Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

39. The mind that is not guided by the precepts of the Sástras, nor purified by holiness; but is addicted to the society of the wicked, is subjected to the burning sensation of fire within itself at the moment of death. 40. At the moment when the last gurgling of the throat chokes the breath, the eye-sight is dimmed and the countenance fades away; then the rational soul also becomes hazy in its intellect. 41. A deep darkness spreads over the dimming sight, and the stars twinkle before it in day-light; the firmament appears to be obscured by clouds, and the sky presents its gloomy aspect on every side. 42. An acute pain seizes the whole frame, and a fata Morgana dances before the vision; the earth is turned to air and the mid-air seems to be the moving place of the dying person. 43. The sphere of heaven revolves before him, and the tide of the sea seems to bear him away. He is now lifted up in the air, and now hurled down as in his state of dizziness or dream.

44. Now he thinks as falling in a dark pit, and then as lying in the cavern of a hill; he wants to tell aloud his torments, but his speech fails him to give utterance to his thoughts. 45. He now finds himself as falling down from the sky, and now as whirled in the air like a bundle of straws blown aloft in the air by a gust of wind. He is now riding swiftly as in a car, and now finds himself melting as snow. 46. He desires to acquaint his friends of the evils of life and this world; but he is carried away from them as rapidly as by an air-engine, (like a stone shot by a ballista or an aeronaut in a balloon). 47. He whirls about as by a rotatory machine or turning wheel, and is dragged along like a beast by its halter. He wallows about as in an eddy, or turns around as the machine of some engine. 48. He is borne in the air as a straw, and is carried about as a cloud by the winds. He rises high like a vapour, and then falls down like a heavy watery cloud pouring out in the sea.

49. He passes through the endless space and revolves in all its vortiginous vacuities, to find as it were, a place free from the vicissitudes to which the earth and ocean are subject. (i.e. A place of peace and rest). 50. Thus the rising and falling spirit roves without cessation, and the soul breathing hard and sighing without intermission, sets the whole body in sore pain and agony. 51. By degrees the objects of his senses become as faint to his failing organs, as the landscape fades to view at the setting of the sun. (The world recedes; it disappears: Pope). 52. He loses the remembrance of the past and present, upon the failing of his memory at this moment; as one is at a loss to know the sides of the compass after the evening twilight has passed away. 53. In his fit of fainting, his mind loses its power of thinking; and he is lost in a state of ignorance, at the loss of all his thoughts and sensibility. (So the lines:—It absorbs me quite, steals my senses, shuts my sight. Pope). 54. In the state of faintishness, the vital breath ceases to circulate through the body; and at the utter stoppage of its circulation, there ensues a collapse murch’ha or swooning.

55. When this state of apoplexy joined with delirium, has reached its climax, the body becomes as stiff as stone by the law of inertia, ordained for living beings from the beginning. 56. Lílá said:—But tell me, O goddess, why do these pains and agonies, this fainting and delirium, and disease and insensibility, overtake the body, when it is possessed of all its eight organs entire? 57. The goddess replied:—It is the law appointed by the author of life from the first, that such and such pains are to fall to the lot of living beings at such and such times. (Man’s primeval sin brought pain and disease and death into the world). 58. The primeval sin springs of itself as a plant in the conscious heart of man, and subjects him to his doomed miseries, which have no other intelligible cause. (There is no other assignable cause of death and disease except the original guilt). 59. When the disease and its pain overpower the body, and prevent the lungs and arteries to expand and contract, in order to inhale and exhale the air, it loses its equipoise (samána) and becomes restless.

60. When the inhaled air does not come out, nor the exhaled breath re-enter the lungs, all pulsation is at a stop; and the organic sensations are lost in their remembrance only. (As in the memory of sleeping and dreaming men). 61. When there is no ingress nor egress of the vital air, the pulse sinks and becomes motionless, and the body is said to become senseless, and the life to be extinct. 62. I shall also die away in my destined time, but my consciousness of former knowledge will all be awake at the hour of death (which proves the immortality of the soul). 63. Though I am dead and gone from here in this manner, yet I must mind, that the seed of my innate consciousness (the soul), is never destroyed with my life and body. 64. Consciousness is inward knowledge and imperishable in its nature; therefore the nature of consciousness is free from birth and death. (The body is subject to birth and death, but not the soul).

65. This consciousness is as clear as a fresh fountain in some persons, and as foul as tide water in others; it is bright in its form of the pure intellect—chit in some, and polluted with the passions of animal life, in its nature of the sentient or living soul—chetana in many. 66. As a blade of grass is composed of joints in the midst, so is the even nature of the sentient or living soul; which is combined with the two states of birth and death amidst it. 67. The sentient soul is neither born nor dead at any time; but witnesses these two states as the passing shadows and apparitions in a dream and vision. 68. The soul is no other than the intellect, which is never destroyed anywhere by any. Say, what other thing is this soul, which is called the Purusha beside the intellect itself. Gloss. It is not the body, nor the vital breath, nor perceptions nor mind; it is not the understanding nor egoism, nor the heart nor illusion, all of which are inactive of themselves.

69. Say then whom and what you call to be dead today, and whether the intellect is liable to disease or demise at any time and in any wise. Millions of living bodies are verily dying every day, but the intellect ever remains imperishable. 70. The intellect never dies at the death of any living being; because all the living soul continues the same upon the demise of every body here. 71. The living soul therefore, is no more than the principle which is conscious of its various desires, affections and passions. It is not that principle to which the phases of life and death are attributed by men. 72. So there is none that dies, nor any one that is born at any time; it is this living principle only that continually revolves in the deep eddy of its desires. 73. Considering the unreality of the visible phenomena, there can be no desire for them in any body; but the inward soul that is led by its egoism to believe them as true, is subject to death at the dis-appearance of the phenomena.

74. The recluse ascetic flying from the fears of the world as foreign to his soul; and having none of its false desires rising in his breast, becomes liberated in his life and assimilated with the true ONE.

THE STATES OF LIFE AND DEATH. Lílá said:—Tell me, goddess! for edification of my knowledge, the manner in which a living being comes to die and to be re-born in another form. 2. The goddess replied:—As the action of the heart ceases to act, and the lungs blow and breathe no more, the current of the vital airs is utterly stopped, and the living being loses its sensibility. 3. But the intellectual soul which has no rise nor fall, remains ever the same as it abides in all moving and unmoving bodies, and in air, water, fire and vacuum. Gloss. So saith the Sruti:—The soul is unlimited, permanent and imperishable. 4. When the hindrance of breathing, stops the pulsation, and motion of the body, it is said to be dead; and is then called an inert corpse (but not so the soul). 5. The body being a dead carcase, and the breathing mixing with the air, the soul is freed from the bonds of its desires, and flies to and remains in the mode of the discrete and self-existent soul. Gloss. The Sruti says:—“His elemental parts mix with the elements, and his soul with the Supreme.” The unconditioned—nirupadhika spirit, joins with the Holy spirit; but not so the conditioned (upádhika) soul of the unholy.

6. The soul having its desires and styled the animal spirit—Jíva, is otherwise than the átman—soul. It remains in its sepulchral vault under the same atmosphere as the soul of Padma, which thou sawst hovering about his tomb. Gloss. The desire binds down the spirit to its own sphere. (The Ghost hovering about the charnel vault. Milton). 7. Hence such departed spirits are called pretas or ghosts of the dead, which have their desires and earthly propensities attached to them; as the fragrance of the flower is concentrated in its pollen, and thence diffused through the air. 8. As the animal souls are removed to other spheres, after their departure from this visible world, they view the very many scenes and sights; that their desires present before them like visions in a dream. 9. The soul continues to remember all its past adventures, even in its next state, and finds itself in a new body, soon after the insensibility of death is over. Gloss. This is the linga or súkshma deha—the spiritual or subtile body of spiritualism. 10. What appears an empty vacuum to others, seems as a dusky cloud to the departed soul, enveloping the earth, sky, moon and all other orbs within its bosom (the circumambient atmosphere).

11. The departed spirits are classed in six orders, as you shall now hear from me; namely, the great, greater and greatest sinners, and so likewise the three degrees of the virtuous. 12. These are again subdivided into three kinds, as some belonging to one state, and others composed of two or three states; (i.e. of virtue and vice intermixed) in the same individual soul. 13. Some of the most sinful souls, lose the remembrance of their past states for the period of a whole year; and remain quite insensible within themselves, like blocks of wood or stone. (This is called the pretárasthá continuing for a whole year after death). (It is allied to Abraham’s bosom or Irack of Mahomedans). 14. Rising after this time, they are doomed to suffer the endless torments of hell; which the hardness of their earthly mindedness has brought upon them. (This is the Purgatory of Christians). 15. They then pass into hundreds of births, leading from misery to misery, or have a moment’s respite from the pains in their short lived prosperity, amidst their dreaming journey through life. (These transmigrations of the soul, are the consequences of its evil propensities).

16. There are others, that after their torpor of death is over, come to suffer the unutterable torments of torpidity, in the state of unmoving trees (which are fixed to undergo all the inclemencies of weather). 17. And others again that having undergone the torments of hell, according to their inordinate desires in life, are brought to be re-born on earth, in a variety of births in different forms. 18. Those of lesser crimes, are made to feel the inertness of stones for sometime, after the insensibility attending upon their death. (This means either the insensibility of dead bodies, or that of mineral substances.) 19. These being awakened to sensibility after some period, either of duration long or short (according to their desert); are made to return on earth, to feel the evils of brutish and beastly lives. 20. But the souls of the least sinful, come to assume soon after their death, some perfect human form, in order to enjoy the fruits of their desire and desert on earth. 21. These desires appear before the soul as dreams, and awaken its reminiscence of the past, as present at that moment. 22. Again the best and most virtuous souls, come soon after their death, to find themselves in heavenly abodes, by reason of their continued thoughts and speculations of them.

23. Some amongst them, are brought to enjoy the rewards of their actions in other spheres, from which they are sent back to the mortal world, at the residences of the auspicious and best part of mankind. 24. Those of moderate virtues are blown away by the atmospheric air, upon the tops of trees and medicinal plants, where they rove about as the protozoa, after the insensibility of death is over. 25. Being nourished here by the juice of fruits, they descend in the form of serum and enter into the hearts of men, whence they fall into the uterus in the form of semen virilis, which is the cause of the body and life of other living beings. The gloss says:—Having enjoyed in the next world the good fruits of their virtuous deeds, they are blown down on earth by the winds and rain. Here they enter in the form of sap and marrow in the vegetable productions of corn, grain and fruits; and these entering the body of animals in the form of food, produce the semen, which becomes the cause of the lives and bodies of all living beings.

26. Thus the dead, figure to themselves some one of these states of living bodies, according to their respective proclivity, after they recover from the collapse attending upon their death. 27. Having thought themselves to be extinct at first, they come to feel their resuscitation afterwards, upon receiving the offering of the mess, made to their departed spirits (by their surviving heirs). 28. Then they fancy they see the messengers of death, with nooses in their hands, come to fetch them to the realm of Yama; where they depart with them, (with their provision for one year offered in their Srádh ceremony). 29. There the righteous are carried in heavenly cars to the gardens of Paradise, which they gain by their meritorious acts in life. 30. But the sinful soul, meets with icebergs and pitfals, tangled with thorns and iron pikes, and bushes and brambles in its passage, as the punishment of its sins. 31. Those of the middling class, have a clear and paved passage, with soft grassy path-ways shaded by cooling arbours, and supplied with spring waters on both sides of them.

32. On its arrival there, the soul reflects within itself that: “here am I, and yonder is Yama—the lord of the dead. The other is the judge of our actions—Chitragupta, and this is his judgment given on my behalf”. 33. In this manner the great world also, appears to every one as in a dream; and so the nature and manner of all things, present themselves before every soul. 34. But all these appearances are as void as air; the soul alone is the sentient principle, and the spacious space and time, and the modes and motions of things, though they appear as real, are nothing in reality. 35. Here (in Yama’s court), the soul is pronounced to reap the reward of its acts, whereby it ascends either to the blissful heaven above, or descends to the painful hell below. 36. After having enjoyed the bliss of heaven, or suffered the torment of hell, it is doomed to wander in this earth again, to reap the reward of its acts in repeated transmigrations. 37. The soul springs up as a paddy plant, and brings forth the grains of intelligence; and then being assembled by the senses, it becomes an animal, and lastly an intelligent being.

i.e. The insensible vegetable, entering into the animal body in the form of food, is converted to a sensible but irrational soul; but entering as food in the body of man, it turns to a rational and human soul. The one Universal soul is thus diversified in different beings. (It is the plant and food that sustains and nourishes all souls. Gloss). 38. The soul contains in itself the germs of all its senses, which lie dormant in it for want of its bodily organs. It is contained in the semen virilis of man, which passing into the uterus, produces the fœtus in the womb of the female. 39. The fœtus then becomes either well-formed or deformed, according to the good or evil deeds of the person in its past state; and brings forth the infant of a goodly or ill shapen appearance. 40. It then perceives the moonlike beauty of youthful bloom, and its amorous disposition coming upon itself; and feels afterwards the effects of hoary old age, defacing its lotus-like face, as the sleets of snow, shatter and shrivel the lotus leaflets. 41. At last it undergoes the pains of disease and death, and feels the same insensibility of Euthanasia as before, and finds again as in a dream its taking of a new form.

42. It again believes itself to be carried to the region of Pluto, and subjected to the former kinds of revolution; and thus it continues to conceive its transmigration, in endless births and various forms. 43. Thus the aerial spirit goes on thinking, for ever in its own etherial sphere, all its ceaseless metempsychosis, until its final liberation from this changeful state. 44. Lílá said:—Tell me kindly, O good goddess! for the enlightenment of my understanding, how this misconception of its changeableness, first came upon the soul in the beginning. 45. The goddess replied:—It is the gross view of the abstract, that causes us to assume the discrete spirit, in the concrete forms of the earth and sky and rocks and trees (all of which subsist in the spirit, and are unsubstantial in themselves). 46. As the divine intellect manifests itself, as the soul and model of all forms; so we see these manifestations, in the transcendental sphere of its pure intelligence. 47. In the beginning, God conceived himself as the lord of creation (Brahmá); and then as it were in a dream, he saw in himself, all the forms as they continue to this time.

48. These forms were manifested in the divine spirit, at first as his will; and then exhibited in the phenomenal world, as reflexions of the same, in all their present forms. 49. Among these some are called living beings, which have the motions of their bodies and limbs; and live by means of the air which they breathe, and which circulate in their bodies through the lungs and arteries. 50. Such also is the state of the vegetable creation from the first, that they having their inward sensitiveness, are notwithstanding devoid of outward motion, and receive their sustenance by the roots; wherefore they are called Pádapas or pedobibers. 51. The hollow sphere of the divine intellect, beaming with intelligence, sends forth its particles of percipience, which form the consciousness of some beings, and sensitiveness in others. 52. But man uses his eyes to view the outer and the reflected world (in disregard of his consciousness of the real); although the eyes do not form his living soul, nor did they exist at his creation and before his birth. (When his view was concentrated within himself as in his sleeping visions).

53. It is according to one’s estimation of himself, that he has his proper and peculiar desires, and the particular form of his body also. Such is the case of the elementary bodies likewise, from their inward conception of their peculiar natures. Gloss:—So the ideas of vacuity, fluidity and solidity forming the bodies of air, water and earth; and the form of every thing agreeing with its inherent nature. 54. Thus all moving and unmoving things, have their movable and immovable bodies, according to their intrinsic disposition or idiosyncrasy as such and such. 55. Hence all self-moving beings have their movable bodies, conforming with the conception of their natures as so and so; and in this state of their belief, they continue to this time, with their same inborn or congenital bodies. 56. The vegetable world still continues in the same state of fixedness, from its sense of immobility; and so the rocks and minerals continue in their inert state, from the inborn sense of their inertness. 57. There is no distinction whatever between inertness and intelligence, nor any difference betwixt production, continuance and extinction of things; all which occur in one common essence of the supreme.

58. The varying idiocrasy subsisting in vegetables and minerals, makes them feel themselves as such, and causes their various natures and forms, as they have to this time. 59. The inward constitution of all immovable objects, makes them remain in their stationary states; and so of all other substances, according to their different names and natures. 60. Thus the inward crasis or quality of worms and insects, makes them conceive themselves according to their different kinds, and gives them their particular natures for ever. 61. So the people under the north pole know nothing about those in the south, except that they have the knowledge of themselves only (as ever subject to the intense cold of the frigid zone). 62. So also all kinds of moving and unmoving beings, are prepossessed with their own notions of things, and regard all others according to the peculiar nature of themselves. (Átmá vat &c.). 63. Again as the inhabitants of caves, know nothing of their outsiders; and as the frogs of dirty pools are unacquainted with pure water of streams; so is one sort of being ignorant of the nature of another. 64. But the inane intellect, residing in the form of the all pervasive mind, and all sustaining air; knows the natures of all things in all places.

65. The vital air that enters all bodies through the pores of their bodies, is the moving principle, that gives life and motion to all living beings. 66. Verily the mind is situated in all things, whether they are moving or immovable; and so is the air, which causes the motion in some, and quiescence in others. 67. Thus are all things but rays of the conscious soul, in this world of illusion, and continue in the same state as they have been from the beginning. 68. I have told you all about the nature of things in the world, and how un-realities come to appear as real unto us. 69. Lo here this king Vidúratha is about to breathe his last, and the garlands of flowers heaped on the corpse of thy husband Padma, are now being hung upon the breast of Vidúratha. 70. Lílá said:—Tell me goddess! by what way he entered the tomb of Padma, and how we may also go there to see what he has been doing in that place. 71. The goddess said:—Man goes to all places by the way of his desires, and thinks also he goes to the distant future, in the spiritual form of pure intellect.

72. We shall go by the same way (aerial or spiritual), as you will like to take; because the bond of our friendship will make no difference in our choice and desires. 73. Vasishtha said:—The princess Lílá being relieved of her pain, by the recital of this agreeable narration; and her intellectual sight being brightened, by the blazing sun of spiritual light; beheld the insensible and unmoving Vidúratha, breathe out his last expiring breath.

STATE OF THE SOUL AFTER DEATH. Argument. The desire of the king, and his departure to the realm of death, followed by Lílá and the goddess; and their arrival to his former city. Vasishtha continued:—In the meantime the eye-balls of the king became convoluted, and his lips and cheeks grew pale and dry, with his whole countenance; and there remained only the slender breath of life in him. 2. His body became as lean as a dry leaf, and his face turned as ghastly as the figure of death; his throat gurgled as the hoarsest beetles, and his lungs breathed with a bated breath. 3. His sight was darkened upon the insensibility of death, and his hopes were buried in the pit of despair; and the sensations of his external organs, were hid within the cavity of his heart. 4. His figure was as senseless as a picture in painting, and all his limbs were as motionless, as those of a statue carved upon a block of marble. 5. What need is there of a lengthy description, when it may be said in short; that his life quitted his body, as a bird flies off afar from a falling tree.

6. The two ladies with their divine eye-sight, beheld his animal spirit, flying upwards in the sky in its aerial form; and his consciousness disappearing, like the odour of a flower wafted by the wind. 7. His living soul being joined with its spiritual body, began to fly higher and higher in the air; as it was led by its inward desire or expectation of ascending to heaven. 8. The two ladies kept going after that conscious soul, like a couple of female bees, pursuing a particle of perfume borne afar in the air on the wings of the wind. 9. Then in a moment after the fainting fit of death was over; the conscious soul was roused from its insensibility, like some fragrance expanding itself with the breeze. 10. It saw the porters of death, carrying away the souls of the dead, that have resumed their grosser forms, by means of the mess offerings of their kinsmen to their manes. 11. After a long year’s journey on the way, it reached at the distant abode of Yama, with the hope of reaping the reward of its acts; but found the gate fast beset by beasts of prey. (Like the Cerberus at the hellgate of Pluto).

12. Yama, on beholding the departed spirit of every body brought before him, ordered to find out its foul acts all along its life time. 13. On finding the prince’s spirit spotless, and ever inclined to virtuous acts and to have been nourished by the grace of the goddess of wisdom:— 14. He ordered it to be released, and re-entered into its former dead body, which lay buried under the flowers in the tomb. 15. It was then let to fly in the etherial path, with the swiftness of a stone flung from a sling; and was followed by the living Lílá and the goddess in the air. 16. The living soul of the king thus sailing through the sky, did not observe the forms of the two ladies that followed it, though they saw it all along its course. (Because heavenly forms are invisible to mortal eyes and souls). 17. They traversed through many worlds, and soon passed the bounds of the extra-mundane systems; till they arrived at the solar world, whence they descended on this orb of the earth. 18. The two self-willed forms (of Lílá and the goddess), in company with the living soul of the king; arrived at the royal city of Padma, and entered the apartment of Lílá.

19. They entered in a trice and of their own free will, into the inside of the palace; as the air passes in flowers, and the sunbeams penetrate in the water, and the odors mix with the air. 20. Ráma asked:—How was it Sir, that they entered into the abode adjoining to the tomb, and how could they find out the way to it, the one having been dead a long time, and all three being but bodiless vacuity? 21. Vasishtha replied:—The tomb of the dead body of the prince, being impressed in his soul, and the object of its desire, led his spirit insensibly to it, as if it were by its inborn instinct. 22. Who does not know, that the endless desires which are sown in the human breast, like the countless seeds of a fig fruit, come of their own nature, to grow up to big trees in their time? 23. Just as the living body bears its seed—the subtile or linga deha in the heart, which germinates and grows to a tree at last; so every particle of the intellect, bears the mundane seed in itself. (The cosmos is contained in every individual soul).

24. As a man placed in one country, sees within himself his house, which is situated in a far distant land, so the soul sees the objects of his distant desires, ever present before it. 25. The living soul, ever longs after the best object of its desire; though it may undergo a hundred births, and become subject to the errors and delusions of his senses, and of this illusive world. (For whatever is born in the root, must come out in the seed; and that which is bred in the bones, must appear in the flesh). 26. Ráma rejoined:—There are many persons, that are free from their desire of receiving the funeral cake: now tell me, sir, what becomes of those souls, who get no cake offering at their Srádh. 27. Vasishtha replied:—The man having the desire of receiving the mess settled in his heart, and thinking it to be offered to him; is surely benefitted by its offering. (The funeral cake like every other food, is said to nourish the spirit, and cause its resuscitation in a new life and body).

28. Whatever is in the heart and mind, the same notions form the nature of living beings; and whether these are in their corporeal or incorporeal states, they think themselves as such beings and no other. (The sense of personal identity accompanies the soul everywhere). 29. The thought of having received the pinda cake, makes a man sapinda, though it is not actually offered to him; so on the other hand the thought of not being served with the cake, makes a sapinda become a nispinda (or one served with it becomes as one without it). 30. It is verily the desire of all living beings to be such and such as they have in their hearts, and that is the cause of their becoming so in reality. (Gloss. The ordinance of the necessity of cake offering, fosters its desire in the hearts of men. Or, which is the same thing, the desire of receiving the funeral cake, is fostered in the hearts of men, by the ordinance of Srádh).

31. It is the thought of a man, that makes the poison savour as nectar to his taste; and it is his very thought that makes an untruth seem as truth to him. (Gloss. The thought of a snake-catcher that he is the snake eating Garuda, makes him swallow the bitter poison as sweet honey; and the thought of snake-bite from the pricking of a thorn, mortifies a man by his false fear or imagination only). 32. Know this for certain, that no thought ever rises in any one without some cause or other; hence the desire or thought which is inherent in the spirit, is the sole cause of its regeneration on earth. 33. Nobody has ever seen or heard of any event, occurring without its proper cause; except the being of the Supreme Being, which is the causeless cause of all beings, from their state of not-being into being. 34. The desire is inherent in the intellect, like a dream in the soul; and the same appears in the form of acts, as the Will of God is manifested in his works of creation.

35. Ráma said:—How can the spirit that is conscious of its demerit, foster any desire of its future good; and how can it profit by the pious works of others for its salvation? (as the Srádh made by the relatives of the deceased). 36. Tell me too whether the pious acts of others, which are offered to the manes go for nothing; and whether the absence of future prospects of the unmeritorious ghost, or the benevolent wishes of others (for its future good) are to take effect. 37. Vasishtha said:—A desire is naturally raised in one at its proper time and place, and by application of appropriate acts and means; and the rising of the desire necessarily overcomes its absence. Gloss. So a Srádh done in proper season and manner, serves to the benefit of the desertless spirit. 38. The pious gifts made on behalf of the departed souls, accrue to them as their own acts; and the sense which they thus acquire of their worthiness, fills them with better hopes and desires of their future state. (Hence rises the hope of redemption by means of the redeeming son of man).

39. And as the stronger man gains the better of his adversary, so the later acts of piety drive away the former impiety from the spirit. Therefore the constant practice of pious acts is strictly enjoined in the Sástras. 40. Ráma said:—If the desire is raised at its proper time and place, how then could it rise in the beginning when there was no time nor place: (i.e., when all was void and yet Brahma had his desire and will). 41. You say that there are accessory causes, which give rise to the desires, but how could the will rise at first without any accessory cause whatever? 42. Vasishtha replied:—It is true, O long-armed Ráma, that there was neither time nor place in the beginning, when the Spirit of God was without its will. 43. And there being no accessory cause, there was not even the idea of the visible world, nor was it created or brought into existence; and it is so even now. 44. The phenomenal world has no existence, and all that is visible, is the manifestation of the Divine Intellect, which is ever lasting and imperishable.

45. This will I explain to you afterwards in a hundred different ways, and it is my main purpose to do so; but hear me now tell you what appertains to the matter under consideration. 46. They having got in that house, saw its inside beautifully decorated with chaplets of flowers as fresh as those of the spring season. 47. The inmates of the palace were quietly employed in their duties, and the corpse of the king was placed upon a bed of mandara and kunda flowers. 48. The sheet over the dead body, was also strewn over with wreaths of the same flowers; and there were the auspicious pots of water placed by the bed side. 49. The doors of the room were closed, and the windows were shut fast with their latchets; the lamps cast a dim light on the white washed walls around, and the corpse was lying as a man in sleep, with the suppressed breathing of his mouth and nostrils.

50. There was the full bright moon, shining with her delightsome lustre, and the beauty of the palace, put to blush the paradise of Indra; it was as charming as the pericarp of the lotus of Brahmá’s birthplace, and it was as silent as dumbness or a dummy itself, and as beautiful as the fair moon in her fulness.

PHENOMENA OF DREAMING. Argument. Unsubstantiality of the aerial body of Lílá and the Spiritual bodies of Yogis. Vasishtha continued:—They beheld there the younger Lílá of Vidúratha, who had arrived there after her demise, and before the death of that king. 2. She was in her former habit and mode with the same body, and the same tone and tenor of her mind; she was also as beautiful in all her features, as in her former graceful form and figure when living. 3. She was the same in every part of her body, and wore the same apparel as before. She had the very ornaments on her person, with the difference that it was sitting quietly in the same place, and not moving about as before. 4. She kept flapping her pretty fan (chouri), over the corpse of the king; and was gracing the ground below, like the rising moon brightening the skies above. 5. She sat quiet, reclining her moonlike face on the palm of her left hand; and decorated with shining gems, she appeared as a bed of flowers, with new-blown blossoms on it. 6. With the glances of her beautiful eyes, she shed showers of flowers on all sides; and the brightness of her person, beamed with the beams of the etherial moon.

7. She seemed to have approached to the lord of men, like the goddess Lakshmí, appearing before the god Vishnu; and with the heaps of flowers before her, she seemed as Flora or the vernal season in person. 8. Her eyes were fixed on the countenance of her husband, as if she was pondering his future well-being; and there was a melancholy like that of the waning moon, spread over her face, to think of his present woeful state. 9. They beheld the damsel, who however had no sight of them; because their trust was in truth, and saw everything clearly; while her views being otherwise, she could not discern their spiritual forms. 10. Ráma said:—You have said Sir, that the former Lílá had repaired there in her reverie and spiritual form, by the favour of the goddess of wisdom. 11. How do you now describe her as having a body, which I want to know how and whence it came to her. 12. Vasishtha replied:—What is this body of Lílá, Ráma! It is no more true than a false imagination of her gross spirit, like that of water in the mirage. (It is the conception of one’s self as so and so, that impresses him with that belief also).

13. It is the spirit alone that fills the world, and all bodies are creations of the fancy. This spirit is the Intellect of God, and full of felicity in itself. 14. The same understanding which Lílá had of herself to her end, accompanied her to her future state; and the same notion of her body followed her there, though it was reduced to dust, as the ice is dissolved into water. 15. The spiritual bodies also, are sometimes liable to fall into error, and think themselves as corporeal bodies, as we mistake a rope for the serpent. 16. The belief in the materiality of any body, as composed of the earth and other elements, is as false as it is to believe the hares to have horns on their heads. 17. Whoso thinks himself to have become a stag in his dream, has no need of seeking another stag for comparing himself with it. (i.e. Men are actuated by their own opinion of themselves). 18. An untruth appears as truth at one time, and disappears at another; as the error of a snake in a rope, vanishes upon the knowledge of its falsehood.

19. So the knowledge of the reality of all things, in the minds of the un-enlightened; is dispersed upon conviction of their un-reality in the minds of the enlightened. 20. But the ignorant, that have a belief in the reality of this world of dreams, believe also in the transmigration of the animal soul, like the revolution of the globe on its own axis. 21. Ráma asked:—If the bodies of Yogis be of a spiritual nature, how is it that they are seen to walk about in the sights of men? 22. Vasishtha replied:—The Yogi may take upon himself various forms, without the destruction of his former body; as the human soul may deem itself transformed to a stag or any other being in a dream, without undergoing any change in its spiritual essence. (The identity of the self is not lost under any form of the body. Locke). 23. His spiritual body is invisible to all, though it may appear as visible to their sight. It is like the particles of frost seen in sun-beams, and as the appearance of a white spot in autumnal sky (when there is no frost nor cloud in it).

24. No body can easily discern the features of a Yogi’s body, nor are they discernible by other Yogis. They are as imperceptible as the features of a bird flying in the air. 25. It is from the error of judgment, that men think some Yogis to be dead and others to be living; but their spiritual bodies are never subject to death or common sight. 26. The embodied soul is subject to errors, from which the souls of Yogis are free; because their knowledge of truth has purged the mistake of a snake in the rope, from their souls. 27. What is this body and whence it is, and what of its existence or destruction? What is lasting remains forever and is freed from the ignorance it had before (and it is the soul which is ever lasting and free from error). 28. Ráma said:—Whether the embodied soul takes the spiritual form, or is it something other than this. Tell me this and remove my doubt. 29. Vasishtha said:—I have told this repeatedly to you, my good Ráma! and how is it that you do not understand it yet, that there exists only the spiritual body, and the material form is nothing?

30. It is by habit of constant meditation, that you must know your spiritual state, and subdue your sense of corporeality; and as you abstain from the latter, so you attain to the former state. 31. Then there will be an end of your sense of the gravity and solidity of objects, like the disappearance of the visions of a dreaming man, when he comes to wake. 32. The body of a Yogi becomes as light and subtile, as the evanescent appearances in a dream: (the fleeting objects of vision). 33. And as a dreaming man feels the lightness of his body, in his dreaming rambles; so the Yogi finds his solid body, as volatile as air in all places. 34. The expectation of the longlife of a master-head in his material body, is realized in the spiritual one, after the corpse has been burnt away. (Longevity consists in the longlife of the spirit and not of the body). 35. Every body must have to assume his spiritual frame afterwards; but the Yogi finds it in his life-time, by the enlightenment of his intellect. 36. As a man upon his waking from sleep, remembers his having an intellectual form in his dreaming state; so the Yogi is conscious of his spiritual body in his own intellect.

37. The notion of the corporeal body is a mere fallacy, like that of the snake in a rope; hence nothing is lost by the loss of this body, nor is anything gained by its production and regeneration. 38. Ráma said:—Now tell me Sir, what the inmates of the house thought this Lílá to be; whether they viewed her as an embodied being or a bodiless apparition appearing before them. 39. Vasishtha answered:—They took the sorrowful queen to be some friend of the king, and to have come from some place they knew not what and where. 40. They did not like to examine the matter, because it is the nature of the ignorant like that of brutes, to believe what they see, without investigation or consideration of its nature. 41. As a stone flung at random flies off from its mark, so the brutish and ignorant folks go astray, from hitting at the true mark of a thing placed before them. 42. As we know not what becomes of the objects of our dream, and whither they are fled upon our waking; such is the case with our material bodies, which are as false and fleeting as our delusive dreams.

43. Ráma said:—Tell me Sir, where the hill we dream of, is hid upon our waking; kindly remove my doubt, as the wind disperses the autumnal clouds. 44. Vasishtha said:—All things appearing in our dream or residing in our desire as the hill, &c., are absorbed in our consciousness whence they sprang; just as the motion of bodies subsides in the air which gives the vibration. 45. As the motion of the air mixes with the fixed ether, so the dreams and desires which we are conscious of, set in the unchanging soul whence they have their rise. 46. Our dreams like our knowledge of all other things, are made known to us by our consciousness, the nature of which is unknown to us as that of the inward soul. (Consciousness and the soul are represented as two different predicaments, and the one is not predicated of the other, as we say—the conscious soul). 47. We do not find our dreams and desires as distinct from our consciousness of them; they appertain to it in the same manner, as fluidity to water and motion to the air. 48. Whatever difference may appear to exist between them, is the effect of sheer ignorance; and this gross ignorance is the feature of this world, known as the phantom of fancy.

49. As it is impossible to conceive two co-eternal and co-existent causes together (as an efficient and a material cause); so it is wrong to suppose the dream as a distinct existence or otherwise, than an act of our consciousness. 50. There is no difference whatever between the dreaming and waking states; in dream we see a false city appearing to view, so in waking you behold the unreal world, standing as a reality before you. 51. Nothing can be truly existent that appears as true in a dream; this being always true of the visions in a dream, it is likewise so of the external phenomena, appearing to the sight in our day dreams. 52. As the hill in a dream, immediately disappears into airy nothing, so the material world sooner or later disappears into naught by thinking on its nihility. 53. A Yogi is seen by some to mount in the air, and by others as a dead body lying on the ground; and this is according to one’s belief in his spiritual or material body, that every one sees him in his own way. 54. The view of the phenomenal world as distinct from the Unity, is as false as a sight in delusion or magical show; or a dream or delirium of the great Illusion—máyá.

55. Others who are blinded by similar errors, entertain as in a dream, the notion of their reproduction after being awakened from the insensibility of their death like sleep; but the spiritual body of the Yogi shines and soars upward, after passing over the mirage of the false appearances of the world.

REVIVAL OF PADMA. Argument. Extinction of the Spiritual life of Lílá, and Restoration of Padma’s Life. Vasishtha continued:—It was in the meantime that the goddess of wisdom, stopped the course of Vidúratha’s life, as we stop the flight of our minds at will. 2. Lílá said:—Tell me, goddess, what length of time has expired, since the corpse of the king was laid in this tomb, and I was absorbed in my deep meditation. 3. The goddess replied:—A month has passed since these maid servants of thine have been waiting here for watching thy body, which they thought lay asleep in the room. 4. Hear excellent lady! what has become of thy body, after it was rotten in a fortnight and evaporated in the air. 5. Seeing thy lifeless corpse lying as cold as frost on the ground, and turning as dry as a log of wood, or rather as a withered leaf on the floor;— 6. The royal ministers thought thee to be dead of thyself (a suicide), and removed thy putrid carcase out of the room. 7. And what more shall I say, than they laid thy corpse on a heap of sandal wood, and having set fire to the pile with the sprinkling of ghee, they reduced it to ashes in a short while.

8. Then the family raised a loud cry that their queen was dead, and wept bitterly for sometime, after which they performed thy funeral ceremonies. 9. Now when they will behold thee coming here in thy same body, they must be astonished to think thee as returned from the next world of the dead. 10. Now my daughter, when thou shalt appear before them in this thy purer and spiritual form, they must look upon thee with astonishment. 11. For thou hast not thy former form at present, but it is changed to a purer one, agreeably to the tenor and temperament of thy mind. (Lit. according to the desire in thy heart). 12. For every body beholds every thing without him, according to his inward feelings; as for example the sight of shadowy ghosts is frequent to children, that have a fear of devils at heart. 13. Now, O beauteous lady! Thou art an adept in spiritualism, and hast a spiritual body on thee, and hast forgotten and forsaken thy former body, with all the desires connate with it. 14. The view of material bodies, is lost to the sight of spiritualists; and the intelligent view them in the light of autumnal clouds, which are void of substance. (i.e. The flimsy clouds which are without rain-water in them).

15. On attainment of the spiritual state, the material body becomes as an empty cloud, and as a flower without its odor. 16. When a man of pure desire, is conscious of his attaining the spiritual state; he loses the remembrance of his material body, as a youth forgets his embryonic state. 17. It is now the thirty first day that we have arrived at this place; and I have caused the maid servants here, to fall into a fast sleep this morning. 18. Now Lílá! let us advance before the wilful Lílá, and then discover to her at our will, the form of the truthful Lílá, and her manner and conduct to thee. 19. Vasishtha said:—So saying, they wished themselves to be perceived by the wilful Lílá, and stood manifest to her sight in their etherial forms of the goddess and her inspired dame. 20. At this instant the Lílá of Vidúratha, looked upon them with her staring eyes; and found the room lighted up by the full lustre of their bodies. 21. The apartment seemed to be lighted by the bright orb of the moon, and its wall washed over with liquid gold; the ground floor shone as paved with ice, and all was full of splendour.

22. After seeing the brightness of the bed chamber, Lílá looked up at the goddess and the other Lílá, and rising respectfully before them, she fell at their feet. 23. Be victorious, O ye goddesses! she said, that have blessed me with your visit, and know that know all, that I have come here first as a preparer of your way. (Lit. as the sweeper of your path). 24. As she was speaking in this manner, they received her with good grace, and then all the three sat together on a bedding in their youthful bloom, like luxuriant creepers on the snow capt top of Meru. 25. The goddess said:—Tell us daughter, how you came here before ourselves, how you have been, and what you have seen on your way hither. 26. The younger Lílá answered:—As I lay insensible on that spot (upon the shock of my death), I was enveloped in darkness like the new moon, and felt myself burnt away by the flame of a conflagration (i.e., funeral fire). 27. I had no sense nor thought of anything good or bad, but remained with my eyes closed under my eye-lids.

28. Then I found myself, O great goddess! after I had recovered from my anaesthesia of death, to assume (by mistake a new body agreeably to my former impression), and to be translated at once into the midst of the sky. 29. I mounted on the vehicle of winds, and was borne like fragrance to this mansion through the etherial space. 30. I found this house guarded by its warders, and lighted with lamps, and having a costly bedstead placed in the midst of it. 31. I am looking here upon this corpse, as my husband Vidúratha, who has been sleeping here with his body covered under the flowers, like the vernal god in a flower garden. 32. I thought he was taking his rest, after the fatigue of the warfare, and did not like to disturb his repose in this place. 33. I have now related to you, my gracious goddesses! all that I have seen and thought of, since I have been restored to my new life. 34. The goddess spake:—Now I tell thee Lílá, that hast such beautiful eyes, and movest like a swan, that I will raise the corpse of the king to life from his bed in this bier.

35. Saying so, she breathed the breath of life as the lotus lets off its fragrance; and it fled into the nostrils of the carcase, like a creeping plant crawls into a hole. 36. It entered into the heart through the vital sheath, as the wind penetrates into the hole of a bamboo; and the breath of life was fraught with desires, as the waves of the sea sparkle with pearls. 37. The infusion of life, added to the colour of the face and body of king Padma; as the rain-water refreshes the fading lotus in a drought. 38. By degrees the members of the body became renovated, like a garden with its returning flowering season; and as the sides of a hill become virescent, with fresh grown bushes and creepers. 39. The person of the king shone as the queen of the stars, with all her digits of the full moon, when she enlightens the whole world, with the beams of her radiant face. 40. All his limbs became as tender and roscid, as the branches of trees in spring; and they regained their bright and golden hue, like the flowers of the vernal season.

41. He oped his eyes which were as clear as the sky, with their two pupils rolling as the two orbs of light; and enlightening the world, with their charming and auspicious beams. 42. He raised his body, as the Vindhyá mountain uplifts its head, and cried, “who waits there” with a grave and hoarse voice. 43. The two Lílás responded to him saying:—“your commands;” when he beheld the two Lílás in attendance upon him, and lowly bending themselves at his feet. 44. Both of them were of the same form and features, and of the like demeanour and deportment towards him. They were alike to one another in their voice and action, as in their joy and gladness at his rising. 45. Then looking upon them he asked, “what art thou and who is she”? At this the elder Lílá responded to him saying—“deign to hear what I have to say”. 46. I am Lílá thy former consort, and was joined as twain in one with thee, as sounds and their senses are combined together. 47. The other Lílá is but a reflexion of myself, and cast by my free will for your service.

48. The lady sitting here beside the bed, is the goddess of wisdom—the blessed Sarasvatí, and mother of the three worlds; set her on the golden seat before you. 49. It is by virtue of our great merit, that she has presented herself to our sight, and brought us back from other worlds to your presence in this place. 50. Hearing this, the lotus-eyed king, rose from his seat, and with pendant wreaths of flowers and a strap of cloth hung about his neck, prostrated himself at her feet. 51. He exclaimed:—I hail thee, O divine Sarasvatí! that dost confer all blessings on mankind. Deign to confer on me the blessings of understanding and riches with a long life. 52. As he was saying so, the goddess touched him with her hand and said, “be thou my son, possessed of thy desired blessings, and gain thy blessed abode in future. 53. “Let all evils and evil thoughts be far from thee, and all thy discomforts be dispersed from this place; let an everlasting joy alight in thine hearts, and a thick population fill thy happy realm. May all prosperity attend on thee for ever.”

EXTINCTION OF PADMA’S LIFE. Argument. Great joy on the King’s return to Life. His Government of the kingdom and his final Liberation. Vasishtha said:—“Be it so,” said Sarasvatí and disappeared in the air; and the people rose in the morning with their revivified king. 2. He embraced the renascent Lílá, who embraced him in her turn, and they were exceeding glad in their coming to life again. 3. The palace was filled with loud acclamations of joy as those of giddy revelry: and the citizens were full of mirth and merry, song and music. 4. The shouts of victory, and sounds of huzzas and heydays, resounded in the air, and the people elated with joy, thronged at the royal courtyard to see their king. 5. The genii of the Siddhas and Vidyádharas, dropped down handfuls of flowers from above; and the sound of drums and kettles, and trumpets and conches, resounded on all sides. 6. The elephants roared aloud on the outside, with their uplifted trunks; and crowds of females filled the inner court-yard, with their loud rejoicings. 7. Men bearing presents to the king, fell upon one another at their mutual clashing; and others wearing the flowery chaplets on their heads and hairs, moved gracefully all about.

8. The red turbans of joy on the heads of the chiefs and host of citizens, and the waving of the reddish palms of dancing girls, filled the sky with a bed of red lotuses. 9. The ground also was strewn over with rosy flowers, by foot-falls of dancers with their reddish soles; and the pendant earrings of ballet girls, which flourished with the oscillation of their heads and shoulders, waved in the air like flowers of gold. 10. The silken veils which like autumnal clouds, covered the faces of fairy damsels in their dancing, glittered as so many moons shining in the court-yard. 11. The people then retired to their respective abodes, with loud applause of the queen’s return with her husband from the other world. 12. The king Padma heard of his adventures from the hearsay of his subjects, and made his purificatory ablution, with the waters of the four seas of the earth. 13. Then the royal ministers and ministerial Bráhmans, joined together in the act of his installation, like the synod of immortals, meeting at the inauguration of Indra. 14. The two Lílás continued in company with the king, to relate with delight their respective adventures, and the wisdom they had gathered thereby.

15. It was thus by grace of the genius of wisdom and their own experience, that this king Padma and his two queens, obtained their prosperity equal to that of the three worlds. 16. The king, who was fraught with the wisdom imparted to him by the goddess; continued to rule over his kingdom for thousands of years, in company with his consorts. 17. They reigned on earth, in their state of living liberation for myriads of years; and then receiving the perfect knowledge of the holy Siddhas, they became wholly liberated after their deaths. 18. The happy pair having reigned jointly, over their delightful realm of ever increasing population, and which was graced by learned men and righteous people, knowing their own rights and duties of doing good to all mankind, became freed from the burden of their state affairs for ever.

ON DURATION AND TIME AND THOUGHTS OF THE MIND. Argument. The reason of introducing the two Lílás in the tale. The one as the counterpart of the other. Vasishtha said:—I have related to you this tale, prince! for removing your error of the phenomenal world. Mind this tale of Lílá, and renounce your misconception of the gross material world. 2. The substantiality of phenomena is a nil by itself, and requires no pains to invalidate it. It is hard to disprove a reality; but there is no difficulty in effacing a falsehood from the mind. 3. True knowledge consists in viewing the visibles as void, and knowing the one vacuum as the sole unity and real entity; one loses himself at last in this infinite vacuity. (Vasishtha was a súnya vádi or vacuist, which Sankaráchárya was at the pains to refute in his Dig-vijaya). 4. When the self-born Brahmá created the world from nothing, and without the aid of any material or elementary body; it is plain that there was an eternal void, and all these are but manifestations of the vacuous soul. (The Teom and Beom of Genesis, corresponding with Tama and Vyom of the Veda, were the origin of creation).

5. The same creative soul, has spread the seeds of its consciousness in the stream of creation, and these produce the images as they incessantly appear to us, unless we take the pains to repress them. 6. The appearance of the world, is but a perspective of the sphere of divine intellect; and contained in the small space of human intellect within the soul; as in a transparent particle of sand. 7. Such being the case, say what is the essence of this erroneous conception, and what may be our desires of reliance in it, and what can be the meaning either of destiny or necessity? (The predestination and chance, to which the Fatalists ascribe the origination of the universe). 8. This entire whole which is visible to the eye, is but a false appearance as that of magic; and there is no truth nor substance in a magic show. 9. Ráma said:—Oh! the wondrous exposition of the world, that you have now explained to me. It refreshes my soul, as the moon-beams revive the blades of grass, that have been burnt down by a conflagration. 10. It is after so long, that I have come to know the truly knowable; such as what and how it is, and the manner whereby, whence and when it is to be known.

11. I have my peace and rest in pondering on this wonderful theory, and your elucidation of the doctrines of the Sruti Sástras. 12. But tell me this one thing to remove my doubt, as my ears are never satiate, with drinking the nectarious juice of your sweet speech. 13. Tell me the time, which transpired during the three births of Lílá’s husband. Was it the duration of a day and night in one case, and of a month in another, and the period of a whole year in the case of Vidúratha? 14. Or did any one of them live for many years, and whether they were of short or longer durations, according to the measure of men, gods or Brahmá. (Because a human year is a day and night of the polar gods, and a moment of the cycle of Brahmá. And revolution of the whole planetary system to the same point makes a day of Brahmá). 15. Please sir, kindly tell me this, because little hearing is not sufficient to me, as a drop of water is not enough to moisten the dry soil or the parched ground of summer heat.

16. Vasishtha said:—Know sinless Ráma! that whosoever thinks of anything in any manner at any place or time, he comes to feel the same in the same manner, and in the same place and time. 17. Take for instance the destructive poison, which becomes as ambrosia to venomous insects, that take it for their dainty nourishment; and so is an enemy turning to a friend by your friendly behaviour unto him. (In both cases the evil turns to good by our taking it as such). 18. And the manner in which all beings consider themselves, and all others for a length of time; the same they seem to be by their mode and habit of thinking, as if it were by an act of destiny. (i.e. They consider their thoughts of things as their destined nature, which is not so in reality; for fair is foul and foul is fair; according as our judgments declare). 19. The manner in which the active intellect represents a thing in the soul, the same is imprinted in the consciousness of its own nature. (Here the Chit is said to be the intellectus agens and consciousness—Samvid—the intellectus patiens. The motion of the mind gives us the impressions of the swiftness and slowness of time).

20. When our consciousness represents a twinkling of the eye as a Kalpa, we are led to believe a single moment an age of long duration. (As a short nap appears an age in dreaming), and (a long age as a moment as in the case of the seven sleepers of Kehef). 21. And when we are conscious of or think a Kalpa age as a twinkling, the Kalpa age is thought to pass as a moment; and so a long night in our unconscious sleep, appears as a moment upon waking. 22. The night appears a longsome age, to the long suffering sick, while it seems as a moment, in the nightly revels of the merry; so a moment appears as an age in the dream, and an age passes off as a moment in the state of insensibility. (The length and shortness of duration, depending on our consciousness and insensibility of the succession of our ideas. (See Locke and Kant on our idea of time)).

23. The notions of the resurrection of the dead, and of one’s metempsychosis, and being re-born in a new body; of his being a boy, youth or old man; and of his migrations to different places at the distance of hundreds of leagues, are all but the phenomena of sleep, and retrospective views in a dream. 24. King Haris Chandra is said, to have thought a single night as a dozen of years; and the prince Lavana to have passed his long life of a hundred years as the space of a single night. (So the seven sleepers of Kehef passed a long period as one night, and so of others). 25. What was a moment to Brahmá, was the whole age of the life-time of Manu (Noah); and what is a day to Vishnu, constitutes the long period of the life-time of Brahmá. (This alluded to the comparative differences in the cycles of planetary bodies presided by the different deities; such as Jupiter’s cycle of 60 years round the sun, is but one year to the presiding god of that planet).

26. The whole life-time of Vishnu, is but one day of the sedate Siva; for one whose mind is motionless in his fixed meditation, is unconscious of the change of days and nights and of seasons and years. (Since the meditative mind is insensible of the fluctuation of its ideas, or that there is an utter quietus of them in the quietism of the Yogi’s mind). 27. There is no substance nor the substantive world, in the mind of the meditative Yogi (who views them in their abstract light); and to whom the sweet pleasures of the world, appear as bitter, as they are thought to be the bane of his true felicity. 28. The bitter seems to be sweet, by being thought to be so; and what is unfavorable, becomes favorable as that which is friendly comes to be unfriendly by being taken in their contrary senses. (The mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of a heaven. Milton). 29. Thus Ráma! it is by habitual meditation, that we gain the abstract knowledge of things; as on the other hand we forget what we learnt, by want of their recapitulation. (Habit is second nature, and practice is the parent of productions).

30. These by their habitude of thinking, find every thing in a state of positive rest; while the unthinking fall into the errors of the revolutionary world, as a boat-passenger thinks the land and objects on the shore, to be receding from and revolving around him. 31. Thus the unthinking part of mankind, and those wandering in their error, think the world to be moving about them; but the thinking mind, sees the whole as an empty void, and full of phantoms, as one sees in his dream. 32. It is the thought (erroneous conception), that shows the white as black and blue; and it is the mistake of judgment, that makes one rejoice or sorrow at the events of life. 33. The unthinking are led to imagine a house where there is none; and the ignorant are infatuated to the belief of ghosts, as they are the killers of their lives. 34. It is reminiscence or memory, which raises the dream as her consort; and which represents things as they are presented to it, by the thoughts of the waking state.

35. The dream is as unreal as the empty vacuity, abiding in the hollow receptacle of the intellectual soul; it overspreads the mind like the shadow of a cloud, and fills it with images like those of a puppet-show under the magic lantern. 36. Know the phenomena of the revolving worlds, to be no more in reality, than mere resultants of the vibrations of the mind, in the empty space of the soul; and as the motions and gestures of the fancied hobgoblins, to the sight of children. 37. All this is but a magical illusion, without any substance or basis of itself; and all these imposing scenes of vision, are but the empty and aerial sights of dreams. 38. Just as the waking man, beholds the wondrous world before him, so also does sleeping man see the same; and both of them resemble the insensible pillar, which finds the images of statues engraved upon it (because the soul is ever awake in every state of all living bodies). 39. The great monument of the Divine Spirit, has the figure of the created world, carved in itself in the same manner, as I see a troop of soldiers passing before me in my dream. (All these appear to be in action, in their true state of nullity and inaction).

40. So is this waking world asleep in the soul of Brahma, and rises in his mind as the vegetable world springs from the sap lying hid in the earth, which gives it its growth and vernal bloom. 41. So likewise does the creation lie hid in, and spring from the Supreme Spirit; as the brightness of gold ornaments is contained in, and comes out of the material metal. (The Divine Spirit is both the material and efficient cause of creation—ex quo & a quo.) 42. Every atom of creation, is settled in the plenum of Divine spirit; as all the members of the body, are set in the person of their possessor. 43. The visible world has the same relation, to the bodiless and undivided spirit of God; as one fighting in a dream bears to his antagonist (both believing in their reality, while both of them are unreal in their bodies). 44. Thus the real and unreal, the spirit and the world, all dwindled into vacuum, at the great Kalpánta annihilation of creation, except the intellect of God which comprises the world in itself.

45. The causality of the one (i.e. the spirit of God), and the unreality of the world cannot be true (since nothing unreal can come out of the real). Except Brahm—the all (to pan), there is no other cause, as a Brahmá or any other; the Divine Intelligence is the only cause and constituent of its productions. 46. Ráma asked:—But what cause was it that represented the citizens, counsellors and ministers of Vidúratha’s royal house also to Lílá’s vision, in the same manner as her lord the king, (who was alone the object of her thought)? 47. Vasishtha said:—All other thoughts are associated with the principal one in the intellect, in the same manner as the high winds are accompaniments of the storm. 48. The association of thoughts, follows one another in a long and perpetual train; and caused the succession of the sights of the ministers, citizens and subjects of the king, in Lílá’s vision one after the other. 49. In this way the thought that the king was born of such and such a family, naturally introduced the thoughts of his palace and city, and of those that dwelt in them.

50. It is in vain to enquire into the cause and manner, of the intellect’s being combined with its thoughts at all times; since it is called the gem of thoughts (Chintámani), and must be always accompanied with its radiating thoughts, like a brilliant gem with its rays. (i.e. Thinking is the inseparable attribute of the mind). 51. Padma thought to become a king like Vidúratha, in the proper discharge of the duties of his royal family; and this constant thought of himself as such, cast the mould of the mind and manner of Vidúratha upon him (i.e. he looked himself in the light of that king). 52. All animate beings of every kind, are but models of their own thoughts, like looking-glasses showing their inward reflexions to the sight. (The innate man appearing in his outward figure, is a verity in physiognomy). 53. The mind which is fixed in the meditation of God, and remains unshaken amidst the turmoils of the world; is fraught with perfect rest, and preserves the composure of the soul, until its final liberation from the bondage of the body. 54. But the thoughts of the fluctuating enjoyments of this world, alternately represented in the mirror of the mind, like the shadows of passing scenes upon a looking glass.

55. It requires therefore a great force of the mind, to overcome its worldly thoughts, and turn them to the channel of truth; as the greater force of the main current of a river, leads its tributaries to the ocean. 56. But the mind is greatly disturbed, when the worldly and spiritual thoughts, press it with equal force to both ways; and it is then, that the greater force leads it onward in either way. (There is no midway like that of the Mádhyamikas between this world and the next). Gloss. The worldly and spiritual thoughts being equally forcible, they naturally struggle in the mind, and that which is of greater force overcomes the other. 57. Such is the case with all the myriads of beings, whether are living, dead or to come to life; and the same accidents take place in the particles of all human minds (like the concussions of atomic forces). 58. All this is the empty sphere of the Intellect, all quiet and without any basis or substratum. It is neither peopled nor filled by any thing except its own native thoughts.

59. All these appear as dreams, even in our unsleeping states, and have no form or figure in the sight of the wise. The perception of their positive existence, is but a misconception of their negative inexistence. 60. There really exists but one omnipotent and all pervasive Spirit, which shows itself in diverse forms like the flowers, fruits and leaves of trees, all appearing from the self-same woody trunk (which like the great Brahma is the origin of all its off-shoots.) 61. He who knows the increate Brahma to be the measurer, measure and the thing measured, (i.e. the creator, created and the creation), to be all one and himself, can never forget this certain truth of unity, nor ever fall into the error of dualism of the cause and effect. 62. There is but one Being (SAT), who is Holy and without beginning; and who, though he appears to be of the forms of light and darkness, and of space and time, doth never rise nor set anywhere. He is without beginning, middle or end; and remains as a vast expanse of water, exhibiting itself in its waves and currents.

63. The notion of myself, thyself and the objective world, are but effusions of our perverted understandings; and it is ignorance only that shows the One as many within the Sheath of the mind, according as it imagines it to be.

ON THE NATURE OF THE WORLD. Argument. Proofs of the unreality of the world, leading to the Quietism of the Spirit. Ráma said:—Please sir, explain to me whence arises this error of our knowledge of the objective world, without a cause of this error. (The True God cannot lead us to the knowledge of untruth). 2. Vasishtha said:—Because we have the knowledge of all things (i.e. the objective), to be contained alike in our consciousness (as of the subjective self); it is plain that this eternal and increate self (or soul), is the cause and container of them all at all times. 3. That which has an insight or intuitive knowledge of all things, which are expressed by words and their meanings, is Brahma—the soul and no other; and nothing that is meant by any significant term, has a different form of its own. (It is the doctrine of nominalism that the notions conveyed by words have no realities corresponding with them in the mind, and have no existence but as mere names).

4. As the quality of a bracelet is not different from its substance of gold, nor that of a wave from the water; so the expansion of the world, is not distinct from the spirit of God. (The spirit inflated and produced the world out of itself. Sruti). 5. It is Brahma that is manifest in the form of the world, and not the world that appears as God; and so doth gold display itself in the form of a bracelet, and not the bracelet that takes the nature of gold. 6. As the whole is displayed in all its various parts, so the entire intellect shows itself in all the various operations of the mind composing the world. (The intellect displaying the mind, and this the world). 7. It is ignorance of the infinite and eternal Spirit of God, that exhibits itself as myself, thyself and the world itself in the mind. (i.e. The knowledge both of the subjective and objective results from ignorance of the only One—tanmátram). 8. As the shades of different colours in gems, are not apart from the gems; so the notions of one’s self and the world are the shades inherent in the self-same intellect.

9. Like waves appearing on the surface of the undulated waters of the deep; this so-called and meaningless creation, is but a phasis in the Divine Intellect. 10. Neither does the Spirit of God reside in the creation, nor does the creation subsist in the Divine Spirit (like waves in the waters); nor is there such relation as of a part with the whole between them. (These are not parts of one undivided whole). 11. One should meditate on his intellect as the form of the Divine Intellect, in his own consciousness of it; and he will feel the Divinity stirring within himself, as it were stirred by the breath of a breeze. (There is a divinity stirring within us, Addition). 12. The minute particle of the vacuous intellect, will then appear in its wondrous form of a void, within the empty space of his conscious mind. (The primary hypostasis of the vacuous soul being but a void, its attributes of the intellect and mind, are of the same form). 13. He then finds this vacuous form stirring in himself as the airy spirit, with its property of feeling, as it is felt in the flatus venti or breath of air. (This is the Spirit of God).

14. The God then assumes a luminous form as the state of his own substantiality; and this is posited in the sheath of the intellect as a spark of fire. (This is the holy light of the God of glory or glorious God). 15. The light then melts into water as the self-same substance of itself; and this fluid substance contains in it the property of taste. (This is the liquid state of the floating spirit before creation). 16. The same is condensed in the form of a solid substance, which is the same with the Divine Mind. This becomes the earth bearing in its bosom the property of smell. (The earth being produced from the scum of water, is dissolved again into its watery form). 17. Again God represents himself to our intellect, as one infinite and uniform duration; and its measures in twinklings and other divisions, are but manifestations of the succession of our thoughts. (Prakachanamvidah parampará—is the very doctrine of Locke and others). 18. The other states in which God presents himself to our intellects are that, He is Holy, infinitely glorious, seen within us, and without beginning, middle and end; that, He has no rising nor setting, and subsists of Himself without a substratum and as the substratum of all.

19. This knowledge of God is bliss itself, and his creation is identic with himself. Ignorance of God leads to the knowledge of the objective world, and its extinction is the way to know the eternity of His existence. 20. Brahma is conceived in the same manner in our souls, as He is represented to us by our intellects; just as we know all other things according to our ideas of them, in our all comprehensive minds. 21. Of these, those things only are true, the notions of which we derive from the dictates of our well-directed understandings; as all those are untrue, which the mind paints to us from the impressions of the senses and the meanings of words; which are incapable of expressing the nature of the undefinable and indescribable God (whom no words can express—Yato vácho nivastante. (Sruti)) 22. Know the unreal world which appears as real, and the reality of God which appears as unreality, to be of the manner of the air in motion and at rest. The visible world like the current air, appears true to them, that have no knowledge of the invisible God, who is as calm as the still air underlying the etherial air and its fluctuations.

23. A thing may appear different from another, and yet be the same with it; as the light in the fire is the selfsame fire. So the visible world arising from the invisible Brahma, appears as another reality; though it is same with the reality of God. 24. All things whether in being or not being, subsist in God as their invisible and unknown source and cause; as the unscooped earth is the cause of the would-be doll, the unhewn tree of a future statue, and the soot of the ink not in esse. (So all future statues are contained in the unhewn marbles, according to Aristotle). 25. One thing is exhibited as another in the great desert of the Divine Mind, which shows the phenomena of the world as figures in the mirage. 26. The wise soul thinks this world as one with its source—the Divine Intellect, as he considers the tree no way different from its parent seed. 27. As the sweetness of milk, the pungency of pepper, the fluidity of water, and the motion of winds, are the inseparable properties of their substances:—

28. So this creation is inseparable from the spirit of Brahma, and is a mere form of the one Supreme soul, beside which there is nothing in reality. (Whose body nature is, and God the soul). 29. This world is the manifestation of the lustre of the gem of Divine mind, and has no other cause except the essence of Brahma, which is no other than its material cause—the Supreme soul itself. 30. The will, the mind, the living soul, and its consciousness, are all the offspring of Divine intellection; because there is nothing that can be produced by exertion of any power without direction of the Intellect. 31. There is nothing that rises or sets anywhere, nor appears or disappears at any time; but everything is unborn at all times, and lies quiet in the Divine Intellect, which is as solid as a massive rock. 32. To attribute the formation of these multitudes of the combination of atoms, and to suppose every particle to be composed of minutest infinitesimals; are but vagaries of imagination, as none of them could combine of themselves except by direction of the eternal mind. (Matter having no force nor design in itself).

33. All force resides in some living principle, as the waking, sleeping and dreaming states appertain to the living soul; and as the undulation of waves subsists in the water; (or) as the current of the stream lies hidden in it. 34. When the living soul feels its inappetency towards worldly enjoyments, it is then said to have reached to his highest perfection by the Sruti (such as:—nishkáma or abandonment of the desire of fruition, is the highest state of human felicity). 35. As the mind is freed from its choice and dislike of things, so is the soul liberated by avoiding its egoism and personality, and then it has no more to be conscious of the pain, attending upon a future birth and transmigration. 36. Whoso comes to know in his understanding, this state of supreme and inexpressible felicity; he is sure to overcome all his worldly appetites, that bind him fast to this earth. 37. But whoso labours in his mind under his affections to this world, he has to rove continually in it as in the whirlpool of a stream, and destroys the supreme felicity of his soul in his continuous turmoil.

38. It was the lotus-born Brahmá, that was conscious of his egoism at first, and who has by the will of his mind, spread out this universe. (He is eternally acting, and has not retired after his act of creation).

INTERPRETATION OF DESTINY. Argument. The erroneous conception of creation and of Destiny both as active and inactive. Vasishtha continued:—These myriads of worlds and the millenniums of kalpa ages, are no more real in themselves than our false computation of the millionth part of an atom or the twinkling of an eye. 2. It is our error that represents them as true to us, though they are as false as our calculation of those infinitesimals. 3. These creations whether past or future, follow one another in endless succession, like the overflowing currents of water, with all the waves, eddies and whirlpools in them. 4. The prospect of these created worlds is as false, as the delusive mirage, which presents a stream of water, flowing with strings of flowers, fallen from the plants on the shore. 5. The conceptional creation is as baseless as a city in a dream or magic show; or as mountain in fiction, or an imaginary castle in air. (It is a flatus venti, and not based on any thing real; but has a mere psychological existence, depending on fancy and imagination).

6. Ráma said:—Sir, the drift of your reasoning, leads to the establishment of the identity of the conceptional creation with the creator; and that this unity of both is the belief of the learned and wise. (So says Hegel: “creation is the reality of God; it is God passing into activity” Lewe’s Hist. Ph. II p. 626). 7. Now tell me, what you have to say with regard to the material bodies, which these existence bear on earth; and what is the cause that the body is subject to the casualties unknown to the inward spirits. (i.e. The body is subject to material laws, but not so the immaterial spirit which has no change). 8. Vasishtha replied:—There is a supernatural and active energy of the Divine Intellect, called the predominant Decree, Fate or Destiny, which must come to pass, and bear its command over all our actions and desires. (Destiny is irresistible, being the decree of Providence, governing all events and our free wills also. Fate is the personification of the female agency of god. Here Vasishtha is a fatalist also; but his fate is the Divine decree).

9. She is invested from the beginning with irresistible and multifarious powers; and destines the manner in which every thing is to take place and continue for ever. (The philosophical destiny is the sum of the laws of universe, of matter and mind). 10. She is the essential cause of all essence, and the chief mover of the intellect; she is styled as the great power of powers, and remains as the great viewer of all things. 11. She is called the great agency and the great producer of all events; She is known as the chief mover of occurrences, and she is the soul and source of all accidents. (The mythological Destiny is superior to gods and men, and rules over the great Jove himself). 12. She whirls the worlds as straws, and bears her sway over the deities and demons; she commands the Nága dragons and the mountain monsters to the end of time. 13. She is sometimes thought to be an attribute of Divine essence, and to remain pictured in her ever varying colours in the hollow vacuity of the Divine Mind. (The theological destiny is the Almighty Will of God and his foreknowledge also; before which the fates float about, as if they are drawn up in variegated pictures).

14. The learned have explained Brahmá the Demiurge, to be identic with the Spirit of Brahma, for the understanding of those that are ignorant in spiritual knowledge; and by destiny they mean his creation. (i.e. Creation is destination of the preordaining and irrevocable will of God). 15. The immovable spirit of Brahmá, appears to be full of moving creatures and the infinity of Divine existence, seems to teem with the finite creation in the midst of it, like a grove of trees growing under the concavity of the hollow sky. 16. The unwaking spirit of God reflected various images in itself (as in a dream), likening to the reflection of a dense forest in the lens of a crystal stone: and these were understood by the demiurgus Brahmá, as the prototype of the destined creation, in the hollow sphere of the Divine mind. 17. The Intellect naturally exhibits a variety of forms in itself, as the body of an embodied person, shows its various members to view; and these were taken by the lotus-born Brahmá, as the several parts in the great body of the cosmos. (The Intellect is the phantasmagoria of the world, and the Demiurge is the formal framer of it).

18. This foreknowledge of events imprinted in the Intellect of God, is called Destiny, which extends over all things at all times. (This is Fatum christianum, that every thing is regulated by foreknowledge and Providence). 19. The meaning of Destiny, comprises the knowledge of the causes, which move, support and sustain all things in their proper order; and that such and such causes, must produce such and such effects for ever. (This is the Stoic Fate of Jewish Essences; or a concatenation of causes whence all things necessarily result). 20. This destiny is the force or mobile power, that moves all men and animals, and vegetable and inanimate creations; it is the beginning (or primary source) of the time and motion of all beings. (It is fatum from fari—the word or decree of Providence, that was the beginning of all existence.) 21. It is combined with Divine power, as the power divine is combined with it; and this combination of them into one, is the cause of the production and existence of the world.

22. It is the union or conformity of human exertion, with the course of destiny or decree of God, that is productive of certain ends, which are respectively called their destiny and destined effects. (Here Destiny is defined as the combination of human and superhuman powers; and that the co-operation of natural and supernatural agencies, are necessary to the production of effects). 23. What more have you to ask me, Ráma! with regard to destiny and self-exertion; when I tell you that it is destined to all beings to betake themselves to their proper actions, in the destined or prescribed manner, in order to bring about the desired result? (Their destiny is equal to Vidhi or fixed laws, which were combined in Brahmá). 24. When a predestinarian sits idle and quiet, under the belief of being fed by his fixed lot; he is then said to depend on his destiny alone (as a fatalist). 25. By sitting idle in the manner of a waiter on Providence, for the whole of his lifetime, he gains nothing; but comes to lose his good sense and energy in a short time, and finally dies away in famine by his sole reliance on destiny. (Hence fate = fat and faut (in Arabic), is synonymous with death).

26. It is quite certain that whatever is destined, must surely come to pass of its own accord; and that it is impossible to prevent it by the foresight of gods and men. 27. Yet the intelligent ought not cease to exert their activity, by relying in their fates only; for they must know that it is our exertion that brings destiny into action. (Because it is, destined, that destiny requires to be enforced by human exertion, in order to bring on its effect. It is operation which enforces the law, which is otherwise dormant and a dead letter). 28. Destiny is inactive and abortive, without an active power to enforce it to action; it is human activity, that is productive of any effect or production in nature by the help of destiny. 29. Depend on destiny, and remain both deaf and dumb as a doll; be inactive, and become dull and torpid as a block. Say, what is the good of this vital breath, unless it has its vitality and activity? (Destiny has destined man to exertion in order to produce the destined end; and has so ordained all animated nature, in order to be productive).

30. It is good to sit quiet; by restraining even the vital breath in Yoga meditation; whereby one can obtain his liberation: otherwise the inactive man is not to be called a Yogi, but an idler and a lazzarone. 31. Both activity and inactivity are good for our liberation from pain; but the high minded esteem that as better, which saves them from the greater pain of regeneration, (i.e. the hybernation of Yoga meditation). 32. This inactive destiny is a type of the latent Brahmá; and who so leans to it by laying aside his busy course, is verily installed in the supremely holy state of highest felicity (as in ecstasis and hypnotism). 33. The inert destiny resides every where in the manner of Brahma—the latent soul in all bodies, and evolves itself in various shapes, by means of activity in all its productions.

IMMUTABILITY OF THE DIVINE MIND. Argument. Expansion of the Divine Spirit, and its apparent variations in Nature. Vasishtha continued:—The essence of Brahma is all in all, and ever remains in every manner in every thing in all places. It is omnipotence, omniform and the lord God of all. (This is the to pan of Pantheism, that, God is All and All is God; that God and nature are one substance, and all its various modifications. (This is the doctrine of Vedánta, Plato and Plotinus, and lately of Sufism and German philosophy)). 2. This Essence is the Spirit or Soul, whose omnipotence developes itself sometimes in the form of intellectual activity, and sometimes in the tranquility of soul. Sometimes it shows itself in the momentum of bodies, and at others in the force of the passions and emotions of the soul. Sometimes as something in the form of creation, and at another as nothing in the annihilation of the world. (This is the to on onton—the All of all; the eternal source of all existence; the Subjective as well as Objective both together).

3. Whenever it realises itself any where in any form or state, it is then viewed in the same manner at the same place and time. (The spirit realises itself in one form or other of its own free Will). 4. The absolute Omnipotence manifests itself as it likes and appears to us; and all its powers are exhibited in one form or other to our view and understandings. 5. These powers are of many kinds, and are primarily concentrated in the Divine Soul or Spirit. The potentialities (or potes esse) are the Active and Passive powers, also the Rational and Irrational and all others. 6. These varieties of powers are the inventions of the learned for their own purpose and understanding; but there is no distinction of them in the Divine Spirit. (All diversities are one and the same to the unity of God (omne ens—to en—est unum. And again, Qua ens est indivisum in se, divisum ab omnialio)). 7. There is no duality in reality, the difference consists in shape and not in substantiality. Thus the waves in the waters of the sea, the bracelets and wristlets formed of gold, are no more than modifications of the same substances. (All formal differences terminate in the material, and this again in the immaterial Spirit of God).

8. The form of a thing is said to be so and so, from its appearance only and not in its reality. The snake is affirmed of a rope, but we have neither the outward perception nor inward thought of a snake in it. Hence all appearances are delusions of sense. 9. It is the universal soul that shows itself in some form or other, to our deluded senses and understandings, and this also according to our different apprehensions of the same thing (as what appears as gold to one, seems as brass to another). 10. It is the ignorant only that understand the Omniform God, to be all forms of things; while the learned know the forms to be modifications of the various powers of the Almighty, and not the figures themselves. 11. Now whether the forms (of material things) be real or unreal, it is to be known that they appear to men according to their different apprehensions of those beings, which Brahma is pleased to exhibit in any particular form to their minds and senses. (i.e. Some taking an abstract and others a concrete view of them, agreeably to their internal conceptions or external perceptions, of their various properties and qualities).

THE GERMINATING SEED. Vasishtha resumed:—The supreme Deity is the all-pervading spirit and the great God and Lord of all. He is without beginning and end, and is self-same with the infinite bliss of his translucent self-cogitation. 2. It is this supreme felicity and purely intellectual substance, whence the living soul and mind have their rise, prior to their production of the Universe. (i.e. The eternal and inert bliss called Brahma, became the living soul—anima, of and the active mind—mens, which created the world). 3. Ráma asked:—How could the self-cogitation of Brahma, as the infinite spirit and one without a second, conceive in it a finite living soul other than itself, and which was not in Being. (The inactive and active souls, are not the one and the same thing, nor can the immutable and infinite be changed to one of a finite and changeful nature; nor was there a secondary being co-existent with the unity of the self-existent God).

4. Vasishtha replied:—The immense and transparent Spirit of Brahma, remained in a state of asat—non-existence, a state of ineffable bliss as seen by the adept Yogi; but of formidable vastness as conceived by the uninitiated novice. (i.e. The meditation of the Infinite is a delight to the spiritualist, but it is a horror to the gross idolator, whose mind knows nothing beyond matter and material forms). 5. This state of supreme bliss, which is ever tranquil, and full with the pure essence of God, is altogether undefinable, and incomprehensible, even by the most proficient in divine knowledge. (God is unknowable, is the motto of the wise Athenians and modern Agnostics). 6. Thence sprang a power (an hypostasis) like the germ of a seed, and possessed of consciousness and energy, that is called the living and conscious soul, and which must last until its final liberation. (This is the Demiurge, an emanation from God, and the source and soul of the world). 7. The clear mirror of the mind of this being, reflected in its vast vacuous sphere, the images of innumerable worlds set above one another, like statues engraved upon it.

8. Know Ráma! the living soul to be an inflation of Divine Spirit, like the swelling of the sea and the burning of a candle, when its flame is unshaken by the wind. (The psyche or anima is the energy of the universal soul, or the finite rising from the Infinite). 9. The living soul is possessed of a finite cognoscence as distinguished from the clear and calm consciousness of the Divine Spirit. Its vitality is a flash of the vacuous intellect of Brahma and appertaining to the nature of the living God. Divina particula aurae. The Lord says: ‘Aham asmi—I am that I am’; but the living soul knows itself to be ‘Soham asmi’—I am He or of Him. 10. Vitality is the essential property of the soul, resembling the inseparable properties of motion in the wind, warmth in the fire and coldness in the ice. (Animation is the natural faculty and necessary property of the soul). 11. Our ignorance of the nature of the Divine Intellect and Spirit, throws us to the knowledge of ourselves by our self-consciousness, and this it is, which is called the living soul. (Beyond our conscious or subjective knowledge of ourselves, we know nothing of the subjectivity of God, nor are we certain of any objective reality).

12. It is by means of this positive consciousness, that we know our egoism or self-existence; it strikes us more glaringly than a spark of fire, and enlightens us to the knowledge of ourselves more than any other light. (Our self-consciousness is the clearest of all knowledge, and the basis of all truth according to Descartes). 13. As in looking up to heaven, its blue vault is presented to the sight, beyond which our eyes have not the power to pierce; so in our inquiry into the nature of soul, we see no more than the consciousness of ourselves, and nothing besides. (i.e. The subjective soul only is knowable, and naught beyond it). 14. Our knowledge of the soul presents to us in the form of Ego known by its thoughts, like the vacuous sky appearing as a blue sphere by cause of the clouds. (The Ego is the subject of thoughts and self-cogitation). 15. Egoism differentiates the soul from our ideas of space and time, and stirs within it like the breath of winds, by reason of its subjectivity of thoughts. (Differentiation of the subjective Ego from the Objective space and time, is as the difference of Ego and Non-Ego, I and Not I, Le moi et non moi, Das Ich und nicht ich, Aham and twam &c.).

16. That which is the subject of thoughts, is known as the Ego, and is variously styled as the intellect, the soul, the mind, the máyá or delusion and Prakriti or nature. (The Ego personified is Rudra, the personification of chitta-cogitation is Vishnu, of Jíva or the soul is Brahmá, and of the manas or mind is the máyá or Illusion). 17. The mind (chetas) which is the subject of thoughts, contemplates on the nature of elementary matter, and thus becomes of itself the quintessence of the five elements. (The mind is opposed to matter, but being the principle of volition produces matter at its will). 18. The quintessential mind next becomes as a spark of fire (of itself), and remains as a dim star—a nebula, in the midst of the vacuity of the yet unborn universe. (The nebulae are the primary formations of heavenly bodies, called Brahmándas or mundane eggs). 19. The mind takes the form of a spark of fire by thinking on its essence, which gradually developes itself like the germ of a seed, in the form of the mundane egg by its internal force. (The doctrine of evolution from fire, the arche of all things according to Heraclitus. Lewe’s Hist. Ph. I 72).

20. The same fiery spark figuratively called the Brahmánda or mundane egg, became as a snowball amidst the water, and conceived the great Brahmá within its hollow womb. (The Spirit of God, dove-like, sat brooding over the hollow deep. Milton). 21. Then as sensuous spirits assume some bodily forms at pleasure, although they dissolve as a magic city in empty air; so this Brahmá appeared in an embodied form to view. (Spirits are at liberty to take upon them any form they like). 22. Some of them appear in the form of immovable, and others in those of moving beings; while others assume the shapes of aerials, as they are fond of choosing for themselves. (Hence the transmigration of souls in different bodies, depends on their own choice; and not on necessity or result of prior acts). 23. Thus the first born living being had a form, for himself as he liked in the beginning of creation, and afterwards created the world in his form of Brahma or Virinchi (Vir-incipiens). (The Demiurge, maker, creator or architect of the visible world, had necessarily a personality of his own). 24. Whatever the self-born and self-willed soul, wishes to produce, the same appears immediately to view as produced of its own accord. (Everything appeared of itself at the Fiat of God).

25. Brahmá, originating in the Divine Intellect, was by his nature the primary cause of all, without any cause of his own; though he appointed the acts of men; to be the cause of their transition from one state to another, in the course of the world. (All the future states of beings depend on their acts of past and present lives, except that of the Great creator who is uncreated and unchangeable). 26. The thoughts naturally rise in the mind, like the foaming water, to subside in itself; but the acts done thereby, bind us, as the passing froth and flying birds are caught by ropes and snares. (The thoughts are spontaneous in their growth as grass, and they entail no guilt on us. Shakespeare). 27. Thoughts are the seeds of action, and action is the soul of life. Past acts are productive of future consequence, but inaction is attended with no result. (Our lives are reckoned by our acts, and there is no vitality without activity). 28. The living soul bears its vitality as the seed bears the germ in its bosom; and this sprouts forth in future acts, in the manner of the various forms of leaves, fruits and flowers of trees. (Thus the living soul of Brahmá was the seed of all animate and inanimate beings).

29. All other living souls that appeared in the various forms of their bodies, had such forms given to them by Brahmá, according to their acts and desires in premundane creations in former Kalpas. (Hence the belief in the endless succession of creations). 30. So the personal acts of people are the causes of their repeated births and deaths in this or other worlds; and they ascend higher or sink lower by virtue of their good or bad deeds, which proceed from their hearts and the nature of their souls. 31. Our actions are the efforts of our minds, and shape our good or bad destinies according to the merit or demerit of the acts. The fates and chances of all in the existing world, are the fruits and flowers of their past acts, and even of those done in prior Kalpas; and this is called their destiny. (Sástra: No act goes for naught even in a thousand Kalpas. Má bhuktan kshiyate Karma, kalpa koti satai rapi).

NATURE OF THE LIVING SOUL. Argument. The mind and its operations, the subjective and objective, and lastly the Divine Intellect. Vasishtha continued:—The Mind sprang at first from the supreme cause of all; this mind is the active soul which resides in the supreme soul (the Ens entium). 2. The mind hangs in doubt between what is and what is not, and what is right and what is wrong. It forgets the past like the scent of a fleeting odor by its wilful negligence. (Unmindfulness is the cause of forgetfulness). 3. Yet there is no difference between these seeming contraries; because the dualities of Brahma and the soul, the mind and máyá, the agent and act, and the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, all blend together in the unity of God. (All seeming differences converge in unvarying Mind). 4. There is but one Universal soul displaying its Intellect as a vast ocean, and extending its consciousness as a sea of unlimited extent. (These extend to all beings in the universe).

5. What is true and real shines forth amidst all that is untrue and unreal; so does the subjective essence of the mind subsist amidst all its airy and fleeting dreams in sleep. And thus the world is both true and untrue as regards its subsistence in God and its external phenomena. (The substance is real but the appearance is false). 6. The erroneous conception either of the reality or unreality of the outer world, does not spring in the mind, which is conscious of its operations only, and of no outward phenomena. This conception is like the deception of a magic show, and is concomitant with all sensuous minds. 7. It is the long habit of thinking the unreal world as real, that makes it appear as such, to the unthinking, as a protracted sleep makes its visionary scenes appear as true to the dreaming soul. It is the want of reflection, that causes us to mistake a man in a block of wood. 8. Want of spiritual light misleads the mind from its rationality, and makes it take its false imaginations for true; as children are impressed with a belief of ghosts in shadows, through their fear and want of true knowledge.

9. The mind is inclined of its own tendency, to assign a living soul (and also a body) to the Divine Spirit; which is devoid of appellation, form or figure, and is beyond our comprehension; (and is styled the Incomprehensible). 10. Knowledge of the living state (personality), leads to that of Egoism which is the cause of intellection. This again introduces the sensations and finally the sensible body. (Ego is the subject of thoughts). 11. This bondage of the soul in body, necessitates a heaven and hell for want of its liberation and then the acts of the body, become the seeds of our endless transmigrations in this world. 12. As there is no difference between the soul, intellect and life, so there is no duality in the living soul and intellect, nor in the body and its acts, which are inseparable from each other. 13. Acts are the causes of bodies, and the body is not the mind; the mind is one with egoism, and the ego is the living soul. The living soul is one with the Divine Intellect and this soul is all and the lord God of all.