PROVING THE CREATION AS DIVINE ATTRIBUTE.
Argument:—The Eternity and infinity of creation, elucidated in
the story of the block of stone.
Ráma said:—O venerable sir, what an extensive, noble, grand and clear
prospect have you exposed to my sight; (by showing the infinite of time
and place to be composed of the essence of the supreme deity).
2. I find also by my percipience, that the entity of the One and sole
Ens, fills the whole space at all times and places; and that it is the
essence which shows itself alike in every manner and form always and
every where forever and evermore.
3. I have yet some scruples sir, rankling in my breast, and hope you
will please to remove them, by explaining unto me the meaning of your
story of the stone (you mentioned before).
4. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma, I will relate to you the story of the stone,
in order to stablish that this whole or the plenum, is existent in all
times and in all places (with the Divine essence).
5. I will elucidate to you by means of this story, how thousands of
worlds are contained within the compact and solid body of a stone (as
the thoughts of all things, are comprised in the density of the Divine
Intellect).
6. I will also show to you in this story, how the grand material world
(which is as compact as a stone, is contained in its immaterial or airy
ideal state, in the vast vacuity of the divine mind).
7. You will also find from this story, that there is in the midst of all
plants and their seeds, and in the hearts of all living animals, as also
in the bosom of the elementary bodies of water and air as of earth and
fire, sufficient space containing thousands of productions of their own
kinds.
8. Ráma rejoined:—If you say, O sage, that all vegetables and living
beings are full with the productions of their respective kinds, then why
is it that we do not perceive the numerous productions, which abound in
the empty air?
9. Vasishtha replied:—I have already told you Ráma, much about this
first and essential truth; that the whole of this creation which appears
to our sight, is empty air and subsisting in the inane vacuum only.
10. In the first place there is nothing that was ever produced in the
beginning, nor is there anything which is in existence at present; all
this that appears as visible to us is no other than Brahma Himself, and
subsisting in his Brahmic or plenary immensity or fullness. (So the
sruti: The Lord is full in the fulness of his creation &c.).
11. There is no room for an atom of earth, to find its place in the
fulness of the divine Intellect, which is filled with its ideal worlds;
nor do the material worlds exist in Brahma, who is of the form of pure
vacuum.
12. There is no room even for a spark of fire, to have its place in the
intellectual creation of God which admits of no gap or pore in it; nor
do these worlds exist in any part of Brahma, who is entirely a pure
vacuity.
13. There is no possibility also for a breath of air, to subsist in the
imporous fulness of the intellectual creation of God; nor doth any of
these (earthly, luminous or aerial) worlds, exist in the purely vacuous
Intellect of Brahma.
14. There is not even a jot of the visible vacuity, that finds a place
in the intensity of the ideal creation in the divine mind; nor is it
possible for any of these visible worlds, to subsist in the compact
vacuum of the deity.
15. The five great elementary bodies, have no room in the consolidated
creation of God, which subsists in its vacuous form in the vacuity of
the Divine Intellect.
16. There is nothing created any where, but it is the vacuum and in the
vacuity of the great spirit of God.
17. There is no atom of the great spirit of God, which is not full of
creations or created things; nor is there any creation or created thing,
but is the void and in the vacancy of the Divine spirit.
18. There is no particle of Brahma, distributed in the creation: because
the Lord is spirit, and always full in Himself. (The Divine soul, admits
no materiality nor divisibility in its nature).
19. The creation is the supreme Brahma, and the Lord is the creation
itself; there is not the slightest tint of dualism in them, as there is
no duality of fire and its heat.
20. It is improper to say that this is creation and the other is Brahma,
and to think them as different from one another; just as it is wrong to
consider a _dáru and dárya_ (a tree and tearable) as two things, from
the difference in the sounds of the words (of the same meaning). (So
_Brahma_ immensity and _srishti_—creation are synonymous terms differing
in sound).
21. There exists no difference of them, when their duality disappears
into unity; and when we can not have any idea of their difference,
unless we support the gross dualistic theory (which is absurd).
22. We know all this as one clear and transparent space, which is
without its beginning and end, and quite indestructible and tranquil in
its nature; and knowing this all wise men remain as mute as a piece of
solid stone, even when they are employed in business.
23. Look at this whole creation as whether extinct in the Deity, and
view the visible world as a vast void only; look upon your egoism and
tuism as mere fallacies, and behold the Gods and demigods and the hills
and everything else as the visionary appearances in our dream, which
spread their nil of delusion over the minds of men (even in their waking
state).