INVESTIGATION OF REALITY AND UNREALITY
Argument. Egoism the cause of Poverty and Calamity, illustrated in the
instance of Dáma and others.
Vasishtha continued:—It was for your enlightenment, O high minded Ráma!
that I have related to you the instance of Dáma and Vyála, that you may
derive instruction thereby, and not let it go for nothing as a mere
idle story.
2. Following after untruth by slighting the truth, is attended with the
danger of incurring endless miseries, which the careless pursuer after
it, is little aware of.
3. Mind! how great was the leadership of Sambara’s army, (once held by
Dáma and his colleagues), and whereby they defeated the hosts of the
immortal deities, and reflect on the change of their state to
contemptible fishes in a dry and dirty quagmire.
4. Mind their former fortitude, which put to flight the legions of the
immortals; and think on their base servility as hunters, under the
chief of Kirátas afterwards.
5. See their unselfishness of mind and great patience at first, and
then see their vain desires and assumption of the vanity of egotism at
last.
6. Selfish egotism is the root of the wide extended branches of misery
in the forest of the world, which produces and bears the poisonous
blossoms of desire.
7. Therefore, O Ráma! be diligent to wipe off from thy heart the sense
of thy egoism, and try to be happy by thinking always of the nullity of
thyself.
8. The error of egoism like a dark cloud, hidst the bright disk of the
moon of truth under its gloom, and causes its cooling beams to
disappear from sight.
9. The three Daityas Dáma, Vyála and Kata, being under the demoniac
influence of Egoism, believed their nonentity as positive entity by the
excess of their illusion.
10. They are now living as fishes in the muddy pool of a lake, among
the forest lands of Kashmira, where they are content at present with
feeding with _zest_ upon the moss and weeds growing in it. (The watery
land of Kashmir is well-known to abound in fishes feeding on aquatic
herbs and moss).
11. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how they came to existence when they were
nonexistent before; for neither can a _nil_ be an _ens_, nor an entity
become a nonentity at any time.
12. Vasishtha replied:—So it is, O strong armed Ráma! that nothing can
ever be something, or anything can ever be nothing. But it is possible
for a little thing to be great, as for a great one to be reduced to
minuteness. (As it is the case in the evolution and involutions of
beings).
13. Say what nonentity has come to being, or what entity has been
lasting for ever. All these I will explain to you by their best proofs
and examples.
14. Ráma answered:—Why sir, all that is existent is ever present before
us as our own bodies, and all things beside ourselves; but you are
speaking of Dáma and the demons, as mere nullities and yet to be in
existence.
15. Yes Ráma, it was in the same way, that the non-existent and unreal
Dáma and others seemed to be in existence by mere illusion, as the
mirage appears to us to be full of water by our optical delusion (or
deception of vision).
16. It is in like manner that ourselves, these gods and demigods, and
all things besides, are unrealities in fact, and yet we seem to turn
about and speak and act as real persons.
17. My existence is as unreal as thine, and yet it appears as real as
we dream our death in sleep. (So we dream of our existence while we are
awake).
18. As the sight of a dead friend in a dream is not a reality, so the
notion of the reality of the world, ceases upon the conviction of its
unreality, as that of the demise of the person seen in a dream.
19. But such assertions of our nihility are not acceptable to them, who
are deluded to the belief of the reality of sensible objects. It is the
habit of thinking its reality, that will not listen to its
contradiction.
20. This mistaken impression of the reality of the world, is never to
be effaced without the knowledge of its unreality, derived from the
sástras, and the assuetude of thinking it so.
21. He who preaches the unreality of the world and the reality of
Brahma, is derided by the ignorant as a mad man; (for his negation of
the seeming reality, and assertion of the unseen God).
22. The learned and the ignorant cannot agree on this subject, as the
drunken and sobermen can not meet together. It is one who has the
distinct knowledge of light and darkness, that knows the difference
between the shade and sunlight.
23. It is as impossible to turn the ignorant to truth, from their
belief in the reality of unrealities, as to make a dead body to stand
on it legs by any effort.
24. It is in vain to preach the doctrine of “_to pan_”, that “Brahma is
all” to the vulgar, who for want of their knowledge of abstract
meditation, are devoted to their sensible notions.
25. There prohibition is an admonition, giving to the ignorant, (who
are incapable of persuasions); as for the learned who know themselves
to be Brahma, it is useless to lecture them on this subject (which they
are already acquainted with).
26. The intelligent man, who believes that the supremely quiescent
spirit of Brahma, pervades the whole universe, is not to be led away by
any from his firm belief.
27. So nothing can shake the faith of that man, who knows himself as no
other, beside the Supreme Being who is all in all; and thinks himself
to be dependent on the substantiality of God, as the formal ring
depends on its substance of gold.
28. The ignorant have no notion of the spirit, beside that of matter,
which they believe as the cause and effect (Kárya Kárana) of its own
production; but the learned man sees the substantive spirit, in all
forms of creation, as he views the substance of gold in all the
ornaments made of that metal.
29. The ignorant man is composed of his egoism only, and the sage is
fraught with his spirituality alone; and neither of them is ever
thwarted from his own belief.
30. What is one’s nature or habit (of thinking), can hardly be altered
at any time; for it would be foolish in one, who has been habituated to
think himself as a man, to take himself for a pot or otherwise.
31. Hence though ourselves and others, and that Dáma and the demons are
nothing in reality; yet who can believe that we or these or those and
not what ourselves to be.
32. There is but One Being that is really existent, who is truth and
consciousness himself, and of the nature of the vacuum and pure
understanding. He is immaculate, all pervading, quiescent and without
his rise or fall.
33. Being perfect quietude and void, he seems as nothing existent; and
all these creations subsist in that vacuity as particles of its own
splendour.
34. As the stars are seen to shine resplendent in the darkness of
night, and the worms and waves are seen to float on the surface of the
waters, so do all these phenomena appear to occur in his reality.
35. Whatever that being purposes himself to be, he conceives himself to
be immediately the same: it is that vacuous Intellect only which is the
true reality, and all others are also real, as viewed in it and rising
and setting in it out of its own will (volition or bidding).
36. Therefore there is nothing real or unreal in the three worlds, but
all of or the same form as it is viewed by the Intellect, and rising
before it of its own spontaneity. (The three worlds are composed of
this earth and the worlds above and beneath it, called as swarga,
martya and pátála).
37. We have also sprung from that Will Divine as Dáma and others; hence
there is neither any reality or unreality in any of us, except at the
time (when we exist or cease to do so).
38. This infinite and formless void of the Intellect, is ubiquitous and
all pervading; and in whatever form this intellect manifests itself in
any place, it appears there just in the same figure and manner.
39. As the divine consciousness expanded itself with the images of Dáma
and others, it immediately assumed those shapes by its notions of the
same. (But here it was the consciousness of Sambara or Satan, which
manifested itself in those shapes, and implies every thing to be but a
manifestation of our notion of it).
40. So it is with every one of us, that all things are produced to our
view, according to their notions which are presented to our
consciousness. (This is the tenet of conceptualism or idealism, which
bears resemblance to the doctrine of Realism. See Cousin’s treatise “De
Intellectibus”).
41. What we call the world, is the representation of things to us as in
our dream; it is a hollow body as a bubble rising in the empty ocean of
the Intellect, and appearing as the water in the mirage.
42. The waking state of the vacuous intellect, is styled the phenomenal
world, and its state of sleep and rest, is what we call liberation,
emancipation or salvation from pain (_átyantika dukkha nivritti
moksha_).
43. But the Intellect which never sleeps, nor has to be awakened at any
time (but is ever wakeful), is the vacuity of the Divine Mind, in which
the world is ever present in its visible form (and to which nothing is
invisible).
44. There the work of creation is united with the rest of _nirvána_,
and the cessation from the act of creation, is joined with
uninterrupted quiescence; and no difference of alternate work and rest
whatever subsists in God any time. (There is no such thing as “God
rested from his works”).
45. The Divine Intellect views its own form in the world, and the world
in itself in its true sense; as the blinded eye sees the internal light
in its orbit. (?)
46. The Divine Intellect like the blinded eye, sees nothing from
without, but views every form within itself; because there is no
visible nor phenomenal world, beside what is situated within the
vacuous sphere of the intellect.
47. There are all these things every where, as we have ideas of them in
our minds; but there is never any thing any where, of which we have no
previous idea in the mind. It is the one quiet spirit of God, which
lies extended in all these forms coming to our knowledge. Therefore
knowing him as all in all, give up all your fears and sorrows and
duality, rest in peace in his unity.
48. The great intellect of God, is as solid and clear as a block of
crystal, which is both dense and transparent in the inside. They appear
to be all hollow within, but replete with the images of all things from
without.