred
upon me.
5. Now return in safety to your seat in the heaven of Indra, and well
know that, I am both gladdened as well as grown _insouciant_ of worldly
concerns, by hearing this discourse of thine.
6. I shall continue to remain here for ever more, and without feeling
any anxiety, to think well and ponder deeply into the sense of all
that I have heard from thee. Now I tell thee, O Lady! that I was quite
surprised (to see so much civility on the part of a prince).
7. He said:--I have never heard before, such words and fraught with so
much knowledge, as I have come now to hear from thee; It has filled
my inward spirit with as much joy, as if I have drunk my fill of an
ambrosial draught just now.
8. I then repaired to thee, O thou sinless fairy, at the bidding of
Válmíki; in order to relate unto thee all that thou hast asked of me.
And now I shall bend my course, towards the celestial city of Sakra.
9. The fairy said:--I must thank thee now, O thou very fortunate
emissary of the gods! for all that thou hast related to me; and my
knowledge whereof, has entirely composed my spirit, by its benign
influence.
10. I am now quite satisfied in myself, and will ever remain from
sorrow and all the sickening cares of life; and you may now to your
destination at Indras, with all speed attending on your journey thither.
11. So saying Suruchi--the best of fairies, continued to keep her seat
on the slope of the Himálayas, and contiguous to the Gandhamádana mount
of fragrance, and reflect on the sense of what she had heard (of divine
knowledge).
12. Now as you have fully heard, my son, all the precepts of Vasishtha,
you are at liberty to do as you like, by your weighing well their
purport. (For the effecting of your liberation which is the main object
of man, both in this life as well as in the next).
13. Kárunya said:--The remembrance of the past, the sight of the
present, and the talk of future events, together with the existence of
the world; are all as false as the sights in our dreams or of water in
mirage, or as the birth of a boy of a barren woman.
14. I gain nothing from my deeds, nor lose aught by what is left
undone; I live to do as it happens, or at the impulse of the occasion
and without any assiduity on my part.
15. Agasti said:--Kárunya--The worthy son of Agnibesya, said in the
aforesaid manner, and continued to pass his time in the discharge of
his duties, as they occured to him from time to time.
16. And you O Sutikshana! should never entertain any doubts regarding
the acts, that you shall have to perform after your attainment
of divine knowledge (Lest they entail their retribution on you
afterwards). Because dubitation destroys the virtue of the deed, as
selfishness takes away its merit.
17. Upon hearing this speech of the sage, which reconciles the
duplicity of action and reflection, into the unity of their
combination; he bowed to his preceptor and uttered as follows with due
submission to him.
18. Sutíkshana said:--Any action done in ignorance of the actor, is
reckoned as no act of his, unless it is done in his full knowledge
to be taken into account. (So the brute activities of the giddy mob,
bear no value or blame in them before the wise). But actions done with
reason and reasonable men, are invaluable in their nature. All our
acts are best seen by the light of the intellect as the actions of
stage-players are seen only in the candle light. (So are all our mental
and corporeal acts, actuated by the essence of the great soul in us).
19. It is the presence of the supreme soul in us, that the action
of our hearts, directs the motions of our bodies; as it is the
malleability of gold, that moulds it to the many forms of jewelleries.
(Hence we should never reject the one for the other).
20. As it is the great body of waters, that gives rise to the
boisterous waves, as well as the little playful billows, that heave and
move in our sight; so it is the inbeing of the great soul, that fills
all the great and small alike.
21. I submit to and bear with all that befalls to me, because there is
no escape from destiny, nor slighting of the sound sayings of sages;
and I acknowledge O Venerable sir, to owe my knowledge of the knowable
One to thy good grace only.
22. I own myself to be quite felicitous to thy favour, and bow down
prostrate to thee on the ground, for thy lifting me up from the doleful
pit of the world; because there is no other way to repay my gratitude
to my venerable preceptor.
23. Nay there is no other act, whereby one may give expression to his
obligation to his tutor, for his salvation in this world, save by means
of offering himself to his services; with his whole body and mind and
the words of his mouth.
24. It is by thy good grace, O my good sir, that I have passed over the
Rubicon of this world; I am filled with infinite joy amidst all these
worlds, and am set free from all my doubts.
25. I bow down to that Brahma, who is sung in the Sáma-veda, as filling
all this universe, as the waters of the ocean fill the boundless deep;
and whose remembrance fills our soul with ecstasy.
26. I bow down also to the sage Vasishtha, who is of the form of
incarnate knowledge alone, and who is immerged in the joyous bliss of
divine felicity; who is beyond all duality and sees the only One in the
unity of infinite vacuity. Who is ever alike the pure and immaculate
One, and witnesseth the inmost of all minds; who is beyond all states
and conditions (of so and so or of such and such); and who is quite
devoid of the three qualities (which belong to all bodies) _i.e._ There
is no known quality or property that can be predicated to the Deity.
The qualities of the unknown One, as unknown, peculiar and unique as
own nature.
27. Here ends the Mahárámáyana of the sage Vasishtha, with its
continuation by his recorder Válmíki, and the speech of the celestial
messenger at the latter end of the Book on Nirvána or the ultimate
Extinction of the living soul.
FINIS.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The mind involved in ignorance, is said to be waking, and the
uncontrouled mind is styled as dreaming: the mind subdued by weariness
is said to be asleep, and when brought under subjection by any
effort, is called _samádhi_ or meditation, lastly its liberation from
ignorance, is known as its state of _mukti_ or emancipation.
[2] Note.--Each of the three states of waking, dreaming and sound sleep
admit of three conditions viz. waking wakefulness, waking dream and the
waking sound sleep; again dreaming watchfulness, dreaming dream and
dreaming sleep; and lastly the sleepy waking, the sleepy dream and the
sleepy sound sleep (see the scholium of Sureshvara for instances of
every Kind).
[3] The founder of Vedánta was Vyása, of Buddhism--Buddha, of
Sánkhya--Kapila, of Saugata--Patanjali. Tryaksha, Pashupati and
Bhairana were professors of Ágama tantras.
[4] Note. The sacred Sanskrit was at once a perfect language, without
any knowledge of us regarding its formative stage, though a _balabhásá_
or infant-language is said to have existed before, of which we have no
relic nor know anything.
[5] Note. If the world be a form of Divine knowledge, and subsistent
in and subjective to the eternal mind of God; it can then be neither
created nor destroyed at any time; but since it is subject to creation
and destruction, it can be a part of Divine knowledge. Nor is it an
object for want of any cause of its creation. Therefore it is a mere
nullity.
[6] Note.--If the thinkables are the produce of their first creation,
then it remains to be said, whence (_i.e._ from what materials) they
were formed.
[7] Note.--According to Vasishtha, Byam, Beom or vacuum, is possest
of all the attributes of Brahm Godhead, in its unity, infinity,
eternity, incorporeality and formlessness, as also in its omnipresence,
omnipotence in its supporting the worlds and in the omniscience of the
vacuous intellect.