THE PARABLE OF THE VAIN MAN CONTINUED.
Argument.--Interpretation of the parable of the Aerial man.
Ráma said:--Please sir, give me the interpretation of your parable of
the false man, and tell me the allusion it bears to the fanciful man,
whose business it was to watch the air or sky (and to make his new
posts for that purpose).
2. Vasishtha replied:--Hear me, Ráma, now expound to you the meaning of
my parable of the false man, and the allusion which it bears to every
fanciful man in this world.
3. The man that I have represented to you, as a magical engine (máyá
yantra), means the egoistic man, who is led by the magic of his egoism,
to look upon the empty air of his personality as a real entity (and
whose sole care it is to preserve its vital air as its only property).
4. The vault of the sky, which contains all these orbs of worlds; is
but an infinite space of empty void, as it was ere this creation came
into existence, and before it becomes manifest to view.
5. There is the spirit of the inscrutable and impersonal Brahma,
immanent in this vacuity and becomes apparent in the personality of
Brahmá, in the manner of the audible sound issuing out of the empty
air, which is its receptacle and support.
6. It is from this also that there rises the subtle individual soul
with the sense of its egoism, as the vibration of current winds springs
from the motionless air; and then as it grows up in time in the same
element, it comes to believe its having an individual soul and a
personality of its own.
7. Thus the impersonal soul being imbibed with the idea of its
personality, tries to preserve its egoism for ever; it enters into many
bodies of different kinds, and creates new ones for its abode upon the
loss of the former ones.
8. This egoistic soul, is called the false and magical man; because it
is a false creation of unreality, and a production of vain ignorance
and imagination.
9. The pit and the pot, and the cottage and the hut, represent the
different bodies, the empty vacuity of which, supplies the egoistic
soul with a temporary abode.
10. Now listen to me to relate to you the different names, under which
our ignorant spirit passes in this world, and begins itself under one
or other of these appellations.
11. It takes the various names of the living soul, the understanding,
mind, the heart, and ignorance and nature also; and is known among men,
by the words imagination, fancy and time, which are also applied to it.
12. In these and a thousand other names and forms, doth this vain
egoism appear to us in this world; but all these powers and faculties
are mere attributives of the true ego which is imperceptible to us.
13. The world is verily known to rest without its basis, in the
extended and vacuous womb of the visible firmament; and the imaginary
soul of the egoist is supposed to dwell in it, and feel all its pain
and pleasure in vain. (But the sense of the unreality of the world, as
also of one's personality, exempts from the sensations of pleasure and
pain).
14. Therefore O Ráma, do not like the imaginary man in the fable, place
any reliance in your false personality; nor subject yourself like the
egoistic man, to the fancied pleasure and misery of this world.
15. Do not trouble yourself, like the erroneous man, with the vain care
of preserving your vacuous soul; nor suffer like him the pain of your
confinement in the hollow of the pit, pot and others.
16. How is it possible for any body, to preserve or confine the vacuous
spirit in the narrow limit of a pot and the like; when it is more
extended than the boundless sky, and more subtile and purer than the
all pervading air.
17. The soul is supposed to dwell in the cavity of the human heart, and
is thought to perish with the decay and destruction of the body; hence
people are seen to lament at the loss of their frail bodies, as if it
entailed the destruction of their indestructible soul.
18. As the destruction of the pot or any other hollow vessel, does
not destroy the subtile air, which is contained in the same; so the
dissolution of the body, does not dissolve the embodied and intangible
soul.
19. Know Ráma, the nature of the soul, to be as that of the pure
intellect; it is more subtile than the circumambient air, and minuter
far than the minutest atom; it is a particle of our consciousness only,
and indestructible as the all pervasive air, which is never to be
nullified.
20. The soul is never born, nor does it die as any other thing at any
place or time; it extends over the whole universe, as the universal
soul of Brahma, which encompasses and comprehends all space, and
manifests itself in all things.
21. Know this spirit as one entire unit, and the only real entity; it
is always calm and quiet, and without its beginning, middle and end.
Know it as beyond the positive and negative, and be happy with thy
knowledge of its transcendental nature.
22. Now extricate your mind from the false cogitation of your egoism,
which is the abode of all evils and dangers, and is an unstable thing
depending on the life of a man; it is full of ignorance and vanity, and
its own destruction and final perdition (in hell fire). Therefore get
rid of your egoistic feeling, and rely only on the ultimate and optimum
state of the one everlasting Deity.