ON THE PERCEPTION OF THE SENSIBLE OBJECTS.
Argument.--Erroneous Belief in the Reality of the Body and Mind;
instead of believing the unity and Entity of Brahma as All in All.
Vasishtha resumed:--Ráma, you have heard me relate unto you that, even
the lotus-born Brahmá who was born long before you, had been without
his organs of sense at first (_i.e._ Brahmá the creative power of God,
was purely a spiritual Being, and had necessarily neither a gross body
nor any of its organs as we possess).
2. As Brahmá--the collective agents of creation was endued only
with his consciousness--_Samvid_ for the performance of all his
functions; so are all individual personalities endowed with their
self-consciousness only, for the discharge of all their necessary
duties.
3. Know that as the living soul, dwelling in its body in the mother's
womb, comes to reflect on the actions of the senses, it finds their
proper organ supplied to its body immediately.
4. Know the senses and the organs of sense to be the forms of
consciousness itself, and this I have fully explained to you in the
case of Brahma, who represents the collective body of all individual
souls.
5. At first there was the pure consciousness in its collective-form
in the Divine Intellect, and this afterwards came to be diffused in
millions of individual souls from its sense of egoism. At first was
the Divine soul "the I am all that I am" and afterwards became many as
expressed in the Vedic text "_aham bahusyam_".
6. It is no stain to the pure universal, undivided and subjective
Divine spirit, to be divided into the infinity of individual and
objective souls; since the universal and subjective unity comprises
in it the innumerable objective individualities which it evolves of
itself. (in its self manifestation in the universe).
7. The objectivity of God does not imply his becoming either the
thinking mind or the living soul; nor his assuming upon him the organic
body or any elemental form. (Because the Lord becomes the object of our
meditation and adoration in his spirit only).
8. He does not become the Vidyá or Avidyá--the intelligible or
unintelligible, and is ever existent as appearing non-existent to
the ignorant; this is called the supreme soul, which is beyond the
comprehension of the mind and apprehension of the senses.
9. From Him rises the living soul as well as the thinking mind; which
are resembled for the instruction of mankind, as sparks emitted from
fire.
10. From whatever source ignorance (Avidyá) may have sprung, you have
no need of inquiring into the cause thereof; but taking ignorance as a
malady, you should seek the remedy of reasoning for its removal.
11. After all forms of things and the erroneous knowledge of
particulars, are removed from your mind; there remains that knowledge
of the unity, in which the whole firmament is lost, as a mountain is
concealed in an atom. (The infinity of Deity, envelopes all existence
in it).
12. That in which all the actions and commotions of the world, remain
still and motionless; [as] if they were buried in dead silence and
nihility; is the surest rock of your rest and resort, after feeling
from the bustle of all worldly business.
13. The unreal or negative idea of ignorance, has also a form, as inane
as it is nothing; look at her and she becomes a nullity, touch her and
she perishes and vanishes from sight. (Avidyá like Ignorantia is of the
feminine gender, and delusive and fleeting as a female).
14. Seek after her, and what can you find but her nothingness; and if
by your endeavour you can get anything of her, it is as the water in
the mirage (which kills by decoying the unwary traveller).
15. As it is ignorance alone that creates her reality, her unreality
appears as a reality, and destroys the seeming reality at once.
(Avidyá or Ignorance is the Goddess of the agnostic sáktas, who worship
her, under the name of Máyá or Illusion also).
16. Agnosticism imputes false attributes to the nature of the Deity,
and it is the doctrine of the agnostics to misrepresent the universal
spirit, under the forms of the living soul and the perishable body.
(from their ignorance of the supreme).
17. Now hear me attentively to tell you the sástras that they have
invented, in order to propagate their agnostic religion or belief in
this avidyá, by setting up the living soul and others in lieu of the
supreme spirit.
18. Being fond of representing the Divine Intellect in a visible form,
they have stained the pure spirit with many gross forms, such as the
elemental and organic body, which is enlivened by the vital spirit
dwelling in it.
19. Whatever they think a thing to be, they believe in the same; they
make truth of an untruth, and its reverse likewise; as children make a
devil of a doll, and afterwards break it to nothing.
20. They take the frail body formed of the five elements as a reality,
and believe its holes of the organs as the seats of the sensuous soul.
21. They employ these five fold organs in the perception of the
pentuple objects of the senses; which serve at best to represent
their objects in different light than what they are, as the germ of
a seed produces its leaves of various colours. (This means the false
appearances which are shown by the deceptive senses).
22. They reckon some as the internal senses, as the faculties of the
mind and the feelings of the heart, and others as external, as the
outward organs of action and sensation; and place their belief in
whatever their souls and minds suggest to them either as false or true.
23. They believe the moonlight to be hot or cold, according as they
feel by their outward perception. (_i.e._ Though the moon-beams appear
cooling to the weary, yet they seem to be warm to the love lorn
_amorosa_).
24. The pungency of the pepper and the vacuity of the firmament, are
all according to one's knowledge and perception of them, and do not
belong to the nature of things. For sweet is sour to some, and sour is
sweet to others; and the firmament is thought to be a void by many, but
is found to be full of air by others, who assert the dogma of natures
abhorrence of vacuum.
25. They have also ascertained certain actions and rituals, which are
in common practice, as the articles of their creed, and built their
faith of a future heaven, on the observance of those usages.
26. The living soul which is full of its desires, is led by two
different principles of action through life; the one is its natural
tendency to some particular action, and the other is the direction of
some particular law or other. It is however the natural propensity of
one, that gets the better of the other.
27. It is the soul which has produced all the objective duality from
the subjective unity only; as it is the sweet sap of the sugarcane
that produces the sugarcandy; and the serum of the earth, that forms
and fashions the water pot. (The objective is the production of the
subjective.)
28. In these as well as in all other cases, the changes that take place
in the forms of things, are all the results of time and place and other
circumstances; but none of these has any relation in the nature of God,
in his production of the universe.
29. As the sugarcane produces its leaves and flowers from its own sap,
so the living soul produces the dualities from sap of its own unity,
which is the supreme soul itself. (The spirit of God that dwells in all
souls. (_Swátmani Brahmasatwa_), produces all these varieties in them.)
30. It is the God that is seated in all souls, that views the dualities
of a pot, picture, a cot and its egoism in itself; and so they appear
to every individual soul in the world.
31. The living soul appears to assume to itself, the different forms
of childhood, youth, and age at different times; as a cloud in the sky
appears as an exhalation, a watery cloud and the sap of the earth and
all its plants, at the different times of the hot and rainy seasons of
the year.
32. The living soul perceives all these changes, as they are exhibited
before it by the supreme soul in which they are all present; and there
is no being in the world, that is able to alter this order of nature.
33. Even the sky which is as clear as the looking glass, and is spread
all about and within every body, is not able to represent unto us, all
the various forms which are presented to the soul by the great soul of
souls (in which they appear to be imprinted). Here Vasishtha is no more
an _ákása-vádi_--vacuist, in as much as he finds a difference in the
nature and capacity of the one from those of the other or the supreme
soul.
34. The soul which is situated in the universal soul of Brahmá, shines
as the living soul (Jíva) of living beings; but it amounts to a
duality, to impute even an incorporeal idea of _Avidyá_ or Ignorance to
it; because the nature of God is pure Intelligence, and cannot admit an
ignorant spirit in it (as the good spirit of God cannot admit the evil
spirit of a demon in itself).
35. Whatever thing is ordained to manifest itself in any manner, the
same is its nature and stamp (swabháva and neyati); and though such
appearance is no reality, yet you can never undo what is ordained from
the beginning.
36. As a golden ornament presents to you the joint features of its
reality and unreality at the same time (in that it is gold and
jewellery, the one being real and the other changeable and therefore
unreal); so are all things but combinations of the real and unreal, in
their substantial essence and outward appearance. But both of these
dissolve at last to the Divine spirit, as the gold ornament is melted
down to liquid gold in the crucible.
37. The Divine Intellect being all-pervasive by reason of its
intellectuality, it diffuses also over the human mind; as the gold of
the jewel settles and remains dull in the crucible.
38. The heart having the passive nature of dull intellectuality,
receives the fleeting impressions of the active mind, and takes upon
it the form that it feels strongly impressed upon it at any time. (The
heart is the passive receptacle of the impression of the active mind
and reverberates to the tone of its thoughts).
39. The soul also assumes many shapes to itself at different times,
according to the ever changing prospects, which various desires always
present before it.
40. The body likewise takes different forms upon it, according to
its inward thoughts and feelings; as a city seen in a dream varies
considerably from what is seen with naked eyes. So we shape our future
forms by the tenor of our minds (because our life is but a dream and
our bodies but its shadows--_prathibas_).
41. As a dream presents us the shadows of things, that disappear on our
waking, so these living bodies that we see all about, must vanish into
nothing upon their demise.
42. What is unreal is doomed to perish, and those that die are destined
to be born again, and the living soul takes another form in another
body, as it sees itself in its dream.
43. This body does not become otherwise, though it may change from
youth to age in course of time; because the natural form of a person
retains its identity in every stage of life through which it has to
pass.
44. A man sees in his dream all that he has seen or heard or thought
of at any time, and the whole world being comprised in the state of
dreaming, the living soul becomes the knower of all that is knowable
in his dream. (The sruti says, the soul comprises the three worlds in
itself, which it sees expanded before in its dream).
45. That which is not seen in the sight of a waking man, but is known
to him only by name (as the indefinite form of Brahma); can never
be seen in dream also, as the pure soul and the intellect of God.
(Abstract thoughts are not subjects of dream).
46. As the living soul sees in its dream the objects that it has seen
before, so the intellectual part of the soul sees also many things,
which were unknown to it.
47. Subdue your former desires and propensities, by your manly efforts
at present; and exert your utmost to change your habitual misconduct to
your good behaviour for the future.
48. You can never subdue your senses, nor prevent your transmigrations,
without gaining your liberation; but must continue to rise and plunge
in the stream of life forever more and in all places.
49. The imagination of your mind, causes the body to grasp your soul as
a shark, and the desire of your soul is as a ghost, that lays hold on
children in the dark.
50. It is the mind, the understanding and egoism, joined with the five
elements or tanmátras, that form the puryastaka or ativáhika body,
composed of the octuple subtile properties.
51. The bodiless or intellectual soul, is finer than the vacuous air;
the air is its great arbor, and the body is as its mountain. (_i.e._ It
is more subtile than the empty air and sky).
52. One devoid of his passions and affections, and exempt from all
the conditions of life, is entitled to his liberation; he remains in
a state of profound sleep (hypnotism), wherein the gross objects and
desires of life, lie embosomed and buried for ever.
53. The state of dreaming is one, in which the dreamer is conscious of
his body and self-existence; and has to rove about or remain fixed in
some place, until his attainment of final liberation. Such is the state
of living beings and vegetables (both of which are conscious of their
lives).
54. Some times the sleeping and often the dreaming person, have both to
bear and carry with them their _ativáhika_ or moveable bodies, until
they obtain their final emancipation from life.
55. When the sleeping soul does not rise of itself (by its intellectual
knowledge), but is raised from the torpor of its sleep by some ominous
dream, it then wakes to the fire of a conflagration from its misery
only. (Here waking to a conflagration is opposed to the waking to a
seas of woes of Dr. Young. The gloss says, that it is a structure on
the unintelligent waking of the Nyáyikas).
56. The state of the unmoving minerals, including even that of the
fixed arbor of the _Kalpa_ tree (that is in its torpid hypnotism of
susupti), exhibits no sign of intelligence except gross dulness.
57. The dull sleep of _susupta_ being dispelled by some dream, leads
the waker to the miseries of life in this world; but he that awakes
from his trance with full intelligence, finds the perfect felicity of
the fourth (turya) states open fully to his view.
58. The living soul finds liberation by means of its intelligence, and
it is by this means that it gets its spirituality also; just as copper
being cleansed of its rust by some acid, assumes the brightness of pure
gold.
59. The liberation that the living soul has by means of its
intelligence, is again of two kinds, namely;--the one is termed
emancipation from life or _Jívan mukta_, and the other is known as the
release from the burden of the body or _deha mukta_.
60. Emancipation from life means the attainment of the fourth state of
perfection, and intelligence signifies the enlightenment of the soul,
and this is obtainable by cultivation of the understanding.
61. The soul that is acquainted with sástra, and knows the supreme
spirit in itself, becomes full of the Deity; but the unintelligent soul
sees only horrors rising before it, like spectres of his troublesome
dreams.
62. The horrors rising in the heart of man, serve only to disturb the
rest of the breast; or else there is nothing in the heart of man,
except a particle of the Divine Intellect.
63. Men are verily subjected to misery, by looking at the Deity in any
other light, than the Divine light which shines in the soul of man, and
beside which there is no other light in it.
64. Look at the world whenever you will, and you will find it full of
illusion everywhere; as you find nothing in a pot full of foul water
except the sediments of dirt.
65. In the same manner you see the atoms of human souls, full with the
vanities of this world; it is by the fetters of its worldly desires,
and gets its release by the breaking off those bonds of its desire.
66. The soul sleeps under the spell of its desires, and sees those
objects in its dream, it wakes after their dispersion to the state of
turya-felicity. The spell of gross desire, extends over all animate as
well as in-animate creation.
67. The desire of superior beings is of a pure nature, and that of
intermediate natures is of less pure form. The desires of inferior
beings are of a gross nature, and there are others without them as the
pots and blocks.
68. The living soul (passing through the doors of bodily organs)
becomes united with the outward object, when the one becomes the
percipient and the other the object of its percipience; and then the
entity of both of these, namely of the inward soul and the outward
object being pervaded by the all pervasive Intellect of God, they both
become one and the same with the common receptacle of all. (I.e. All
things blend in the Divine unity).
69. Hence the belief of the receiver, received and reception, are as
false as the water in the mirage; and there is nothing that we can shun
or lay hold upon as desirable or disgusting, when they are all the same
in the sight of God.
70. All things whether internal or external, are manifested to us as
parts of the one universal and intellectual soul; and all the worlds
being but manifestations of the Divine Intellect, it is in vain to
attribute any difference to them. All of us are displayed in the
Intellect, which contains the inner and outer worlds for ever.
71. As the ocean is an even expanse of water, after the subsidence of
all its various waves and billows, and shows itself as clear as sky
with its pure watery expanse to view; so the whole universe appears as
the reflexion of one glorious and ever lasting Deity, after we lose
sight of the diversities that are presented to our superficial view.