Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

60. I am not of this body nor was I in it, nor shall I remain in it; nor is it any thing, even at present, except a picture of the imagination. Why then lament at its loss. 61. If I am something else beside this body, that is a reflexion of the pure intellect; then tell me of what avail are these states of reality and unreality to me, and wherefore shall I rejoice or regret. 62. The Sage who is fully conscious of the certainty of this truth in himself, does not feel any rise or fall of his spirits at his life or death, nor doth he rejoice or wail at either in having or losing his life. 63. Because he gains after the loss of his gross body, his residence in the transcendental state of Brahma or spiritual existence; as the little bird tittera builds its nest of tender blades, after its grassy habitation is broken down or blown away. 64. Therefore we should never rely in our frail and fragile bodies, but bind our souls to the firm rock of Brahma by the strong rope of our faith, as they bind a bull to the post with a strong cord.

65. Having thus ascertained the certitude of this truth, rely thy faith on the reality of thy spiritual essence, and by giving up thy reliance on thy frail body, manage thyself with indifference in this unreal world. 66. Adhere to what is thy duty here, and avoid whatever is prohibited to thee; and thus proceed in thy course with an even tenor of thy mind, without minding at all about thy reliance on the one and miscreance of the other. 67. He gets a cool composure of his mind; like the coolness at the close of a hot summer-day, who shuts out from his view the reflexions of all worldly objects. 68. Look on this universe, O sinless Ráma, as one common display of Divine light, like the appearance of day light which is common to all; it is the mind which taints it with various forms, as the sun-beams are reflected in sundry piece by objects. 69. Therefore forsake all reflexions, and be without any impression in thy mind, be of the form of pure intellectual light, which passes through all without being contaminated by any. 70. You will be quite stainless by your dismissal of all taints and appearances from your mind, and by your thinking yourself as nothing and having no true enjoyment in this world.

71. That these phenomena are nothing in reality, but they show themselves unto us for our delusion only; and that yourself also are nothing will appear to you, by your thinking the whole as a display of the Divine Intellect. 72. Again the thought that these phenomena are not false, nor do they lead to our illusion since they are the manifestation of the supreme Intellect, is also very true and leads to your consummation. 73. It is well Ráma, and for your good also if you know either of these; because both of these views will tend equally to your felicity. 74. Conduct yourself in this manner, O blessed Ráma! and lessen gradually all your affection and dislike to this world and all worldly things. (i.e. Neither love nor hate aught at any time). 75. Whatever there exists in this earth, sky and heaven, is all obtainable by you, by means of the relinquishment of your eager desire and hatred. 76. Whatever a man endeavours to do, with his mind freed from his fondness for or hatred to it, the same comes shortly, to take place, contrary to the attempts of the ignorant: (whose excessive desire and dislike turn to their disadvantage).

77. No good quality can have its abode in the heart that is troubled by the waves of faults; as no stag will set its foot on the ground, heated by burning sands and wild fires. 78. What acquisitions does he not make, in whose heart there grows the kalpa tree of desire, and which is not infested by the snakes of ardent desire or dislike (the two cankers of human breast). 79. Those men who are wise and discreet, learned and attentive to their duties, and at the same time influenced by the feelings of love and hatred, are no better than jackals (or jack asses) in human shape, and are accursed with all their qualifications. 80. Look at the effects of these passions in men, who repine both at the use of their wealth by others, as also in leaving their hard earned money behind them. (This proceeds from excessive love of wealth on the one hand, and hatred of family and heirs on the other as is said [Sanskrit: putrádapi ghanabhajam bháti], the monied miser, dislikes even his son). 81. All our riches, relatives and friends, are as transitory as the passing winds: why then should a wise man rejoice or repine at their gain or loss.

82. All our gains and wants and enjoyments in life, are mere illusion or máyá, which is spread as a net by Divine power, all over the works of creation, and entraps all the worldlings in it. 83. There is no wealth, nor any person, that is real or lasting to any one in this temporary world; it is all frail and fleeting, and stretched out as a false magic show to sight. 84. What wise man is there that will place his attachment on anything, which is an unreality both in its beginning and end, and is quite unsteady in the midst. No one has any faith in the arbour of his imagination or aerial castle. 85. As one fancies he sees a fairy in a passing cloud, and is pleased with the sight of what he can never enjoy, but passes from his view to the sight of distant peoples; so is this passing world, which passes from the sight of some to that of others, without its being fully enjoyed or long retained in the possession of any one. (The passing world passes from hand to hand, without its standing still at any one's command).

86. The bustle of these fleeting bodies in the world, resembles the commotion of an aerial castle, and the appearance of a city in an evanescent dream and fancy. 87. I see the world as a city in my protracted dream, with all its movables and immovable things, lying as quiet and still as in profound sleep. 88. Ráma, you are wandering in this world, as one rolling in his bed of indolence, and lulled to the long sleep of ignorance; which lends you from one error to another, as if dragged by a chain of continuous dreaming. 89. Now Ráma, break off your long chain of indolent ignorance, forsake the idol of your errors, and lay hold on the inestimable gem of your spiritual and divine knowledge. 90. Return to your right understanding, and behold your soul in its clear light as a manifestation of the unchangeable luminary of the Intellect; in the same manner as the unfolding lotus beholds the rising sun. 91. I exhort you repeatedly, O Ráma! to wake from your drowsiness, and by remaining ever wakeful to your spiritual concerns; see the undecaying and undeclining sun of your soul at all times.

92. I have roused you from your indolent repose, and awakened you to the light of your understanding, by the cooling breeze of spiritual knowledge, and the refreshing showers of my elegant diction. 93. Delay not Ráma, to enlighten your understanding even now, and attain your highest wisdom in the knowledge of the supreme being, to come to the light of truth and shun the errors of the delusive world. 94. You will not be subject to any more birth or pain, nor will you be exposed to any error or evil, if you will but remain steady in your soul, by forsaking all your worldly desires. 95. Remain steadfast, O high minded Ráma, in your trust in the tranquil and all soul of Brahma, for attainment of the purity and holiness of your own soul, and you will thereby be freed from the snare of your earthly desires, and get a clear sight of that true reality, wherein you will rest in perfect security, as were in profound sleep.

PANTHEISM. or DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD AS FULL WITH THE SUPREME SOUL. Argument. - Elucidation of the same subject, and further Instruction to Ráma. Válmíki relates: - Hearing this discourse of the sage, Ráma remained sedate with the coma (sama) of his mind, his spirits were tranquil, and his soul was full of rapture. 2. The whole audience also that was present at the place, being all quiet, calm and silent (comatose-upasánta), the sage withheld his speech for fear of disturbing their spiritual repose: (which converted them to stock and stone). 3. The sage stopped from distilling the drops of his ambrosial speech any more, after the hearts of the audience were lulled to rest by their draughts, as the clouds cease to rain drops, having penetrated into the hearts of ripened grains. 4. As Ráma (with the rest of the assembly) came to be rose from their torpor after a while; the eloquent Vasishtha resumed his discourse in elucidation of his former lecture. (On spirituality). 5. Vasishtha said: - Ráma! you are now fully awakened to light, and have come to and obtained the knowledge of thyself; remain hence forward fixed to the only true object, wherein you must rely your faith, and never set your feet on the field of the false phenomenal world.

6. The wheel of the world is continually revolving round the centre of desire, put a peg to its axis, and it will stop from turning about its pole. 7. If you be slack to fasten the nave (nábhi) of your mind, by your manly efforts (purushártha; it will be hard for you to stop the wheel of the world, which runs faster as you slacken your mind.) 8. Exert your manly strength (courage), with the aid of your mental powers and wisdom, stop the motion of your heart, which is the centre of the wheeling course of the world. 9. Know, that everything is obtainable by means of manly exertion, joined with good sense and good nature, and assisted by a knowledge of the sástras; and whatever is not obtained by these, is to be had nowhere by any other. 10. Relinquish your reliance on destiny which is a coinage of puerile imagination; and by relying on your own exertions, govern your heart and mind for your lasting good. 11. The unsubstantial mind which appears as a substantiality, has had its rise since the creation of Brahmá; and taken a wrong and erroneous course of its own. (The human understanding is frail from first to beginning, it is a power, and no positive reality).

12. The unreal and erroneous mind, weaves and stretches out a lengthening web of its equally unreal and false conceptions, which it is led afterwards to mistake for the substantial world. 13. All these bodies that are seen to move about us, are the products of the fancies and fond desires of the mind; and though these frail and false bodies cease to exist forever, yet the mind and its wishes are imperishable; and either show themselves in their reproduction in various forms, or they become altogether extinct in their total absorption in the supreme spirit. (The doctrine of eternal ideas, is the source of their perpetual appearance in various forms about bodies). 14. The wise man must not understand the pain or pleasure of the soul from the physiognomy of man, that a sorrowful and weeping countenance is the indication of pain; and a clear (cheerful) and tearless face is the sign of pleasure. (Because it is the mind which moulds the face in any form it likes).

15. You see a man in two ways, the one with his body and the other in his representation in a picture or statues, of these the former kind is more frail than the latter; because the embodied man is beset by troubles and diseases in his fading and mouldering, decaying and dying body, whereby the other is not. (The frame of the living man, is frailer than his dead resemblance). 16. The fleshy body is assuredly doomed to die, notwithstanding all our efforts for its preservation; but a body in the portrait being taken good care of, lasts for ages with its undiminished beauty. 17. As the living body is sure to die in despite of all your care for it, the pictured body must be deemed far better, than the false and fancied fleshy body, produced by will of the mind (sankalpa deha). 18. The quality and stability which abide in a pictured body, are not to be found in the body of the mind; wherefore the living body of flesh, is more insignificant than its semblance in a picture or statue.

19. Think now, O sinless Ráma, what reliance is there in this body of flesh; which is a production of your long fostered desire, and a creature of your brain (Your mind makes it seem as such). 20. This body of flesh is more contemptible than those ideal forms, which our dreams and desires produce in our sleeping and waking states; because the creature of a momentary desire, is never attended with a long or lasting happiness or misery. (Because the products of the variable will, are of short duration, and so are their pains and pleasures also). 21. The bodies that are produced by our long desire, continue for a longer time, and are subjected to a longer series of miseries in this world. (So it is said, a "long life is a long term of woes and calamities"). 22. The body is a creature of our fancy, and is neither a reality or unreality in itself; and yet are the ignorant people fondly attached to it, for the prolongation of their misery only.

23. As the destruction of the portrait of a man, does no harm to his person; and as the loss of a fancied city is no loss to the city, so the loss of the much desired body of any one, is no loss to his personality in any wise. 24. Again as the dis-appearance of the secondary moon (halo), is no deprivation of the primary satellite (moon), and as the evanescence of the visionary world, is no annihilation of the external world. (So there is no loss of the soul, as the loss of the shadow, is no loss of the substance). 25. As the dis-appearance of water in the sunny banks of rivers, is no deprivation of the river's water; so the creations of fancy which are not negative in their nature, cannot be destructive of what is positive, nor any damage done to the machine of the body, can ever injure the dis-embodied soul. 26. The body is a piece of work wrought by the architect of the mind, in its dreaming somnambulation over the sleeping world; wherefore its decoration or disfigurement, is of no essential advantage or dis-advantage to inward soul.

27. There is no end of the Intellect in its extent, nor any motion of the soul from its place; there is no change in the Divine spirit of Brahma, nor do any of these decay with the decline of the body. 28. As the inner and smaller wheel, makes the outer and larger wheel to turn about it, so the inner annulus of the mind, sees in its delirium spheres over spheres revolving in empty air. 29. The mind views by its primitive and causeless error, the constant rotation of bodies both in the inside and out side of it; and some as moving forward and others as falling down, and many as dropped below. 30. Seeing the rise and fall of these rotatory bodies, the wise man must rely on the firmness of his mind, and not himself to be led away by these rotations in repeated succession. 31. Fancy forms the body and it is error that makes the unreal appear as real; but the formation of fancy, and the fabrications of untruth, cannot have any truth or reality in them.

32. The unreal body appearing as real, is like the appearance of a snake in a rope; and so are all the affairs of the world quite untrue and false, and appearing as true for the time being. 33. Whatever is done by an insensible being, is never accounted as its action (or doing); hence all what is done by the senseless bodies (of man), is not recounted as done by it. (But by the impulse of the actuating mind). 34. It is the will which is the active agent of its actions, and this being so, neither the inactive body nor the unchanging soul is the actor of any action. (The soul being the witness of the bodily actions done by the impelling mind. gloss). 35. The inert body being without any effort, is never the doer of any act, which is desired by its presiding soul; it is only a viewer of the soul, which witnesses it also. (The body is attendant or dependant to the soul, as the other is a resident in it, they are both devoid of action, and unstained by those done by the will of the mind).

36. As the lamp burns unshaken and with its unflickering flame, in the breathless air and in itself only; so doth the silent and steady soul dwell as a witness, in all things and of all acts existing and going on in the world. (So doth the human soul abide and inflame itself in the body, unless it is shaken and moved by the airy mind). 37. As the celestial and luminous orb of the day, regulates the daily works of the living world from his seat on high, so do you, O Ráma, administer the affairs of thy state from thy elevated seat on the royal throne. 38. The knowledge of one's entity or egoism, in the unsubstantial abode of his body, is like the sight of a spirit by boys in the empty space of a house or in empty air. (The substantiality of the unsubstantial body, is as false as the corporeality of an incorporeal spirit). 39. Whence comes this unsubstantial egoism in the manner of an inane ghost, and takes possession of the inner body under the name of the mind, is what the learned are at a loss to explain.

40. Never enslave yourself, O wise Ráma! to this spectre of your egoism, which like the ignis fatuus leads you with limbo lake or bog of hell. (The sense of one's personality is the cause of his responsibility). 41. The mad and giddy mind, accompanied with its capricious desires and whims, plays its foolish pranks in its abode of the body, like a hideous demon dancing in a dreary desert. 42. The demoniac mind having made its way, into the hollow heart of the human body; plays its fantastic parts in so odd a manner, that wise men shut their eyes against the sight, and sit in their silent contemplation of the secluded soul. (It is good to fly from the fields, where fools make a prominent figure). 43. After the demon of the mind, is driven out of the abode of the body, there is no more any fear for any one to dwell in it in peace; as no body is afraid of living in a deserted and desolate city. 44. It is astonishing that men should place any reliance in their bodies, and consider them as their own, when they had had thousands of such bodies in their repeated births before, and when they were invariably infested by the demon of the mind.

45. They that die in the grasp and under the clutches of the cannibal of the mind, have their minds like those of the pisácha cannibals in their future births, and never of any other kind of being. (The will ever accompanies a man, in all his future states). 46. The body which is taken possession of by the demon of egoism, is being consumed by the burning fires of the triple afflictions; occurring from local, natural and accidental evils, and is not to be relied upon as a safe and lasting abode of any body. 47. Do you therefore desist to dance your attendance on, and follow the dictates of your egoism (or selfishness). Be of an extended and elevated mind, and by forgetting your egotism in your magnanimity, rely only on the supreme spirit. 48. Those hellish people that are seized and possessed by the devils of Egotism, are blinded in their self-delusion and giddiness; and are unbefriended by their fellows and friends, as they are unfriendly to others in this world. (Egotism is explained in its double sense of selfishness and pride, both of which are hated and shunned by men as they hate and shun others).

49. Whatever action is done by one bewitched by egoism in his mind, the same grows up as a poisonous plant, and produces the fatal fruit of death. (The fruits are mutual quarrels, enmity and the like). 50. The ignorant man that is elated by his egoistic pride, is lost both to his reason and patience; and one who is attached to the former by his neglect of the latter, is to be known as approaching fast to his perdition. (Pride goes before destruction). 51. The simpleton that is seized by the devil of Egoism, is made as fuel to the fire of hell (where he is doomed to burn with ceaseless torment). 52. When the snake of Egoism hisses hard in the hollow heart of the tree of the body, it is sure to be cut down by the inexorable hand of death, who fells the noxious tree like a wood cutter to the ground. 53. O Ráma! that are the greatest among the great, never look at the demon of egoism, whether it may reside in your body or not; because the very look of it, is sure to delude any one.

54. If you disregard deride or drive away the demon of egoism, from the recess of your mind, there is no damage or danger, that it can ever bring upon you in any wise. 55. Ráma! what though the demon of Egoism, may play all its freaks in its abode of the body, it can in no way affect the soul which is quite aloof of it. (Egoism contaminates the mind, and cannot touch the soul that contemns it). 56. Egoism brings a great many evils, upon them that have their minds vitiated by its influence, and it requires hundreds of years, to count and recount their baneful effects. 57. Know Ráma, that it is the despotic power of egoism, that makes men to groan under its thraldom, and incessantly uttering the piteous exclamations, "Oh! we are dying and burning and such other bitter cries." 58. The soul is ubiquitous and free to rove every where, without its having any connection with the ego of any body; just as the ubiquity of the all pervading sky, is unconnected with every thing in the world.

59. Whatever is done or taken in by the body, in its connection with the airy thread of life; know Ráma, all this to be the doing of egoism, which empties and impels the body to all its various actions. 60. Know thus quiescent soul impels also, to be the cause of all the exertions of the mind or mental operations, as the inactive vacuum is the material cause of the growth of trees. (i.e. the circumambient air affords room for the expansion of the plant). 61. It is owing to the presence of the soul, that the mind developes itself in the form of the body and all its members; as it is the presence of the light, that makes the room display its contained objects to sight. (The soul is the light of the mind - nous the container of infinite ideas). 62. Think now Ráma, on the relation between the ever unconnected soul and mind, to resemble the irrelation subsisting between the dis-connected earth and sky, and betwixt light and darkness and betwixt the intellect and gross bodies.

63. Those that are ignorant of the soul, view the quiet mind as such, after its motion and fluctuation are stopped by the restraint of respiration - Pránáyáma. (This is the doctrine of the Sánkhya and Buddhist, that view the becalmed and quiescent mind as the soul). 64. But the soul is self-luminous and ever lasting, omnipresent and super-eminent, while the mind is deceptive and egoism. It is situated in the heart with too much of its pride and vanity. 65. You are in reality the all-knowing soul, and not the ignorant and deluded mind; therefore drive afar your delusive mind from the seat of the soul, as they can never meet nor agree together. 66. Ráma! the mind has also like a demon, taken possession of the empty house of the body, and has like an evil spirit, silenced and overpowered upon the intangible soul in it. 67. Whatever thou art, remain but quiet in thyself, by driving away the demon of thy mind from thee; because it robs thee of thy best treasure of patience, and loads all kinds of evils upon thee. (i.e. the impatient mind is the source of all evil).

68. The man that is seized by the voracious yaksha of his own mind, has no change of his release from his grasp, either by the lessons of the sástras or by the advice of his friends, relatives and preceptors. (Greediness devours the greedy that desire to glut all things). 69. The man who has appeased the demon of his mind, is capable of being released from its clutches, by means of the dictates of sástras, and the admonitions of his friends, as it is possible to liberate a deer from a shallow quagmire. 70. All things that are seen to be stored in this vacant city, of the vacuous world, are all of them polluted by the lickerishness of the mind, licking at them from inside the house of its body. 71. Say who is not afraid in this dreary wilderness of the world, which is infested in every corner of it by the demoniac mind. (The rapacity of the ambitious, converts the fair creation to a scene of horror). 72. There are some wise men in this city of the world, who enjoy the abodes of their bodies in peace, having tranquilized the demon of their minds in them. (A peaceful mind makes a peaceful abode).

73. Ráma! All the countries that we hear of in any part of the world, are found to be full of senseless bodies, in which the giddy demon of delusion are Raving (and Ranging) as the sepulchral grounds. (The bodies of ignorant people, are as sepulchres of dead bodies. gloss). 74. Let people rely on their patience, and redeem their souls by their own exertions; which are otherwise seen to be wandering about in the forest of this world, like lost and stray boys: (that know not how to return to their homes). 75. Men are wandering in this world, as herds of stags are roving in burning deserts; but take care Ráma, never to live contented with a grazing on the sapless grass, like a young and helpless deer. 76. Foolish men are seen to graze as young stags, in their pastures amidst the wilderness of this world; but you Ráma must stir yourself to kill the great Elephant of Ignorance, and pursue the leonine course of subduing every thing in your way. 77. Do not allow yourself, O Ráma, to ramble about like other men, who wander like senseless beasts in their native forests of the Jambudwípa.

78. Do not plunge yourself like the foolish buffets, in the bog of your relatives and friends; it appears to you as a cold bath for a while, but daubs you with its mud and mire afterwards. (The circle of relatives may appear as a limpid lake at first; but dive in it, and you will be daubed with its dirt afterwards). 79. Drive afar your desire of bodily enjoyments from you, and follow the steps of respectable men; and having well considered thy sole object of the soul (from the great sayings of the sástras), attend to thyself or soul only. (Consider the objective soul in thy subjective self). 80. It is not proper that you should plunge yourself, into a sea of intolerable cares and troubles, for the sake of your impure and frail body, which is but a trifle in comparison with the inestimable soul.

81. The body which is the production of one thing (i.e. the product of past deeds), and is possessed by another (i.e. the demon of egoism); which puts another one (i.e. the mind) to the pain of its supportance, and affords its enjoyment to a fourth one (i.e. the living soul), as a complicate machinery of many powers to the ignorant. (The human frame is a mechanism of the body and mind, its egoism and living principle). 82. As solidity is the only property of the stone, so the soul has the single property of its entity alone; and its existence being common in all objects, it is impossible for any thing else to subsist beside it. (The soul being the only ens, it is of its nature the all in all; the minds etc. being but its attributes). 83. As thickness is the property of stone, so are the mind and others but properties of the soul; and there being nothing which is distinct from the common entity of the soul, it is impossible for any thing to have a separate existence. 84. As density relates to the stone, and dimension bears its relation to the pot; so the mind and other are not distinct from one common existence of the soul: (which pervades and constitutes the whole).

85. Hear now of another view of spiritual light, for dispelling the darkness of delusion; as it was revealed to me of yore, in a cavern of mount Kailása. (The former seat of my devotion). 86. There is a mountain peak, bright as the collected mass of moon-beams, and penetrating the vault of heaven, where the god with the semi-circular moon on his fore-head, delivered this doctrine to me for appeasing the miseries of the world. 87. This mountain peak is famed by the name of Kailása, on which the god Hara - the consort of Gouri, wearing the crescent moon on his head, holds his residence. 88. It was to worship this great god, that I had once dwelt on that mountain long ago; and constructed my hermit-cell on the bank of the holy stream of Ganges. (Which ran down by its side). 89. I remained there in the practice of ascetic austereties, for the performance of my holy devotion; and was beset by bodies of adepts, dis-coursing on subjects of the sacred sástras. 90. I made baskets for filling them with flowers for my worship, and for keeping the collection of my books in them; and was employed in such other sacred tasks, in the forest groves of the Kailása mountain.

91. While thus I had been passing my time, in discharging the austereties of my devotion; it happened to turn out once on the eighth day of the dark side of the moon of the month of srávana. 92. And after its evening twilight was over, and the sun light had faded in the face of the four quarters of the sky, that all objects became invisible to sight, and stood rapt in their saint like silence. 93. It was then after half of the first watch of the night had fled away, there spread a thick darkness over the groves and wood lands, and required a sharp sword to sever it. (Asich' hedyá tami-srá-tenebra ensis encesibelia). 94. My intense meditation was broken at this instant, and my trance gave way to the sight of outward objects, which I kept looking upon for sometime; when I observed a flaming fire suddenly rising in the forest to my view. 95. It was as bright as a big white cloud, and as brilliant as the shining orb of the moon; It illumed the groves on all sides, and struck with amazement at the vision.

96. As I viewed it by the sight of my understanding, or the mental vision which was glowing in my mind; I came to see the god Siva with the crescent of the moon on his fore-head, standing on the table land and manifest to view. 97. With his hand clasping the hand of Gaurí, he was led on ward by his brace attendant Nandí walking before him; when I after informing my pupils about it, proceeded forward with the due honorarium in my hand. 98. Led by the sight, I came to the presence of the god with a gladsome mind; and then I offered handfuls of flowers to the three eyed-god from a distance, in token of my reverence to him. 99. After giving the honor (Arghya), which was worthy of him, I bowed down before the god, and accosted him; when he cast his kind look upon me, from his moon-bright and clear sighted eyes. 100. Being blest by his benign look, which took away all my pain and sin from me; I did my homage to the god that was seated on the flowery level land, and viewed the three worlds lying open before him.

101. Then advancing forward, I offered unto him the honorarium, flowers and water that I had with me, and scattered before him heaps of mandára flowers, that grew there abouts. 102. I then worshipped the god with repeated obeisances and various eulogiums; and next adored the goddess Gaurí with the same kind of homage together with her attendant goddesses and demigods. 103. After my adoration was over, the god having the crescent moon on his head, spoke to me that was seated by him, with his speech as mild as the cooling beams of the full-moon. 104. Say O Bráhman, whether thy affections are at peace within thyself, and have found their rest in supreme spirit, and whether your felicitous feelings are settled in the true object of divine essence. 105. Whether your devotion is spading unobstructed by the demons of your passions, and whether felicity attends on you. 106. Have you obtained the obtainable one, that is alone to be obtained, and are you set above the fears, that incessantly hunt after all mankind? 107. After the Lord of gods and the sole cause of all created beings, had spoken in this manner; I replied to him submissively in the following words.

108. O Lord! there is nothing unattainable, nor is there anything to be feared by any one, who remembers the three eyed god at all times in his mind; and whose hearts are filled with rapture by their constant remembrance of thee. 109. There is no one in the womb of this world, in any country or quarter, or in the mountains or forests, that does not bow down his head before thee. 110. Those whose minds are entirely devoted to their remembrance of thee, get the rewards of the meritorious acts of their past lives; and water the trees of their present lives, in order to produce their manifold fruit in future births and lives. 111. Lord! thy remembrance expands the seed of our desire, thou art the jar of the nectar of our knowledge, and thou art the reservoir of patience, as the moon is the receptacle of cooling beams. 112. Thy remembrance, Lord! is the gate way to the city of salvation, and it is thy remembrance which I deem as the invaluable gem of my thoughts. 113. O Lord of creation! thy remembrance sets its foot on the head of all our calamities (i.e. tramples over them). (Because Siva is called Sankara for his doing good to all, by removal of their misfortunes).

114. I said thus far, and then bowing down lowly before the complacent deity, I addressed him, O Ráma, in the manner as you shall hear from me. 115. Lord! it is by thy favour that I have the fulness of my heart's content on every side; yet as there is one doubt lurking in my mind, I will request thee to explain it fully to me. 116. Say with your clear understanding, and without hesitation and weariness, regarding the manner of the adoration of gods, which removes all our sins and confers all good unto us. (The query was quite appropriate as the Tantras of Siva treat principally of such formularies). 117. The god replied: - Hear me, O Brahman, that art best acquainted with the knowledge of Brahma; tell you about the best mode of worshipping the gods, and the performance of which is sure to set the worshipper free. (From the bonds of the world all at once). 118. Tell me first, O great armed Brahman, if you know at all who is that god, whom you make the object of your worship, if it be not the lotus-eyed Vishnu or the three-eyed Siva neither.

119. It is not the god born of the lotus Brahmá, nor he who is the lord of the thirteen classes of god - the great Indra himself; it is not the god of winds - Pavana, nor the god of fire, nor the regents of the sun and moon. 120. The Brahman (called an earthly god bhudeva) is no god at all, nor the king called the shadow of god, is any god likewise, neither I or thou - the ego and tu (or the subjective self and objective unself) are gods; nor the body or any embodied being, or the mind or any conception or creation of the mind is the true god also. 121. Neither Laxmí the goddess of fortune, nor Sarasvatí the goddess of intelligence are true goddesses, nor is there any one that may be called a god, except the one unfictitious god, who is without beginning and end, that is the true god. (The Viswasaratantra of Siva treats of the one infinite and eternal God). 122. How can a body measured by a form and its dimensions, or having a definite measure be the immeasurable deity! it is the inartificial and unlimited Intellect, that is known as the Siva or the felicitous one.

123. It is that which is meant by the word God - Deva - Deus, and that is the object of adoration; that is the only ens or on, est or Esteor Esten, out of which all other beings have proceeded, and in which they have their existence, and wherein they subsist with their formal parts. 124. Those unacquainted with the true nature of the felicitous Siva, worship the formal idols and images; as a weary traveller thinks the distance of a mile, to be as long as the length of a league. 125. It is possible to have the reward of one's adoration of the Rudras and other gods; but the reward of the meditation of the true God, is the unbounded felicity of the soul. 126. He who forsakes the reward of true felicity, for that of fictitious pleasures; is like one who quits a garden of mandara flower, and repairs to a furze of thorny karanja plants. 127. The true worshippers know the purely intellectual and felicitous Siva, to be the only adorable god; to whom the understanding and tranquillity and equanimity of the soul are, the most acceptable offerings than wreaths of flowers.

128. Know that to be the true worship of God, when the Deity of the spirit (or spiritual Divinity), is worshipped with the flowers of the understanding and tranquillity of the spirit. (Worship God in spirit and with the contriteness of thy spirit). 129. The soul is of the form of consciousness (and is to be worshipped as such), by forsaking the adoration of idols; Those that are devoted to any form of fictitious cult, are subject to endless misery. 130. Those knowing the knowable one are called as saints; but those who slighting the meditation of the soul, betake themselves to the adoration of idols, are said to liken little boys playing with their dolls. 131. The Lord Siva is the spiritual god, and the supreme cause of all; He is to be worshipped always and without fail, with the understanding only. (So the sruti: The vipras adore him in their knowledge, but others worship him with sacrifices &c.) 132. You should know the soul as the intellectual and living spirit, undecaying as the very nature herself; there is no other that is to be worshipped, the true puja is the worship of the spirit. (God is to be worshipped in spirit only).

133. Vasishtha said: - The soul being of the nature of intellectual void, as this world is an empty void also; please tell me, my lord, how the Intellect could become the living soul etc., as you have declared. 134. The god replied: - There being an only vacuous Intellect in existence, which is beyond all limit; it is impossible for an intelligible object to exist anywhere which may continue to all eternity. (The subjective only is self-existent, and the objective is a nullity; it being impossible for two self-existent things to co-exist together). 135. That which shines of itself, is the self-shining Being; and it is the self or spontaneous agitation of that Being, which has stretched out the universe. 136. Thus the world appears as a city in dream before the intellectual soul, and this soul is only a form of the inane intellect, and this world is but a baseless fabric. 137. It is altogether impossible for aught of the thinkables and visibles, to exist anywhere except in the empty sphere of the intellect, and whatever shone forth in the beginning in the plenitude of the Divine intellect, the same is called its creation or the world from the first.

138. Therefore this world which shows itself in the form of a fairy land in dream, is only an appearance in the empty sphere of the intellect; and cannot be any other in reality. 139. The Intellect is the human speech, and the firmament that supports the world; the intellect becomes the soul and the living principle, and it is this which forms the chain of created beings. (The seeming appearances being null and void; the Intellect is all and everything). 140. Tell me, what other thing is there that could know all things in the beginning and before creation of the universe, except it were the Intellect which saw and exhibited everything, in heaven and earth as contained in itself. 141. The words sky, firmament, and the vacuum of Brahma and the world, are all applicable to the Intellect, as the words arbour and tree are but synonymous expressions for the same thing. 142. And as both our dreams and desires arise in us by our delusion, so it is our illusion only which makes us perceive the existence of the outer world; in the empty space of the intellect.

143. And as it is our empty consciousness, that shows the sight of the external world in our dream; so it is that very thing that shows us the same, in the waking dream of ourselves. 144. As it is not possible for the city in a dream, to be represented any where except in the hollow space of our intellect; so it is impossible for the waking dream of the world, to be shown elsewhere except in the emptiness of the same. 145. As it is not possible for any thing that is thinkable to exist any where except in the thinking mind, so it is impossible for this thinkable world to exist any other place beside the divine mind. 146. The triple world rose of itself at the will and in the empty space of the supreme Intellect, as it was a dream rising and setting in the self same mind, and not as any thing other than it, or a duality beside itself. 147. As one sees the diverse appearances of ghatas and patas, pots and painting in his dream, and all lying within the hollowness of his mind; so the world appears of itself, in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect, at the beginning of creation.

147_a_. As there is no substantiality of anything in the fairy land of one's dream, except his pure consciousness of the objects; so there is no substantiality of the things which are seen in this triple world, except our consciousness of them. 148. What ever is visible to sight, and all that is existent and inexistent, in the three times of the present, past and future; and all space, time and mind, are no other than appearances of vacuous intellect (of Brahma). 149. He is verily the god of whom I have told you, who is supreme in the highest degree (lit. in its transcendental sense). Who is all and unbounded and includes me, thee and the endless world in Himself. 150. The bodies of all created beings, of thine, mine, and others, and of all in this world, are all full with the intellectuality of the supreme soul and no other. 151. As there is nothing, O sage, except the bodies that are produced from the vacuous intellect or intellectual vacuity of Brahma, and resembling the images produced in the fairy land of one's dream; so there is no form or figure in this world, other than what was made in the beginning of creation.

INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE INTELLECT. Argument. - Description of the Pervasion and Supervision of the Intellect; and its transformation into the mind in living beings. Or Intellect as universal soul and mind of living beings. The god said: - Thus the Intellect is all this plenum, it is the sole supreme soul (of all); it is Brahma the Immense and the transcendent vacuum, and it said to be the supreme god. 2. Therefore its worship is of the greatest good, and confers all blessings to men; it is source of creation, and all this world is situated on it. (The Divine Mind or omniscience). 3. It is unmade and increate, and without its beginning and end; it is boundless and without a second, it is to be served without external service (i.e. by spiritual adoration), and all felicity is obtained thereby. (Hence Solomon's choice of Wisdom). 4. You are enlightened, O chief of sages! and there I tell you this; that the worship of gods is not worthy to the wise, and offering of flowers and frankincense is of no use to them. 5. Those who are unlearned, and have their minds as simple as those of boys; are the persons that are mostly addicted to false worship, and devoted to the adoration of gods.

6. These being devoid of the quietness of their understandings, are led to ceremonious observances, and to the false attribution of a soul, to the images of their own making. 7. It is for boys only to remain contented with their act of offering flowers and incense to gods, whom they honour in the modes of worship, which they have adopted of their own hobby-choice. 8. It is in vain that men worship the gods for gaining the objects of their desire, for nothing that is false of itself; can ever give the required fruit. 9. Adoration with flowers and incense, is inculcated to childish understandings (and not for the wise). I will tell you now, the worship that is worthy of men enlightened like yourself. 10. Know, O most intelligent sage, that the god whom we adore is the true god, who is the receptacle of the three worlds, the supreme spirit and no other.

11. He is Siva - the felicity, who is above the ranks of all other gods, and beyond all fictions and fictitious images of men; He is accompanied with all desires (will or volition), and is neither the enjoyer of all or any part of the production of his will. He is full with the imaginations of all things, but is neither the all or any one of the objects in his mind. 12. He encompasses all space and time, and is neither divided nor circumscribed by either of them. He is the manifester of all events and things, and is nothing except the image of pure Intellect Himself. 13. He is consciousness without parts, and situated in the heart of every thing. He is the producer of every thing, and their absorber also in himself. 14. Know Brahma to be situated between existence and inexistence and it is He who styled the God, the supreme soul, the transcendental, the Tat sat - Id Est, and the syllable Om - on or ens. 15. By his nature of immensity, he spreads alike in all space, and being the great Intellect himself, he is said to be transcendent and supreme being.

16. He remains as all in all places, as the sap circulates through the bodies of plants; thus the great soul of the supreme being, extends alike as the common entity of all things. 17. It is He who abides in the heart of your spouse Arundhatí as in yours, the same also dwells in the heart of Párvatí as in those of her attendants. 18. That intellection which is one and in every one in all the three worlds is verily the god, by the best knowing among philosophers: (that god is the universal mind). 19. Tell me O Brahman! how they may be called as gods, who having their hands and feet, are yet devoid of their consciousness; which is the pith of the body. (This is said of idols and images). 20. The Intellect is the pith and marrow of the world, and contains the sap which it supplies to every thing in it. It is the one and all - ego-sarvam and therefore all things are obtained from it. (The god Siva is also called the all to pan-sarva and Ego, that is I am the universal ego and giver of all gifts to all).

21. He is not situated at a distance, O Bráhman! nor is He unobtainable by any body; He resides always in all bodies, and abides alike in all places, as also in all empty space and sky. (This omnipresence of the divine spirit, sets aside the belief of a swarga-heaven or bihesht as the special seat of God). 22. He does, he eats, he supports all, and moves every where; He breathes and feels and knows every member of the body. (This is according to the sruti; He fills and directs every part of the body to the end of the nails-ánakhágrat. [Sanskrit: puryyámáste | sa eva pravishta ánakhágrebhyah]). 23. Know him, O chief of sages! to be seated in the city of the body; and directing the various functions that are manifest by it, under his direct appointment. 24. He is the lord of the cavity of the heart, and the several hidden sheaths - Koshas, which are contained within the cavity of the body; which is made by his moving abodes and moves as he pleases to move it. 25. The immaculate soul is beyond the essence and actions of the mind, and the six organs of sense; it is for our use and understanding only, the word chit - intellect is applied to him.

26. That intellectual spirit is too minute and subtile, immaculate and all-pervading; and it is his option and volition, to manifest this visible representation of himself or not. 27. This intellect is too fine and pure, and yet manages the whole machinery for beautifying the world, as the subtle and intelligent season of spring, beautifies the vegetable world with freshness and moisture. 28. The beautiful and wonderous properties that reside in the divine Intellect, are astonishing to behold in their display into the various form as the sky. 29. Some of these take the name of the living soul, and some others assume the title of the mind; some take the general name of space, and others are known as its parts and divisions. (These are but parts of one stupendous whole &c. Popes Moral Essays). 30. Some of these pass under the name of substance, and others of their action; and some under the different categories of mode and condition, genus, species and adjuncts. 31. Some of them shine as light, and others stand as mountains and hills; some brighten as the sun and moon and the gods above, and others are as the dark yakshas below.

32. All these continue in their own states, without any option on their parts; and they evolve of their own nature, and causation of the divine spirit, as the sprouts of trees grow of their own accord, under the influence of the vernal spring (season). 33. It is the intellect alone which extends over all the works of nature, and fills all bodies which overspread the vast ocean of the world, as the aquatic plants swim over the surface of waters. 34. The deluded mind wanders like a roving bee, and collects the sweets of its desire from the lotus of the body, and the intellect sitting as its Mistress, relishes their essence from within. (Spiritual substances can taste the essence of sweets. Milton). 35. The world with all the gods and gandharvas, and the seas and hills that are situated in it; rolls about in the circuit of the Intellect, as the waters whirl in a whirlpool. 36. Human minds resembling the spokes of a wheel, are bound to the axles of their worldly affairs; and turn about in the rotatory wheel of the ever revolving world, within the circumference of the Intellect.

37. It was the Intellect which in the form of the four-armed Vishnu, destroys the whole host of the demoniac asuras; as the rainy season dispels the solar heat, with its thundering clouds and rainbows. 38. It is the Intellect, which in the form of the three-eyed Siva, accompanied by his ensigns of the bull and the crescent of the moon, continues to dote like a fond bee, on the lotus-like lovely face of Gaurí (his consort). 39. It was the intellect which was born as a bee in the lotus-like navel of Vishnu in the form of Brahmá, and was settled in his meditation upon the lotus of the triple vedas; (revealed to the sage afterwards). 40. In this manner the Intellect appears in various forms, like the unnumbered leaves of trees, and the different kind of ornaments made of the same metal of gold. 41. The Intellect assumes of its own pleasure, the paramount dignity of Indra; who is the crown jewel over the three worlds, and whose feet are honoured by the whole body of gods. 42. The Intellect expands, rises and falls, and circulates everywhere in the womb of the triple world; as the waters of the deep overflow and recede and move about in itself.

43. The full moon beams of intellect, scatter their widespread brightness on all sides; and display to the full view the lotus lake of all created beings in the world. 44. The translucent brightness of the mirror of the Intellect, shows the reflexions of the world in it, and receives benignantly the images of all things in its bosom; as if it were pregnant with them. 45. The Intellect gives existence to the circles of the fourteen great regions (of creation) above and below; and it plants them in the watery expanse of the sea on earth, and in the etherial expanse of the waters in heaven. (The fourteen regions are the seven continents - sapta dwípas, beset by the seven watery oceans, sapta-samudras on earth; and the seven planets revolving in the etherial ocean of the skies. Manu says the god Brahmá planted his seed in the waters; and the Bible says - God divided the waters above from the waters below by the midway sky). 46. Intellect spreads itself like a creeper in the vacuous field of air, and became fruitful with multitudes of created beings; it blossomed in the variety of the different peoples; and shooted forth in the leaves of its dense desires.

47. These throngs of living beings are its farina flying about, and their desires are as the juice which gives them their different colours; their understandings are their covering cuticles and the efforts of their minds are buds that unfold with flowers and fruits of their desire. 48. The lightsome pistils of these florets are countless in the three worlds, and their incessant undulation in the air, expressed their gaysome dance with the sweet smiling of the opening buds. 49. It is the Intellect which stretches out all these real and unreal bodies, which expand like the gentle and good looking flowers for a time, but never endure for ever. (The body like a fading flower is soon blown away.) 50. It produces men like moon bright flowers in all places, and these flush and blush, and sing and dance about, deeming themselves as real bodies. 51. It is by the power of this great Intellect, that the sun and other luminous bodies shining over the sky as the two bodies in a couple, are attracted to one another to taste the fruit of their enjoyment as that of gross bodies.

52. All other visible bodies that are seen to move about in this phenomenal world, are as flakes of dust dancing about on eddy. (i.e. All things move about and tend towards their central point the Intellect). 53. The Intellect is like a luminary of the universe, and manifests unto us all the phenomena of the three worlds, as the flame of a lamp shows us the various colours of things: (which are reflected by light on dark and opaque matter). 54. All worldly things exhibit their beauty to our sight, by their being immerged in the light of the Intellect, as the dark spot on the disk of the moon, becomes fully apparent to view by its immersion in the lunar beams. (The black spot on the moon's surface, becomes white by the brightness of the moon-beams, so the dark world becomes illumined by the presence of the Intellect in it). 55. It is by receiving the gilding of the Intellect, that all material bodies are tinctured in their various hues; as the different trees receive their freshness, foliage and fruitage from the influence of the rainy weather.

56. It is the shadow (or absence of intellect), which causes the dullness of an object; and all bodies are inanimate without it, as a house becomes dark in absence of light or a lamp. (Intellect gives life to dull matter). 57. The wondrous powers of the intellect (which gives a shape and form to every thing), are wanting in any thing; it becomes a shapeless thing, and cannot possibly have any form or figure in the world, over its dull materiality. (Even inanimate nature of all forms and kinds, receives its figure from the power of intellect). 58. The intellect is as the skylight, wherein its active power or energy resembling its consort, resides with her offspring of desire in the abode of the body, and is ever restless and busy in her actions. (This active power is personified as the goddess sakti or Energy, and her offspring-desire is the personification of Brahmá). 59. Without the presence of the Intellect, it is no way possible for any one to perceive the taste of any flavour though it is set on the tip of his tongue, or see it with his eyes? (Intellect is the cause of all perception).

60. Hear me and say, how can this arboretum of the body subsist, with its branching arms and hairy filaments, without being supplied with the sap of the intellect. 61. Know hence the intellect to be the cause of all moving and immovable things in nature, by its growing and feeding and supporting them all; and know also that the intellect is the only thing in existence, and all else is inexistent without it. 62. Vasishtha said: - Ráma! after the moon-bright and three-eyed god had spoken to me in his perspicuous speech, I interrogated again the moon-bright god in a clear and audible voice and said. 63. O lord! If the intellect alone is all pervading and the soul of all, then I have not yet been able to know this visible earth in its true light. 64. Say why is it that people call a living person, to be endowed with intellect so long as he is alive, and why they say him to be devoid of intellect, when he is layed down as a dead and lifeless mass. 65. The god replied - Hear me tell you all: O Brahman, about what you have asked me; it is a question of great importance, and requires, O greatest of theists! a long explication.

66. The intellect resides in every body, as also in all things as their inherent soul; the one is viewed (by shallow understandings) as the individual and active spirit, and the other is known (to comprehensive mind) as unchanging and universal soul. 67. The mind that is misled by its desires, views the inward spirit as another or the living soul, as the cupidinous person takes his (or her) consort for another, in the state of sleep or dreaming. (The unsettled mind takes every individual soul for the universal one). 68. And as the same man seems to be changed to another, during his fit of anger; so the sober intellect is transformed to a changeable spirit, by one's mistake of its true nature. (The nirvi kalpa or immutable spirit, is changed to a savi kalpa or mutable one). 69. The intellect being attributed with many variable qualities and desires, is made to lose its state of purity; and by thinking constantly of its gross nature, it is at last converted to the very gross object of thought.

70. Then the subjective intellect chit, becomes itself the chetya or object of thought, and having assumed the subtile form of a minute etherial atom, becomes the element of sound; and is afterwards transformed to the rudimental particle of air vata tan mátra. 71. This aerial particle then bearing relation to the parts of time and place, becomes the vital principle (as existing some where for a certain period of time); which next turns to the understanding and finally to the mind. 72. The intellect being thus transformed into the mind, dwells on its thoughts of the world, and is then amalgamated with it, in the same manner as a Brahman is changed to chandala, by constantly thinking himself as such. (Thus this creation is a display of the divine mind and identic with it). 73. Thus the divine Intellect forgets its universality by its thoughts of particulars; and assumes the gross forms of the objects of its thoughts and desires. (Hence we say a man to be of such and such a mind, according to the thought or desire that he entertains in it, i.e. the whole being taken for a part and the part for the whole).

74. The Intellect being thus replete with its endless thoughts and desires, grows as dull as the gross objects it dwells upon; till at last the subtile intellect grows as stony dull, as the pure water is converted to massive stones and hails. 75. So the stolid intellect takes the names of the mind and sense, and becomes subject to ignorance and illusion; by contracting a gross stolidity restrained from its flight upwards, and have to grovel forever in the regions of sense. 76. Being subjected to ignorance at first, it is fast bound to the fetters of its cupidity afterwards, and then being pinched by its hankerings and angry frettings, it is tormented alike by the pleasure of affluence and the pains of penury. 77. By forsaking the endless felicity (of spirituality), it is subjected to the incessant vicissitudes of mortality, it now sets dejected in despair, and lamenting over its griefs and sorrow, and then burns amidst the conflagration of its woes and misery. 78. See how it is harassed with the vain thought of its personality - that I am such a one; and look at the miseries to which it is exposed, by its reliance on the frail and false body.

79. See how it is worried by its being hushed to and fro, in the alternate swinging beds of prosperity and adversity; and see how it is plunged in the deep and muddy puddle of misery, like a worn out elephant sinking in the mire. 80. Look at this deep and unfordable ocean of the world, all hollow within and rolling with the eventful waves of casualties; it emits the submarine fire from within its bosom, as the human heart flashes forth with its hidden fire of passions and affections. 81. Human heart staggers between hope and fear, like a stray deer in the forest; and is alternately cheered and depressed at the prospects of affluence and want. 82. The mind that is led by its desire, is always apprehensive of disappointment; and it coils back for fear of a reverse, as a timorous girl flies afar from the sight of a spectre. 83. Man encounters all pains for a certain pleasure in prospect, as the camel browses the thorny furze in expectation of honey at a honey comb in it; but happening to slip from his intermediate standpoint, he is hurled headlong to the bottom.

84. One meeting with a reverse falls from one danger to another; and so he meets with fresh calamities, as if one evil invited or was the harbinger of the other. 85. The mind that is captivated by its desires, and led onward by its exertions, meets with one difficulty after another, and has cause to repent and grieve at every step (or is the cause of remorse and grief). (All toil and moil, tend to the vexation of the spirit). 86. As a man advances in life, so he improves in his learning; but alas! all his worldly knowledge serves at best, but to bind down the soul fast to the earth. 87. Cowards are in constant fear of everything, until they die away in their fear; as the little shrimp being afraid of the waterfall, falls on dry land, and there perishes with flouncing. 88. The helplessness of childhood, the anxieties of manhood, the miserableness of old age; are preliminaries to the sad demise of men engaged in busy life. (The last catastrophe of human life). 89. The propensities of past life cause some to be born as celestial nymphs in heaven, and others as venomous serpents in subterranean cells; while some become as fierce demons, and many are reborn as men and women on earth.

90. The past actions of men make to be born again as Rákshas among savages, and others as monkeys in forests; while some become as Kinnaras on mountains, and many as lions on mountain tops. (All these are depraved races of men viz; the anthropophagi cannibals, the pigmy apes - banars, the ugly mountaneers Kinnaras and the leonine men narasinhas). 91. The Vidyádharas of the Devagiri mountains, and the Nagas of the forest caves (are degenerations of men); and so are the fowls of air, the quadrupeds of wood lands, the trees and plants of forests, and the bushes on hills and orchides on trees; (are all but transformation of the perverted intellect). 92. It is self same intellect which causes Náráyana to float on the surface of the sea, and makes the lotus born Brahmá to remain in his meditation; It keeps Hara in the company of his consort Uma, and places Hari over the gods in heaven. 93. It is this which makes the sun to make the day and the clouds to give the rain (or pour in rains); It makes the sea to breathe out in waves, and the volcanic mountains to blow out in fire and flame.

94. It makes the curricle of time to revolve continually in the circle of the seasons; and causes the day and night to rotate in their cycles of light and darkness. 95. Here it causes the seeds to vegetate with the juice contained in them; and there it makes the stones and minerals lie down in mute silence. 96. Some times it blooms in fruits ripened by the solar heat, and at others maturated by the burning fuel; some where it gives us the cold and icy water; and at others the spring water which cannot be lasted. 97. Here it glows in luminous bodies, and there it shows itself of impenetrable thickets and in accessible rocks; It shines as bright and white in one place, and is as dark and blue in another; It sparkles in the fire and dwindles in the earth, it blows in the air and spreads in the water. 98. Being the all-pervading, omnipresent and omnipotent power itself, it is the one in all and the whole plenum. It is therefore more subtile and transparent, than the rarefied and translucent air.

99. As the intellect spreads out and contracts itself, in any manner in any place or time; so it conceives and produces the same within and without itself, as the agitation of waters produces both the little billows and huge surges of the sea. (The intellect is the immanent cause of all phenomena). 100. The intellect stretches itself in the various forms of ducks and geese, of cranes and crows, of storks, wolves and horses also; it becomes the heron and partridge, the parrot, the dog, the stag, the ape and Kinnara likewise. 101. It is the abstract quality of the understanding, beauty and modesty, and of love and affections also; it is the power of illusion and the shadow and brightness of night and of moonlight likewise. 102. It stretches itself in these and all other forms of bodies, and is born and reborn in all kinds and species of things. It roves and rolls all about the revolving world, in the manner of a straw whirling in a whirlpool. 103. It is afraid of its own desires, as the she-ass is seen to shudder at its own brayings; and it has no one like itself. ([Sanskrit: mugva bálá-calá-valá]).

104. I have told you already, O great sage! how this principle of the living spirit, becomes vitiated by its animal propensities, and is afterwards debased to the nature and condition of brute creatures. 105. The supreme soul receiving the appellation of the living soul or principle of action, becomes a pitiable object, when it becomes subject to error and illusion, and is subjected to endless pains and miseries. 106. The deluded soul is then overpowered by its connate sin, which causes it to choose the wrong unreality - asat for itself, which being frail and perishable, makes the active soul to perish with itself. (This passage appears to allude to the original sin of man, which became the cause of the death and woes of human life. The connate sin is compared to the husk which is born with the rice, and not coming from without. It is otherwise called the inborn sinfulness or frailty of human nature - Man is to err &c.). 107. The soul being thus degraded from its state of endless felicity, to the miserable condition of mortal life, laments over its fallen state, as a widow wails over her fate.

108. Look on the deplorable condition of intellect - chit; which having forgotten its original state (of purity), is subjected to the impotent Ignorance, which has been casting it to the miseries of degradation, as they cast a bucket in the well by a string, which lowers it lower and lower till it sinks in the bottom of the pit. (This string araghatta is said to be the action of human life, which the more it is lengthened, the more it tends to our degradation, unless we prevent by our good action. So the sruti! [Sanskrit: yathákárí yatháchárí tathá bhalati | sághukárí sádhurbhabati | prápakárí papíbhavati | punyo bai punyema karmmana bhavati | pápah pápereti |]).

IDENTITY OF THE MIND AND LIVING SOUL. Argument - The pure Intellect shown to be without vitality; and the mind to consist in the vital power in connection with the sensations and external Perceptions. The god continued: - When the intellect collects (takes) the vanities of the world to itself (and relies on them) and thinks to be a miserable being; it is said to have fallen into error, (by forgetting the reality and its true nature); it then resembles a man that is deluded to think himself for another, in his dream or ebriety. (The living soul is forgetful of its spiritual nature). 2. Though immortal yet it is deceived to believe itself as mortal, by its infatuated understanding; as a sick man weeps to think himself dead when he is still alive. 3. As the ignorant man views the revolving spheres to be at a stand still, so the deluded intellect sees the world and thinks its personality as sober realities. 4. The mind alone is said to be the cause of the perception of the exterior world in the intellect; but the mind can be no such cause of it, from the impossibility of its separate existence independent of the intellect. (The intellect is the cause of guiding and informing the mind, and not this of that).

5. Thus there being no causality of the mind, there cannot be its causations of the thinkable world also. Therefore the intellect only is the cause of thought, and neither the mind nor the thinkable world (which produces or impresses the thought). The gloss says that, "the intellect whereby the mind thinks, is not the mind nor its dependant or the objective thinkable world; but it is the pure subjective self-same intellect only." 6. There is no spectacle, spectator (or sight of) of anything anywhere, unless it be a delusion, as that which appears oiliness in a stone; and there is no matter, making or work of any kind; unless it be a mistake like that of blackness in the moon. (The oily glossiness of the marble and the shade in the moon, are no other but the inherent properties of those things).

7. The terms measure, measurer, and measurable are as negative in nature, as the privation of forest plants in the sky; and the words intellect, intellection and intelligible are as meaningless in themselves, as the absence of thorns and thistles in the garden of Paradise. (gloss. The intellect chit is the subjective intellection, chetana is chitta vritti - the property of chit, is the attribute, and the intelligible chetya is the object of thought. The meaning is that, there is no separate subject, object or attribute in nature, but they all blend in the essentiality of God, who is all in all. The words subjective, objective and attributive, are therefore mere human inventions, and so are the words thinker, thinking and the thought ([Sanskrit: mantri, mati, mantavya],) and knower, knowing and knowledge ([Sanskrit: víha, vuhvi, víhavya],) and the ego, egoism and egotist ([Sanskrit: ahamkára, ahamkarttá, ahamkáryya]) all which refer to the same individual soul). 8. The personalities of egoism, tuism and illism; [Sanskrit: ahantvam tvantvam, tatvam], are as false as mountains in the firmament; and the difference of persons (as this is my body and that another's), is as untrue as to find whiteness in ink.

9. The Divine spirit is neither the same nor different in all bodies; because it is as impossible for the universal soul to be confined in any body, as it is impracticable for the mount Meru to be contained in an atom of dust. And it is as impossible to express it in words and their senses as it is incapable for the sandy soil to grow the tender herbs. 10. The dictum netineti. - It is neither this nor any other, is as untrue as the belief of the darkness of night subsisting in company with the day light: and substantiality and unsubstantiality are both as wanting in the supreme spirit, as heat is wanting in ice. 11. It is as wrong to call it either as empty or solid, as it is to say a tree growing in the womb of a stone to call it either the one or the other; is to have it for the infinite vacuum or the full plenum.

12. It is the sole unity that remains in its state of pure transparency forever; and being unborn from the thought or mind of any body, it is not subject to the misrepresentation of any body. (The gloss says: Not being born from the mind of Brahmá as this creation, the Intellect is free from the imperfections of both). 13. It is however imputed with many faults and failings, in the thoughts and opinions of men; but all these imputations and false attributes, vanish before one knowing its true nature. 14. The learned devoid of indifference, are employed in many other thoughts and things; though not a straw of all this vast world, is under the command of any body. 15. It is in the power of every body to get rid of his thoughts, but very difficult to get the object of his thought; How then is it possible for one to have, what it is impracticable for him to try for? (i.e. The full object of desire). 16. The one sole and immutable Intellect which pervades all nature, is the supreme one and without an equal, and is more pellucid than the translucent light of a lamp and all other lights.

17. It is this intellectual light which enlightens every thing, it is ubiquious and ever translucent; it is ever shining without a shade, and immutable in its nature and mind. 18. It is situated every where and in all things, as in pots and pictures, in trees and huts, and houses in quadrupeds, demons and devils, in men and beasts, in the sea, earth and air. 19. It remains as the all witnessing spirit, without any oscillation or motion of its own to any place; and enlightens all objects, without flickering or doing any action by itself. 20. It remains unsullied with by its connection with the impure body, and continues unchangeable in its relation with the changeful mind. It does not become dull by being joined with the dull body, and is never changed to anything by its extension over all things. 21. The extremely minute and immutable intellect, retains its consciousness in itself; and by rolling itself like a rundle of thread, enters the body in the form of a particle of air (or the vital breath or air pránáyáma). 22. It is then accompanied with the powers of vision and reflexion, which are wakeful in the waking state and lie dormant in sleep; whence it is said to be existent and inexistent by turns.

23. The clear and pure intellect, comes then to think of many things in its waking state, and is thus perverted from its purity; as an honest man turns to dishonesty in the company of the dishonest. (The perversion of the intellect is owing to its attachment to the flesh, and its entertaining to worldly thoughts). 24. As the pure gold is converted to copper by its alloy, and is again restored to its purity by removal of the base metal; such is the case of the intellect owing to its contracting and distracting of vicious thoughts. 25. As a good looking glass being cleansed of its dirt, shows the countenance in a clear light; so the intellect being born in the human body, attains its divine nature by means of its good understanding. 26. Its want of the knowledge of itself as the all, presents the sight of the false world to it as a true reality; but upon coming to know its true nature, it attains the divine state.

27. When the mind thinks of itself of its difference (from the intellect), and the existence of the unrealities (in nature), it gets the sense of its egoism, and then it perishes though it originally imperishable in its nature. (The sruti [Sanskrit: tasya bhayam, bhavati], "it then fears to die" because the personal soul is subject to death, and not the impersonal or universal soul which never dies. So the phrase: "Forget yourself and you'll never fear to die"). 28. As a slight wind scatters the fruits of trees growing on the sides of mountain, so the consciousness of self, drops down at the gust of a slight disease, like a large tree. 29. The existence of the qualities of form and colour and others, is owing to that of intellect; as the position of subalterns - adhyasta is dependent on the station of the superior - adhishthata. And the pure intellect - infinite and indefinite in itself, is designated as a unity, duality and plurality by want of right understanding. 30. It is from the essence of the intellect only, that the mind and senses derive their faculties of thinking and perception; as it is presence of day light, which gives rise to the routine of daily business.

31. It is the action of the vital air, which gives pulsation to the pupils of the eye, and whose light is called the sight, which is the instrument of perceiving the forms and colours of things that are placed without it, but the perception belongs to the power and action of the intellect. 32. The air and skin are both of them contemptible and insensible things, yet their union gives the perception of touch or feeling; the mind becomes conscious of that feeling, but its consciousness is dependent on and caused by the intellect. 33. The particles of scent being carried by the particles of air to the nostrils, give the sense of smelling to the mind; but it is intellect which has the consciousness of smelling. 34. The particles of sound are conveyed by the particles of air to the organ of hearing for the perception of the mind, and the intellect is conscious of this as in its sleep. (And as a silent witness of the same).

35. The mind is the volitive principle of action from some desire or to some end and aim of its own, and the thoughts of the mind are all mixed with foulness, while the nature of the intellectual soul is quite pure and simple. (The difference between the sensuous mind and the conscious intellect, is that the one is the volitive and active agents of its actions, the other is the passive and neutral witness of all and every thing that is and comes to take place, without its interference in any). 36. The intellect is manifest by itself, and is situated of itself in itself; it contains the world within itself, as the crystalline stone retains the images of all things in its bosom. (The subjective soul bears in it the objective world, which is not different but self-same with itself. Hence the nullity of the objective duality, which is identic with the subjective unity). 37. It is the single and sole intellect which contains the whole, without dividing or transforming itself to parts or forms other than itself. It neither rises or sets, nor moves nor grows at any place or time (but occupies all space and time, in its infinity and eternity).

38. It becomes the living soul by fostering its desires, and remains as the pure intellect by forsaking them for ever; and then seated in itself, it reflects on its two gross and pure states. (The two gross states are the gross world, and the gross mind that dwells only on gross bodies of the world). 39. The intellect has the living soul for its vehicle, and egoism is the vehicle of the living principle; the understanding is the car of egotism and the mind the seat of the understanding. 40. The mind again has the vital breath for its curricle, and the senses are vehicles of the vital airs; the body is the carriage of the senses, and the organs of action are the wheels of the body. 41. The motion of these curricles forms the course of this world (which is hence called karma Kshetra or world of activity); and the continued rotation of the body (called the cage of bird of life); until its old age and demise, which is the dispensation of the Almighty power. (That man must toil and moil till he is worn out and goes to his grave).

42. The world is shown unto us as a phantasmagoria of the supreme soul, or as a scene in our dream; it is a pseudoscope and wholly untrue as the water in a mirage. 43. Know, O sage, that the vital breath is called the vehicle of the mind by fiction only; because wherever there is the breath of vitality, there is also the process of thinking carried on along with it. 44. Wherever the breath of life circulates like a thread, and acts as spring, there the body is made to shake with it; as the forms and colours of bodies, present themselves to view at the appearance of light. 45. The mind being employed with its desires, perturbs the vital breath and body as a tempest shakes the forest; but being confined in the cavity of the heart, it stops their motion as when the winds are confined in the upper skies. (The mind being fixed to some particular object of meditation, stops the course of life and gives longevity to man). 46. Again the confinement of the vital breath in the vacuity of the heart, stops the course of the mind (thoughts); as the hiding of a light, removes the sight of the objects from view. (No thought without breathing, and no sight without light).

47. As the dusts cease to fly after the winds are over; so the mind (thought) ceases to move, when the breath is pent up in the heart. (These are subjects of Pránáyáma or restraint of breath, treated at large in chapter XXV of this book). 48. As the carriage is driven wherever the driver wishes to drive it; so the mind being driven by the vital breath, runs from country to country in a moment. 49. As the stone flung from a fling is lost forever, so the thoughts of the mind are dispersed in the air, unless they are fixed upon some object. The thoughts are accompaniments of the mind and vitality, as fragrance is attendant on flowers and heat upon fire. 50. Wherever there is vital breath breathing (in any animal being), there is the principle of the mind with its train of thoughts likewise; as whenever the moon appears to view, it is accompanied with its beams also. Our consciousness is the result of the vibrations of the vital air, like our perception of the perceptibles; and this air is the sustainer of the body also, by supplying the juice of the food to all the nerves and arteries.

51. The mind and consciousness both belong to the body, the one residing in the hollow of the vital air, and the other is as clear as the intellect, and resides alike in all gross and subtile bodies, like the all pervading and transparent vacuum. 52. It remains in the form of conscious self-existence in dull inanimate bodies; and appears to be afraid of the vibrations of animal life (i.e. The vegetables and minerals are conscious of their own existence, without having their vital and animal actions of breathing and locomotion). 53. The dull body being enlivened by the vital breath, is recognized by the mind as belonging to itself; and plays many parts and frolics with it, as in its prior state of existence. 54. The mind vibrates no longer, after the extinction of breathing; and then, O sage! the pure intellect is reflected in the eight fold receptacle of vacuum. (These are termed the puryashtakas and consist of the mind, life, knowledge, the organs of action, illusion, desire, activity and the subtile body).

55. As it is the mirror only that can reflect an image, and no other stone; so it is the mind alone these as their octuple receptacle - puryashtaka, and which is the agent of all actions, and is termed by different names according to the views of different divine teachers. 56. That which gives rise to the net work of our imaginary visible world, and that in which it appears to be situated, and whereby the mind is made to revolve in various bodies, know that supreme substance to be the Immensity of Brahma, and source of all this world (or as diffused as all in all which is thence called the visvam - the all to pan).

ON THE SUSTENTATION AND DISSOLUTION OF THE BODY. Argument. - Exposition of the animation of the complicate Body, and its ultimate decomposition at death. The god continued: - Hear me, holy sage! now relate to you, how the active and oscillating principle of the intellect, acts on the human body and actuates it to all its actions, whereby it receives the noble title of its active agent. (The disembodied and nameless intellect, gets many appellations in its embodied state, according to its various temporal and spiritual avocations and occupations in life. gloss). 2. But the mind of man which is impelled by its former (or pristine) propensities, prevails over the (good) intellect; and being hardened in its vicious deeds, pursues its changeful wishes and desires. (The former evil propensities refer to those of past lives, and allude to the original depravity of human nature and will). 3. The mind being strengthened by illusion (máyá), the intellect becomes dull and stultified as stone; and this power of delusion growing stronger by divine dispensation, displayed the universe to view. (The máyá is otherwise called Brahma Sakti Divine omnipotence, which overpowers on the omniscience of God in the acts of creation, &c. Hence the neutral omniscience is called the Intellect chit, and the active omnipotence is styled the mind).

4. It is by the good grace of this power, that the intellect is allowed to perceive sometimes, the fallacy of the aerial city of this world, and at others to think it as a reality. (i.e. It comes to detect the fallacy by exercise of its intellection, and thinks it real by its subjection-illusion). 5. The body remains as dumb as stone, without the presence of the intellect, the mind and its egoism in it; and it moves about with their presence in it, as when a stone is flung in the air. 6. As the dull iron is made to move, by its contiguity to or attraction of the loadstone; so doth the living soul jíva act its parts, by the presence of the omnipresent soul in it. (The actions of the living soul are its respirations, and direction of the organs of action to their respective function).

7. It is by the power of the all pervading soul, that the living principle shoots out in infinity forever, as the germs of trees sprout forth the seed in all places. And as the recipient mirror receives the reflexion of objects situated at a distance from it, so the living soul gets the reflex or image of the distant supreme spirit in itself. (God made man in his own image). 8. It is by forgetfulness of its own and real nature, that the living soul contracts its foul gross object, as a legitimate twice-born man mistakes himself for a sudra by forgetting his birth by such error or illusion. 9. It is by unmindfulness of its own essence, that the intellect is transformed to the sensuous mind; as some great souls are deceived to believe their miserableness in the distractedness of their intellect percipience. (Men are often misled to believe themselves otherwise than what they are, as it was the case with the princes Lavana, Gádhi, and Harischandra mentioned before and as it turns out with all miserable mortals, who forget their immortal and celestial natures).

10. It is the intellect which moves the dull and inert body, as the force of the winds shakes the waters of the deep to roll and range about in chains and trains of waves. 11. The active mind which is always prone to action, leads the machine of the body together, with the passive and helpless living soul at random, as the winds drive about in different directions, together with the inert stones (ballast) contained in it. (i.e. The mind is the mover of both the body and soul, but the intellect is the primum mobile of all). 12. The body is the vehicle, and God has employed the mind and the vital breath, as the two horses or bullocks for driving it. (The mind is said also to be its driver, the soul its rider, and the breaths are its coursers). 13. Others say, that the rarefied intellect assumes a compact form, which becomes the living soul; and this riding on the car of the mind, drives it by the vital airs as its racers. (Hence the course of the mind and its thoughts, are stopped with the stoppage of respiratory breaths).

14. Sometimes the intellect seems as something born and to be in being, as in its state of waking and witnessing the objects all around; at others it seems to be dead and lost as in the state of its profound sleep. Again it appears as many, as in its dreaming state; and at last it comes to know itself as one and a unit, when it comes to the knowledge of truth and of its identity with the sole unity. 15. Sometimes it seems to be of a different form, without forsaking its own nature; as the milk becomes the butter and curd etc. and as the water appears in the shape of a billow or wave or of its foam or froth. (That changed in all, yet in all the same &c. Pope). 16. As all things depend upon light, to show their different forms and colours to view, so the mental powers and faculties, do all of them depend upon the intellectual soul for their several actions. (The intellect in the form of the soul, directs and exhibits the actions of the mind).

17. Again the Supreme Spirit being situated in the mind within the body, the animal soul has its life and action; as all things appear to sight, while the lighted lamp shines inside the room. (As the silent soul directs the mind, so the active mind keeps the soul alive). 18. The ungoverned mind gives rise to all diseases and difficulties, that rise as fastly and thickly, as the perturbed waters rise in waves, which foam out with thickening froth. 19. The living soul dwelling like the bee in the lotus-bed of the body, is also subject to diseases and difficulties as the bee to the rains and flood; and it is as disturbed by the casualties of life, as the calm sea-water are perturbed to waves by the blowing winds. 20. The dubitation that, "the divine soul is omnipotent, and the living soul is impotent and limited in its powers; and therefore the human soul is not the same with the Divine"; is the cause of our woe, and serves to darken the understanding; as the clouds raised by the sunlight, serve to obscure the solar disk (this doubt leading to dualism, cuts us from God and exposes us to all the calamities of life).

21. The sentient soul passes under many transmigrations in its insensibility, and in utter want of its self consciousness; like one subdued to dull obtuseness by some morphia drug, which makes him insensible of the pain inflicted upon his own person, (This drug is some anaesthetic agent as opium, chloroform and the like). 22. But as it comes to know itself afterwards by some means or other, it recovers from its dull insensibility, and regains its state of original purity; as a drunken or deluded person turns to his duty, after he comes to remember himself. (So the lost and stray sheep, returns to its fold and master). 23. The sentient soul that fills the body, and is employed in enlivening all its members, does not strive to know the cause of its consciousness; as a leper never attempts to make use of any part of his body, which he is incapable to raise. (So the soul that is drowned in ignorance and dead in its sin, will never rise to reclaim its redemption by reproving itself). 24. When the soul is devoid of its consciousness, it does not enable the tube of the lotus-like heart to beat and vibrate with the breath of respiration; but makes it as motionless as a sacrificial vessel unhandled by the priest.

25. The action of the lotiform heart having ceased, the motion of the vital breaths is stopped also; as the fanning of the palmleaf fan being over, there is no more the current of the outer air. 26. The cessation of the vital air in the body, and its flight to some other form, sets the life to silence and sink in the original soul; just as the suspension of the blowing winds, sets the flying dusts to rest on the ground. 27. At this time, O sage, the mind alone remains on its unsullied state and without its support; until it gets another body, wherein it rests as the embryonic seed lies in the earth and water. 28. Thus the causes of life being deranged on all sides, and the eight principles of the body inert and extinct (in their actions); the body droops down and becomes defunct and motionless. (The eight principles called the puryashtakas). 29. Forgetfulness of the intellect, the intelligible (truth) and intelligence, produces the desires of them to vibrate; these give to remembrances of the past, and their want buries them to oblivion. 30. The expansion of the lotus-like heart, causes the puryashtaka body to expand also; but when the organ of the heart ceases to blow and breathe, the body ceases to move.

31. As long as the puryashtaka elements remain in the body, so long it lives and breathes; but these elementary powers being quiet and still, the body becomes inert and is said to be dead. 32. When the contrary humours, the feelings and passions and sensible perceptions, and the outward wounds and strokes, cause the inward action of the organic heart to stop: - 33. Then the puryashtaka forces are pent up in the cavity of the heart, as the force of the blowing winds, is lost in the hollow of a pair of blowing bellows. 34. When a living body has its inward consciousness, and becomes inert and motionless in its outer parts and members, it is still alive by the action of breathing in the inner organ of the heart. 35. Those whose pure and holy desires never forsake their hearts, they live in one quiet and even state of life, and are known as the living liberated and long living seers. (The pure desires are free from the influence of passions, and tendency to earthly enjoyments; which cause holy life and give longevity to man). (An unperturbed mind is the best preservative of health).

36. When the action of the lotus like machine of the heart has ceased, and the breath ceases to circulate in the body, it loses its steadiness, and falls unsupported on the ground as a block of wood or stone. 37. As the octuple body mixes with the air in the vacuum of the sky, so is the mind also absorbed in it at the same time. 38. But being accompanied with the thoughts, to which it has been long accustomed, it continues to wander about in the air, and amidst the regions of heaven and hell, which it has long believed to await on its exit from the body. 39. The body becomes a dead corpse, after the mind has fled from it in the air; and it remains as an empty house, after its occupant has departed from it. 40. The all pervading intellect, becomes by its power of intellection both the living soul as well as the mind; and after passing from its embodied form (of puryashtaka), it assumes its spiritual (átiváhika) nature afterwards. 41. It fosters in its bosom the quintessence (pancha tan mátram) of the subtile elemental mind, which assumes a grosser form afterwards, as the thoughts of things appear in dream.

42. Then as the intensity of its thoughts, makes the unreal world and all its unrealities, appear as real before it, it comes to forget and forsake its spiritual nature, and transform itself to a gross body. 43. It thinks by mistake the unreal body as substantial, and believes the unreal as real and the real as unreal. (i.e. It takes the unreal material as real; and the real spiritual as nothing). 44. It is but a particle of the all pervading Intellect, that makes the living soul, which reflects itself afterwards in the form of the intelligent mind. (The understanding is a partial reflection of the Intellect. Gloss). The mind then ascends on the vehicle of the octuple body, and surveys the phenomenal world as a sober reality. (i.e. The senses of the body, represent the universe as real). 45. The intellect is the prime mobile power, that gives force to the octuple material (puryashtaka) body to move itself; and the action of the breath in the heart which is called life, resembles the spiritual force of a ghost raising an inert body. (The power of spirits entering and moving inert bodies, forms a firm belief in India).

46. When the aerial mind flies into the vacuous air, after the material frame is weakened and worn out; then the lifeless body remains as a block of wood or stone, and is called a dead mass by those that are living. 47. As the living soul forgets its spiritual nature, and becomes decayed in course of time and according to the frail nature of material things; so it fades and falls away in the manner of the withered leaves of trees. 48. When the vital power forsakes the body, and the action of the pericardium is stopped; the breath of life becomes extinct, and the animated being is said to die away. 49. As all beings that are born and have come to life, fade away in time like all created things in the world; so do human bodies also fade and fall away in time, like the withered leaves of trees. 50. The bodies of all embodied beings, are equally doomed to be born and die also in their time; as the leaves of trees, are seen to be incessantly growing and falling off at all seasons; why then should we lament at the loss of what is surely to be lost.

51. Look at these chains of living bodies, which are indiscriminately and incessantly rising and falling like bubbles and billows, in the vast ocean of the divine Intellect, and there is no difference of any one of them from another; why then should the wise make any distinction between objects that are equally frail in their nature, and proceed from and return to the same source. 52. The all-pervading intellect reflects itself only in the mind of man, and no where else; as it is the mirror only that receives the reflexions of objects, and no other opaque substance besides. 53. The acts and fates of men are all imprinted in the spacious and clear page of the Divine intellect, and yet are all embodied beings loud in their cries and complaints against the decrees of Heaven which is owing to their ignorance, and tending to their bitter grief and vain lamentation.

RESOLUTION OF DUALITY INTO UNITY. Argument. - Unity, the source, substance, and ultimum of plurality, which is resolved to unity. The Doctrine of monotheism. One in all and all into one. Vasishtha said: - Tell me, my lord, that bearest the crescent of the moon on thy fore-head, how the pure and simple essence of the intellect, which is an infinite unity and ever uniform and immutable in its nature, is transmuted to the finite dualities of the variable and impure soul and mind. (Moreover the whole equal to a part is quite absurd and impossible). 2. Tell me, O great god! how this uncaused prime cause, becomes diffused in endless Varieties, and how can we get rid of the plurality of our creeds by our wisdom, for putting an end to our miseries. (By means of our belief in the true unity). 3. The god replied - When the omnipotent God (sad), remains as one unity of immensity (Eka Brahma); it is then of course absurd, to speak of his duality or plurality, and of the manifestation of a part or minim of himself. (The whole cannot be a part).

4. Taking the monad for a duad, is to ascribe duality to unity; and the imputation of dualism or bipartition to the simple intellect, is wholly futile from its nature of indivisibility. (So says the sruti: The one is no dual nor a bipartite thing. In Him there is no plurality, diversity or any particularity whatever. [Sanskrit: natu taddvitíyamasti tati-nya hvibhaktam | nanuneha nánástikincana.]) 5. The want of the number one, causes the absence both of unity, duality; because there can be no dual without the singular, nor a single one unless there be the number two above it. (i.e. There can be no duality without the prime and preceding unity; nor even the unity unless it is followed by duality; because the prime number would be indefinite and indetermined without the succeeding ones). 6. The cause and its effect being of one nature (or essence), they are both of the same kind, as the fruit and the seed contained in it. The difference which is attributed to them from the change of one thing to the other, is a mere fiction of imagination.

7. The mind itself evolves in its thoughts at its own will; the changes occurring in itself, are no way different from its own nature; as the mutual productions of seed and fruit, are of the same nature, the same fruit produces the same seeds, and these again bring forth the same fruits &c. (So the mind and its thoughts, are the same things and of the self-same nature). 8. Many modifications incessantly rise in the infinite mind of the almighty Maker as its eternal will, and these taking place in actu in positive existences, and substantive forms bear the relation of causes and their effects in this world. 9. These productions are likened to the waves of waters in the sea, and mirage to the progeny of a barren woman, and the horns of a hare - all which are nil and not in being. They are all as negative as the water on the mountaintop, and as the barley corn growing on the head of a hare. (In all these instances the producer or container is a reality; but the produced or contained waves etc. are false; and so is Brahma the producer and container of all as positive entity, but the production of the world is null and void).

10. Herein enquiring into the real truth, we must refrain from logomachy; and find that though all things tend to stablish the unity, yet it is difficult even in thought to do away with the difference of things, as that of words and their senses. (that is to say, though unity is the result of right reason, yet duality is inseparable from common sense). 11. The essence of divine omnipotence, is not divisible into portions or their fractions, like the waves of the sea, that are broken into bubbles and particles of waters. 12. As the leaves and stalks and branches and flowers of trees, are no other than the same substance; so unity and duality, meity and tuity and the objectivity of the phenomenal world, are not different from the essence of the subjective intellect, which contains and puts forth itself in all these forms. 13. All time and place and variety of figures and forms, being but modifications of the intellect, it is improper for us to question the reality of those, and assert the certainty of this intellect. 14. The entities of time and space, and the powers of action and destiny (divine ordinance), are all derived from and directed by the intellect and bear their intellectual natures also.

15. As the power of thinking, the thought and its object, jointly compose the principle of mind; so the whole universe and every thing that bears a name, are all included under the term chit or intellect; as the water and its rise and fall, are all included under the word wave. 16. The thoughts which continually rise and fall, in the great ocean of the intellect; are like the waves which heave and set down, on the surface of the boisterous sea. 17. It is this supreme intellect which is known by the various appellations of the Lord, God, Truth, Siva and others; as also by the various names of vacuum, unity and the supreme spirit. 18. Such is the nature of God, whom no words can express; and who is styled the Ego or the subjective "I am that I am" and whom it is beyond the power of speech to describe. 19. All that is seen all around, are but the leaves, fruits, flowers and branches of the all creeping plant of the intellect; which being diffused in all, leaves nothing that is different from it.

20. The divine intellect [Sanskrit: chit] being omniscient [Sanskrit: mahávidyá] has the great nescience or ignorance [Sanskrit: mahá avidyá] underlying it (as the lighted lamp is accompanied by the shadow under it); and then looking at this side of itself it takes the name of the living soul, and beholds this shadowy world stretched outside the divine mind, as we see another moon in the reflexion of that luminary, cast upon a nebular circle beyond it. 21. Then thinking itself as another or a living being Jíva, and other wise than what it is (i.e. the immortal spirit paramátma); it becomes just of the same nature, as it thinks and forms itself by its own will. 22. Being thus transformed from its perfect and immaculate state, to that of an imperfect and impure nature; it is made to wade amidst the stream of this world, without ever thinking (of its fall from the state of original purity). 23. The intellectual form being then assimilated with the elemental (puryashtaka) body, receives its vital or mortal life and living soul, which lives by reflexion of the essence of the supreme intellect. 24. The spiritual body is also transformed to the frail living body, which being joined with quintessence of quintuple elements, comes to know itself as material substance (dravymas miti).

25. This substance being next infused with the vital breath, receives soon after its vigor and strength like the seed of a plant; and then it feels itself to be endued with life, and to be conceived in the uterus in its own conception. 26. The same erroneous conception of its gross materiality, misleads to the belief of its own egoism and personality. It conceives also its state of a moving or unmoving being, and this conception of it converts it instantly into the like form. (We have the forms, as we picture to ourselves in our minds). 27. Again the simultaneous meeting of former reminiscence with the later desire of a person, changes its former habitual and meaner form, to that of a larger and grosser kind. (Thus one that had been a contemptible gnat in its previous state of existence, is come to a big elephant in its next birth, not from its remembrance of its former state of life, but from its settled desire of becoming the would be being in the next. So it is the will [Sanskrit: vásaná] that supersedes the former impression [Sanskrit: samskára] of what one had been before, and transforms it to what it wishes to be afterwards. Hence the will is the parent of thoughts).

28. The difference and duality of one from its identity and unity, are results of one's thinking himself other wise than what he really is; as a man becomes a devil by thinking himself possessed by a ghost. 29. The thought of the duality of one self-same soul, in its two aspects of the supreme and human souls; is driven away by the persuasion that I do nothing, and the agency of all actions rests in the great God himself. 30. The unity is considered as a duality, by the dualistic opinions of men; while on the other hand the belief in unity, destroys the conviction of dualism and plurality from the minds of men. 31. There is no duality or secondary being in the soul, which may be regarded as the supreme soul, because there is but one soul only, which is unchangeable and unperishable at all times and every where. (All other changing and finite beings, are but reflexions of the supreme). 32. All works of imagination are dispersed, with the dispersion of the fumes of fancy; as one's aerial castle and the fairy city, vanish after the flight of the phrenzy and the visionary dream.

33. It is painful to raise a fabric of imagination, but there is no pain whatever in breaking it down; because the chimera of imagination is well skilled in building the aerial cities, and not in demolishing them. (Which belongs to the province of reason only). 34. If the fullness of one's desires and fancies, is fraught with the pains and troubles of life, it must be the want of such wishes and views, that will serve to set him free from these pains for ever. 35. If even a slight desire is enough to expose a man to many cares in life, then its utter privation must afford him complete rest and quiet, in his transient state of being. 36. When your mind has got loose, from the manifold folds of your serpentine desires; you will then come to enjoy the sweets of the garden of paradise. (Had it not been for the serpent's insinuation to taste the fatal fruit, our first parents would be left to enjoy all the sweets of Paradise). 37. Drive away and disperse the clouds of your desire, by the breeze of your reason; and come and enjoy your rest, under the calm and clear autumnal sky of your indifference - nonchalance.

38. Dry the impetuous current of your rapid desires, by the charms of amulets and mantras; and then restrain yourself from being borne away by the flood, and restrict your mind to its dead inaction. 39. Rely thy trust in the intellectual soul chidátmá, seated in the cavity of thy heart, and look on mankind driven to and fro by the gusts of their desire, like fragments of straw flying at random in the perturbed air. 40. Wash out the dirt of thy desires from thy mind, by the pure water of thy spiritual knowledge; and after securing the perfect tranquillity of thy soul, continue to enjoy the highest bliss of a holy life. 41. God is all powerful and omnipresent, and displays himself in all forms every where (He is seen in the same manner as one desires to behold him in a temporal or spiritual light. [Sanskrit: vrashma káranena bhogmakáranena bá yathá bhávayate tatha pashyati]). 42. It is the thought or imagination, that makes the false world appear as true; and it depends upon the thought also, that the world vanishes into nothing. (The existence and inexistence of the world; depend alike on the thoughts of divine and human minds; the positive and negative are all creations of the mind).