PARABLE OF THE STONY SHEATH OF THE SOUL.
Argument.--The divine mind is the substratum of the totality of
existence.
Ráma said:--Venerable sir, that knowest the substance of all truths; I
understand the parable of bel fruit which you have just related to me
to bear relation to the essence of the compact intellect, which is the
only unit and identic with itself.
2. The whole plenitude of existence together with the personalities
of I, thou, this and that form the plenum (or substance), of the
intellect; and there is not the least difference between them, as this
is one thing and that another. (All this is but one undivided whole,
whose body nature is and God the soul. Pope).
3. Vasishtha answered--As this mundane egg or universe is likened to a
gourd fruit, containing the mountains and all other things as its inner
substance; so doth the intellect resemble the bel fruit or the grand
substratum, that contains even the universe as the kernel inside it.
4. But though the world has no other receptacle beside the Divine
intellect, yet it is not literally the kernel inside that crust (_i.e._
the substance of that substratum in its literal sense). Because the
world has its decay, decline and dissolution also in time, but none of
these belong to the nature of the everlasting mind of God.
5. The intellect resembles the hard coating of the pepper seed,
containing the soft substance of its pith inside it, and is likened
also to block of stone, bearing the sculptured figures peacefully
sleeping in it. (All things are engraven in the divine mind).
6. Here me relate to you, O moon faced Ráma! another pleasant story in
this place which will appear equally charming as well as wondrous to
you. (It is the story of stone like Brahma).
7. There is a huge block of stone somewhere, which is as big as it is
thick and solid; it is bright and glossy, and cold and smooth to touch;
it never wastes or wears out, nor becomes dark and dim.
8. There are many full blown lotuses, and unnumbered buds of water
lilies, growing amidst the limpid lake of water, contained within the
bosom of this wondrous stone. (It means that the mind of God has all
these images of things engraved in it as in a stone).
9. There are many other plants growing also in that lake, some with
their long and broad caves and others with their alternate and joint
foliums likewise.
10. There are many flowers with their up lifted and down cast heads,
and others with their petals hanging before them; some having a
combined or common footstalk, and others growing separate and apart
from one another; some are concealed and others manifest to view.
11. Some have their roots formed of the fibres of the pericarp, and
some have their pericarps growing upon the roots (as orchids), some
have their roots on the tops and others at the foot of trees, while
there are many without their roots at all: (as the parasite plants).
12. There are a great many conch shells about these, and unnumbered
diseases also strewn all about.
13. Ráma said:--All this is true, and I have seen this large stone
of sálgráma in my travels; and I remember it to be placed in the
shrine of Vishnu, amidst a bed of lotus flowers. (The sálgráma stone
is perforated by the vajra-kíta, and contains many marks inside it,
resembled to the map of the world in the mundane egg of the divine
mind. See vajra-kíta in the works of Sir William Jones).
14. Vasishtha replied:--You say truly, that you have seen that great
stone and know its inside also; but do you know the unperforated and
hollowless stone of the divine mind, that contains the universe in its
concavity, and is the life of all living beings (and not the dull,
lifeless and hollow sálagráma stone which they worship as an emblem of
the divine mind).
15. The stone of which I have been speaking to you, is of a marvelous
and supernatural kind; and contains in its voidless bosom all things as
nothing. (_i.e._ the ideas and not substances of things).
16. It is the stone like intellect of which I have spoken to you,
and which contains all these massive worlds within its spacious
sphere. It is figuratively called a stone from its solidity, cohesive
impenetrability and indivisibility like those of a block.
17. This solid substance of the intellect, notwithstanding its density
and unporousness, contains all the worlds in itself, as the infinite
space of heaven is filled with the subtile and atmospheric air. (The
divine mind like external nature, is devoid of a vacuity in it,
according to the common adage: "Nature abhors a vacuum").
18. The mind is occupied with all its various thoughts, as the world is
filled by the earth and sky, the air and atmosphere, and the mountains
and rivers on all sides, there is not hole or hollow, which is not
occupied by some thing or other in it.
19. The solid soul of God which resembles this massive stone, contains
in it all these worlds which are displayed (to our deluded sight), as
so many beds of lotuses in their blooming beauty; and yet there is
nothing so very pure and unsullied as this solid crystalline soul. (The
soul like a crystal, reflects its light in various forms).
20. As it is the practice of men to paint blocks of stones, with the
figures of lotuses, conch shells and the like images; so it is the
tendency of the fanciful mind, to picture many fantastic of all times
in the solid rock of the soul. (The soul like a crystal stone is wholly
blank in itself, it is only the imaginative mind, that tinges it in
different shades and colours).
21. All things in the world appear to be situated exactly in the
same state, as the various figures carved on the breast of a stone,
seem to be separate though they are bellied in the same relief. (All
distinctions blend in the same receptacle).
22. As the carved lotus is not distinct from the body of the stone, so
no part of existence is set apart from the substantiality of the divine
intellect; which represents its subtile ideas in their condensed forms.
23. This formal creation is as inseparable from the formless intellect
of God, as the circular forms of lotus flowers which are carved in a
stone, are not separate from the great body of the shapeless stone.
24. These endless chains of worlds, are all linked up in the boundless
intellect of the Deity; in the same manner as the clusters of lotus
flowers are carved together in a stone; and as a great many seeds, are
set together in the inside of a long pepper.
25. These revolving worlds have neither their rise nor fall in the
sphere of the infinite intellect, but they remain as firm as the kernel
of a _bel_ fruit, and as fixed as the fidelity of a faithful wife.
26. The revolution of worlds and their changing scenes, that are seen
to take place in their situation in the Divine Intellect, do not prove
the changeableness of the all containing Infinite Mind, because its
contents of finite things are so changeable in their nature. (The
container is not necessarily of the nature of its contents).
27. All these changes and varieties subside at last in the divine
intellect, as the waves and drops of water sink down in the Sea; and
the only change which is observable in the Supreme Intellect, is its
absorption of all finite changes into its infinity. (All finite forms
and their temporary transformations, terminate finally into infinity).
28. The word (Fiat) that has produced this all, causes their changes
and dissolutions also in itself. Know then that Brahma from whom this
_fiat_ and these changes have sprung, and all these being accompanied
with Brahma and the original fiat, the word change is altogether
meaningless. (There is no new change from what is ordained from the
beginning).
29. Brahma being both the mainspring as well as the main stay of all
changes in nature; He is neither excluded from or included under any
change, which occur in the sphere of his immensity (_i.e._ the spirit
of God being the unchanging source of all phenomenal changes, is not
exempted from the mutations that occur in his infinity. So says the
poet: "These as they change are but the varied God &c." Thompson).
30. And know this in one or other of the two senses, that the change
of the divine spirit in the works of creation, resembles the change or
development of the seed into its stem, fruits and flowers and other
parts; or that it is a display of delusion _máyá_ like the appearance
of water in the mirage. (Here the changing scenes of nature, are viewed
in both lights of evolution and illusion).
31. As the substance of seed goes on gradually transforming itself
into the various states of its development, so the density of the
divine intellect (or spirit) condenses itself the more and more in its
production of solid and compact world, and this is the course of the
formation of the cosmos by slow degrees.
32. The union of the seed with the process of its development forms
the duality, that is destroyed by the loss of either of these. It is
imagination only that paints the world as a dull material thing, when
there is no such grossness in the pure intellect. (The gloss explains
this passage to mean that, It is the doctrine of dualists to maintain
the union of the productive seed or spirit of God, with the act of
producing the material world to be coeternal, and the one becomes null
without the other, but this tenet is refuted on the ground of the
impossibility of the Combination of the immaterial with the material,
whence the material world is proved to be a nullity and mere illusion).
33. The intellect and dull matter cannot both combine together, nor
can the one be included under the other, therefore the ideal world
resembles the marks inscribed in the stone and no way different in
their natures.
34. As the pith and marrow of a fruit, is no other than the fruit
itself; so the cosmos forms the gist of the solid intellect, and no way
separable from the same; which is like a thick stone containing marks,
undermarks, underlined under one another.
35. So we see the three worlds lying under one another, in the womb of
the unity of God; as we behold the sleeping and silent marks of lotuses
and conch shells, inscribed in the hollow of a stone.
36. There is no rising nor setting (_i.e._ the beginning or end), of
the course of the world (in the mind of God); but every thing is as
fixed and immovable in it, as the inscription carved in a stone.
37. It is the pith and marrow of the divine intellect, that causes the
creative power and the act of creation; as it is the substance of the
stone, that produces and reduces the figures in the stone.
38. As the figures in the stone, have no action or motion of their own;
so the agents of the world have no action of theirs, nor is this world
ever created or destroyed at any time (but it continues for ever as
carved in the mind of God).
39. Every thing stands as fixed in the mind of God, as if they were the
firm and immovable rocks; and all have their forms and positions in the
same manner as they are ordained and situated in the Divine Mind.
40. All things are filled with the essence of God, and remain as
somnolent in the Divine mind; the various changes and conditions of
things that appear to us in this world, are the mere vagaries of our
erroneous fancy; for every thing is as fixed and unchanged in the mind
of God, as the dormant images on a stone.
41. All actions and motions of things are as motionless in mind of God,
as the carved lie asleep in the hollow of a stone. It is the wrong
superfluous view of things, that presents to us all these varieties
and changes; but considered in the true and spiritual light, there is
neither body nor any change that presents itself to our sight.