ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECT.
Argument:—Description of the Intellect, as cause of the
appearance and disappearance of the World.
Bhusunda said:—The unintelligible objects of thought are phenomena of
the intellect; they lie as calmly in the great mass or inert body of the
intellect, as the sunbeams shine in the bosom of a clear basin of water
(where they retain their light without their heat).
2. The unintelligent world subsists in the intelligent intellect, by its
power of intellection; and remains alike with the unlike (_i.e._ matter
with the mind), as the submarine fire resides in the water, and the
latent heat with cold.
3. The intelligent and the unintelligent (_i.e._ the subjective I and
the objective—these) have both their source in the intellection of the
intellect, which produces and reduces them from and into itself, as it
is the same force of the wind, which kindles as well as extinguishes the
fire.
4. Do you rest in the intellect, which remains after negation of your
egoism (which is the cause of both the subjective and the objective):
and remain in that calm and quiet state of the soul, which results from
your thinking in this manner. (_i.e._ By forgetting yourself, you forget
everything else besides the wakeful intellect).
5. Thou art settled in thy form of the intellect, both within and
without every thing; as the sweet water remains in and out of a raining
cloud. (The gloss explains it saying that, after you are freed from all
thoughts, you see the sole Brahma only).
6. There is nothing as I or thou, but all are forms of one intellect,
and connected with the same which is Brahma itself; there is none else
besides which is endued with intelligence, but the whole is one
stupendous intelligence, with which nothing can be compared.
7. It is itself the earth, heaven and nether world, with their
inhabitants of men, gods and demigods; and exhibits in itself the
various states of their being and actions (as upon its stage).
8. As the world is seen to remain quietly, in its representation map; so
doth the universe appear from its portraiture in the vacuum or ample
space of the divine mind.
9. Hence we see the various appearances, as the divine mind unfolds from
itself and exhibits to view; as it depends on your option, either to
view them as animated or inanimated beings; (as you may choose to do the
figures of animals, drawn in a picture).
10. These are the wondrous phenomena of the intellect, which appear as
so many worlds in the open sky; they are as the mirage spread over by
the sun-beams for delusion of the ignorant; while they appear as empty
air to the learned, who view them in their true light.
11. As the blinded eye, beholds spectres and spectrums in the clear sky;
so doth the world appear as a phantom and phantasmagoria, before the
purblind sight of the unspiritual and ignorant people in general.
12. Thus the knowledge of the objective world, and that of the
subjective _ego_, are mere reflexions of the ideas in the mind, which
appear and disappear by turns; just as a city is gilded or shaded by the
falling and failing of the sunbeams thereon; but in this case city
houses are realities, but the apparitions of the mind, are as baseless
as garden in the empty sky.