THE WORLD PROVED TO BE A DELUSION.
Argument:—Description of ultimate Dissolution according to
Rational and Materialistic Philosophy.
Vasishtha continued:—Afterwards the celestials that were present in the
heaven of Brahmá, vanished away and became invisible, as a lamp with its
weakened (_i.e._ burnt out), wick or thread.
2. Now the twelve suns, having disappeared in the body of Brahmá; their
burning beams burnt away the heaven of Brahmá, as they had burnt down
the earth and other bodies.
3. Having consumed the seat and abode of Brahmá, they fell into the
meditation of the supreme Brahma, and became extinct in him like Brahmá,
as when a lamp is extinguished for the want of its oil.
4. Then the waters of the universal ocean, invaded the celestial city of
Brahmá, and over flooded its surface, as the shade of night fills the
face of the earth darkness.
5. Now the whole world was filled by water, from the highest seat of
Brahmá, to the lowest pit of hell; and became as full with that liquid,
as a grape is swollen with its juice, when it is perfectly ripe (_i.e._
cold and darkness filled the place, where there was no heat or light).
6. The waving waters rising as mountain tops, plied with the flying
birds of air; and washed the seats and feet of the gods hovering over
them. They touched the kalpa or diluvian clouds, which deluged over
them.
7. In the meantime I beheld from my aerial seat, something of a dreadful
appearance in the midst of the skies, which horrified me altogether.
8. It was of the form of deep and dark chaos, and embraced the whole
space of the sky in its grasp and appeared as the accumulation of the
gloom of night, from the beginning to the end of creation.
9. This dark form radiated the bright beams; of millions of morning
suns, and was as resplendent as three suns together; and as the flashing
of many steady lightnings at once.
10. Its eyes were dazzling and its countenance flashed with the blaze of
a burning furnace, it had five faces and three eyes; its hands were ten
in number, and each of them held a trident of immense size.
11. It appeared manifest before me, with its outstretched body in the
air; and stood transfixed in the sky, as a huge black cloud extending
all over the atmosphere.
12. It remained in the visible horizon, below and out of the universal
ocean of waters; and yet the position and features of the hands and feet
and other members of its body, were but indistinctly marked in the sky.
13. The breath of its nostrils, agitated the waters of the universal
ocean; as the arms of Govinda or Hari churned of yore the milky ocean
(after the great deluge).
14. Then there arose from the diluvian waters, a male being called
afterwards the first male (Ádipurusha). He was the personification of
the collective ego, and the causeless cause of all.
15. He rose out of the ocean, as a huge mountainous rock; and then flew
into the air with his big flapping wings, extending over and enclosing
the whole space of infinite vacuity.
16. I knew him from a distance, and by the indications of his triple
eyes and trident, to be the Lord Rudra himself; and then bowed down to
him, as the great God of all.
17. Ráma asked:—Why sir, was the Lord Rudra of that form, why was he of
such gigantic form and of so dark a complexion? Why had He ten arms and
hands, and why had He the five faces and mouths upon his body?
18. Why had he his three eyes, and so fierce a form; was he absolute in
himself or delegated by any other? What was his errand and his act; and
was it a mere shadow or having a shadow (helpmate) of its substance
(_i.e._ máya or Illusion)?
19. Vasishtha replied:—This being is named Rudra or fierce, for his
being the aggregate of Egoism. He is full of his self-pride, and the
form in which I beheld him, was that of a clear vacuity.
20. This lord was of the form of vacuum, and of the hue and resplendence
of vacuity; and it is on account of his being the essence of the vacuous
intellect, that he is represented as the cerulean sky.
21. Being the soul of all beings, and being present in all places, he is
represented in his gigantic form; as his five faces, serve as
representations of his five internal organs of sense.
22. The external organs of sense (together with their objects and
faculties), and the five members of his body, are represented by his ten
arms on both sides of his body.
23. This Lord of creation together with all living bodies and mankind,
are resorbed in the supreme One at the final dissolution of the world;
and when he is let out to pass from the unity, he then appears in this
form.
24. He is but a part of the eternal soul, and has no visible body or
form of his own; but is thought of in the said form by the erroneous
conception of men.
25. Having proceeded from the vacuum of the Intellect, the lord Rudra is
posited in the material vacuum or firmament; and has his residence also
in the bodies of living beings in the form of air (or vital breath).
26. The aeriform Rudra comes to be exhausted in course of time, and then
by forsaking the animated bodies, he returns to resort to the reservoir
of eternal rest and peace.
27. The three qualities, the three times, the three intellectual
faculties of the mind, understanding and egoism; the three vedas, and
the three letters of the sacred syllable of om, are the three eyes of
Rudra.
28. The trident of Rudra is the symbol of his sceptre, and it is held in
his hand, to imply his having the dominion of the three worlds under his
hold.
29. He is represented as having a living body and soul, to indicate his
being the personality and personification of the egoism of all living
beings, and that there is no living body apart from himself.
30. It is his nature and business, to provide to all living creatures,
according to their wants and desert; and is therefore manifested in the
form of Siva, which is the divine Intellect in the form of air.
31. This Lord having at last destroyed and devoured the whole creation,
rests himself in perfect peace, and becomes of the form of pure air and
of the blue firmament.
32. After affecting the destruction of the world, he drinks down and
drenches up the universal ocean; and then being quite satiate, he rests
himself in perfect peace and inaction.
33. Afterwards as I beheld him drawing the waters of the ocean into his
nostrils, by the force of his breath.
34. I saw a flame of fire flashing out from his mouth, and thought it to
be the flash of the latent fire of the water, which was drawn in him, by
the breath of his nostrils.
35. Rudra the personified Ego, remains in the form of latent heat in the
submarine fire; and continues to suck up the waters of the ocean, until
the end of a kalpa epoch.
36. The waters then enter into the infernal regions, as snakes enter in
the holes beneath the ground; and the diluvian winds entered into his
mouth, in the form of the five vital airs; just as the winds of heaven
have their recess in hollow sky.
37. The lord Rudra then goes on to swallow and suck up the marine
waters, as the bright sunlight swallows the gloom of the dark fortnight.
38. There appears at last a calm and quiet vacuity as the azure sky, and
resembling the wide ocean filled with flying dust and smoke; and devoid
of any being or created thing, and stretching from the Empyrean of God
to the lowest abyss or _infernum_.
39. I described amidst it four different spheres of empty void, bearing
no vestige of anything moving or stirring in them. Listen to me, O son
of Raghu, and you will hear what they were.
40. One of these lay in the midst of the air, and was sustained in it
without any prop or support like the particles of fragrance floating in
the air. This was Rudra of the form of the azure sky.
41. The second was lying afar, and appeared as the concavity of the sky
over this earth; it was a part of the mundane system and below the seven
spheres of the infernal regions.
42. The third was a region above the mundane sphere, and was invisible
to the naked eye, owing to its great distance beyond the azure sky.
43. Then there was the surface of the earth, with its lower hemisphere
of the watery regions; it was traversed by the great mountain which was
the seat of gods—the Himálayas; and beset by islands, and sea-girt sands
and shores.
44. There is another sphere, lying at the furthest distance from the
other circles of the world; and comprises the infinite space of vacuum,
which extends unlimited like the unbounded and transparent spirit of
God.
45. This was the remotest sphere of heavens, that could be observed by
me; and there was nothing else observable on any side, beside and beyond
the limits of these four spheres or circles.
46. Ráma interrogated, saying:—I ask you to tell me, O venerable sir;
whether there is any sphere or space, beyond what is contained in the
mind of Brahmá; then tell me what and how many of them are there, what
are their boundaries, and how are they situated, and to what end and
purpose.
47. Vasishtha replied:—Know Ráma, that there are ten other spheres
beyond this world (and each of them ten times greater that the preceding
one). Of these the first is the sphere of water, lying beyond the two
parts (or continents) of the earth. It is ten times greater than the
land which it covers, as the shadow of evening overspreads the sky.
48. Beyond that is the sphere of heat, which is ten times greater in its
extent than that of water; and afar from this is the region of the
winds, whose circle is ten times larger than that of solar heat and
light.
49. Next to these is the sphere of air, which is ten times as wide as
the circuits of the winds; It is the highest sphere of transparent air,
and is said to comprise the infinite vacuity of the divine spirit.
50. Afar and aloft from these, there are some other spheres also, whose
circles extend to the distance of ten times above one another in the
vast infinity of space.[2]
51. Ráma said:—Tell me, O chief of sages, who is it that upholds the
water of the deep below, and supports the air of the firmament above the
world; and in what manner they are held aloof.
52. Vasishtha replied:—All earthly things are upheld by the earth, as
the waters support the leaves of lotuses upon it; and every part
depends upon the whole, as a babe depends upon its mother (or as the
young of an ape, clings to the breast of its dam, and never falls off
from it).
53. Hence everything runs to, and is attracted by whatever is larger
than it, and situated nearer to it than others; just as the thirsty man
runs to, and is attracted by the adjacent water. (Here we find the
discovery of the theory of attraction, some thousands of years before it
was discovered by Newton, and known to moderns).
54. So all metallic and other bodies, depend upon the close union of
their parts, which being joined together, are as inseparable from one
another, as the limbs and members of a person are attached to the main
body.
55. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, how do the parts of the world subsist
together; in what manner they are joined with one another, and how are
they disjoined from one another, and destroyed at last.
56. Vasishtha replied:—Whether the world is supported by some one or
not, and whether it remains fixed (by attraction) or falls off (by its
gravity); it is in reality an unsubstantial form, like that of a city in
a dream.
57. What is it falls away or remains fixed on some support, it is viewed
in the same manner, as our consciousness represents it unto us.
58. The world is contained in and represented by the intellect, in the
same manner, as the wind is contained in and let out of air; and as the
sky presents the blueness of the firmament, and other airy appearances.
59. These habitable worlds forming the universe, are but imaginary
cities and creations of the Intellect; they are but airy representations
of the airy mind, as the formless sky is represented in empty vacuity,
and appearing in various forms unto us.
60. As it is the nature of our Intellect, to give many things to our
consciousness, so it is its nature also, to make us unconscious of their
disappearance by day and night.
61. An innumerable train of thoughts, are incessantly employing our
minds when we are sitting and at rest; and so they are flying off and
returning to us by day and night.
62. All things appear to approach to their dissolution, to one who knows
their destructibility and their ultimate extinction at the end of a
kalpa period or millennium; and they seem as ever growing to one, who is
conversant with their growth only in the vacuity of the mind.
63. All our thoughts appear in the vacuum of our minds, as the vaporous
chains of pearls are seen in the autumn sky; they are both as erroneous
and fleeting as the other, and yet they press so very thick and quick on
our sight and minds, that there is no reckoning of them.