Argument.--Ráma's relation to Vasishtha, of his perfect rest in
godliness.
Ráma said:--O my venerable guide! My retrospection of your sermons, has
set my mind to perfect rest, and I see the traps and turmoils of this
world before me, with a quite indifferent and phlegmatic mind.
2. My soul has found its perfect tranquillity in the Supreme Spirit, is
as the parched ground is cooled by a snow or of rainfall after a long
and painful drought.
3. I am as cool as coldness itself, and feel the felicity of an entire
unity in myself; and my mind has become as tranquil and transparent, as
the limpid lake that is undisturbed by elephants.
4. I see the whole plenum of the universe, O sage! in its pristine pure
light; and as clear as the face of the wide extended firmament, without
the dimness of frost or mist.
5. I am now freed from my doubts, and exempted from the mirage of the
world; I am equally aloof from affections, and have become as pure and
serene, as the lake and sky in autumn.
6. I have found that transport in my inmost soul, which knows no bound
nor decay; and have the enjoyment of that _gusto_, which defies the
taste of the ambrosial draught of gods.
7. I am now set in the truth of actual existence, and my repose in the
joyous rest of my soul. I have become the delight of mankind and my own
joy in myself, which makes me thank my felicitous self, and you also
for giving me this blessing. (The Sruti says, Heavenly bliss is the
delight of men, and the heartfelt joy of every body).
8. My heart has become as expanded and pure, as the expanse of limpid
lakes in autumn; and my mind hath become as cold and serene, as the
clear and humid sky in the season of autumn.
9. Those doubts and coinings of imagination, which mislead the blind,
have now fled afar from me; as the fear of ghosts appearing in the
dark, disappear at the light of day-break.
10. How can there be the speck or spot of impurity, in the pure and
enlightened soul; and how can the doubts of the objective nature,
arise in the subjective mind? All these errors vanish to naught, like
darkness before moon light.
11. All these appearances appearing in various forms, are but the
diverse manifestations of the self-same soul; it is therefore a fallacy
to suppose, this is one thing and that another, by our misjudgment of
them.
12. I smile to think in myself, the miserable slave of my desires that
I had been before; that am now so well satisfied without them. (The
privation of desire gives greater satisfaction than its fulfilment).
13. I remember now how my single and solitary self, is one and all with
the universal soul of the world; since I received my baptism with the
ambrosial fluid of thy words.
14. O the highest and holiest station, which I have now attained to;
and from where I behold the sphere of the sun, to be situated as low as
the infernal region.
15. I have arrived at the world of sober reality and existence, from
that of unreality and seeming existence. I therefore thank my soul,
that has became so elevated and adorable with its fulness of the Deity.
16. O venerable Sage:--I am now situated in everlasting joy, and far
removed from the region of sorrow; by the sweet sound of the honeyed
words, which have crept like humming bees, into the pericarp of my
lotus-like heart.