THE INFINITY OF THE WORLD SHOWN IN THE
MATERIAL BODY.
Argument:—In the preceding chapter the world was shewn to consist
in thought or a grain of the brain; in this it is demonstrated to
be contained in the body or an atom of dust.
Vasishtha continued:—Afterwards as I directed my attention to my own
body for a while; I saw the undecaying and infinite spirit of God
(lit.—the vacuous Intellect, surrounding every part of my material
frame).
2. Pondering deeply, I saw the world was seated within my heart, and
shooting forth therein; as the grains put out their sprouts in a
granary, by help of the rain water dropping into it.
3. I beheld the formal world, with all its sentient as well as
insensitive beings, rising out of the formless heart, resembling the
shapeless embryo of the seed (_i.e._ the plastic nature from the
amorphous spirit), by moisture of the ground.
4. As the beauty of the visibles appears to view, on one’s coming to
sense after his sleep; so it is the intellect only which gives sensation
to one, who is waking or just risen from his sleep: (and so it was the
intellectual wakefulness of Vasishtha and other inspired men, which made
them sensible of outward objects, even in the trance of their
meditation). (Samádhi).
5. So there is conception of creation in the self-same soul, ere its
formation or bringing into action; and the forms of creations are
contained in the vacuum of the heart, and in no other separate vacuity
whatever.
6. Ráma rejoined:—Sir, your assertion of the vacuum of the heart, made
me take it in the sense of infinite space of vacuity, which contains the
whole creation; but please to explain to me more clearly, what you mean
by your intellectual vacuum, which you say, is the source of the world.
(_i.e._ whether the heart or mind or infinite space, is the cause and
container of the cosmos).
7. Vasishtha replied:—Hear Ráma, how I thought myself once in my
meditation, as the self-born Swayambhu or the god who is born of
himself, in whom subsisted the whole, and there was nothing born but by
and from him; and how I believed the unreal as real in my revelry, or as
an air-built-castle in my dreaming.
8. As I had been looking before, at that sight of the great
kalpa-dissolution, with my aeriform spiritual body; I found and felt the
other part of my person (_i.e._ my material frame), was likewise infused
with the same sensibility and consciousness. (The body being the counter
part or _réchauffé_ of the mind).
9. As I looked at it for a while, with my spiritual part; I found it as
purely aerial, and imbued with a slight consciousness of itself. (So
says the Sruti:—In the beginning the spirit became or produced the air
with its oscillation).
10. The vacuous Intellect found this elastic substance, to be of such a
subtile and rarefied nature, as when you see the external objects in
your dream, or remember the objects of your dream upon your waking.
11. This etherial air, having its primary powers of _chit_ and
_samvid_—intellect and conscience, becomes the intellection and
consciousness also; then from its power of reflecting (on its existence
in space and time), it takes the name of reflection (chittam). Next from
its knowledge of itself as air, it becomes the airy _egoism_, and then
it takes the name of _buddhi_ or understanding, for its knowledge of
itself as plastic nature, and forgetfulness of its former spirituality.
At last it becomes the mind, from its minding many things that it wills
or nils.
12. Then from its powers of perception and sensation it becomes the five
senses, to which are added their fivefold organs; upon the perversion of
the nice mental perceptions to grossness.
13. As a man roused from his sound sleep, is subject to flimsy dreams;
so the pure soul losing its purity upon its entrance in the gross body,
is subjected to the miseries that are concomitant with it.
14. Then the infinite world; appearing at once and at the same time
(before the view of the mind and outer sight, both in state of dream and
on waking); it is said to be an act of spontaneity by some, and that of
consecution by others. (Some texts say: God willed,) and it was (_so
aikshata_, _fiatet fit_, _kunfa káná_ &c.); while others represent the
world to be not the work of a day, but of many consecutive days. (Such
as _so atapshata_—God laboured and rested from his labour).
15. I conceived the whole (space and time), in the _minutiae_ of my
mind; and being myself as empty air, thought the material world, to be
contained in me in the form of intelligence.
16. As it is the nature of vacuum, to give rise to the current air; so
it is natural to the mind, to assign a form and figure to all its ideas,
by the power of its imagination (whence it is called the creative mind,
or inventive imagination, that gives a shape to airy nothing).
17. Whatever imaginary form, our imagination gives to a thing at first,
there is no power in the mind to remove it any more from it.
18. Hence I believed myself as a minute atom, although I knew my soul to
be beyond all bounds; and because I had the power of thinking, I thought
myself as the thinking mind, and no more. (So one knowing himself as the
body, at once knows him to be a corporeal being only; as the lion
thinking himself as a sheep, bleated and grazed as one of them. So we
forget our higher nature).
19. Then with my subtile body of pure intelligence, I thought myself as
a spark of fire; and by thinking so for a long time, I became at length
of the form of a gross body. (The angels are to be of a bright and fiery
body (_muri_ and _atashi_), and the human body to be of a gross and
earthy substance (_khaki_ and _martya_)).
20. I then felt a desire of seeing all what existed about me, and had
the power of sight immediately supplied to my gross body. (Just as a
child coming out as blind, deaf and dumb from the embryo, has the powers
of seeing and hearing and crying, immediately furnished to it
afterwards) (so says Adam in Milton, “As I came to life, I looked at
this light and beautiful frame”).
21. In this manner I felt other desires, and had their corresponding
senses and organs given to me; and I will tell you now, O race of Raghu,
their names and functions and objects, as they are known amongst you.
22. The two holes of my face through which I began to see, are termed
the two eyes with their function of sight; and having for their objects
the visible phenomena of nature.
23. When I see that I call time, and as I see that is called its manner;
the place where I see an object is simple vacuity, and the duration of
the sight is governed by destiny.
24. The place where I am situated, is said to be my location; and when I
think or affirm any thing, that I say the present time; and as long I
feel the twinkling of my intellect, so long do I know myself as the
intellectual cause of my action.
25. When I see anything, I have its perception in me; and I have my
conviction also, that what I behold with my two eyes, are not empty
vacuity, but of a substantial nature.
26. The organs wherewith I saw and felt the world in me, are these two
eyes—the keys to the visible world; then I felt the desire of hearing,
what was going about me, and it was my own soul, which prompted this
desire in me. (Sensible perceptions are the natural appetites of the
soul, and finding their way through the external organs of sense).
27. I then heard a swelling sound, as that of a sonorous conch; and
reaching to me through the air, where it is naturally born and through
which it passes.
28. The organs by which I heard the sound, are these two ears of mine;
it is born by the air to ear, and then enters the earholes with a
continuous hissing.
29. I then felt in me the desire of feeling, and the organ whereby I
came to it, is called the touch or skin.
30. Next I came to know the medium, whereby I had the sensation of touch
in my body; and found it was the air which conveyed that sense to me
(_i.e._ from the object to the skin).
31. As I remained sensible of the property of feeling or touch in me, I
felt the desire of taste within myself, and had there upon the organ of
tasting given to me.
32. Then my vacuous self, contracted the property of smelling, by the
air of its breath, I had thereby the sense of smelling given to me,
through the organs of my nostrils. Being thus furnished with all the
organs of sense, I found myself to be imperfect still (because none of
them could lead me to the knowledge of the truth).
33. Being thus confined in the net of my senses, I found my sensual
appetite increasing fast in me (and the possession of sensuous
perceptions (vidah), tending to no conscientious verity samvidah).
34. The bodily sensations of sound, form, taste, touch and smell, are
all formless and untrue, and though appear to be actual and true; yet
they are really false and untrue.
35. As I remained ensnared in the net of my senses, and considered
myself a sensible being; I felt my egoism in me, as that with which I am
now addressing to you.
36. The sense of egoism growing strong and compact, takes the name of
the understanding; and this being considered and mature, comes to be
designated as the mind.
37. Being possessed of my eternal senses, I pass for a sentient being;
and having my spiritual body and soul, I pass as an intellectual being
in a vacuous form.
38. I am more rare and vacuous than the air itself, and am as the empty
void itself; I am devoid of all shapes and figures, and am irrepressible
in my nature.
39. As I remained at that spot, with this conviction of myself; I found
myself endowed with a body, and it was as I took me to be.
40. With this belief (of my being an embodied being), I began to utter
sounds; and these sounds were as void, as those of man, dreaming himself
as flying in the air in his sleep.
41. This was the sound of a new born babe, uttering the sacred syllable
_om_ at first; and thence it has become the custom to pronounce this
word, in the beginning of sacred hymn.
42. Then I uttered some words as those of a sleeping person, and these
words are called the _vyahrites_, which are now used in the Gáyatrí
hymn.
43. Methought I now became as Brahmá, the author and lord of creation;
and then with my mental part or mind, I thought of the creation in my
imagination.
44. Finding myself so as containing the mundane system within me, I
thought I was not a created being at all; because I saw the worlds in my
own body, and naught besides without it.
45. Thus the world being produced, within this mind of mine; I turned to
look minutely into it, and found there was nothing in reality, except an
empty void.
46. So it is with all these worlds that you see, which are mere void,
and no other than your imagination of them; and there is no reality
whatever, in the existence of this earth and all other things that you
see.
47. The worlds appear as the waters of the mirage, before the sight and
to the knowledge of our consciousness; there is nothing outside the
mind, and the mind sees every thing, in the pure vacuity of the divine
mind.
48. There is no water in the sandy desert, and yet the mind thinks it
sees it there; so the deluded sight of our understanding, sees the
baseless objects of delusion, in the burning and barren waste of
infinite void.
49. Thus there is no world in reality in the divine spirit, and yet the
erring mind of man, sees it erroneously to be situated therein; it is
all owing to the delusion of human understanding, which naturally leads
us to groundless errors and fallacies. (Errors in the mind breed errors
in thoughts).
50. The unreal appears, as the real extended world to the mind; in the
same manner as the imaginary utopia appears before it, and as a city is
seen in the dream of a sleeping man.
51. As one knows nothing of the dream of another sleeping by his side,
without being able to penetrate into his mind; while the yogi sees it
clearly, by his power of prying into the hearts of others.
52. So doth one know this world, who can penetrate into the mundane
stone; where it represented as the reflexion of some thing in a mirror,
which in reality is nothing at all.
53. And although the world appears, as an elemental substance to the
naked eye; yet when it is observed in its true light, it disappears like
the Otaria of the polar region, which is hidden under ever lasting
darkness.
54. He who views the creation with his spiritual body, and with his eyes
of discernment, finds it full of the immaculate spirit of God, which
comprehends and pervades throughout the whole.
55. The percipient or judicious eye, sees the extinction or absence of
the world every where; because they have the presence of the Divine
Spirit alone before their view, and naught that is not the spirit and
therefore nothing.
56. Whatever is perceived by the clear-sighted (yogi), by his conclusive
reasoning; that transcendent truth is hard to be seen by the triple-eyed
Siva, or even by the god Indra with his thousand eyes.
57. But as I looked into the vacuity of the sky, replete with its
myriads of luminous bodies; so I beheld the earth full with the variety
of its productions; and then I began to reflect in myself, that I was
the lord of all below (and even as Brahmá himself).
58. Then thinking myself as the master of the earth, I became
amalgamated with the earth as if it were one with myself; and having
forsaken my vacuous intellectual body, I thought myself as the sovereign
of the whole.
59. Believing myself as the support and container of this earth, I
penetrated deep into its bowels; and thought all its hidden mines were
parts of myself, so I took whatever it contained both below and above it
to be self same with me.
60. Being thus warped in the form of the earth, I became changed to all
its forests and woods, which grew as hairs on its body. My bowels were
full of jewels and gems, and my back was decorated by many a city and
town.
61. I was full of villages and valleys, of hills and dales, and of
infernal regions and caverns; I thought I was the great mountain chain,
and connected the seas and their islands on either side.
62. The grassy verdure was the hairy cover of my body, and the scattered
hills as pimples on it; and the great mountain tops, were as the crests
of my coronet, or as the hundred heads of the infernal snake (Vásuki).
63. This earth which was freely enjoined by all living beings, came to
be parcelled by men and at last oppressed by belligerent kings, and
worsted by their lines of fighting elephants.
64. The great mountains of Imaus, Vindhya and Sumeru, had all their tops
decorated with the falling streams of Ganges and others, sparkling as
their pearly necklaces.
65. The caves and forests, the seas and their shores, furnished it with
beautiful scenes; and the desert and marsh lands, supplied it with clean
linen garments.
66. The ancient waters of the deluge, have receded to their basins, and
left the pure inland reservoirs, decorated by flowery banks, and
perfumed by the odorous dust of falling flowers.
67. The earth is ploughed daily by bullocks, and sown in the dewy and
cold season; it is heated by the solar heat, and moistened by rain
water.
68. The wide level land or plain, is its broad breast; the lotus-lakes
its eyes, the white and black clouds are its turbans, and the canopy of
heaven is its dwelling.
69. The great hollow under the polar mountain, forms its wide open
mouth; and the breathing of animated nature, makes the breath of its
life.
70. It is surrounded all about, and filled in its inside, by beings of
various kinds; it is peopled by the devas, demons and men on the
outside, and inhabited by worms and insects in its inner parts.
71. It is infested in the organic poles and cells of its body, by
snakes, Asuras and reptiles; and peopled in all its oceans and seas,
with aquatic animals of various kinds.
72. It is filled in all its various parts with animal, vegetable and
mineral substances of infinite varieties; and it is plenteous with
provisions for the sustenance of all sorts of beings.