DESCRIPTION OF THE PERSON OF VIRÁT—THE
GOD OF NATURE.
Argument:—If there is no truth or untruth in the creation, how
can both be true or false at once.
Ráma said:—Sir, you have said at length regarding our bondage and
liberation, and our knowledge of the world as neither a reality nor an
unreality also; and that it neither rises nor sets, but is always
existent as at first and ever before.
2. I have well understood Sir, all your lectures on the subjects, and
yet wish to know more of these, for my full satisfaction with the
ambrosial drops of your speech.
3. Tell me sir, how there is no truth nor any untruth, either an
erroneous view of the creation as a reality, or its view as a mere
vacuum:
4. In such a case, I well understand what is the real truth; yet I want
you to tell more of this, for my comprehension of the subject of
creation.
5. Vasishtha replied:—All this world that is visible to us, with all its
moving and unmoving creatures; and all things with all their varieties,
occasioned by difference of country and climate.
6. All these are subject to destruction, at the great dissolution of the
world; together with Brahmá, Indra, Upendra, Mahendra and the Rudras at
the end.
7. Then there remains something alone, which is unborn and increate and
without its beginning; and which is ever calm and quiet in its nature.
To this no words can reach, and of which nothing can be known.
8. As the mountain is larger and more extended than a mustard seed, so
is the sky much more than that; but the entity of vacuity is the
greatest of all.
9. Again as the dusts of the earth, are smaller than the great mountain;
so the stupendous universe, is a minute particle in comparison with the
infinite entity of the vacuity of God.
10. After the long lapse of unmeasured time, in the unlimited space of
eternity (_i.e._ at the end of a Kalpa age); and after the dissolution
of all existence in the transcendent vacuum of the Divine Mind (lit.,
thinking soul).
11. At this time the great vacuous intellect, which is unlimited by
space and time, and is quite tranquil by being devoid of all its desire
and will; looks in itself by its reminiscence, the atomic world in
aeriform state (as the soul ruminates over the past in its dream).
12. The intellect reconnoitres over this unreality within itself, as it
were in its dream; and then it thinks on the sense of the word Brahma or
enlargement, and beholds the dilation of these _minutiae_ in their
intellectual forms (_i.e._ the developed ideas).
13. It is the nature of the intellect to know the minute ideas, which
are contained in its sensory; and because it continues to look upon
them, it is called their looker. (_i.e._ The subjective principle of the
objective thoughts).
14. (In order to clear how the intellect can be both the subjective and
objective at once, it is said that:) As a man sees himself as dead in
his dream, and the dead man sees his own death; so doth the intellect
see the minute ideas in itself. (Hence it is not impossible for the
contraries to subsist together).
15. Hence it is the nature of the intellect, to see its unity as a
duality within itself; and to remain of its own nature, as both the
subjective and objective by itself.
16. The intellect is of the nature of vacuum, and therefore formless in
itself; and yet it beholds the minute ideas to rise as visibles before
it, and thereby the subjective viewer becomes the duality of the
objective view also.
17. It then finds its minute self, springing out distinctly in its own
conception; just as a seed is found to sprout forth in its germ. (This
is the first step of the conception of personality of the universal
spirit).
18. It has then the distinct view of space and time, and of substance
and its attributes and actions before its sight; but as these are yet in
their state of internal conceptions, they have as yet received no names
for themselves.
19. Wherever the particle of the intellect shines (or that which is
perceptible to it); is called the place (or object), and whenever it is
perceived the same is termed as time, and the act of perception is
styled the action.
20. Whatever is perceived (by the intellect), the same is said as the
object; and the sight or seeing thereof by it, is the cause of its
perception, just as the light of a luminary, is the cause of ocular
vision.
21. Thus endless products of the intellect appear before it, as distinct
from one another by their time, place, and action; and all these
appearing as true, like the various colours of the skies in the sky.
22. The light of the intellect shines through different parts of the
body, as the eye is the organ whereby it sees; and so the other organs
of sense for its perception of other objects. (All these are called
_axas_ answering the sight of the eyes).
23. The intellectual particle, shining at first within itself, bears no
distinct name except that of _tanmátra_ or its inward perception; which
is as insignificant a term as empty air.
24. But the shadow of the atomic intellect falling upon the empty air,
becomes the solid body; which shoots forth into the five organs of
sense, owing to its inquest into their five objects of form and the
rest.
25. The intellectual principle, being then in need of retaining its
sensations in the sensorium, becomes the mind and understanding (which
is called the sixth or internal organ of sense).
26. Then the mind being actuated by its vanity, takes upon it the
denomination of egoism, and is inclined to make imaginary divisions of
space and time.
27. Thus the minute intellect comes to make distinctions of time, by
giving them the different denomination of the present, past and future.
28. Again with regard to space, it denominates one place as upper and
another as lower; and goes on giving different appellations of sides (or
the points of compass), to one invariable space in nature.
29. It then comes to understand the meanings of words, and invent the
terms signifying time and space, action and substance.
30. Thus the intellect bearing a vacuous form in the primordial vacuum,
became the spiritual or _lingadéha_ of its own accord, until it was
diffused all over the world (which is thence called the mundane God).
31. Having long remained in that state as it thought, it took upon it
the compleately concrete material form through which it was transfused.
32. Though formed originally of air in the original air, and was
perfectly pure in its nature; yet being incorporated in the false
corporeal form, it forgot its real nature; as the solar heat in
conjunction with sand, is mistaken for water.
33. It then takes upon itself and of its own will, a form reaching to
the skies; to which it applied to the sense of the word head to some
part, and that of the word feet to another. (The highest heaven is the
head and the earth the foot-stools of God).
34. It applied to itself the sense of the words breast, sides and to
other parts, by adopting their figurative sense and rejecting the
literal ones. (Virát is the human figure for the macrocosm of the
universe).
35. By thinking constantly on the forms of things, as this is a cow and
that is a horse &c., as also of their being bounded by space and time;
it became conversant with the objects of different senses.
36. The same intellectual particle, saw likewise the different parts of
its body; which it termed its hands, feet &c., as its outward members;
and the heart &c., as the inner members of the body.
37. In this manner is formed the body of Brahmá, as also those of Vishnu
and the Rudras and other Gods; and so also the forms of men and worms
are produced from their conception of the same.
38. But in fact there is nothing, that is really made or formed; for all
things are now, as they have been ever before. All this is the original
vacuum, and primeval intelligence; and all forms are the false
formations of fancy.
39. Virát is the seed producing the plants of the three worlds, which
are productive of many more, as one root produces many bulbs under it.
Belief in the creation, puts a bolt to the door of salvation; and the
appearance of the world, is as that of a light and fleeting cloud
without any rain.
40. This Virát is the first male, rising unseen of his own will. He is
the cause of all actions and acts.
41. He has no material body, no bone or flesh, nor is he capable of
being grasped under the fist of anybody.
42. He is as quiet and silent, as the roaring sea and cloud, and the
loud roar of lions and elephants, and the din of battle, is unheard by
the sleeping man.
43. He remains neither as a reality, nor entirely as an unreality; but
like the notion of a waking man, of a warrior seen to be fighting in his
dream. (_i.e._ As the faint idea of an object seen in dream).
44. Although his huge body stretches to millions of miles, yet it is
contained in an atom with all the worlds that lie hid in every pore of
his body. (Meaning—the cosmos contained in a grain of the brain).
45. Though thousands of worlds and millions of mountains compose the
great body of the unborn Virát, yet they are not enough to fill it
altogether, as a large quantity of grain, is not sufficient to fill a
winnowing basket.
46. Though myriads of worlds are stretched in his body, yet they are but
an atom in comparison with its infinity; and the Virát is represented to
contain all in his body, yet it occupies no space or place, but
resembles a baseless mountain in a dream.
47. He is called the self-born and Virát also, and though he is said to
be the body and soul of the world, yet he is quite a void himself.
48. He is also named as Rudra and Sanatana, and Indra and Upendro also;
he is likewise the wind, the cloud and the mountain in his person.
49. The minute particle of the Intellect, like a small spark of fire,
inflates and spreads itself at first; and then by thinking its
greatness, it takes the form of _chitta_ or the thinking mind, which
with its self-consciousness becomes the vast universe.
50. Then being conscious of its afflation, it becomes the wind in
motion; and this is the aeriform body of Virát.
51. Then it becomes the vital breath, from the consciousness of its
inspiration and expiration in the open air.
52. It then imagines of an igneous particle in its mind, as children
fancy a ghost where there is none; and this assumes the forms of
luminous bodies (of the sun, moon, and stars) in the sky.
53. The vital breath of respiration, are carried by turns through the
respiratory organs into the heart; whence it is borne on the wings of
air to sustain the world, which is the very heart of Virát.
54. This Virát is the first rudiment of all individual bodies in the
world, and in their various capacities forever.
55. It is from this universal soul, that all individual bodies have
their rise, and according to their sundry desires; and as these differ
from one another in their outward shapes, so they are different also in
their inward natures and inclinations.
56. As the seed of Virát sprang forth at first, in the nature and
constitution of every individual being; it continues to do so in the
same manner in the heart of every living, agreeably to the will of
the same causal principle.
57. The sun, moon and the winds, are as the bile, phlegm in the body of
Brahmá; and the planets and stars, are as the circulating breath and
drops of the spittle of phlegm of that deity.
58. The mountains are his bones, and the clouds his flesh; but we can
never see his head and feet, nor his body and skin.
59. Know, O Ráma, this world to be the body of Virát, and an imaginary
form by his imagination only. Hence the earth and heaven and all the
contents, are but the shadow of his Intellectual vacuity.