Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

17. But what is end of the doctrine of causation, unless it to establish the cause as the primary source of all; but how can force which is the cause of ventilation, and fluidity the causal principle of liquid bodies, be accounted as the creator of wind and water? (In this case every cause becomes a separate Deity which is absurd). 18. It is absurdity to say that, vacuity is the cause of vacuum, and the creative power is the cause of creation, when One alone, is the cause, effect, state and all of every thing himself. (One-God is the primary, formal and final cause of all). 19. It is therefore absurd to attribute the terms, importing causality and creativeness of creations to Brahma, who is identic with all nature, is unchangeable in his nature, and derives neither pleasure nor pain from his act of the creation of worlds. (What changed through all yet in all the same &c., and without the feelings of pleasure or pain). 20. Brahma being no other than the intellect (or omniscience), can have no will or volition stirring in his nature; as a doll soldier or painted army, are no other than the mud or plate and without any motion or movement of them.

21. Ráma said:—If there is no reality of the world, and our ego and tu are all unreal, and the phenomenal is no other than the noumenal Brahma; then it is the samething, whether there be any will stirring in the Divine mind or not, since God is always all in all. 22. Again if the rising will (to create) be identic with the nature of God, as the rising wave is the same as the sea water; then what mean the precepts of controlling the will (such as the enforcing a good and restraining a bad desire)? 23. Vasishtha replied:—It is true, O Ráma, as you have understood it, that the divine will is no other than the divinity itself, in the knowledge of those, who are awakened to the light of truth. But hear me tell you further on this subject. 24. Whenever a wish rises in the breast of the ignorant, it subsides of itself from their knowledge of the nature of the wished for object; just as the gloom of night, departs before the advance of sun-light. 25. But the rising wish sets of itself in the heart of the wise man, as the doubt of duality vanishes from the minds of learned, upon the rise of the light of their understanding.

26. No one can wish for any thing, whose desires of all things are already dead within himself; and who is freed from his ignorance, and is set in the pure light of his liberation. 27. The wise man is neither fond of, nor averse to the sight of the phenomenals; he views the beauties of nature (lit. of the visibles), as they appear before him, without relishing (or delighting) in them of his own nature. 28. If any thing offer itself to him, by some or by means or causality of others; and if he find it right for him to take the same, he may then have the option, either to accept or refuse it, as he may like. 29. Verily the will or desire and the unwillingness of the wise, are actuated by and proceed from Brahma himself; they have no uncontrollable or inordinate desire, but pursue their own course, and have nothing new or inordinary to wish for. (Pleased with their simple living, they have nothing anew to wish for or accept).

30. As wisdom rises on one side, so the wish sets down on the other (side); nor can they combine to dwell together, as there is no chance of their uniting in the mind of any body, as there is no possibility of light and darkness meeting at the same place. 31. The wise man, is not in need of any exhortation or prohibition in any act; because his heart being quite cool in itself in all his desires, there is no body to tell him anything to any purpose. 32. This is the character of the wise man, that his desires are imperceptible in his heart, and while he is full of joy in himself, he is complacent to all others about him. 33. There is also a shade of heavenly melancholy settled in the outward countenance, and a distaste or indifference to every thing in his mind; it is then that the current of desires ceases to flow in his heart, and his mind is elevated with the sense of his liberation. 34. Whose soul is serene, and his intellect unclouded by the doubts of unity and duality; his desires turned to indifference and all his thoughts concentrated in the Lord.

35. Whose knowledge of duality, has entirely subsided in his intellect; and whose belief of unity is without the alloy of the union of any other thing (in the sole and perfectly pure One); who is quite at ease and without any uneasiness, and resides calmly in the tranquility of the Supreme soul. 36. He has no object to gain by his acts, nor anything to lose by their omission; he has no concern whatever with any person or thing either for aught of his good or otherwise. 37. He is indifferent both to his desire as well as to his coolness, nor has he any care for the reality or unreality of things; he is not concerned about himself or others, nor is he in love with his life nor fear of death. 38. The self-extinguished soul of the enlightened, never feels any desire stirring in itself; and if ever any wish is felt to rise in his breast, it is only an agitation of Brahma in it.

39. To him there is no pleasure or pain, nor grief or joy; but he views the world as the quiet and increate soul of the Divinity manifest by itself; the man that goes on in this manner, like the course of a subterranean stream, is truly called the enlightened and awakened. 40. He who makes a pleasure of his pain in his thought, is as one who takes the bitter poison for his sweet nectar; the man who thus converts the evil to good, and thinks himself happy in his mind is said by the wise, to be awakened to his right sense (to wit that all partial evil is universal good). 41. Thinking one’s self as vacuity, with the vacuum of Brahma; and as quiet as the tranquility of the Divine spirit; and the thought of every thing resting in the spacious mind of God, is tantamount to the belief of the world as one with Brahma himself. (This is the doctrine of pantheism of vedánta and all mysticism). 42. In this manner all consciousness is lost in unconsciousness, and the knowledge of the world, is lost in the infinity of empty air. The error of our egoism is likewise drowned in the depth of the even and vast expanse of the Divine unity.

43. All that is seen here in the forms of the moving and fixed bodies of the world (the roving and fixed stars &c.); are all as quiet as quiescent empty sky which contains them, or as a visionary utopia of imagination. 44. As there is a free intercourse of the thoughts, of one person with those of another, and there is no interposition in their passage from one mind to another; in the same manner there is the same reflection of this shadowy world in the minds of all at once. 45. The earth, heaven and sea, with the hills and all other things, appear before our empty minds, exactly as the false sights of water &c., appear in a mirage to our eyes. 46. The phantasmagoria of the world, appearing visibly before us, is as false as a vision in our dream, and as delusive as a spectre appearing in the imaginations of little boys. 47. Our egoism or consciousness of ourselves, which seems as a reality unto us, is no other than a delirium of our brain, and an erroneous conception of the mind.

48. The world is neither an entity nor non-entity either, nor a substantiality and unsubstantiality both together; it is not to be ascertained by the sense nor explained by speech, and yet it exhibits itself as the fairy land or air drawn castle in empty air. (Its nihility is the doctrine of vacuists and its substantiality is supported by materialists; that it is neither is tenet of sceptics, and therefore it is but an empty dream). 49. Here our wish and effort as well as our want of both, are all alike in the opinion of the learned (who maintain the doctrine of irrevocable fate); but in my opinion it is better to remain in cool indifference (owing to the vanity of human wishes). 50. The knowledge of “I and the world” (i.e. of the subjective and objective), is as that of air in the endless vacuity; it is the vibration of the intelligent soul, like the breath of air in vacuum, that causes this knowledge in us, beside which there is no other cause (of the subjective self or the objective world).

51. The aptitude of the intellect or the intelligent soul, to its thoughts or longing after external objects, makes it what we call the mind, which is the seat of same with what is called the world; but the soul getting released from this leaning, is said to have its liberation. Follow this precept and keep yourself quiet. 52. You may have your desire or not, and see the world or its dissolution; and come to learn that neither of these is either any gain or loss to thee, since there is nothing here in reality, and every thing is at best but the shadowy and fleeting form of a dream. (So likewise the production and annihilation of the world, which are the products of divine will, is of any consequence to the unconnected deity). 53. The nolens & volens or the will and no will, the ens & non ens or the entity and non-entity, the presence or absence of any thing, and the feeling of pain and pleasure at the loss or gain of something, are all but ideal and mere aerial phantasies of the mind. 54. He whose desires are decreased day by day, becomes as happy as the enlightened wise man, and has like him his share in the liberation of his soul.

55. When the sharp knife of keen desire pierces the heart, it produces the sorely painful sores of sorrow and grief, which defy the remedies of mantras, minerals and all sorts of medicament. 56. Whenever I look back into the vast multitude of my past actions, I find them all to be full of mistakes, and not one which was not done in error, and appears to be without a fault or blunder. 57. When we meet only with the erroneousness of our past conduct, and find them all to have been done for nothing; how then is it possible for us to discern the hearts of others, which are as inaccessible hills unto us. (How can we discern another’s mind, when we to our own are so grossly blind). 58. Our dealing with the unreal world (as with untruthful men), is lost in the glancing or twinkling of an eye; for who can expect to hold the horns of a hare in his fingers. 59. The belief of our egoism or personality consisting in our gross bodies, serves to convert the aerial intellect to a gross substance in a moment; and make our mind as a part of the solid body, just as the rain drop is congealed to the hailstone.

60. It is owing to our intellect, that we have the conception of the reality of our unreal bodies; just as the undying principle of the intellect, happens to see its own death in our sleep. 61. As the unreal and unsubstantial vacuum, is said to be the blue or azure sky by its appearance; so is this creation attributed to Brahma by supposition, which is neither real nor quite unreal. 62. As vacuity is the inseparable property of vacuum, and fluctuation is that of air; so is creation an inseparable attribute of God, and is one and same with the essence of Brahma himself. 63. There is nothing produced here as the world &c., nor is anything lost or annihilated in it; all this is as a dream to a sleeping man, which is a mere appearance and nothing in reality. 64. So the inexistent earth and others, are apparent in their appearance only; then why need you care or fear about the being or not being of this world, which is no more than a production and subversion of it in the region of the Intellect.

65. The apparent body, is no reality by the causality of the elements as the earth &c.; it is only a formation of the Divine intellect, and situated in the divine spirit. (The body is neither formed out of the dust of the earth, nor by a combination of the five elements; but is a shadow of its form in the Divine mind). 66. The instrumentality of the mind &c. in the causation of the world, is also untrue and absurd, owing to the union of two causes in one (i.e. the combination of the primary and instrumental causes together). (The unity of God consists in his being the original and material cause, and not as a formal or instrumental one). 67. All things are uncaused and unconsecutive in the divine mind, where they are eternally present at one and the sametime; as the whole series of the actions of a man from his birth to death, appear in an instant of his dreaming states. (All is ever present before the omnipresent and omniscient).

68. All things are contained in and as inane as the vacant Intellect, where this spacious earth with her high hills of solid bases, and all her peoples with their actions and motions, are ever existent in their aerial forms in the knowledge of the aeriform intellect of God. 69. The world is a picture painted on the airy surface of the divine mind, with the various colours derived from the intellect of God; it never rises nor sets, nor does it ever become faint, nor does it fade nor vanishes away. 70. The world is a huge wave of fluidity in the water of the Intellect, why is it so and how produced, and how and when it is subside, is what nobody can say. (The world is once compared to breath of air and here to a liquid, to mean its having no solidity in it). 71. When the great vacuity of the intellect is calm and quiet, then the world remains in its form of an empty void also; just as the soul being quite thoughtless in itself; there can be no rise or fall of any object before it. (Hence the alternate action and rest of the divine spirit, is said to cause the appearance and disappearance of the world by turns. Manu I).

72. As we imagine the mountains to touch the skies, and the sky to present the figures of mountains in it; it is in the like manner that we suppose the presence of Brahma in all things of creation. (But all this supposititious knowledge proceeds from error). 73. It is by the application of a jot of their intelligence, that yogis convert the world to empty air, as also fill the hollow air with the three worlds up and down. (i.e. They are practised to produce everything as also to reduce it to nothing in their thought). 74. As we imagine thousands of the elysian cities (or seats) of the siddha deities, to be situated in the different regions of heaven; so are the numberless worlds scattered apart from one another in the infinite space of divine intellect. 75. As the eddies in the ocean whirl apart from one another, and seem to make so many seas of themselves; though they are composed of the same water. 76. So the numerous worlds, revolving separately in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect, are all of the same nature (with their intellectual reservoir), and not otherwise.

77. The awakened (or enlightened) yogi, views worlds above worlds in his clairvoyance; and to pass to the ethereal regions of the perfected siddhas, as it is related by sages (in the story of Lílá narrated before). 78. There are numberless imperishable beings and immortal spirits, which are contained in the Supreme spirit; as the endless worlds are situated in the hollow sphere of heaven. 79. It is the intrinsic pleasure of the divine soul, to scatter the wandering worlds about it, as the odorous flower diffuses its immanent fragrance, and spreads its flying farina all around; they are not extrinsic or adventitious, but are born within itself like the lines and marks in a diamond or crystal. 80. The fragrance of flowers though mixed up together in the air, are yet separate from one another; so are all the created bodies existing together in the air, all distinct in their natures: (such is the union of the different elements in one body, and as every flower has a vassal breeze to bear its own perfume).

81. Our fancies though of the form of air, assume different shapes in the minds of men; such as those of gross natures have them in their gross material forms, while the holy saints view them in their pure forms in the mind. (This means the two views of things in their concrete and abstract forms). 82. Neither are the gross materialists nor pure spiritualists, right in their conceptions of things; but every one has to feel according to his particular view and belief of a thing. (i.e. The materialist is subject to material pain and pleasure, from which the idealist is entirely free). 83. By thinking the world to be contained in the thought of the Intellect, it will be found to be no way different from it, than the water is from its liquidity. (The mind and its thought, being the one and same thing).

84. Know chronos—the time, and cosmos—the universe, with all the worlds contained in it together with the ego and tu or myself and thyself and all others, to be the One and very unity; which is the calm and quiet vacuum of the great Intellect, which is same with the very self of the unborn and undecaying soul of God. Be not therefore subject to passions and affections, which do not appertain to the nature of the self-same Deity.

DISQUISITION OF NIRVÁNA—QUIETISM. Argument:—Exposition of the Error of the Duality of the Intellect and Intelligibles, and establishment of the unity of the world with the Intellect by legitimate Reasoning. Vasishtha continued:—The Intellect perceives the world raised before it, by the fallacy of its understanding; as a man beholds mountains in the sky, by the delusion of his eye sight. 2. The doctrines that the world is the creation of Brahma or of the mind, are both alike in substance; in as much as they regard it in an immaterial and not physical sense. 3. The world subsisting in our knowledge or consciousness of it, is same with its internal knowledge, and not as existing externally or out of our consciousness; and although it appears to be situated out of it, like the features of a picture appearing as prominent above their base, it is on a level with its plane. The original figure being contained in the substratum of our inner knowledge, the outward appearance is to be likewise known as the same also. 4. In our opinion there is no difference, between the two systems of the interior and exterior knowledge of the world; because both of them being of the form of our knowledge of them, the exterior shape is no reality at all.

5. Hence all things being the same with our intellectual knowledge of them, and this knowledge being indistinct and invariable in its nature, the distinctions of the changing scenes of the world can have no place in it (and must therefore be false and unreal). 6. Therefore I adore that omniscience which is the soul of all, in which all things exist and whence they all come to existence; which is all and displays all things in itself and pervades all infinity forever. 7. When the subjective intellectual power chinmaya, becomes united with the objective Chitya or intelligible world, by means of the intrinsic Chit or intellect; it is then that the visible or objective organs of sense drishyangas, get the sensation chaitanya of their objects and not otherwise. 8. As it is the intellect alone which is both the subjective as well as the objective, that is both the viewer and the view, the seeing and the sight also; it comes to the same effect, that the knowledge of all these, is derived from and dependent upon the main intellect.

9. If the subjective and objective be not alike in the intellectual soul, then the subjective and intellectual soul, can have no perception of the objective and material world. (Because matter cannot enter into the intellect, but by the ideas of things which are of an intellectual nature). 10. It is from their intellectual nature, that the objective world is perceived in the subjective soul; just as a drop of water mixes with the body of waters, owing to the similarity of the natures. (Things of the same kind easily combine with one another, by their natural affinity), otherwise there is no combination of them as of two pieces of wood. 11. When there is no homogeneous affinity between two things as between the intellect and a log of wood, there can be no union between them; nor can two pieces of wood know one another, owing to their want of intellect. 12. As the two pieces of wood have <no> knowledge of one another, owing to their dull insensibility; so nothing insensible can be sensible of any thing, save the intellect which is conversant with intellectuals only.

13. The great intellectual soul, beholds the world as one with itself in its intellectual light; and sees the material bodies settled as a rock in it, without their properties of life or motion. 14. Life, understanding and other faculties, are the products of intellection, which the wonderful property of the intellect, rises spontaneously in itself. 15. The essence of Brahma exists and exhibits itself in the form of the quiescent universe, and is personified as the male agent of creation, by his seminal seed resembling the minute seed of a fig fruit. 16. There is first of all a small seed, which developes itself to a tree; but that first seed had another smaller seed before, from which it was produced. Thus the primary or initial seed being the minutest of the latter ones, is contained in and let out as an effluvium of the Supreme soul. 17. Brahma is the first and minutest soul of all, which gives to innumerable souls as its seeds; the inner ones abiding in the spirit of God, are known as spirit; and the grosser sorts known as things, are wrongly considered as otherwise, though they are of the same nature with their original.

18. As a thing is the same thing and not different from itself, whether it is placed above or below; so everything is the selfsame Brahma, in whatever state or form it may appear unto us. 19. As gold is no other than gold, in the various (lit. a hundred different) forms of golden trinkets; so the invariableness of the unchangeable spirit of God, continues the same in all the changing scenes and varieties in nature. 20. As the clouds of the shadowy dreams that hang over your mind, are in no way related to you; so the great bustle of creation and its dissolution, bear no relation to my vacuous soul, nor disturb the even tenor of my mind. 21. As the blueness and moistness, which are attributed to the vacuous atmosphere of heaven, are nothing in reality; and as the legions of siddha spirits, which are supposed to traverse the regions of air, are but deceptions of our eye sight; such is the pageant of the world but an empty air and fallacy of our vision.

22. It is the desire of the heart and the false fancy of the mind, that leads out within us and brings forth the fruit of the world; just as the dirty water at the bottom of the earth, moistens the seed that produces a big tree in time. 23. The wise man that forgets his egoism, becomes one with the Supreme spirit; and by reducing himself like a bit of rotten straw, becomes an anima or a minimum particle of the divine soul. 24. I find no one among the gods, demigods and mankind in the three worlds, who wishes to approach to that Great Spirit, who has the whole world as a hair upon his body. 25. He who knows the unity of the soul of the universe, is free from the thought of a duality, in every state of his life, and wherever he may be situated. (The monotheist sees the One soul in all places and all kinds of beings). 26. Who has a great soul, and views the world and all as a mere vacuity and nothing in reality; how can he have any desire for unspiritual and sensible objects.

27. He who is indifferent to, and unconcerned with the endless particulars of the world; and who views the existent and inexistent in the same light, is truly a great soul and beyond all praise. 28. There is no living being that lives, or has any property for ever, it is only the inner consciousness that shows the various appearances in the empty space of the mind. (Note. Our friends and properties are no lasting realities, except that our minds paint them as such unto us). 29. In vain do men think of their life and death, in this world of nullity; neither of them is anything in reality, but as false as the flowing and ebbing of waters in the mirage of life. 30. Upon due examination, this error vanishes from view with its cause also; and then it appears that there is nothing as life or death, beside the existence of the imperishable one. (Note. Our life is no life, since we live in death; and our death is no death, since we die to live again).

31. That man is said to have gone across the ocean of the world, who has withdrawn himself from the sight of visibles; who is quiet and content with himself, and who while he is living, reckons himself with the dead and as nothing. 32. Our nirvána extinction is said to be the cessation of our mental actions, like the extinguishing of a burning flame or lamp; it is assimilation into the quiescent spirit of God, and continuance in the hebetude of a holy saint. 33. Again he is called the mukta or liberated, who finds no delight either in the noumenal or phenomenal (i.e. either in his mental functions or visual operations); but remains as quiet and quite aloof from all as the intangible vacuum. 34. I speak of my ego from my want of reason, but reason points out no egoism in me; hence the want of any sense in the word ego, makes the existence of the world quite null and void to me (who am a mere nullity myself). (So says the Persian mystic Ke man Khodra namedánam; I know not my very self).

35. The intellect is a mere vacuum, and our consciousness (which is also a vacuous substance), gives us the knowledge of the nature of our inner understanding; the mind (which is a void likewise), views the external appearances agreeably to its internal ideas (Hence all things are but airy nothing without their substantiality). 36. Now the real entity of your soul, will become truly blessed in itself, by your getting the mind, freed from all its objects at all places and times. (The mind being the mirror of soul), and by thy doing everything in the name of God. (In every work begin and end with God). 37. Whatsoever thou doest or eatest, anything thou givest or offerest in sacrifice; and whatever thou seest, killest or desirest know them all to proceed from God. (Here man’s free will is denied, and all human actions are believed as ordained by God). 38. All that we call as ourselves or yourselves and all others, what we name as space, time and the sky, mountains &c.; all these together with the actions of all, are supported by and full of the power and spirit of God.

39. The vision of our eyes and the thoughts of the mind, the world and its three times; and all our diseases, death and decay, are all the phenomena appearing in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect. 40. Remain if you can as a silent sage, unseen and unknown by men, and without any desire, thought or effort on your part; remain as a lifeless thing, and this is the extinction of a living being. (The torpidity of the body combined with mental inactivity constitutes the coolness of the soul). 41. Be freed from your thoughts and desires, and remain fixed in the eternal One without any care for anything; you may be busy or sit easy, like the air when it breathes or is calm and still. 42. Let your manliness be above the feelings of desire and affections, and let your thoughts be directed by rules of the sástras, and your action by the motion of a clock or watch, which act their outward movement.

43. Look on all beings, without the show of fondness or disfavour (or love or hatred) to any one; be you an inconspicuous light of the world, resembling a lighted lamp in a picture (which never burns). (Here the hidden light is opposed to the sacred text. No one lights a lamp to put it under a bushel). 44. The man that has no desire nor any object in view, and has no relish in carnal and sensual enjoyments; can have no other delight except in his inquiries after truth by the light of the sástras. He who has his mind purified by the teachings of the sástras and the precepts of holy men, finds the inscrutable truth shining vividly in his consciousness of it.

VASISHTHA’S GÍTÁ OR SERMON ON THE SWEET PEACE OF MIND. Argument:—The inward composure of the enlightened soul and its view of the outer World. Vasishtha continued:—The man whose reliance in this world is really lessened, who is free from desire and unobservant of his religious vows (for the sake of future reward), knowing them to be all in vain (i.e. the vanity of human wishes). 2. Our egoism is as the vapour of our breath, falling and sticking on the surface of glass; which when taken under consideration, proves to be a causeless sight, and vanishes to nothing at all in a moment. 3. He who is unloosed from the veil of delusion, who has numbed his rising wishes and efforts; whose soul is filled with heavenly ambrosia (i.e. full of holy delight), it is he who is said to be happy in his very nature and essence. (Blest is the enlightened and contented soul). 4. The enlightened mind, that is unshrouded from the mist of doubts or scepticism; bears resemblance with the full-moon, by illuming the sphere of its circle, with the splendour of its intelligence.

5. The intelligent man who is freed from his worldliness and doubts, who has come out of the curtain of ignorance and received the light of truth; is known as the knowing soul, shining in the sphere of the autumnal sky. (So the sruti: the knower of the soul, is as luminous as the very soul). 6. The holy man likens the pure breeze of heaven, that blows freely from the region of Brahma, without any aim and without its support; it is cool in itself and cooling and purifying every thing by its touch. 7. The desire to have an unreality, is to expect something that is a nullity in nature; such as the dreaming of heaven, and seeking for the son of a barren woman. (The belief in a future heaven, which is countenanced in every scheme of religion, is negatived by Vasishtha). 8. So also is the belief of this imaginary world, which appears as something in existence; such is the nature of our desire also, which attributes a substantiality to an aerial nothing.

9. Thus the world being an unreality even at present, there can be no reality in a heaven or hell in future; and yet the use of these words is as false, as the negative expression of a barren woman’s son, or a flower of the etherial arbour. 10. The world is truly the form of Brahma himself, and is neither an actual or ideal existence, nor does it rest on any support; so we are at a loss to understand what is in reality. 11. By relying in the tranquil nature of the soul, you lose your reliance in the natures of things, and your confidence in yourself; whereby you come to avoid the troubles concomitant with the whole creation and created beings. (Reliance in the soul, relieves the miseries of the world). 12. The sight of the intellect like the eye-sight of men, and the light of the luminaries of heaven, passes in a moment to the distance of millions of miles; just so does the sight of the divine intellect, stretch all over the unlimited space of creation in an instant.

13. The divine intellect is as unconceivable as the womb of vacuum, and as imperceptible as the calm and breathless air of the sky; and yet it is as joyous as a plant in full-bloom and blossom. 14. The learned know all living beings, to appertain the nature of that intellect; wherefore men of good intellect and judgment, place no faith in the creation of the world. 15. As we have no knowledge of the dreaming state in our sound sleep, nor that of sound sleep in our state of dreaming; just so is our error of creation and annihilation of the world. (That is to say: creation is as false as a dream, and extinction a quietus as sound sleep, neither of which relates to the ever-wakeful intellect of God). 16. Error is incidental to the nature of things, and sleeping and dreaming are properties accidental to the material body; hence neither do these nor the acts of creation and annihilation, (which are likened to them), relate to the omniscient and self-sufficient intellect. 17. Error is the unreal appearance of something, which flies before examination, and vanishes ere it may be laid hold upon. The shell appearing as silver is an unreality, because you cannot get your expected silver from it. (All is not gold that glitters).

18. Whatever is not obtained and unattainable is a nullity, and whatsoever is wrongly supposed (as obtainable), is impossible to be had; the thing that is unobtainable by its very nature, is never to be expected, as anything which is otherwise than and contrary to nature. 19. It is the nature of a thing, that agrees well with it at all times; and the invariability of any thing, can never admit of variety under any circumstance. 20. All that is natural, is attended with ease and delight; but the unnatural, is full of pain and misery; know and consider it well, and do what you think best (i.e. prefer the one or the other). 21. A minute seed containing a large tree, is an instance applying to the formless spirit of God, containing the form of the universe in itself. This is a dictum of the Veda. 22. Hence visual sight and sensations, mental thought and understanding, consciousness of ego or self, and all other properties belonging to intellectual man, are the original types of the transcendent spirit, as fluidity is immanent in water. All these intellectual and spiritual properties are of an airy or vacuous nature. (The properties of the adhyatmá or intellectual soul, are but reflexions of the pratyangatmá or the spiritual soul of God).

23. As an embodied being discharges his bodily functions, by means of his material members and limbs, so doth spirit and spiritual beings conduct their spiritual functions like the air, without actually doing them? (Here hangs a long note on the mode of the spiritual actions). 24. It is by force and power of the spirit, that we mute creatures are enabled to utter the words I, thou &c.; which are mere meaningless sounds, as those emitted by a drum and bear no sense. (Sound is the gift of God, but its sense is conventional, and determined by consent of a people). 25. An appearance which vanishes on our insight into it, must be held as no appearance at all; so the formal and phenomenal world, which vanishes into the formless and invisible spirit of God, is nothing real or substantial of itself. 26. Those who are possessed of the dream of the world, are dreaming men, who being joined together with their dreams, are never united with the spirit of God, nor do they join the society of holy divines like ourselves.

27. All these men are identic with myself in spiritual light, being one with Brahma in the tranquil and vacuous nature of the selfsame spirit (pervading alike in all). But physically considered they are different from me, in as much as they are fluctuating in their busy course, like the vacillating winds in air (while the spirit of yogis is calm and quiet). 28. I who am full of the True One, appear as a dream or dreaming man to these day dreamers; while they are in reality as nil and naught to me, as the dream of a man drowned in the depth of his sleep. (A deep or sound sleeper, sees no dream at all). 29. Whatever be their conduct in life, my business is but with Brahma, and my living and reliance in Brahma only. Let others think and see whatsoever they like and do, they are all nil and nothing to me. (Care not about what others may think of or do to you). 30. I am nothing myself, but belong to the all pervading essence of Brahma, it is by means of the divine spirit, that the body appears as something and utters the word I etc.

31. The soul that is of the nature of pure consciousness, and not subject to the contrary sense (of its materiality), hath neither its desire for enjoyments or liberation; and so also they that know the Lord, have nothing else to desire. 32. The bondage and liberation of men, being dependent to their own dispositions; it is folly to foster a great ambition here, as it is foolishness to look for a sea in a cow’s hoof-hole on the ground. 33. It is by restraining our natures, and mitigation of our wants, that it is possible for us to obtain our liberation here; or else no riches nor friends nor any of our endeavours, can serve to bring about the emancipation that is so eagerly sought by us. 34. The Intellect is stretched over all our thoughts about this imaginary world, as a drop of oil spreads over and diffuses itself in circles upon the surface of water. 35. As the scenes seen in a dream, seem pleasant in their recollection in the waking state; so the wise sage sees the worldly sights and his egoism also in the same light of a dream.

36. By practice of the conditions of yoga meditations alone, that the impressions of the world are so effaced from the mind, as not to leave behind any trace of them, save that of an infinite and still vacuity. 37. Whenever the true nature of the soul, appears with its solar blaze within us; it then dispels the mists of our irrational appetites, and displays an empty nihility of all entity. 38. After the desires are dead and gone and the understanding is cleared from its ignorance, the soul shines forth with the light of a burning lamp within us.

ON THE QUIESCENCE OF THE SOUL. Argument:—God is not manifest in the world, nor is the world manifested in God; but both these appear by turns in the soul of the living-liberated person. Vasishtha continued:—The sight of things, actions of the mind, the internal faculties and perceptions of the senses, being all of a superphysical nature, the true states of these categories are far removed from our knowledge, and present but a faint appearance of theirs unto us. 2. The minuteness of the superphysical or in totals, is outstretched in the forms of external or physical objects; but this extended appearance of the outer world, is a mere error (and creation of our false imagination). 3. But when this external nature disappears and subsides in the inner soul, it is then that this phenomenal world is absorbed like a dream in the sound sleeping state of the soul. 4. Our enjoyments and our greatest ailments on earth, and our kindred and relations are our strongest bondages here; our wealth is for our bale and woe, therefore hold yourself to yourself alone (and mind not about all others).

5. Know your felicity to consist, in your communion with yourself; and that you lose yourself, by your familiarity with the world. Participate with the supreme vacuum, be calm and quiet like it, and do not disturb yourself like the turbulent air or wind. (So Hafiz and the Persian mystics: If thou seekest thyself, then seek not <but> forsake all others). 6. I know not myself, nor do I understand what this visible and mistaken world may mean; I am absorbed in the calm and quiet Brahma, and feel myself as the sound Brahma himself. 7. You behold me as another person, and address me with words thou &c. in the second person; but I find myself as calm and quiet as the transcendent vacuum itself. 8. It is in the vacuous sphere of the divine soul, that you view the false appearances (of things), as are produced therein by the misconceptions of your mind; and these errors are continually rising in your mind, in the manner of the erratic trepidations in the mind.

9. The tranquil soul of Brahma, knows (has) no effort of creation in it; nor doth the nature of creation, know the quiescent nature of Brahma. It is as the soundly sleeping soul knows no dream, nor does the dreaming man know the state of sound sleep. (The nature of Brahma is one of profound sleep, and that of creation is no other than a dream). 10. Brahma is ever wakeful, and the world is no other than a waking dream, and the living liberated man knows, the phenomenon as a reflexion of the noumenon in his tranquil understanding. 11. The intelligent man well knows the true state of things in the world, and holy men are as quiet in their souls as the autumnal sky with a moving cloud. 12. The erroneous conception of one’s egoism or personality, and that of the existence of the world; is like the impression of the relation of a battle, preserved in one’s memory or as pictured in his imaginations; in both cases truth and falsehood are found to be blended together.

13. The phenomena of the world, which is neither exhibited in the divine spirit, as an intrinsic or subjective part of itself nor has it a viewer (or subjective framer) for itself; which is neither a vacuity nor even a solidity of its nature; cannot be otherwise than an erroneous conception of the mind.

REPOSE IN ONE’S ESSENTIAL NATURE. Argument:—The enlightenment of the understanding, accompanied by indifference and distaste of the world, is the cause of removing the ego, when looker, looking or view of it, is one the same. Vasishtha continued:—It is absurd to find the sense of egoism or self personality, so deeply rooted in human nature (when the real ego of the divine soul, is known to pervade all over the universe). It is therefore right that you should extinguish this unnatural egoism of yours by correcting your own nature. 2. This is done by enlightenment of the understanding, accompanied by indifference and distaste of the world; which are associated with one another as the orb of the sun with its light. 3. There is no making or maker or act of this world, nor any looker, looking or view of it; this stupendous world is altogether inadmissible, it being but a picture on the plane of vacuum. 4. There is nothing prominent in it (as it appears to the naked eye); but all is situated on a perfect level, which is the calm intellect of one unvarying Brahma.

5. The divine soul exhibits the wonders of its Intellect, in the variegated colours of its imaginations; and there is no body who can count the pictures of worlds, which are painted on the plane of the infinite space of vacuity. 6. All these aerial bodies which are countless as the flying atoms, are continually in the act of dancing and playing their parts in the open arena of Brahma; as the players exhibit their various passions and emotions and gestures and gesticulations in a theatre. 7. The seasons are dancing in circles with their towering heads, and the points of compass are turning rotund with their encircling arms; the lower region is the platform of this stage, and the upper sky is the awning stretched on high. (The great vacuum is the stage, and all the worlds are as players in it). 8. The sun and moon are the two playful and rolling eyes, and the twinkling stars are glistening hair on their bodies; the seven regions of air are the members of the body, and the clear and all investing firmament, is the clean apparel on it.

9. The encircling seas about the islands, are as bracelets and wristlets round their arms; and the girding mountains of lands, are as girdles around their loins; the fleeting airs are as the winds of their breath, which are constantly breathing to sustain lives of living beings, and support their bodies thereby (i.e. by the vital breath). 10. The flowers, groves and forests form the wreathed decorations on their persons; the sayings of the sástras—vedas and puránas, are their recitations, the ceremonial acts are their action, and the results of their actions (viz. happiness and misery), are the parts that all have to play (in the theatre of the world). 11. Thus is all this but a dance of puppet show presented before us, with the sport of the waters gliding with the fluidity of Brahma, and the oscillation of the playful breezes. 12. The cause of causes, is the cause of unnatural (unquiet) movements of bodies; and it is the ever wakeful intellect, that remains sleepless in the sleeping state of nature, and is waking awakener of dreams in the swapnavastha or hypnotic state of man.

13. Do you remain, O Ráma! thus sleepless in your sleeping state, and reflect on the nature of things as you see them in your dream. Be steady when you are awake, and never be drowned in your sleep nor deceived by your beguiling dreams (swap—Persian khwáb means sleep as well as dream). 14. The waking which has the semblance of sound sleep and has no liking nor cringing for anything; is said to be the idiosyncrasy of man by the wise and the harbinger of human liberation. 15. The living liberated man, sees his God as diffused throughout the universe; and not as the cause or instrument of its causation; and neither as witness of its sight. He does not leave to look on the outward phenomena, nor think of the inward noumenon that has displayed the whole. 16. He sees the world shining in and with the glory of God, and beholds it fair and perfect with the beauty and perfection of the Deity. (These so wondrous fair, thyself how wondrous then! Milton).

17. Viewed in the reality of Brahma, the unreal world becomes a reality; it seems then to be as tranquil as the nature of God, and the creation is seen in himself till at last all is lost in the womb of a void—vacuum, as it were hid in the hollow cavern of a rock. 18. The universe seems as womb of a luminous gem, and though it is thickly peopled everywhere, yet it is as void as empty air; it is a nil and ens at the same time, and as something and nothing of itself. (Here is a play of antithetical words and attributes applied to the world). 19. It is in esse and in posse to the minds of many, but to one who bears no duplicity in his mind, it appears as an extended reflexion of the infinite mind of One. 20. As an imaginary city, never disappears from the imagination; so the reflexion never vanishes from the mind of God; wherein all things are present at all times. 21. As the glistening gold glitters with and scatters its rays all around, without changing or wasting itself; so Brahma appearing to shine in his creation, is yet quiet and undecaying in himself.

22. The phenomenal world ever continues the same, though it is subject to incessant productions and destructions of all beings; it appears as unproduced and indestructible, and as various and variegated as the very many beings in it. 23. Brahmá is seated in his impenetrable tranquility and in the form of the rising world, without ever rising or setting himself; He is as free and void as vacuity and without any nature or property of his own, and is known to the enlightened understanding.

A LECTURE ON NIRVÁNA—EXTINCTION. Argument:—A full exposition of the identity of God and the world, and the adorableness of our soul as one with God. Vasishtha continued:—The mind being as calm and quiet as the Intellect, there can be no difference between them; and it is impossible to assign the creation to the divine mind, in its undeveloped and tranquil state. (The difference of the mind and intellect, consists in their activity and inactivity). 2. The lighted lamp of the understanding being extinguished, the erroneous conceptions of the world vanishes into the air; and the ocular vision and mental operations, are as undulations of consciousness. (i.e. The conscious acts through all the sensible organs, mental faculties and bodily members). 3. The world bears the same relation to the supreme soul, as the fluctuation of the winds bear to air, and as the radiation of rays bears to light, which have no other causality except in themselves. 4. The world is inherent in the Supreme, as fluidity is connate with water, and vacuity is connatural with air. But why and how they are so intimately connected with one another, is quite inconceivable to us.

5. The world which is thus immanent in the vast vacuity of the great intellect, is manifest to our minds as brilliancy in a gem. (The appearance of light or lustre in a gem is no other than a property of them itself). 6. The world therefore appertains to the supreme intellect, in the same manner, as liquidity is related with water and fluctuation pertains to air, and as vacuity belongs to the infinite void. 7. As ventilation has its relation with air, so doth the world bear upon the supreme intellect; so there is no reason of supposing a duality to subsist in the unity of any two of these. 8. The world is manifest to the sight of the ignorant, but it is frail and nebulous in the estimation of the intelligent. It is however neither manifest nor mysterious to the sapient, who believe it as an existence subsisting in the entity of the self-existent unity. 9. It is well ascertained (in every system of philosophy), that there is nothing else in existence, beside the sole intellect, which is pure intelligence, and having no beginning, middle or end of it.

10. This is the great intellect of some, and the holy spirit of others; it is the eternally omniscient Brahma according to some, and the infinite void or vacuum of vacuists. It is also called jnapti—knowledge or science by scientists. 11. Now people understand this infinite and intellectual spirit, in the sense of an intelligible being; while others suppose him as knowable in themselves, and thus trying to know, become quite ignorant of him. 12. Without the intellect there is no knowledge of the intelligibles, neither is there the faculty of intellection unless there be the intellect; as there is no air without vacuum, nor is there any air without its ventilation. 13. So it is the shadow of the great intellect, that makes our consciousness to perceive the existence of the world; and whether the world is an entity or non-entity, there is no other cause of its knowledge than the intellect. 14. It is owing to the unity of this duality (viz of the world and the spirit), that this sense of their identity is verified; nor is there any one who can make unity or duality the all pervading vacuity.

15. There is but one universal concavity, of the whole sphere of the vacuous sky, and the dualism of the air and its fluctuations, is only in words and nominal and not in reality. 16. The duality of the universe and its universal Lord, is a mere verbal and no real distinction of the one positive unity of God. It is impossible for the self-existent soul to have a counterpart of itself, except its own intellect. 17. That which has the appearances of the world, is no world in reality, but a shadow of it; and that which is limited by space and time, cannot be the infinite and external sphere. 18. As the different forms of jewels, are related to the substance of gold (out of which they are made), so doth the world bear its relation to Brahma; whose unity admits of <neither> duality, nor the attribute of cause and effect (i.e. of the creator and creation). 19. If it be only a creation of the imagination, it is then no other than a nothing and no such thing; it is just as well as the vacuity of the firmament, and the fluidity of water and liquids.

20. As the sky bears the appearance of the sky, so doth Brahma present the sight of the world; and both of them being of the same kind (of vacuum), there can be no duality nor unity of the two in one. 21. All these are of the like kind, as the vast vacuum of itself; they are selfsame in their nature with the one all extended and transparent essence of the interminable intellect of God. 22. As all pebbles and dolls and marble statues, have the stony substance in them; and there is no relation of cause or effect in anyone of them, so these varieties of beings have no difference in them from the nature of divine essence. 23. As it is impossible for vacuity to be another thing than vacuum, and the reflexion of light is no other than the very light; so this creation resides in and radiates from the great intellect. 24. As the images carved in a stone, are of the same sort being hewn of the same substance; so O wise Ráma, all these various forms of things in the world, are lost upon their insight, into the substantiality of the all engrossing intellect of the great Deity.

25. It is the delusion of your mind, that presents to your sight all this bustle and commotion of the world, which upon your right inspection of them, must remain as mute and motionless as a block of wood or stone, and as imperceptible as the prospect of things to a man with his closed eyes. 26. As things absent from sight, appear to be present before one in his thought of them, both in his waking and sleeping states; so it is the misconception of the mind, that presents the phenomenals to the sight of the open-eyed man. 27. As it is by the hallucination of your mind, that you see the absent objects as present before you, both when you are awake as well as asleep; but suppress your thoughts, and you will be as inert as a stone, as in the abstracted and sound sleeping states of your mind. 28. You must not however allow your mind, become as insensible as a stone; but remain in your natural state and employ it in the service of your adorable object, with the best offerings of your reason on all things about you.

29. Adore the Supreme God of nature; for the enlargement of your understanding; and He being worshipped with your right reason and good sense, will soon reward you with the best boon of your transcendent felicity—neratisayánanda. 30. The adoration of Indra, Upendro and the other gods, is as the worshipping rotten straws with respect to that of the God in spirit; and the offering of flowers and sacrifices, are nothing in comparison to your cultivation of reason, and association with wise and learned men. 31. The Supreme God who is the giver of all blessings, being worshipped in the true light of the spirit in one’s own soul, confers his best blessing of liberation in an instant. 32. Why does the ignorant man resort to another, when his soul is the sole lord; Do you associate with the good and have your equanimity and content, and adore the Supreme soul with your best reason. 33. The worship of idols, pilgrimages and all sorts of devotion, together with all your charities, are as useless as the offering of scentless Sirisha flowers, and injurious as fire, poison and the wounds of weapons are to the body.

34. The actions of mean minded men, are as useless as ashes on account of their unreasonableness; let them therefore act with reason in order to render their deeds fruitful. 35. Why therefore don’t you foster your reasoning powers in your mind, by means of your knowledge of the true natures of things, and the concentration of your desires in the Supreme spirit. 36. It is by divine grace only, that the reasoning faculty has its exercise in the mind, therefore the power of reasoning is to be fostered in the mind, by sprinkling the ambrosial water of equanimity over it. 37. Until the fountain of error in the mind, is dried up by the blaze of right knowledge, so long the tendency towards the corporeal, continues to run over it in all directions. 38. Equanimity overcomes the sense of shame, sorrow, fear and envy; as the conviction of the nihility of the world and all corporeal things, removes the possibility of their existence at any time. (According to the dictum—nyáya,—násato vidyate vába. Ex nihilo nihil fit nothing comes from nothing).

39. And if it be the work of a cause, it must be the selfexistent Brahma that both at once; as the reflexion is alike the reflector, and the reflected knowledge of a pot or picture is nothing in reality. (The effect is akin to the cause agreeably to the maxim “similes similibus”). 40. Know this world to be the shadow of the intellect, as one’s feature is seen within a mirror; but the idea of the shadow of both, vanishes when one acquainted with the original. 41. For want of the knowables or objects of objective knowledge, there remains the only unknowable One, who is of the form of everlasting felicity; and this soul of the incorporeal spirit, is extended all over the infinite space in its form of perfect tranquility. 42. All knowledge, knowable and knowing, are said to be quite mute and silent in their nature (being confined in the mind); therefore it behoves you to remain as quiet and calm, as stones and pebbles and the caverns of rocks. 43. Remain as knowing and wise man, both when you are sitting or doing anything; because wise men are persons who know the unknown, and personifications of true knowledge.

44. Remain as clear as the sphere of the sky, and be content with whatever may happen to you; when you are sitting quiet, or moving about or doing anything, and in every state of your life. 45. It is for wise men to be doing what they have to do, and whatever comes in their way; or to give up and renounce all and everything, and remain with their quiet and peaceful minds at every place. 46. Whether sitting in solitude or in silent meditation, let the wise man remain as quiet as a statue or a picture; and having repressed his imagination, let him view the world as an imaginary city or an airy nothing. 47. The waking wise man sees the rising world, as sitting down in his state of sleep; and let him view the spectacles before his eyes, as the born-blind man has no sight of anything before him. 48. The ignorant man resorting to his nirvána, has more cause of regret than the peace of his mind, at his renunciation of the world; and the preaching of bon-ideals serves rather to increase their ignorance, than enlighten in the path of truth.

49. The ignorant man who thinks himself wise in his own conceit, is deluded to greater ignorance, by thinking himself successful with his ill success. 50. The man comes to meet with his ill success, who strives to thrive by improper means; because the learned reckon all fanciful steps, as no steps at all to successfulness. 51. It is wrong to resort to nirvána-resignation, on account of some transitory mishap which ever happens to humanity. But that is known as true resignation by the wise, which a man has recourse to after his full knowledge of the errors of the world, and the indifference which he lays hold upon, at his entire disgust with and distaste of all worldly affairs. 52. Ráma, as you are delighted at the recital of tales, so should you take a pleasure in your spiritual instructions, with a melted heart and mind; unless you know the transparent intellect, and view it as diffused in the form of the infinite world, you cannot attain to your nirvána-extinction into it.

53. The knowledge of God, that you have gained from the vedas, is sheer ignorance, and resembles the false notion of the world, that is born blind on earth. Trample over that knowledge, and do not fall into its errors; but know God in spirit, and by your nirvána-extinction into it, be exempt from future births and transmigrations.

ON THE INFINITE EXTENSION OF BRAHMA. Argument:—The mind likened to the fairy land, full with the world of its ignorance; and these being rubbed out from it, there remains but an infinite expanse of the essence of one Brahma only. Vasishtha continued:—The internal sense of egoism and the outward perception of the world, vanishes into unreality upon right inspection of them; and then truth of self-consciousness appears even to the dull headed after removal of their dulness. 2. He who is freed from the fever of ignorance, and whose soul is cooled by the draught of good understanding, is known by the indication, that they bear no further thirst for worldly enjoyments. 3. It is useless to use many words by way of logomachy, when the knowledge of one’s unegoism only, is enough to lead him to the nirvána-extinction of himself. 4. As waking men do not relish the pleasure of things seen in their dream, so wise people feel no zest either for themselves or the world, which they know to be as erroneous as the sight in their sleep. 5. As one sees the chimera of a magic city in a forest, and filled with the families of Yakshas all about; so doth the living soul, look upon this world and all its contents.

6. As the deluded soul sees the Yakshas and their place of abode, as realities and stable in their nature; so it believes its egoism or personality as a reality, and the unreal world as a substantiality. 7. As the phantoms of Yakshas are seen with their false shapes in the open desert, so we see all these creatures in the fourteen worlds around us. 8. He who knows himself as nothing, and the knowledge of his ego a mere error; finds his phantasm of Yaksha to be no such thing in reality; and that of his mind melts into the predicament of his intellect (i.e. both of them to be the one and same thing). 9. Be you as quiet in your mind, as you are sitting still before us; by relinquishing all your fears and fancies, and renouncing all your givings and takings (to and from all persons), together with the suppression of all your desires. 10. The visible phenomenon is neither in esse nor in posse, and the whole extent of the objective world, is identic with the subjective spirit of God; or if it be impossible for the subjective reality to become the objective unreality, say then how the objective could come to being or exist.

11. As it is the humidity of the vernal season, that produces and diffuses itself in the verdure of the ground; so it is the pith and marrow of the intellect, which fills and exhibits itself in the form of creation. 12. If this appearance of the world, is no other than reflection of the intellect; why then speak of its unity or duality than knowing its identity with the sole entity, and holding your peace and tranquility. 13. Be full with the vacuous intellect, and drink the sweet beverage of spirituality (i.e. be an intellectual and spiritual being); and sit without any fear and full of joy in the blissful paradise of nirvána-extinction. 14. Why do ye men of erroneous understandings, rove about in the desert ground of this earth like the vagrant stags, that wander about the sandy deserts (appearing as sheets of sweet water). 15. O ye men of blinded understandings! Why do ye run so hurriedly with your insatiable thirst after the mirage of the world; only to be disappointed in your most sanguine expectations. 16. Why do ye, O foolish men! thirst after the mirage of the appearances and the fancies of your minds; do not waste your lives in vain toils, nor fall victims to your desires like the deluded deer.

17. Demolish the magic castle of worldly enticements, by the stronger power of your reason; and see how you can destroy the train of evils, which appear as pleasure at the first sight. (All apparent good is latent evil). 18. Do not look at the blue vault of heaven as a reality by thy error, it is a mere show amidst the great void of Brahma, wherefore thou shouldst fix the sight on its true aspect of vacuity (which is the real form of Brahma). 19. O ye men that are as frail and fickle and liable to fall down, as the tremulous dewdrop hanging on the edge of a leaf on high; do not sleep regardless of your fates, in the womb of this frail and mortal world (or in this world of mortality). 20. Remain always from first to last, in your true nature of calmness, without ever being unmindful of thyself; and remove the faults of the subjective and objective from thy nature. 21. The world known as a reality to the ignorant, is an utter nihility to the wise; the other one which is the true reality bears no name for itself (being called a nullity and void).

22. Break the iron fetters of appetency, which bind you fast in this world; and rise high above the heaven of heavens, as the lion mounts on the towering tops of mountains, by breaking loose from his imprisoning cage by force. 23. The knowledge of self and meity (or selfishness) is an error, and it is the peace of mind only which makes liberation; it is the essence of the yogi, wherever and however he may be situated. 24. The weary pilgrim of the world, has the following five stages for his rest; namely his nirvána or self resignation, his nirvásana want of any desire, and the absence of his triple sorrow-tritápa; occasioned by his own fault and those of others, and the course of nature. 25. The wise man is unknown to the ignorant, and the ignorant are not known to the wise; and the world is viewed in two opposite lights by them respectively, which are quite unknown to one another. (Namely, that it is a vale of tears to one, and a pleasure garden to the other. The one of the school of Heraclitus or the crying philosopher, and of that of Democritus the laughing philosopher).

26. The fallacy of the world having once fallen off from the mind, there is no more the appearance of any worldly thing before it; as a seafarer seeing one vast expanse of water about him, does not see the inland arms which gush out of it as its offspring. 27. After disappearance of the error of the world, from the awakened mind of the anaesthetic yogi; he sits quite insensible of it, as if it were melt into eternity. 28. As the grass and straws being burnt to ashes, we know not whether they fly and vanish away with the winds of the air; so the nature of the sage being numbed to callousness, his knowledge of the world goes to nothing. 29. It is good to know the world, as the ectype of the essence of Brahma; but the meaning of the word Brahma, being the universal soul, it does not apply in that sense to the changing world, and as the work of God. 30. As the world appears to be everlasting and unchanging to the ignorant lad, so doth it seem to the listless sage to be co-existent with its eternal cause (to whom everything is eternally present).

31. The wakeful sage keeps his vigils at that time, when it is the night of all beings to lie down in sleep; and the daytime when all creation is awake, is the night of retired saints. (The wise and ignorant are opposed to one another in their knowledge of things). 32. The wise man is active in his mind, while he seems to be sitting still and inactive in his body; and when he is waking, his organs of sense are as dormant as those of figures in a painting. 33. The wise man is as blind as one who is born blind, in his knowledge of the outer world, and has merely a faint notion of it in his mind; where it appears or not at times, like a dream in his slight and sound sleep (swapna and susupti). 34. All the worlds and worldly things, conduce to the woe of the ignorant, who are unacquainted with and delight in untruth, and are busy with the visibles and their thoughts about them, as one with the visions in his dream. 35. As the wise man tastes no pleasure in his waking state, so must he remain insensible of them in his sleep also; but continue with undivided attention, in the meditation of the Supreme being.

36. The wise man who has curbed his desire of worldly enjoyments, and is liberated from its bonds; remains with his cool and composed mind, and enjoys the tranquility of nirvána, without his efforts of yoga meditation. 37. As the course of water is always to run downward, and never to rise upward; so the course of the mind is ever toward the objects of sense, and sensible objects are the only delight of the mind. 38. The nature of the mind, with all its thoughts of internal and external objects, is of the same kind as that of the great ocean, which is full with the waters of its tributary rivers as well as those of the internal waters. 39. As a river flows in one united course, of the waters of all its confluent streams; so doth the mind run in an unvaried course, with all its internal and external, and righteous and unrighteous thoughts. 40. Thus the mind appears as a vast and wide extended sea, and rolling on with all its indistinct thoughts and feelings, as the inseparable waters and waves of the sea.

41. In this manner, the absence of one thing causes the extinction of both, as in the case of the air and its fluctuation; either of which being wanting, there is neither the wind nor its ventilation. (Such is the intimate connection between the mind and its thought). 42. The mind and its working being one and the samething, they are both controuled at once by bringing the other under subjection; know this well, nobody should cherish any earthly desire in order to foster his mind. 43. The mind may get its peace by true knowledge, and the mind of the wise man is destroyed of itself with all its desires, without the aid of austerities to destroy them. 44. As a man gets freed from the fear of the enmity of an enemy, by destroying his effigy made of mud by himself, so is one enabled to kill his mind, by committing himself to the Divine spirit. 45. The wise man sees the cosmos and chaos as concomitant with each other, though appear as separate. The birth and death as well as prosperity and adversity are mere error, there is nothing else beside one infinity.

46. As one has no knowledge of the dream of another sleeping by his side, and as the adult man has no fear of yaksha like timid boy; and as a giant knows no Pisacha or demon, so the wise sees no insensible world before him (but all full of the Intellect of God). 47. The ignorant think the wise as fools, and the old barren woman thinks of her conception; so one unacquainted with the meaning of a word, attempts to explain its sense (all which is absurd). 48. The understanding is ever existent, and without having its beginning and end; and nature is known to exist ever since creation has began. The word mind is meaningless and is undivided and unbounded in its nature. (The mind or understanding is everlasting but nature is not so). 49. The understanding resembles the water of the sea, and the mind and intelligence are likened to its limpid waves; how can this fluid have an end, and what is the meaning of mind, but a shape of this psychic fluid. (Here is a similarity of Vasishtha’s intellectual liquid to Stahl’s psychic fluid).

50. For all error is useless, and live to your nature for your good; and being of the nature of pure understanding, you will become as perspicacious as the clear autumnal sky. (Here is Vasishtha’s vacuism again as the ultimate perfection of men). 51. After passing the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep (to the fourth state of turíya or nirvána insensibility), there is nomore any perception of the mind or mental operation to the abstracted yogi; and then the knowledge of the endless varieties of unrealities of creation, is blown away and lost in the sight of the everlasting One. 52. Forsake the endless chain of knowables, and be attached to thy nature of the solid intellect; because all things whether internal or external, are comprehended under its knowledge. 53. Say how can you separate the objects from the mind, as you do the seed, branches and fruits from one another; the knowables are unknowable without their knowledge, and knowledge is no known category (apart from the mind).

54. The endless varieties and particulars are still and quiet in the Divine soul, which is the only entity and manifest of itself as all. The objects being but ideas in the mind and this being a negative also, they are all but errors of the brain. (The mind and its objective ideas being dependent to and identic with one another, the conception of them is altogether erroneous). 55. The mind which is the framer of objective thoughts, is a nihility of itself and an error also. The eternal spirit being the sole soul of all, it is useless to imagine the entity of the mind. 56. The objective being an erroneous notion, is but a false apparition appearing to sight, the objects also having no cause for their creation, prove the subjective mind to be a falsity likewise. 57. The mind is as fickle as the flickering lightning, and deludes us by the flashes of things of its own making. 58. The mind is nothing before knowledges of the self-existence One, nor does it then deceive us with its false shows; and this world which is the creation of the mind, disappears before the knowledge of the soul.

59. Men in vain wish to take the shell for silver, and believe the negative world as a positive one, and is found to be nothing before the light of reason. 60. The error of egoism is opposed to the verity of nirvána, and is the cause of misery only to mankind; the ego is verily a falsity as mirage, and a non-entity as vacuity itself. 61. The knowledge of the self or soul, removes the error of egoism; and by knowing and being full with the knowledge of the soul, one is incorporated with it, both internally as well as externally. 62. One who is unified with the universal soul, resembles a wave that mixes altogether with the main water; because the Divine soul sends its essence to all, as a tree supplies its marrow to all parts of it from top to foot. 63. There is one unchanging soul, that shines afar above the reach of our knowledge; in the same manner as the clear vault of heaven, appears at the distance of millions of miles from us. 64. There is only one unknowable and infinite Being, that is far beyond our knowledge of the knowables, and is purer and more rarefied than the all pervading vacuum.

65. Therefore knowing that pure and holy One, as both the states of knowledge and knowables (i.e. the subjective and objective); just as the clarified butter is consolidated to the compactness of stone. (The soul is solidified to matter). 66. The Divine intellect makes itself the object of its thought as a thinkable being; and the soul thinks in itself as the mind, from eternity to eternity, throughout the infinity of space. (The soul reflects in itself, as the congeries of all things of its omniscience). 67. The unintelligent Nyáya School maintains the unity and positive rest of God; and although there may be no mistake of theirs in this position, yet it is wrong to separate omniscience from the entity of Divine unity. 68. All great minded souls that are free from pride, melt away into the inscrutable quiescence of God; and those that unerring in divine knowledge, find their eternal rest in the samádhi or resignation of themselves to the Supreme spirit.

DANGERS TO WHICH THE WANDERING (STAGLIKE) MIND IS EXPOSED. Argument:—The tree of samádhi; its roots and filaments, its leaves and branches, its blossoms and flowers, its barks and fruits, its piths and marrows, its heights and moistures. Ráma said:—Relate to me at length, O holy sage, the form of the arbour of samádhi, together with all its creepers, flowers and fruits, which supply holy men with good and refreshment, all along their lives. 2. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me relate to you about the tree of samádhi, which always grows in the forest of holy people, and is ever fraught with its luxuriant foliage and flowers and its luscious fruits. 3. The learned say, that it is some how or other, either by culture or its own spontaneity, that there grows a dissatisfaction with the wilderness of this world, in the heart of the reasonable man. 4. Its field is the heart of the wise man, furrowed by the plough of prosperity (i.e. which has had better fortune); which is watered with delight by day and night, and whose conduit is now flowing with sighs.

5. It is the heart’s regret at the world, which is the seed of samádhi or self-resignation; and it grows of itself in the ground of the contrite heart of the wise, in the forest land of reasonable men. 6. When the seed of contrite reflection, falls in the minds of magnanimous men; it must be watered with diligence and indefatigableness with the following articles. viz:— 7. The society of pure, holy and complacent men, who speak sweetly and kindly for the good of others; and whose speech serves as the sprinkling of fresh water or milk or dewdrops on the seeding grounds. 8. And by shedding the sacred waters of the sayings of the holy sástras, all about the aqueduct, which may serve to grow the seed, by their cool and ambrosial moisture. 9. When the magnanimous soul, perceives the seed of contrite reflection fallen in the mind; he must try to preserve and foster the same with all diligence. 10. This seed is to be grown by the manure of austerities, and by the power of using other means; by resorting to and resting in places <of> pilgrimage and holy shrines, and by stretching his perseverance as his defence (or a fence about the seed-ground).

11. It is the duty of the well taught man, after the sprouting forth of the seed, to preserve it always with the assistance of his two consorts—contentment and cheerfulness. 12. He should then keep off the aerial birds of his expectations and the fowls of his affection for others, and the vultures of his desire and cupidity, from darting upon and picking up the seed. 13. Then the rajas or dust of vanity, is to swept away (from this field), by gentle acts of piety, serving as sweepers of vice and unrighteousness; and then the tamas or shades of ignorance are to be dispelled from this ground, by the ineffable light of the sun of reason—viveka. 14. Wealth and women, and all sorts of frail and fleeting enjoyments; overtake this rising germ (of godliness), as darts of lightning issuing from the cloud of unrighteousness. 15. It is by the iron rod of patience and gravity, by the muttering of mantras, and by holy ablutions and austerities, as also by the trident of the triliteral Om, that these thunderbolts are averted. 16. In this manner the seed of meditation also, being carefully preserved from neglect, sprouts forth in the germ of discrimination (viveka) with its handsome and thriving appearance.

17. The ground of the mind shines brightly, with this brilliant germ; and it gladdens the hearts of men in veneration to it, as the smiling moon-beams illume the sky. 18. This germ shoots forth in a couple of leaves, which grow out of themselves upon it; one of them is the knowledge of sástras, and the other is the society of the good and wise. (i.e. Divine knowledge is to be gained from the study of scriptures, and attendance to the lectures of learned men). 19. Let your fixedness support the stem and height of this tree, and make your patience its covering bark; and cause your unconcernedness with the world, supply it with the moisture of indifference. 20. The tree of godliness being nourished with the moisture of unworldliness, and watered by the rain water of sástras, attains its full height in course of a short time. 21. Being thickened by the pith of divine knowledge, and marrow of good society, and the moisture of indifference, this tree attains a fixity, which is not to be shaken by the apes of passions and affections. 22. And then this tree shoots forth in luxuriant branches of wisdom, which stretches far and wide with their fresh verdure and virescent leaves, distilling their juicy sweets all around.

23. These are the branches of frankness and truth, of constancy and firmness, of equanimity and unchangeableness, of calmness and amicableness, and of kindness, self-respect and renown. 24. These branches are again adorned with the leaves of peace and tranquility, and studded with flowers of good repute and fame; wherewith this tree of godliness becomes the párijáta (or the arbour of paradise or Parnassus) to the hermits of the forests. 25. In this manner the tree of divine knowledge, being fraught with its branches, leaves and flowers; brings for the best and richest fruits of knowledge, day by day (during the life time of its possessor). 26. It blossoms in clusters of the flowers of fame, and is covered with leaves of bright qualities all over; it is profluent with the sweets of dispassionateness; and its filaments are full of the dust of intelligence. 27. It cools all sides like clouds in the rainy weather, and always the heat of worldly anxieties, as the moon-beams assuage the warmth of sun-shine. 28. It spreads the awning shade of harmony, as the clouds cast a cooling shadow below; it stretches a quiet composure over the mind (chitta-vritti nirodha), as an extensive cloud overspreads a still calm in the air.

29. It builds a sound and sure basis for itself, as the rocks stand on their solid bases; it lays the foundation of future rewards on high, and causes all blessings to attend upon it. 30. As the arbour of discrimination, grows higher and higher day by day; so it stretches a continuity of cooling shade, over the forest of the hearts of men. 31. It diffuses a coldness, that pacifies the heat below; and makes the plant of the understanding to shoot forth (develop), as a tender creeper juts out of the snows. 32. The deerlike mind being tired with its wanderings, about the deserts of this world; takes its rest and refuge under this cool shade; as a weary traveller, worried out from his very birth, in his journey among men, comes to take his rest at last. 33. This deer of the mind, that is galled in its mouth by browsing the thorny brambles of the forest for food, is again hunted by its enemies of the passions, which lay waiting like huntsmen, to kill the soul, as these slay the body of the stag for its skin.

34. The deerlike mind being ever impelled by its vain desires, wanders all about the desert land of this world, and pursues after the poisonous water of mirage of its egoism. 35. It sees the extended and verdant valley at distance, and is battered and shattered in its body with running after its verdure; and being harassed in search of the food and forage for its offspring, it falls headlong into the pit for its destruction. 36. Being robbed of his fortune, and put to bodily troubles, and led by thirst of gain to the ever running stream of desires, the man is at last swallowed up and carried away by the current waves. 37. The man flies afar for fear of being overtaken by a disease, as the stag does for fear of a huntsman, but he is not afraid of the hunter of fate, that falls upon him unawares at every place. 38. The timid mind is afraid of the shafts of adverse fortune, flying from every known quarter; and of being pelt by stones flung from the hands of its enemies on every side.

39. The mind is ever hurled up and down, with the ups and downs of fortune; and is continually crushed under the millstone of his rising and setting passions (of anger and hatred &c.). 40. One who follows after thirst, without putting reliance on the laws inculcated by the great, falls headlong into the delusion of the world; as one suffers a scratch is well as wound over his body, by penetrating within the beautiful thorny creepers. 41. Having entered in the organic body of man, the mind is eager to fly away from it; but there is the ungovernable elephant of earthy desire, that stuns it with its loud shrieks (on its way). 42. There is again the huge snake of worldly affairs, which benumbs it with its poisonous breath; and so do the fairies on the face of the earth, serve to enslave the mind in love to them. 43. There is also the wild fire of anger, which boils like a smart bile with its burning flame in the human breast; and inflames the mind with endless pain, by its repeated recurrence in the bosom. 44. The desires clinging to the mind, are as gnats and fleas, biting and stinging it constantly; and its carnal enjoyments, appetites and revelries, are as shakals shrieking loudly about it.

45. It is led by virtue of its actions, to wander all about without any rest or profit to its self, and driven from place to place by the tiger like poverty, staring grimly at its face, again it is blinded amidst the mist of its affections to children and others, and lost at last in the hidden pitfall of death. 46. Again it trembles with the sense of and fear for its honor, which like a lion strikes tremor in its heart; while it is struck with terror at the glaring of the wolf of death at its face. 47. It is afraid of pride, as a forester in dread of dragon coming to devour him; and it fears the appetites, which with their open mouths and bloody teeth, threaten to ingulph it in ruin. 48. It is no less in fear of its female companions in youth, whose amorous embraces like gusts of wind threaten to hurl it headlong to repeated hell-pits. 49. It seldom happens, O prince! that the deerlike mind finds its rests in the arbour of godliness; as the living beings do, when they come from darkness to day light. (It ought to be, when they come from day light to repose at night).

50. O ye hearers, let your deerlike minds find that delight in the arbour of peace, whose name even is not known to the ignorant, who are deluded by their fickle and smiling fortunes, resembling the oscillating smiles of flowers.

CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF THE DEERLIKE MIND. Argument:—Description of the happiness, attending upon the access of the mind to the arbour of Godliness. Vasishtha continued:—O destroyer of enemies! the deerlike mind having found its rest in that sacred bower, remains quite pleased with the same, and never thinks of going to any other arbour. 2. In course of time, the tree of discriminate knowledge, brings forth its fruits; which ripen gradually with the sweet substance of spiritual knowledge in the inside. 3. The deerlike mind sitting under the goodly tree of its meditation, beholds its outstretching branches hanging downward, with loads of the fruits of merit and virtue (meaning its meritoriousness). 4. It sees people climbing in this tree, with great persistence and pains; in order to taste these sweet fruits in preference to all others (because merit is preferable to reward). 5. Worldly peoples decline to ascend the foot of the tree of knowledge, but those who have mounted high upon it, never think of ever coming down from the high position which they have attained.

6. For he who has ascended on the tree of reason or knowledge, in order to taste its delicious fruits, forgets the relish of his habitual food, and forsakes the bondage of his former deserts, as a snake casts aside his slough or skin. 7. The man who has risen to a high station, looks at himself and smiles to think, how miserly he has passed so long a period of his past life. 8. Having then mounted on the branch of fellow feeling, and putting down the snake of selfishness under his feet, he seems to reign in himself, as if he were the sole monarch over all. 9. As the digits of the moon decrease and disappear in the dark fortnight, so the lotuses of his distress are lost in oblivion; and the iron fetters of his thirst after greed are rubbed out day by day (as he advances in his yoga). 10. He heeds not what is unattainable, nor cares about what is not obtained; his mind is as bright as the clear moon light night, and his heart is quite cold, in all its passions and affections.

11. He sits poring upon the sages of the scriptures, and meditates in silence in their profound sense; he observes with extensive view the course of nature, from the highest and greatest objects to the mean and minute. 12. Looking at the aforesaid septuple ground of his past follies, full with thick forests of poisonous fruits and flowers; he sits smiling looking upon them in derision (for having fled from their infection). 13. Having fled from the tree of death, and alighted on that of life, his aspiring mind like a flitting bird, rises by degrees to its higher branches, and there sits delighted as a prince in his elevated station. 14. Thence he looks down upon the family and friends, and upon the wealth and property (he has left behind); as if they were the adjuncts of former life, or as visions in his dream. 15. He views with coldness his passions and feelings, his fears, hopes, his errors and honors, as actors (dramatis personae), acting their several parts in the drama of his life. (The world is a stage, life a play, and the passions are players in it).

16. The course of the world is as that of a rapid river, running onward with its furious and mischievous current; and laughing with its frothy breakers, now swelling highland then sinking at once. 17. He does not feel any craving for wealth, wife or friends in his breast, who lives dead to his feelings as an insensible corpse (or forgets himself to a stone). 18. His sight is fixed only on that single fruit on high, which is the holy and conscious soul or intellect; and with his sole object in his view, he mounts high on the higher branches of this tree of life. 19. He bears in his remembrance, the blessings of the preceding step of his yoga meditation, which is one fraught with the ambrosia of contentment; he remains as content at the loss of his riches, as he felt himself glad at their gain before. 20. In the callings of his life, as also to the calls of his private and public interest; he is as displeased and annoyed, as one who is untimely roused from his wholesome sleep.

21. As a weary traveller fatigued with his long and tiresome journey, longs for his rest from cessation of his labour; so a man tired with his repeated journey through life by cause of his ignorance, requires his respite in nirvána (or extinction of the trouble and transmigration in this troublesome world). 22. As a flame of fire is kindled by the wind of breath and without the help of fuel, so let him kindle the flame of his soul within by the breath of respiration; and be united with the Supreme spirit. 23. Let him check per-force his yearning after anything, which falls of itself before his sight; although he is unable to prevent his wistful eye, from falling upon it. (Look on all things, but long after nothing). 24. Having attained this great dignity, which confers the fruits of best blessings on man, the devotee arrives to the sixth stage of his devotion, whose glory no language can describe. 25. Whenever he happens to meet with some unexpected good, which fortune presents unto him he feels a repugnance to it, as the traveller is loathe to trust the mirage in a barren desert.

26. The silent sage who is full with divine grace within himself, attains to such a state of ineffable felicity; as the weary and exhausted traveller finds in his sweet sleep, over the bustle of the busy world. 27. He—sage having arrived at this stage of his devotion, advances towards this attainment of the fruit of spiritual bliss, as an aerial siddha spirit has on its alighting on the Mount Meru, or a bird of air on its dropping down on the top of a tree. 28. Here he forsakes all his thoughts and desires, and becomes as free as the open air and sky; and then he takes and tastes and eats and satiates himself, with his feeding freely upon this fruit. 29. It is the leaving off of every object of desire day by day, and living the live long day with perfect composure with one’s self; that is termed the attainment of godliness or full perfection in life.

30. The means of attaining to this state of perfection, is the doing away with all distinctions and differentiations, and remaining in perfect union and harmony with all and every thing; this state of the mind is said by the learned, to be the assimilation and approximation to the nature of God, who is ever pure and the one and same in all from eternity to eternity. 31. One disgusted at his desire of the world and its people, and abandoning his desire of wife and family; and forsaking his desire of acquiring riches, can only find his rest in this blissful state. 32. The ultimate union of both the intellect and its true knowledge (i.e. of both the subjective and objective) in the Supreme spirit; serves to melt away all sense of distinction, as the solar heat melts down the frozen snow. 33. The nature of one who has known the truth, is not comparable with the state of a bent bow, which becomes straight after it is loosened; but to that of a curvilinear necklace, which retains its curvature, even after it is let loose on the ground. (i.e. The true convert does not slide back, like the back sliding hypocrite).

34. As a statue is carved in wood or stone, and stands expect to view in bas-relief therein; so is the world manifest in the great pillar of the Supreme spirit, and is neither an entity nor nullity of itself. 35. We cannot form any idea of it in the mind, as to how the material subsists in the immaterial spirit; nor is it proper to entertain the notion, of what is unknowable by our ignorance of the nature of the selfexistent One. 36. Whoso is known to have his utmost indifference to the visibles, is capable of knowing the invisible spirit; but the unenlightened soul, is incapable to forsake and forget the visibles (in order to see the spirit). 37. The knowledge of the phenomenal is utter ignorance, but that which is never lost to our consciousness is what is meant by samádhána, and our reliance in the same, constitutes what is called samádhi. (This passage has a long explanatory note which is here omitted). 38. When the viewer and view (or the subjective and objective), are viewed in the same light of identity, and so relied upon by the mind; it is then called samádhána or the union of both into one, and it is this belief whereupon the yogi places his rest and reliance.

39. He who has known truth, finds a distaste in the visibles of his own natures (i.e. is naturally averse to them); and wise men make use of the word phenomenalism for ignorance of truth. 40. Fools only feed upon the objects of sense, from their ignorance of truth, but the wise men have a natural distaste for them; for they that have the relish of sweet nectar in them, cannot be disposed to taste the sour gruel or the acrid ale. 41. The uncovetous man being content in himself, is quite devoid of the triple desire mentioned before; but the wise man who is not inclined to meditation, is addicted to the increase of his wealth. 42. Self-knowledge results from absence of cupidity, and whoso loses his self by his venality, hath neither his self-possession, nor any fixed position to stand upon (but is led on everywhere by his covetousness to the service of others). 43. The learned man does not prosper in his meditation, though he may employ all his knowledge to it; because he is divided in himself by his various desires, though he was made as the whole and undivided image of himself (i.e. his maker).

44. But the soul which is freed from its desires, comes of itself in the possession of endless bliss, by being dissolved in the source of it in its meditation, as the flying mountains were fixed upon the earth (by having their wings chopped off by the thunder of Indra). (So the fickle mind is fixed, by lopping off its desires). 45. As the soul becomes conscious of holy light in itself, it loses the sense of its meditation and is wholly lost in that light; as a drop of clarified butter offered in sacred oblation, is burnt away in the sacrificial fire. 46. It is the entire inappetency of sensible objects, which constitutes the peace and quietude of the mind; and he who has accustomed himself to this habit, is entitled to our regard as a venerable and holy divine. 47. Verily the man that has gained his proficiency, in the suppression of his appetite for worldly objects; becomes as firm and sedate in his holy meditation, that he is not to be shaken from it, by the joint power of Indra and those of the Gods and demigods. (The greedy are as sacrificial beasts, for the food of Gods and others).

48. Resort therefore to the strong and adamantine refuge of meditation, and know that all other meditations beside that of knowledge, is as frail and fragile as straws. 49. The word world is used in reference to ignorant people, and the wise are not the subject of its meaning; the difference of the words ignorant and wise, consists in the one’s forming the majority of mankind and the other their lords (i.e. Wise men rule over the ignorant mob, who compose the world). 50. Let wise men resort to and rest at that place, where all meet in union in one self-shining unity; whether it be on the ground of the understanding of the saintly siddhas, or those of viveki sages. (This is an admonition to every one, for his reliance in one catholic religion of unity, of any nation or country). 51. No one has yet been able to ascertain the unity or duality of the real or unreal (i.e. of the spirit and matter) and the way to learn it, is firstly by means of the sástras, and next by association with wise and holy men.

52. The third and best means to nirvána is meditation, which is arrived at one after the other; and then it will appear that the immense body of Brahma (i.e. the infinite spirit), takes upon it the name and nature of the living soul. 53. The world appears in various forms by the concourse of the like and unlike principles, and becomes divided into eighteen regions, by the omniscience of God that knows the past, and future. 54. Both the two things namely knowledge and dislike of the world, are attained by attainment of either of them; and the thoughts of our mind, which fly with the winds in open air, are burnt away by the fire of knowledge. 55. The worlds like flying cottons, having fled into the supreme soul, nothing is known where they are flown at last; and the gross ignorance of man is not removed by knowledge, as the dense snow is not to be melted by the fire in a painting. 56. Though the world is known to be an unfounded fallacy, yet it is hard to remove this error from the mind; but on the other hand it increases like the knowledge of ignorant men of it, by their ignorance.

57. As the knowledge of the ignorant, tends the more to increase their ignorance; so the wiseman comes to find the meaninglessness of the knowledge of ignorant people with regard to the world. 58. The existence of the three worlds, is known to us only as they are represented in our knowledge of them; they are built in vacuity as aerial cities, and stretched out before us as empty dreams in our sleep. 59. The knowledge of the world appears as false, as the conception of fanciful desires in the minds of the wise; for neither the entity of the world nor that of his self-existence, is perceptible in the understanding of the wise man. 60. There is only the existence of one supremely bright essence, which shines in our minds; which bears resemblance to pieces of wet or dry wood, in as much as they are moistened or exsiccated by the presence or absence of the divine knowledge. 61. To the right understanding the whole world with all its living beings, appears as one with one’s self; but men of dull understandings, bear no mutual sympathy to one another. The knowledge of twain, tends to difference and disunion betwixt man and man; but that of oneness unity leads men to fellow-feeling and union.

62. The wise man possessing a greater share of wisdom, becomes as one with the Supreme One; and does not take into consideration, the question of the entity or nullity of the world. 63. As the man who has arrived at the forth stage of yoga, takes no notice of the waking, dreaming and sleeping states of man; so the reasonable man takes into no account the vain wishes of his heart, and false fancies of his mind. 64. Hence the deerlike mind does not choose its annihilation, (or the loss of its entity); for the sake of its liberation, (which is an ideal and negative felicity), and has no reality in it. 65. Thus the tree of meditation produces of itself the fruit of knowledge, which is ripened by degrees and in course of time to its lusciousness; and then the deer like mind drinks its sweet juice of divine knowledge to its satiety, and becomes freed from its fetters of earthly desire.

ON ABSTRACT MEDITATION AND HYPNOTISM. Argument:—The state of the mind, after its tasting the fruit of the tree of Meditation; and the nausea produced thereby in all worldly objects and enjoyments. Vasishtha continued:—After the Supreme being which is the object and fruit of meditation, is known as present in the mind, and the bliss of release from flesh is felt within, all sensations are lost altogether, and the deerlike mind becomes spiritualized into the Supreme essence. 2. It then loses its deership of browsing the thorns, as the extinguished lamp loses its flame; it assumes a spiritual form and shines with exhaustless blaze. 3. The mind in order to attain the fruit of its meditation, assumes a firmness resembling that of the mountains, after their wings were mutilated by the thunder bolts of Indra. 4. Its mental faculties fly away from it, and there remains only its pure consciousness in it; which <is> irrepressible and indivisible and full with the supreme soul in itself. 5. The mind being roused to its reasonableness (from its former state of material dulness); now rises as the sentient soul, and dispensing its clear spiritual light, from its identity with the increate and endless One.

6. It then remains in that state, in perfect freedom and from all wishes and attempts; it is assimilated with the everlasting spirit of God, in its form of eternal contemplation. 7. Until the great Brahma may be known, and our rest may be found in that Blessed state; so long the mind remains a stranger to meditation, by reason of its dwelling on other thoughts. 8. After the mind has obtained its union with the supreme One, we know not whither the mind is fled; and where our wishes and actions, our joys and griefs, and all our knowledge fly away. 9. The yogi is seen to be solely absorbed in his meditation, and sitting steadfast in his contemplation, like a wingless and unmoving mountain. 10. Loathe to his sensual enjoyments, and blunt to all sensibilities; averse to the various sights and objects of senses, the yogi is pleased only with himself. 11. With his sensations numbed by degrees, and his soul resting in tranquility; and his mind dead to the enticements of wealth and sensible objects; the yogi is pleased with himself. 12. All men of right understanding, are fully aware of the tastelessness of the objects of sense; and remain like human figures in painting, without doting or looking upon them.

13. The man that is master of himself, and has mastery over his soul and mind; disdains to look upon earthly treasures, for his want of desire for them; he is firmly fixed in his abstraction, as if he were compelled to it by force of another. 14. The soul immerged in meditation, becomes as full as a river in the rainy season; and there is no power that can restrain the mind, which is fixed in its meditation. 15. When the mind is immerged in deep meditation, by its cool apathy to all sensible objects, and feels an utter indifference to all worldly affairs, it is then said to be in its samádhi and no other. 16. It is a settled distaste to the objects of sense, that constitutes the pith and marrow of meditativeness; and the maturity of this habit, makes a man as compact as adamant. 17. It is therefore the distaste to worldly enjoyments, that is the germ of meditation, while it is the taste for such pleasures, which binds a man fastly to it. 18. Full knowledge of truth, and the renunciation of every desire at all times; lead men to the nirvána meditation, and to the infinite joy of the divine state.