THE UNITY OF THE INTELLECT WITH THE INTELLECTUAL
WORLD.
Argument:—Establishment of the theory of vacuum, as Composing the
Intellect and all existence contained in its vacuity.
Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, whether you were sitting in one place, or
wandering about in the skies, when you said all these with your vacuous
and intellectual body.
2. Vasishtha replied:—I was then fraught with the infinite soul, which
fills and encompasses the whole space of vacuum; and being in this state
of ubiquity, say how could I have my transition from or fixed.
3. I was neither seated in any one place, nor was I moving about any
where; I therefore was present every where, in the empty air with my
airy spirit, and beheld everything in my self or soul. (This is said of
the omnipresent soul).
4. As I see with my eyes, all the members of my body, as composing one
body of mine from my head to foot, so I saw the whole universe in myself
with my intellectual eyes.
5. Though my purely vacuous and intellectual soul, is formless and
without any part or member as my body; yet the worlds formed its parts
(by their being contained in it), and neither by the soul’s diffusion in
them, nor by their being of the same nature and essence in their
substance.
6. As an instance of this is your false vision of the world in your
dream, of which you retain a real conception, though it is no other than
an airy nothing or empty vacuity.
7. As a tree perceives in itself the growth of the leaves, fruits and
flowers from its body; so I beheld all these rising in myself.
8. I saw all these in me, as the profound sea views the various marine
animals in its bosom, as also the endless waves and whirlpools, and foam
and froth, continually floating over its breast.
9. In short as all embodied beings, are conscious of the constituent
members of their own bodies; I had the consciousness of all existence in
my all knowing soul.
10. Ráma, I still retain the concepts of whatever I saw on land and
water, and in the hills and dales, as they are embodied with my body;
and I yet behold the whole creation, as if it were imprest in my mind.
11. I see the worlds exposed before me, to be lying within and without
myself, as they lay in the inside and outside of the house; and my soul
is full with all these worlds, which are unified with my understanding.
12. As the water knows (retains) its fluidity, and the frost possesses
its coldness; and as the air has its ventilation, so the enlightened
mind knows and scans the whole world within itself.
13. Whoever has a reasoning soul in him, and has attained a clear
understanding; is possessed of the same soul as mine, which I know to be
of the same kind.
14. After the understanding is perfected, by absence of knowledge of the
subject and object, there is nothing that appears otherwise unto him,
than the self same intelligent soul, which abides alike in all.
15. And as a man seated on a high hill, sees with his clear-sightedness,
all objects to the distance of many furlongs; so from my elevation of
yoga meditation, saw with my _clair-voyance_, all things situated far and
near and within and without me.
16. As the earth perceives the minerals, metals and all things lying in
its bowels; so I saw everything as identical with and no other than
myself. (Anányat—_non alter_).
17. Ráma rejoined:—Be this as it may, but tell me, O Brahman, what
became of that bright eyed (lit. aureate-eyed) dame, that had been
reciting the _árya_ verses.
18. Vasishtha replied:—That aerial damsel of aeriform body, that recited
in the _árya_ metre; advanced courteously towards me, and sat herself
beside me in the air.
19. But she being as aeriform as myself, could not be seen by me in her
form of the spirit. (Do not the spirits see each other?).
20. I was of the aeriform spirit, and she also had an airlike body; and
worlds appeared as empty air, in my airy meditation in aerial seat (of
the sky where I was seated).
21. Ráma rejoined:—The body is the seat of the organs of sense and
action of breathing, how then could the bodiless spirit utter the sounds
of the articulate words which composed the verse?
22. How is it possible for a bodiless spirit, either to see a sight or
think of anything (without the eye & mind). Explain to me these
inexplicable truths, of the facts you have related.
23. Vasishtha replied:—The seeing of sights, the thinking of thoughts,
and the uttering of sounds; are all productions of empty air, as they
occur in our airy dreams (_i.e._ they are all caused by air). (The air
being the receptacle of the light of things, the vehicle of sound, and
framer of fancy).
24. The sight of a thing and the thought of any thing, depend on the
aerial intellect, as they do in our aerial dream; and these are
impressed in the hollowness of the intellect, both in the waking as well
as dreaming states.
25. Not only is that sight, but whatever is the object of any of our
senses, and the whole world itself, is the clear and open sky (and the
idea of their substantiality, is altogether erroneous).
26. The transcendent first principle, is of the form of the unknowable
intellect; which exhibits itself in the constitution of the universe,
which is verily its very nature. (Hence called the mundane God or the
god of nature; or as the poet says: Whose body nature is, and God the
soul).
27. What proof have you of the existence of the body and its senses?
Matter is mere illusion, and as it is with other body, so it is with
ours also. (The sruti says: see the formless one under all forms &c.).
28. This is as that One, and that is as this. (_i.e._ The world appears
to be as the intellect shows it &c.). But the unreal (matter) is taken
for the real (spirit); and the real is understood as an unreality.
29. As the uses that are made of the earth, its paths and houses in a
dream, prove to be false and made in empty air upon waking; so the
applications made of the words my, thy, his &c., made in our waking, are
all buried in oblivion in the state of our sound sleep (when we have
lost the consciousness of our personality).
30. All our struggles, efforts and actions in life time, are as false
and void as empty air; and resemble the bustle, commotion and fighting
of men in dream, which vanish into nothing in their waking.
31. If you ask whence comes this phenomenon of dreaming, and whence
proceed all its different shapes and varieties? To this nothing further
can be said regarding its origin, than that it is the reproduction or
remembrance of the impressions (preserved in the mind).
32. In answer to the question, why and how does a dream appear to us it
may only be said that, there is no other cause of its appearance to you,
than that of the appearance of this world unto you (_i.e._ as you see
this before you, so you see the other also).
33. We have the dreaming man, presented to us in the person of Virát
from the very beginning of creation; and this being is situated in open
air with its aeriform body, in the shape of the dreamer and dream mixed
up together.
34. The word dream that I have used and adduced to you, as an instance
to explain the nature of the phenomenal world; is to be understood as it
is neither a reality nor an unreality either, but the only Brahma
himself.
35. Now Ráma, that lovely lady who became my loving companion, was
accosted by me in the form in which I beheld her in my consciousness.
36. I conversed with her ideal figure, and in my clairvoyant state, just
as men seen in a dream, talked with one another (or as spirits commune
and communicate with themselves).
37. Our conference together, was of that spiritual kind, as it was held
between men in a dream; so was our conversation as airy, as our persons
and spirits; and so Ráma, must you know the whole worldly affair, is but
an airy and fairy play.
38. So the world is a dream, and the dream a phantasm of air; they are
the same void with but different names; the phantom of the waking day
time, being called the world, and of sleeping night time a dream.
39. This scene of the world, is the dream of the soul; or it is the
empty air or nothing; it is the clear understanding of God or his own
essence that is so displayed.
40. The nightly dream needs a dreamer, and a living person also in order
to see the same, such as I, thou, he or any body else; but not so the
day dream of the world, which is displayed in the vacuity of the clear
intellect itself.
41. As the viewer of the world is the clear vacuum of the intellect, so
its view also is as clear as its viewer; the world being of the manner
of a dream, it is as subtile as the rare atmosphere.
42. When the empty dream of the world appears of itself, in the vacuous
and formless intellect within the hollow of the mind (or heart) and has
no substantiality in it; how then is it said to be a material substance,
when it is perceived in the same manner by the immaterial intellect?
43. When the visionary world, appearing in a dream of corporeal beings
as ourselves, proves to be but empty void and vacuity; how do you take
it for a material substance, when it is contained in its immaterial
form, in the incorporeal spirit and intellect of God, and why not call
it an empty air, when it resides in the manner of a dream in the Divine
Intellect?
44. The Lord sees this uncreated world, appearing before him as in a
dream.
45. The Lord Brahmá (in the form of the Hiranya-Garbha), has framed this
creation in air, with the soft clay of his vacuous intellect; and all
these bodies with numerous cavities in them, appear as created and
uncreated in the same time.
46. There is no causality, nor the created worlds nor their occupants;
know there is nothing and nothing at all, and knowing this likewise and
as mute as stone; and go on doing your duties to the last, and care not
whether your body may last long or be lost to you.