LECTURE ON THE DENSITY OF THE INTELLECT.
Argument.--Interpretation of the Intellect compared with the Belfruit
and carved stone and its further comparison with the Egg of a Peahen.
Vasishtha continued:--The great category of the Intellect which is
compared with the _bel_ fruit or wood apple, contains the universe as
its own matter and marrow within itself; and it broods upon the same:
as in its dream (by forgetfulness of its own nature of omniscience
before which everything is present).
2. All space and time and action and motion being but forms of itself,
there can be no distinction of them in the intellect. (Hence every part
of creation and all created things, are but composite parts of the
intellect).
3. All words and their senses, and all acts of volition, imagination
and perception, being actions of the intellect, they can not be
unrealities in any respect. (Nothing proceeding from the real one is
ever unreal).
4. As the substance contained in a fruit, passes under the several
names of the kernel, pith and marrow and seeds; so the pith and marrow
of the solid intellect being but one and the same thing, takes many
names according to their multifarious forms.
5. A thing though the same, has yet different names according to its
different states and changes of form; and as it is with the contents of
a fruit, so it is with the subjects included under the intellect.
6. The intellect reflects its image in the mirror of the world, as
these sculptured images are exprest in a slab of stone.
7. The brilliant gem of the supreme intellects produces myriads of
worlds in itself; as the gem of your minds casts the reflection of
every object of our desire and imagination.
8. The casket of the intellect contains the spacious world, which is
set in it as a big pearl of vast size; it is but a part of the other,
though appearing as distinct and different from the other.
9. The intellect is situated as the shining sun, to illumine all things
in the world; it brings on the days and nights by turns, to show and
hide them to and from our view.
10. As the waters of an eddy whirl and hurl down into the vortex of
the sea, so do these worlds roll and revolve in the cavity of the
intellect; and though its contents are of the same kind, yet they
appear as different from one another as the pulps and seeds of fruits.
11. The body of the stone like intellect contains the marks of whatever
is existent in present creation; as also of all that is inexistent
at present (_i.e._ the marks of all past and future creation. The
omniscience of the divine intellect has all thing present before it,
whether they are past and gone or to come to being hereafter).
12. All real essence is the substance of the apple-like Intellect,
whether it is in being or not being and all objects whether _in esse_
or _non esse_, obtain their form and figure according to the pith and
marrow of that intellectual fruit. (All outward forms are the types of
the intellectual archetype).
13. As the lotus loses its own and separate entity by its being
embodied in the stone, so do all these varieties of existence lose
their difference by their being engrossed into the unity of the
intellectual substance.
14. As the diversity of the lotus changes to the identity of the stone,
by its union with and entrance into its cavity; so the varieties of
creation, become all one in the solid mass of the Divine Intellect.
15. As the mirage appears to be a sheet of water to the thirsty deer,
while it is known to the intelligence to be the reflexion of the solar
rays on the sandy desert; so does the reality appear as unreal and the
unreal as real to the ignorant; while in truth there is neither the one
nor the other here, except the images of the Divine Mind.
16. As the body of waters fluctuates itself (owing to the fluidity of
the element); so is there oscillation in the solidity of the Divine
Intellect (owing to its spiritual nature).
17. The lotuses and conch-shells are of the same substance, as the
stone in which they are carved and engraved; but the world and all
its contents that contained in the intellect, are neither of the same
substance nor of the same nature (because of their perishableness).
18. Again the big block of stone which serves for the comparison of
the divine Intellect, is itself contained in the same; and while the
figures of the former are carved out of its body, those of the latter
are eternally inherent in it.
19. This creation of God is as bright as the autumnal sky, and it is as
fair as the liquid beams of the moon. (It means to say, says the gloss,
that God shines in his form of the world jagat-Brahmá or God identified
with the world which is the doctrine of cosmotheism).
20. The world is eternally situated in God, as the figures in the stone
which are never effaced; the world is as inseparably connected with the
Deity, as the god head of god with himself.
21. There is no difference of these, as there is none between the
tree and its plant; all the worlds that are seen all abouts, are not
disjoined from Divine Intellect.
22. These as well as the Intellect have neither their production nor
destruction at any time, because of their subsistence in the spirit of
God, which shows them in their various forms, as the heat of the sun
exhibits a sheet of water in the sandy desert.
23. The world with all its solid rocks, trees and plants, dissolves
into the Divine Intellect at the sight of the intelligent, as the hard
hail stones are seen to melt into the liquid and pure water. (All
solids vanish into subtle air).
24. As the water vanishes into the air, and that again into vacuum,
so do all things pass away to the supreme spirit; and again it is
the consolidation of the Intellect, that forms the solid substances
of hills, plants and all tangible things. (Condensation as well as
rarefaction, are both of them but acts of the great mind of God).
25. The pith that is hidden in the minute substance, becomes the marrow
in its enlarged state; so the flavor of things which is concealed in
the atoms, becomes perceptible in their density with their growth.
26. The power of God resides in the same manner in all corporeal
things, as the properties of flavours and moisture are inherent in the
vegetable creation. (Hence Brahmá is said to be the pith or moisture of
all--_rasovaitata_).
27. The same power of God manifests itself in many forms in things, as
the self same light of the sun shows itself in variegated colours of
things, according to the constitution of their component particles.
28. The supreme soul shows itself in various ways in the substance and
properties of things, as the Divine Intellect represents the forms of
mountains and all other things in the changeful mind.
29. As the soft and liquid yolk of the egg of a peahen, contains in it
the toughness and various colours of the future quills and feathers; so
there are varieties of all kinds inhering in the Divine Intellect, and
requiring to be developed in time.
30. As the versicolour feathers of a peacock's train, are contained in
the moisture within the egg; so the diversity of creation is ingrained
in the Divine mind (as it is said in the parable of the Peahen's egg).
31. The judicious observer will find the one self same Brahmá, to be
present every where before his sight; and will perceive his unity
amidst all diversity, as in the yolk of the peahen.
32. The knowledge of the unity and duality of God, and that of his
containing the world in himself; is also as erroneous as the belief
in the entity and nonentity of things. Therefore all these are to be
considered as the one and same thing and identic with one another.
(This is cosmotheism).
33. Know him as the supreme, who is the source of all entity and
non-entity, and on whose entity they depend; whose unity comprises
all varieties, which appear as virtual and are no real existences.
(Hence the gloss deduces the corollary, that the unreal or negative is
subordinate to the positive, and the variety to the unity).
34. Know the world to be compressed under the category of the
Intellect, as the Intellect also is assimilated with the works of
creation; in the same manner as is the relation of the feather and
moisture, the one being the production and the other the producer of
one another.
35. The mundane egg resembles the peahen's egg, and the spirit of
God is as the yolk of that egg; it abounds with many things like the
variegated feathers of the peacocks, all which serve but to mislead us
to error. Know therefore there is no difference in outward form and
internal spirit of the world, as there is none in the outer peacock and
the inner-yolk.