INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE INTELLECT.
Argument.--Description of the Pervasion and Supervision of the
Intellect; and its transformation into the mind in living beings. Or
Intellect as universal soul and mind of living beings.
The god said:--Thus the Intellect is all this plenum, it is the sole
supreme soul (of all); it is Brahma the Immense and the transcendent
vacuum, and it said to be the supreme god.
2. Therefore its worship is of the greatest good, and confers all
blessings to men; it is source of creation, and all this world is
situated on it. (The Divine Mind or omniscience).
3. It is unmade and increate, and without its beginning and end; it is
boundless and without a second, it is to be served without external
service (_i.e._ by spiritual adoration), and all felicity is obtained
thereby. (Hence Solomon's choice of Wisdom).
4. You are enlightened, O chief of sages! and there I tell you this;
that the worship of gods is not worthy to the wise, and offering of
flowers and frankincense is of no use to them.
5. Those who are unlearned, and have their minds as simple as those of
boys; are the persons that are mostly addicted to false worship, and
devoted to the adoration of gods.
6. These being devoid of the quietness of their understandings, are led
to ceremonious observances, and to the false attribution of a soul, to
the images of their own making.
7. It is for boys only to remain contented with their act of offering
flowers and incense to gods, whom they honour in the modes of worship,
which they have adopted of their own hobby-choice.
8. It is in vain that men worship the gods for gaining the objects of
their desire, for nothing that is false of itself; can ever give the
required fruit.
9. Adoration with flowers and incense, is inculcated to childish
understandings (and not for the wise). I will tell you now, the
worship that is worthy of men enlightened like yourself.
10. Know, O most intelligent sage, that the god whom we adore is the
true god, who is the receptacle of the three worlds, the supreme spirit
and no other.
11. He is Siva--the felicity, who is above the ranks of all other gods,
and beyond all fictions and fictitious images of men; He is accompanied
with all desires (will or volition), and is neither the enjoyer of
all or any part of the production of his will. He is full with the
imaginations of all things, but is neither the all or any one of the
objects in his mind.
12. He encompasses all space and time, and is neither divided nor
circumscribed by either of them. He is the manifester of all events and
things, and is nothing except the image of pure Intellect Himself.
13. He is consciousness without parts, and situated in the heart of
every thing. He is the producer of every thing, and their absorber also
in himself.
14. Know Brahma to be situated between existence and inexistence and it
is He who styled the God, the supreme soul, the transcendental, the Tat
sat--Id Est, and the syllable Om--on or ens.
15. By his nature of immensity, he spreads alike in all space, and
being the great Intellect himself, he is said to be transcendent and
supreme being.
16. He remains as all in all places, as the sap circulates through the
bodies of plants; thus the great soul of the supreme being, extends
alike as the common entity of all things.
17. It is He who abides in the heart of your spouse Arundhatí as in
yours, the same also dwells in the heart of Párvatí as in those of her
attendants.
18. That intellection which is one and in every one in all the three
worlds is verily the god, by the best knowing among philosophers: (that
god is the universal mind).
19. Tell me O Brahman! how they may be called as gods, who having their
hands and feet, are yet devoid of their consciousness; which is the
pith of the body. (This is said of idols and images).
20. The Intellect is the pith and marrow of the world, and contains
the sap which it supplies to every thing in it. It is the _one and
all--ego-sarvam_ and therefore all things are obtained from it. (The
god Siva is also called the all _to pan-sarva_ and Ego, that is I am
the universal ego and giver of all gifts to all).
21. He is not situated at a distance, O Bráhman! nor is He unobtainable
by any body; He resides always in all bodies, and abides alike in all
places, as also in all empty space and sky. (This omnipresence of the
divine spirit, sets aside the belief of a _swarga_-heaven or _bihesht_
as the special seat of God).
22. He does, he eats, he supports all, and moves every where; He
breathes and feels and knows every member of the body. (This is
according to the sruti; He fills and directs every part of the body
to the end of the nails-ánakhágrat. [Sanskrit: puryyámáste | sa eva
pravishta ánakhágrebhyah]).
23. Know him, O chief of sages! to be seated in the city of the body;
and directing the various functions that are manifest by it, under his
direct appointment.
24. He is the lord of the cavity of the heart, and the several hidden
sheaths--_Koshas_, which are contained within the cavity of the body;
which is made by his moving abodes and moves as he pleases to move it.
25. The immaculate soul is beyond the essence and actions of the mind,
and the six organs of sense; it is for our use and understanding only,
the word chit--intellect is applied to him.
26. That intellectual spirit is too minute and subtile, immaculate and
all-pervading; and it is his option and volition, to manifest this
visible representation of himself or not.
27. This intellect is too fine and pure, and yet manages the whole
machinery for beautifying the world, as the subtle and intelligent
season of spring, beautifies the vegetable world with freshness and
moisture.
28. The beautiful and wonderous properties that reside in the divine
Intellect, are astonishing to behold in their display into the various
form as the sky.
29. Some of these take the name of the living soul, and some others
assume the title of the mind; some take the general name of space, and
others are known as its parts and divisions. (These are but parts of
one stupendous whole &c. Popes Moral Essays).
30. Some of these pass under the name of substance, and others of their
action; and some under the different categories of mode and condition,
genus, species and adjuncts.
31. Some of them shine as light, and others stand as mountains and
hills; some brighten as the sun and moon and the gods above, and others
are as the dark yakshas below.
32. All these continue in their own states, without any option on their
parts; and they evolve of their own nature, and causation of the divine
spirit, as the sprouts of trees grow of their own accord, under the
influence of the vernal spring (season).
33. It is the intellect alone which extends over all the works of
nature, and fills all bodies which overspread the vast ocean of the
world, as the aquatic plants swim over the surface of waters.
34. The deluded mind wanders like a roving bee, and collects the sweets
of its desire from the lotus of the body, and the intellect sitting as
its Mistress, relishes their essence from within. (Spiritual substances
can taste the essence of sweets. Milton).
35. The world with all the gods and gandharvas, and the seas and hills
that are situated in it; rolls about in the circuit of the Intellect,
as the waters whirl in a whirlpool.
36. Human minds resembling the spokes of a wheel, are bound to the
axles of their worldly affairs; and turn about in the rotatory wheel of
the ever revolving world, within the circumference of the Intellect.
37. It was the Intellect which in the form of the four-armed Vishnu,
destroys the whole host of the demoniac asuras; as the rainy season
dispels the solar heat, with its thundering clouds and rainbows.
38. It is the Intellect, which in the form of the three-eyed Siva,
accompanied by his ensigns of the bull and the crescent of the moon,
continues to dote like a fond bee, on the lotus-like lovely face of
Gaurí (his consort).
39. It was the intellect which was born as a bee in the lotus-like
navel of Vishnu in the form of Brahmá, and was settled in his
meditation upon the lotus of the triple vedas; (revealed to the sage
afterwards).
40. In this manner the Intellect appears in various forms, like the
unnumbered leaves of trees, and the different kind of ornaments made of
the same metal of gold.
41. The Intellect assumes of its own pleasure, the paramount dignity of
Indra; who is the crown jewel over the three worlds, and whose feet are
honoured by the whole body of gods.
42. The Intellect expands, rises and falls, and circulates everywhere
in the womb of the triple world; as the waters of the deep overflow and
recede and move about in itself.
43. The full moon beams of intellect, scatter their widespread
brightness on all sides; and display to the full view the lotus lake of
all created beings in the world.
44. The translucent brightness of the mirror of the Intellect, shows
the reflexions of the world in it, and receives benignantly the images
of all things in its bosom; as if it were pregnant with them.
45. The Intellect gives existence to the circles of the fourteen great
regions (of creation) above and below; and it plants them in the watery
expanse of the sea on earth, and in the etherial expanse of the waters
in heaven. (The fourteen regions are the seven continents--_sapta
dwípas_, beset by the seven watery oceans, sapta-samudras on earth;
and the seven planets revolving in the etherial ocean of the skies.
Manu says the god Brahmá planted his seed in the waters; and the Bible
says--God divided the waters above from the waters below by the midway
sky).
46. Intellect spreads itself like a creeper in the vacuous field
of air, and became fruitful with multitudes of created beings; it
blossomed in the variety of the different peoples; and shooted forth in
the leaves of its dense desires.
47. These throngs of living beings are its farina flying about,
and their desires are as the juice which gives them their different
colours; their understandings are their covering cuticles and the
efforts of their minds are buds that unfold with flowers and fruits of
their desire.
48. The lightsome pistils of these florets are countless in the three
worlds, and their incessant undulation in the air, expressed their
gaysome dance with the sweet smiling of the opening buds.
49. It is the Intellect which stretches out all these real and unreal
bodies, which expand like the gentle and good looking flowers for a
time, but never endure for ever. (The body like a fading flower is soon
blown away.)
50. It produces men like moon bright flowers in all places, and these
flush and blush, and sing and dance about, deeming themselves as real
bodies.
51. It is by the power of this great Intellect, that the sun and other
luminous bodies shining over the sky as the two bodies in a couple, are
attracted to one another to taste the fruit of their enjoyment as that
of gross bodies.
52. All other visible bodies that are seen to move about in this
phenomenal world, are as flakes of dust dancing about on eddy. (_i.e._
All things move about and tend towards their central point the
Intellect).
53. The Intellect is like a luminary of the universe, and manifests
unto us all the phenomena of the three worlds, as the flame of a lamp
shows us the various colours of things: (which are reflected by light
on dark and opaque matter).
54. All worldly things exhibit their beauty to our sight, by their
being immerged in the light of the Intellect, as the dark spot on the
disk of the moon, becomes fully apparent to view by its immersion
in the lunar beams. (The black spot on the moon's surface, becomes
white by the brightness of the moon-beams, so the dark world becomes
illumined by the presence of the Intellect in it).
55. It is by receiving the gilding of the Intellect, that all material
bodies are tinctured in their various hues; as the different trees
receive their freshness, foliage and fruitage from the influence of the
rainy weather.
56. It is the shadow (or absence of intellect), which causes the
dullness of an object; and all bodies are inanimate without it, as a
house becomes dark in absence of light or a lamp. (Intellect gives life
to dull matter).
57. The wondrous powers of the intellect (which gives a shape and form
to every thing), are wanting in any thing; it becomes a shapeless
thing, and cannot possibly have any form or figure in the world, over
its dull materiality. (Even inanimate nature of all forms and kinds,
receives its figure from the power of intellect).
58. The intellect is as the skylight, wherein its active power or
energy resembling its consort, resides with her offspring of desire in
the abode of the body, and is ever restless and busy in her actions.
(This active power is personified as the goddess _sakti_ or Energy, and
her offspring-desire is the personification of Brahmá).
59. Without the presence of the Intellect, it is no way possible for
any one to perceive the taste of any flavour though it is set on the
tip of his tongue, or see it with his eyes? (Intellect is the cause of
all perception).
60. Hear me and say, how can this _arboretum_ of the body subsist, with
its branching arms and hairy filaments, without being supplied with the
sap of the intellect.
61. Know hence the intellect to be the cause of all moving and
immovable things in nature, by its growing and feeding and supporting
them all; and know also that the intellect is the only thing in
existence, and all else is inexistent without it.
62. Vasishtha said:--Ráma! after the moon-bright and three-eyed god
had spoken to me in his perspicuous speech, I interrogated again the
moon-bright god in a clear and audible voice and said.
63. O lord! If the intellect alone is all pervading and the soul of
all, then I have not yet been able to know this visible earth in its
true light.
64. Say why is it that people call a living person, to be endowed with
intellect so long as he is alive, and why they say him to be devoid of
intellect, when he is layed down as a dead and lifeless mass.
65. The god replied--Hear me tell you all: O Brahman, about what you
have asked me; it is a question of great importance, and requires, O
greatest of theists! a long explication.
66. The intellect resides in every body, as also in all things as their
inherent soul; the one is viewed (by shallow understandings) as the
individual and active spirit, and the other is known (to comprehensive
mind) as unchanging and universal soul.
67. The mind that is misled by its desires, views the inward spirit as
another or the living soul, as the cupidinous person takes his (or her)
consort for another, in the state of sleep or dreaming. (The unsettled
mind takes every individual soul for the universal one).
68. And as the same man seems to be changed to another, during his fit
of anger; so the sober intellect is transformed to a changeable spirit,
by one's mistake of its true nature. (The _nirvi kalpa_ or immutable
spirit, is changed to a _savi kalpa_ or mutable one).
69. The intellect being attributed with many variable qualities
and desires, is made to lose its state of purity; and by thinking
constantly of its gross nature, it is at last converted to the very
gross object of thought.
70. Then the subjective intellect _chit_, becomes itself the _chetya_
or object of thought, and having assumed the subtile form of a minute
etherial atom, becomes the element of sound; and is afterwards
transformed to the rudimental particle of air _vata tan mátra_.
71. This aerial particle then bearing relation to the parts of time
and place, becomes the vital principle (as existing some where for a
certain period of time); which next turns to the understanding and
finally to the mind.
72. The intellect being thus transformed into the mind, dwells on its
thoughts of the world, and is then amalgamated with it, in the same
manner as a Brahman is changed to chandala, by constantly thinking
himself as such. (Thus this creation is a display of the divine mind
and identic with it).
73. Thus the divine Intellect forgets its universality by its thoughts
of particulars; and assumes the gross forms of the objects of its
thoughts and desires. (Hence we say a man to be of such and such a
mind, according to the thought or desire that he entertains in it,
_i.e._ the whole being taken for a part and the part for the whole).
74. The Intellect being thus replete with its endless thoughts and
desires, grows as dull as the gross objects it dwells upon; till at
last the subtile intellect grows as stony dull, as the pure water is
converted to massive stones and hails.
75. So the stolid intellect takes the names of the mind and sense,
and becomes subject to ignorance and illusion; by contracting a gross
stolidity restrained from its flight upwards, and have to grovel
forever in the regions of sense.
76. Being subjected to ignorance at first, it is fast bound to the
fetters of its cupidity afterwards, and then being pinched by its
hankerings and angry frettings, it is tormented alike by the pleasure
of affluence and the pains of penury.
77. By forsaking the endless felicity (of spirituality), it is
subjected to the incessant vicissitudes of mortality, it now sets
dejected in despair, and lamenting over its griefs and sorrow, and then
burns amidst the conflagration of its woes and misery.
78. See how it is harassed with the vain thought of its
personality--that I am such a one; and look at the miseries to which it
is exposed, by its reliance on the frail and false body.
79. See how it is worried by its being hushed to and fro, in the
alternate swinging beds of prosperity and adversity; and see how it
is plunged in the deep and muddy puddle of misery, like a worn out
elephant sinking in the mire.
80. Look at this deep and unfordable ocean of the world, all hollow
within and rolling with the eventful waves of casualties; it emits the
submarine fire from within its bosom, as the human heart flashes forth
with its hidden fire of passions and affections.
81. Human heart staggers between hope and fear, like a stray deer in
the forest; and is alternately cheered and depressed at the prospects
of affluence and want.
82. The mind that is led by its desire, is always apprehensive of
disappointment; and it coils back for fear of a reverse, as a timorous
girl flies afar from the sight of a spectre.
83. Man encounters all pains for a certain pleasure in prospect, as the
camel browses the thorny furze in expectation of honey at a honey comb
in it; but happening to slip from his intermediate standpoint, he is
hurled headlong to the bottom.
84. One meeting with a reverse falls from one danger to another; and
so he meets with fresh calamities, as if one evil invited or was the
harbinger of the other.
85. The mind that is captivated by its desires, and led onward by its
exertions, meets with one difficulty after another, and has cause to
repent and grieve at every step (or is the cause of remorse and grief).
(All toil and moil, tend to the vexation of the spirit).
86. As a man advances in life, so he improves in his learning; but
alas! all his worldly knowledge serves at best, but to bind down the
soul fast to the earth.
87. Cowards are in constant fear of everything, until they die away in
their fear; as the little shrimp being afraid of the waterfall, falls
on dry land, and there perishes with flouncing.
88. The helplessness of childhood, the anxieties of manhood, the
miserableness of old age; are preliminaries to the sad demise of men
engaged in busy life. (The last catastrophe of human life).
89. The propensities of past life cause some to be born as celestial
nymphs in heaven, and others as venomous serpents in subterranean
cells; while some become as fierce demons, and many are reborn as men
and women on earth.
90. The past actions of men make to be born again as Rákshas among
savages, and others as monkeys in forests; while some become as
Kinnaras on mountains, and many as lions on mountain tops. (All these
are depraved races of men _viz_; the anthropophagi cannibals, the pigmy
apes--_banars_, the ugly mountaneers _Kinnaras_ and the leonine men
_narasinhas_).
91. The Vidyádharas of the Devagiri mountains, and the Nagas of the
forest caves (are degenerations of men); and so are the fowls of air,
the quadrupeds of wood lands, the trees and plants of forests, and the
bushes on hills and orchides on trees; (are all but transformation of
the perverted intellect).
92. It is self same intellect which causes Náráyana to float on the
surface of the sea, and makes the lotus born Brahmá to remain in his
meditation; It keeps Hara in the company of his consort Uma, and places
Hari over the gods in heaven.
93. It is this which makes the sun to make the day and the clouds to
give the rain (or pour in rains); It makes the sea to breathe out in
waves, and the volcanic mountains to blow out in fire and flame.
94. It makes the curricle of time to revolve continually in the circle
of the seasons; and causes the day and night to rotate in their cycles
of light and darkness.
95. Here it causes the seeds to vegetate with the juice contained in
them; and there it makes the stones and minerals lie down in mute
silence.
96. Some times it blooms in fruits ripened by the solar heat, and at
others maturated by the burning fuel; some where it gives us the cold
and icy water; and at others the spring water which cannot be lasted.
97. Here it glows in luminous bodies, and there it shows itself of
impenetrable thickets and in accessible rocks; It shines as bright and
white in one place, and is as dark and blue in another; It sparkles in
the fire and dwindles in the earth, it blows in the air and spreads in
the water.
98. Being the all-pervading, omnipresent and omnipotent power itself,
it is the one in all and the whole plenum. It is therefore more subtile
and transparent, than the rarefied and translucent air.
99. As the intellect spreads out and contracts itself, in any manner
in any place or time; so it conceives and produces the same within and
without itself, as the agitation of waters produces both the little
billows and huge surges of the sea. (The intellect is the immanent
cause of all phenomena).
100. The intellect stretches itself in the various forms of ducks and
geese, of cranes and crows, of storks, wolves and horses also; it
becomes the heron and partridge, the parrot, the dog, the stag, the ape
and Kinnara likewise.
101. It is the abstract quality of the understanding, beauty and
modesty, and of love and affections also; it is the power of illusion
and the shadow and brightness of night and of moonlight likewise.
102. It stretches itself in these and all other forms of bodies, and is
born and reborn in all kinds and species of things. It roves and rolls
all about the revolving world, in the manner of a straw whirling in a
whirlpool.
103. It is afraid of its own desires, as the she-ass is seen to shudder
at its own brayings; and it has no one like itself. ([Sanskrit: mugva
bálá-calá-valá]).
104. I have told you already, O great sage! how this principle of the
living spirit, becomes vitiated by its animal propensities, and is
afterwards debased to the nature and condition of brute creatures.
105. The supreme soul receiving the appellation of the living soul or
principle of action, becomes a pitiable object, when it becomes subject
to error and illusion, and is subjected to endless pains and miseries.
106. The deluded soul is then overpowered by its connate sin, which
causes it to choose the wrong unreality--asat for itself, which being
frail and perishable, makes the active soul to perish with itself.
(This passage appears to allude to the original sin of man, which
became the cause of the death and woes of human life. The connate sin
is compared to the husk which is born with the rice, and not coming
from without. It is otherwise called the inborn sinfulness or frailty
of human nature--Man is to err &c.).
107. The soul being thus degraded from its state of endless felicity,
to the miserable condition of mortal life, laments over its fallen
state, as a widow wails over her fate.
108. Look on the deplorable condition of intellect--_chit_; which
having forgotten its original state (of purity), is subjected to the
impotent Ignorance, which has been casting it to the miseries of
degradation, as they cast a bucket in the well by a string, which
lowers it lower and lower till it sinks in the bottom of the pit. (This
string _araghatta_ is said to be the action of human life, which the
more it is lengthened, the more it tends to our degradation, unless
we prevent by our good action. So the sruti! [Sanskrit: yathákárí
yatháchárí tathá bhalati | sághukárí sádhurbhabati | prápakárí
papíbhavati | punyo bai punyema karmmana bhavati | pápah pápereti |]).