Argument:--Prevalence and influence of delirium (moha).
Vasishtha Continued--Hear me moreover to tell you, my dear Ráma, some
excellent sayings for your good, and also for the benefit of every one
of my audience here.
2. Though you are unlike others, in the greater enlightenment of your
understanding; yet my lecture will equally edify your knowledge, as
that of the less enlightened men than yourself.
3. He who is so senseless as to take his body for the soul, is soon
found to be upset by his unruly senses; as a charioteer is thrown down
by his head-strong and restive horses. (So says the Sruti also. "The
soul is the charioteer of the vehicle of the body, and the senses are
as its horses").
4. But the Sapient man who knows the bodiless soul and relies therein,
has all his senses under the subjection of his soul; and they do not
overthrow him, as obstinate horses do their riders.
5. He who praises no object of enjoyment, but rather finds fault with
all of them, and discerns well their evils; enjoys the health of his
body without any complaint. (The voluptuary is subject to diseases, but
the abstinent is free from them; for in the midst of pleasure there is
pain).
6. The soul has no relation with the body, nor is the body related with
the soul; they are as unrelated to each other as the light and shade.
(And are opposed to one another as sun-light and darkness).
7. The discrete soul is distinct from concrete matter, and free from
material properties and accidents; the soul is ever shining and does
not rise or set as the material sun and moon (and it never changes as
the everchanging objects of changeful nature and mind).
8. The body is a dull mass of vile matter, it is ignorant of itself
and its own welfare; it is quite ungrateful to the soul, that makes
it sensible; therefore it well deserves its fate of diseases and final
dissolution. (The body is frail, and is at best but a fading flower).
9. How can the body be deemed an intelligent thing, when the
knowledge of the one (_i.e._, the soul) as intelligence, proves the
other (_i.e._, the body) to be but a dull mass. They cannot both be
intelligent, when the nature of the one is opposite to that of the
other; and if there is no difference between them, they would become
one and the same thing (_i.e._ the soul equal with the body, which is
impossible).
10. But how is it then, that they mutually reciprocate their feelings
of pain and pleasure to one another, unless they are the one and
the same thing, and participating of the same properties? (This is
a presumptive objection of the antagonistic doctrine, touching the
co-relation of the mind and body).
11. It is impossible, Ráma, for the reciprocation of their feelings,
that never agree in their natures; the gross body has no connection
with the subtile soul, nor has the rarefied soul any relation with the
solid body. (It is the gross mind that sympathises with the body, and
not the unconnected spirit or soul).
12. The presence of the one, nullifies the existence of the opposite
other; as in the cases of day and night, of darkness and light, and of
knowledge and ignorance (which are destructive of their opposites).
13. The unbodied soul presides over all bodies, without its adherence
to any; as the omnipresent spirit of Brahma, pervades throughout all
nature, without coalescing with any visible object. (The spirit of God
resides in all, and is yet quite detached from everything).
14. The embodied soul is as unattached to the body, as the dew drop on
the lotus leaf is disjoined with the leaf; and as the divine spirit is
quite unconnected with everything, which it fills and supports.
15. The Soul residing in the body, is as unaffected by its affections,
as the sky remains unmoved, by the motion of the winds raging in its
bosom. It is figuratively said, that tempests rend the skies, and the
passions rend their recipient bosom; but nothing can disturb the empty
vacuity of the sky or soul.
16. Knowing your soul to be no part of your body, rest quietly in it to
eternity; but believing yourself as the body, be subject to repeated
transmigrations of it in endless forms.
17. The visibles are viewed as the rising and falling waves, in the
boundless ocean of the Divine soul; but reliance in the supreme soul,
will show the light of the soul only.
18. This bodily frame is the product of the Divine soul, as the wave
is produced of the water of the sea; and though the bodies are seen to
move about as waves, yet their receptacle the soul is ever as steady as
the sea;--the reservoir of the moving waves.
19. The body is the image of the soul, as the sun seen in the waves is
the reflection of that luminary; and though the body like the reflected
sun, is seen to be moving and waving, yet its archetype--the soul, is
ever as steady as the fixed and unfluctuating sun in the sky.
20. The error of the substantiality and stability of the body is put to
flight, no sooner the light of the permanent and spiritual Substratum
of the soul, comes to shine over our inward sight. (Knowledge of the
immaterial and immortal soul, removes the blunder of the material and
mortal body).
21. The body appears to be in the act of constant motion and rotation
like a wheel, to the partial and unspiritual observers of materialism;
and it is believed by them to be perpetually subject to birth and
death, like the succession of light and darkness. (Lit.:--As candle
light and darkness follow each other, so is the body produced and
dissolved by turns).
22. These unspiritual men, that are unconscious of their souls; are as
shallow and empty minded, as _arjuna_ trees; which grow without any
pith and marrow within them.
23. Dull headed men that are devoid of intelligence, are as
contemptible as the grass on the ground; and they move their limbs like
the blades of grass, which are moved by force of the passing wind (and
by direction of the Judging mind). Those that are unacquainted with the
intelligent soul, resemble the senseless and hollow bamboos, which
shake and whistle by breath of the winds alone. (The internal air moves
the body and the limbs, as the external breeze shakes the trees).
24. The unintelligent body and limbs, are actuated to perform and
display their several acts, by action of the vital breath; as the
vacillation of the insensible trees and leaves, is caused by the motion
of the breeze; and both of them cease to move, no sooner the current
airs cease to agitate them.
25. These dull bodies are as the boisterous waves of the sea, heaving
with huge shapes with tremendous noise; and appearing to sight as the
figures of drunken men, staggering with draughts of the luscious juice
of Vine.
26. These witless men resemble the rapid currents of rivers, which
without a jot of sense in them, keep up on their continual motion, to
no good to themselves or others.
27. It is from their want of wit, that they are reduced to utmost
meanness and misery; which make them groan and sigh like the blowing
bellows of the blacksmith.
28. Their continued motion is of no real good to themselves, but brings
on their quietus like the calm after the storm; they clash and clang
like the twang of the bowstring, without the dart to hit at the mark.
29. The life of the unintelligent man, is only for its extinction or
death; and its desire of fruition is as false, as the fruit of an
unfruitful tree in the woody forest.
30. Seeking friendliness in unintelligent men, is as wishing to rest or
sleep on a burning mountain; and the society of the unintellectual, is
as associating with the headless trunks of trees in a forest (The weak
headed man like the headless tree, can neither afford any sheltering
shade, nor nourishing fruit to the passenger. So the verse: It is vain
to expect any good or gain, from men of witless and shallow brain).
31. Doing any service to the ignorant and lack witted men goes for
nothing; and is as vain as beating the bush or empty air with a stick:
and any thing given to the senseless, is as something thrown into the
mud. (Or as casting pearls before the swine, or scattering grains in
the bushes).
32. Talking with the ignorant, is as calling the dogs from a distance
(which is neither heard nor heeded by them). Ignorance is the seat
of evils, which never betide the sensible and the wise. (So the
Hitopadesa--A hundred evils and thousand fears, daily befall to the
fool, and not to the heedful wise).
33. The wise pass over all errors in their course amidst the world;
but the ignorant are exposed to incessant troubles, in their ceaseless
ardour to thrive in the pleasures of life.
34. As the carriage wheel revolves incessantly, about the axle to which
it is fixed; so the body of man turns continually about the wealthy
family, to which the foolish mind is fixed for gain.
35. The ignorant fool can never get rid of his misery, so long as he is
fast bound to the belief of taking his body as his soul, and knowing no
spiritual soul besides.
36. How is it possible for the infatuated, to be freed from their
delusion; when their minds are darkened by illusion, and their eyes are
blind-folded, by the hood-wink of unreal appearance.
37. The seeing man or looker on sights, that regales his eyes with
the sight of unrealities; is at last deluded by them, as a man is
moonstruck by fixing his eyes on the moon, and becomes giddy with the
profuse fragrance of flowers.
38. As the watering of the ground, tends to the growth of grass and
thorns and thistles; so the fostering of the body, breeds the desires
in the heart, as thick as reptiles grow in the hollow of trees; and
they invigorate the mind in the form of a rampant lion or elephant.
39. The ignorant foster their hopes of heaven on the death of their
bodies; as the farmer expects a plenteous harvest, from his well
cultivated fields (_i.e._ expectation of future heaven is vain, by
means of ceremonial acts in life).
40. The greedy hell-hounds are glad to look upon the ignorant, that are
fast-bound in the coils of their serpentine desires; as the thirsty
peacocks are pleased to gaze on the black clouds, that rise before
their eyes in the rainy season.
41. These beauties with their glancing eyes, resembling the fluttering
bees of summer, and with lips blooming as the new blown leaves of
flowers; are flaunting to catch hold of ignorant men; as poisonous
plants are displayed, to lay hold on ignorant flies.
42. The plant of desire, which shoots out of the goodly soil of
ignorant minds, shelters the flying passions under its shady foliage;
as the coral plants foster the coral insects in them. (The corallines
are known to be the formation of coral insects).
43. Enmity is like a wild fire, it consumes the arbour of the body, and
lets out the smoke through the orifice of the mouth in the desert land
of the heart, and exhibits the rose of the heath as the burning cinders.
44. The mind of the ignorant is as a lake of envy, covered with the
leaves of spite and calumny: jealousy is its lotus-bed, and the anxious
thoughts are as the bees continually fluttering thereupon.
45. The ignorant man that is subjected to repeated births, and is
rising and falling as waves in the tumultuous ocean of this world, is
exposed also to repeated deaths: and the burning fire which engulphs
his dead body, is as in the submarine fire of this sea.
46. The ignorant are exposed to repeated births, attended by the
vicissitudes of childhood, youth, manhood and old age, and followed
at last by a painful death and cremation of the beloved body on the
funeral pile.
47. The ignorant body is like a diving bucket, tied by the rope of
transmigration to the Hydraulic machine of acts; to be plunged and
lifted over again, in and over the dirty pool of this world.
48. This world which is a plane pavement and but narrow hole (lit., a
cow foot-cave) to the wise, by their unconsciousness of it; appears as
a boundless and unfathomable sea to the ignorant, owing to their great
concern about it. (The wise think lightly of the world; but the worldly
take it heavily upon themselves).
49. The ignorant are devoid of their eye-sight, to look out beyond
their limited circle; as the birds long confined in their cages, have
no mind to fly out of them.
50. The revolution of repeated births, is like the constant rotation
of the wheel of a chariot; and there is no body that is able to stop
their motion, by restraining his earthly desires; which are ever
turning as the spokes affixed to nave of the heart.
51. The ignorant wander at large, about the wide extended earth; as
huntsmen rove amidst the forest, in search of their prey; until they
become a prey at the hand of death, and make the members of their
bodies as morsels, to the vultures of their sensual appetites.
52. The sights of these mountainous bodies, and of these material forms
made of earthly flesh, are mistaken by the ignorant for realities; as
they mistake the figures in painting for real persons.
53. How flourishing is the arbour of this delusion, which is fraught
with the endless objects of our erroneous imagination; and hath
stretched out these innumerable worlds from our ignorance of them.
54. How flourishing is the _kalpa_ tree or all fruitful arbour of
delusion; which is ever fraught with endless objects of our imaginary
desire, and stretches out the infinite worlds to our erroneous
conception as its leaves.
55. Here our prurient minds like birds of variegated colours, rest and
remain and sit and sport, in and all about this arbour.
56. Our acts are the roots of our repeated births as the stem of the
tree is of its shoots; our prosperity and properties are the flowers
of this arbor, and our virtues and vices are as its fruits of good and
evil.
57. Our wives are as the tender plants, that thrive best under the
moon-light of delusion; and are the most beautiful things to behold in
this desert land of the earth.
58. As the darkness of ignorance prevails over the mind, soon after the
setting of the sun light of reason; there rises the full moon of errors
in the empty mind, with all her changing phases of repeated births.
(This refers to the dark ages of Puránic or mythological fictions, and
also to the Dárshanic or philosophical systems which succeeded the
age of Vedántic light, and were full of changeable doctrines, like
the phases of the moon; whence she is styled _dwija_ or _mistress_ of
digits. There is another figure of equivocation in the word _doshah_,
meaning the night as well as the defect of ignorance).
59. It is under the influence of the cooling moon-light of ignorance;
that our minds foster the fond desire of worldly enjoyments; and like
the _chakora_ birds of night, drink their fill of delight as ambrosial
moon-beams. (The ignorant are fond of pleasures, and where ignorance is
bliss, it is foolish to be wise).
60. It is under this delusion, that men view their beloved ones as
buds of roses and lotuses, and their loose glancing eyes, as the black
bees fluttering at random; they see the sable clouds in the braids and
locks of their hair, and a glistening fire in their glowing bosoms and
breasts.
61. It is delusion, O Ráma! that depicts the fairies with the beams of
fair moon-light nights; though they are viewed by the wise, in their
true light of being as foul as the darkest midnight.
62. Know Ráma, the pleasures of the world, to be as the pernicious
fruits of ignorance; which are pleasant to taste at first, but prove
to be full of bitter gall at last. It is therefore better to destroy
this baneful arbour, than to lose the life and soul by the mortal taste
of its fruits. (It is the fruit of the tree of ignorance rather than
that of knowledge, which brought death into the world and all our woe.
Milton).