DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE GENESIS OF THE WORLD.
Argument. Confutation of the instance of the sea and its fluctuation,
with regard to the immutable spirit of God; and resolution of the
phenomenal world, to our erroneous conception, and visual deception.
Yama said:—The consciousness of gods, demigods and men as distinct
beings, is quite wrong, since they are no way distinct from the
infinite ocean of Divine Spirit, of which they are all as undulations.
2. It is owing to our erroneous conceptions that we make these
distinctions in ourselves and the Supreme Soul. The thought of our
being separate and apart from the Supreme spirit, is the cause of our
degradation from our pristine holiness and the image of God, in which
man was made at first and was infused with his holy spirit.
3. Remaining within the depth of the Divine Spirit, and yet thinking
ourselves to live without it, is the cause of keeping us in darkness on
the surface of the earth.
4. Our consciousness of ourselves as Brahmá, being vitiated by the
various thoughts in our minds, becomes the root of our activities;
while the pure consciousness of ego sum—I am, is free from all actions
and energies.
5. It is the inward desire of the heart and mind, that becomes the seed
of earthly actions; which sprouts forth in thorny plants like the
karanja, a handful of which fills the ground with rankest weeds.
6. Those living bodies, that lie scattered as pebbles on earth; are
seen to roll about or lie down with their temporary joy and grief in
continued succession, owing to their ignorance of themselves.
7. From the highest empyrean of Brahmá, down to the lowest deep, there
is an incessant undulation of the Divine spirit, like the oscillation
of the wind; which keeps all beings in their successive wailing and
rejoicing, and in their incessant births and deaths.
8. There are some of pure and enlightened souls, as the gods Hari, Hara
and others; and some of somewhat darkened understandings, as men and
the inferior demigods.
9. Some are placed in greater darkness, as the worms and insects; and
others are situated in utter darkness, as the trees and vegetables.
10. Some grow afar from the great ocean of the Divine Spirit; as the
grass and weeds of the earth, which are ever degraded, owing to their
being the emblems of sin; and others are barred from elevation as dull
stones and heinous snakes.
11. Some have come to being only with their bodies, (without any share
of understanding); and they know not that death has been undermining
the fabric of their bodies, as a mouse burrows a house.
12. Some have gone through the ocean of Divine knowledge, and have
become as divinities, in their living bodies as Brahmá, Hari, and Hara.
(The gods like angels are embodied beings in which form, they are
worshipped by their votaries. It is wrong therefore for the Kesavite
Brahmos, to call the formless Brahma as Hari, who had a visible body
according to our text).
13. Some having a little understanding, have gone down the depth of
holy knowledge, without ever reaching the bottom, or finding its either
shore.
14. Some beings that have undergone many births, and have yet to pass
through many more, have ever remained abortive and benighted without
the light of truth.
15. Some are tossed up and down, like fruits flung from the hand: those
flying upward have gone higher still; and those going down have fallen
still lower and lower. (None can know the highest pitch or lowest depth
of existence?).
16. It is forgetfulness of Supreme felicity, that causes one to rove in
various births of weal or woe; but the knowledge of the Supreme, causes
the cessation of transmigration; as the remembrance of Garuda, destroys
the power of the most destructive poison.