THE WORDS OF THE CREATOR OF WORLDS IN THE
MUNDANE STONE.
Argument:—Relation of the desire of the Divine of Divinity as the
cause of her sorrow.
The Bráhmana related:—Now as the world is approaching to its end, and I
am going to take my rest in the formless void of the intellect (after
dissolution of the material world); it is for this reason that this
divinity of worldly desires, is drowned in deep sorrow.
2. And as I am about to forsake her forever, it is for this very reason,
O sage, that she is so very sorry and sick at her heart.
3. Being myself of an aerial form, when I become one with the supreme
spirit (after my leaving the mental sphere); then there takes place the
great dissolution of the world with the end of all my desire.
4. Hence she with deep sorrow pursues my way, for who is there so
senseless, that does not follow after the giver of her being.
5. Now the time is come for the termination of the Kaliyuga, and of the
rotation of the four ages; and the dissolution of all living beings,
Manus, Indras, and the Gods, is near at hand.
6. Today is the end of the kalpa and great kalpa age, and this day puts
an end to my energy and will, and makes me mix with the eternal and
infinite vacuity.
7. It is now that this personification of my desire, is about to breathe
her last; just as the lake of lotuses being dried, the breath of lotus
flowers also is lost in the air.
8. The quiet soul like the calm ocean, is always at a state of rest;
unless it is agitated by its fickle desires, as the sea is troubled by
its fluctuating waves.
9. The embodied being (which is confined in the prisonhouse of the
human body), has naturally a desire to know the soul, and to <be> freed
from its dungeon.
10. Thus this lady being fraught with spiritual knowledge, and long
practiced in yoga meditation; has seen the world you inhabit, and the
four different states of its inhabitants. (The gloss explains the four
states to mean the four different pursuits of men expressed by _Dharma_,
_Artha_, _Káma_, _Moksha_).
11. She traversing through the regions of air, has come to the sight of
the aforesaid etherial stone above the polar mountain, which is our
celestial abode and the pattern of your world.
12. Both that world of yours and this abode of ours, rest on a great
mountain, which bears upon it many other worlds (invisible to the naked
eye).
13. We also do not see them with our discriminating eye sight, of
discerning them separately from one another; but we behold them all
commingled in one, in our abstract view of yoga meditation (_i.e._ The
sight of particulars is lost in their abstract meditation).
14. There are numberless worlds of creations, in earth, water and air
and in everything under the sky, as if they are compressed or carved in
the body of a huge block of stone.
15. What you call the world is a mere fallacy, and resembles your vision
of a fairy city in dream; it is a false name applied to an object,
existing nowhere beyond the intellect (and in the imagination of the
mind).
16. They who have come to know the world, as no other than an airy
vision of the mind, are verily called as wise men, and not liable to
fall into error.
17. There others who by their application to and practice of yoga
contemplation, come to attain their desired object, as this lady has
succeeded to gain your company (for her edification).
18. Thus doth the illusory power of the intellect, display these
material worlds before us; and thus doth the everlasting Divine
omnipotence manifest itself (in all these various forms).
19. There is no action nor any creation, that is ever produced from
anything or ever reduced to nothing; but all things and actions are the
spontaneous growth of the intellect only; together with our ideas of
space and time.
20. Know the ideas of time and space, of substance and action, as well
as of the minds and its faculties, are the lasting figures and marks on
the stone of the intellect, and are ever salient in it, without their
setting or being shaded at anytime.
21. This intellect is the very stone (we have been talking of), and is
either at rest or rolling on as roller or wheel; the worlds appertain to
it as its appurtenances, and accompany it as motion doth the wind.
22. The soul being replete with its full knowledge of all things, is
considered as the solid world itself; and though it is infinite in time
and space, yet it is thought as limited, owing to its appearance in the
form of the bounded and embodied mind.
23. The unbounded intellect appears as bounded, by its limited
knowledge; and although it is formless, yet it appears in the form of
the mind, representing the worlds in it.
24. As the mind views itself in the form of aerial city in its dream, so
doth it find itself in the form of this stone, with the worlds marked
upon it in the daytime. (The world like the dream, is a transformation
or representation of the mind itself).
25. There is no rolling of the orbs in this world, nor the running of
streams herein, there is no object subsisting in reality any where; but
they are all mere representations of the mind in empty air.
26. As there are no _kolpa_ and great _kalpa_ ages in eternity, nor the
substantiality of anything in the vacuity of our consciousness; and as
there is no difference of the waves and bubbles from the waters of the
sea (So there is no difference of the empty thoughts from the vacuous
mind; whence they take their rise).
27. The worlds appearing to be _in esse_, or existent in the mind and
before the eyes; are in reality utterly inexistent in the intellect,
which spreads alike as the all pervading and empty vacuum every where.
And as all empty space in every place is alike and same with the
infinite vacuity; so the forms of things appearing to the limited
understanding, are all lost in the unlimited intellect.
28. Now Vasishtha, go to your place in your own world; and have your
peace and bliss in your own seat of _samádhi_-devotion. Consign your
aerial worlds to empty air, while I myself to the supreme Brahma do
repair.