Reading section 57

15. At last Death with all his search and effort, came to find the acts of the air-born Bráhman, to be as _nil_ as the offspring of a barren woman; and his mind as transfixed (in meditation) as if it were a rock.

16. He then returned from his reconnoitering to his all-knowing master Yama, and besought his advice, as servants do in matters of doubt and difficulty (how to proceed).

17. Death addressed him saying:—“Tell me my lord, where the acts of the Air-born Bráhman are to be found;” to which Yama after a long head-work, replied as follows.

SECTION II.

STATE OF THE SOUL.

18. Know, O Death! that this air-born seer has no acts whatever; for as he is born of empty air so his doings are all null and void. (_i.e._ The bodiless spirit or mind is devoid of acts requiring physical means and appliances).

19. Whoso is born of air, is as pure as air itself, and has no combination of cause or acts like all embodied (beings).

20. He has no relation with acts of his prior existence. He is _nil_ as the child of an unprolific woman, and as one unborn, uncreated and unbegotten.

21. Want of causes has made him a pure vacuous being, and the privation of prior acts has made him as _nil_ as an etherial arbor.

22. His mind is not ruffled as those of others, by reason of the privation of his former acts; nor is there any such act of his present state, whereby he may become a morsel to death.

23. Such is the soul seated in the sheath of vacuity, and remaining for ever as the simple form of its own causality (_káranadeha_), and not guided by any extraneous causation whatever.

24. It has no prior deed, nor does it do any thing at present; (_i.e._ neither led by predestination, nor actuated by present efforts); but continues as something in the shape of aeriform intelligence.

25. Our inference of the actions of breathing and motion by the agency of the soul, is a mere supposition; because the soul is devoid of every thought of or tendency to action.

26. It sits meditating on itself as inseparable from the Supreme Intelligence, just as the images (in painting and statuary), are inseparable from the mind of the painter and sculptor.

27. The self-born Bráhman is as intimately connected with the objects of his thought, as fluidity is associated with water and vacuity with the firmament.

28. His soul is as immanent in the supreme, as motion is inherent in the winds. It has neither the accumulated acts of past lives, nor those of its present state. (_i.e._ It is neither a passive nor active agent of prior or present acts; but is an indifferent witness of the acts of the body and mind).

29. It is produced without the co-operation of accompanying causes, and being free from prior motives, it is not subjected to the vicissitudes concomitant with human life.

30. It is found to be no other than its own cause; and having no other cause for itself, it is said to be self-produced.

31. Say, how can you lay hold on that being that has done no act before, nor is in the act of doing any thing at present? It is then only subjected to thee when it thinks itself mortal. (But he that knows his soul to be immortal is not subject to death).

32. Whoso believes his soul to be of this earth, and thinks himself to be an earthly being, he may be easily overtaken by thee (whose power extends over earth-born mortals only).

33. This Bráhman is a formless being, by reason of his disowning the material body. Hence it is as hard for thee to enthral him, as to entwine the air with a rope.

34. Death rejoined saying:—Tell me my lord! how may the unborn _Aja_ or the self-born _swayambhu_, be produced out of vacuum, and how can an earthly or other elemental body be and not be (at the same time).

35. Yama replied:—This Bráhman is neither born nor is _nil_ at any time; but remains for ever the same, as the light of intelligence of which there is no decay.

36. There remains nothing at the event of the great Doomsday, except the tranquil, imperishable and infinite Bráhman himself in his spiritual form.

37. This is the nature of the everlasting vacuum, too subtile in its essence, and devoid of all attributes; but viewing present before its mind, the stupendous cosmos in the form of a huge mountain in the beginning of recreation. (The mind is the noumenon—Brahma, and the phenomena of the world is the gigantic macrocosm known as _Virájmúrti_).

38. Being of the nature of intelligence it is imperishable; but those who view the spirit in the form of any phenomenal body, are liable to perish with it like all embodied beings.

39. Thus this Bráhman remained in the womb of vacuity in the beginning, in his state of unalterable, vacuous intelligence.

40. It is purely of the nature of the inane understanding, and of the form of a vast expanse of omniscience; having neither body nor organism; no acts nor agency, nor desire of any kind in itself.

41. That which is simply of the form of vacuum and pure light, is never beset by the snare of pristine desires, as a corporeal being.

42. It has nothing to know or see without itself (_i.e._ beyond its self-consciousness). The only conception that we have of it, is what resembles an extended intelligence (_i.e._ an all-diffusive omniscience).

43. Under these circumstances, how is it susceptible of any earthly or other external form? Therefore O Death! desist from thy attempt to lay hold on the same.

44. Hearing these words of Yama, Death thought upon the impracticability of laying hold on empty vacuity by any body, and sorrowfully returned to his own abode.

45. Ráma said: you said sir, that Brahmá is your great grand-sire; I think it is he that you mean to say as the unborn, self-born, universal soul and intelligence.

46. So is this Brahmá, Ráma! as I have spoken to you, and it was with regard to the same, that the aforesaid discussion was held of yore between Death and Yama (Pluto).

47. Again when Death had made an end of all living beings at the interval of a _manwantará_, he thought himself strong enough to make an attempt to bear down upon the lotus-born Brahmá also.

48. It was then that he was admonished by Yama, saying:—It is your habit that makes you go on your wonted course of killing.

49. But the super-etherial form of Brahmá too is beyond your reach: it being simply of the nature of the mind having connection with its thoughts only, and no concern with the actual forms of things.

50. It is of the form of the wonderfully vacuous intellect, having the faculty of cognition in it. Thus the intellect being but vacuum, has neither any cause for it, nor any effect produced by it.

51. As the aeriform volitive principle in men, manifests itself without being connected with material forms, so is the self-born (Brahmá) manifest to all in his own immaterial nature.

52. Like strings of pearl appearing to view in the clear firmament, and forms of cities seen in a dream, the self-born (Brahmá) is manifest of himself without relation to external objects.

53. As there is no beholder nor any thing beholden of the solitary Supreme spirit which is the intellect itself; so is the mind manifest of itself (without its looking at or being looked upon by any body).

54. It is the volitive mind which is called Brahmá and volition being a spiritual faculty, has no connection with any material substance.

55. As the mind of the painter is fraught with images of various things, so is the mind of Brahmá full of figures of all created beings.

56. The self-born Brahmá is manifest in his own mind as Brahmá is manifested in the vacuous sphere of his intellect. He is without beginning, middle and end, and appears to have a figure like that of a male being, while in reality he has no body, as the offspring of a barren woman.

CHAPTER III.

CAUSES OF BONDAGE IN THE BODY.

Ráma said:—It is even so as you have said, that the mind is a pure essence, and has no connection with the earth and other material substances; and that it is verily Brahmá itself.

2. Now tell me, O Bráhman! Why the remembrance of his former states (in the past and previous Kalpas), is not (to be reckoned as) the cause of his birth, as it is in the case of mine and yours and of all other beings.

3. Vasishtha replied:—Whoever had a former body, accompanied with the acts of his prior existence, retains of course its reminiscence, which is the cause of his being (reborn on earth).

4. But when Brahmá is known to have no prior acts, how is it possible for him to have his reminiscence of any thing?

5. Therefore he exists without any other cause except the causation of his own mind. It is by his own causality that the Divine spirit is self-born, and is himself his own spirit.

6. He is everlasting, and his body is born of itself from the self-existent Brahma. This unborn or self-born Brahmá has no material body whatever, except his subtile _átiváhika_ or _linga deha_.

7. Ráma said:—The everlasting body is one thing (called the _Súkshma saríra_ or subtile or immaterial body), and the mortal body is another (called the _sthúladeha_ or the gross and material frame). Now tell me sir, whether all created beings have a subtile body also as that of Brahmá?

8. Vasishtha replied:—All created beings that are produced of a cause, have two bodies (the _súkshma_ and the _sthúla_ or the subtile and the gross). But the unborn being which is without a cause, has one body only (which is called the _átiváhika_ or the everlasting spiritual body).

9. The increate Brahmá is the cause of all created beings, but the uncreated spirit having no cause for itself, has one body for it.

10. The prime lord of creatures has no material body; but manifests himself in the vacuous form of his spiritual body.

11. His body is composed of the mind alone, and has no connection with the earth or any other material substance. He is the first lord of creatures, that stretched the creation from his vacuous body (or spiritual essence).

12. All these are but forms of the images or ideas in his vacuous mind, and having no other patterns or originals in their nature. And that every thing is of the same nature with its cause, is a truth well known to all (from the identity of the effect and its material cause).

13. He is an inexistent being and of the manner of perfect intelligence. He is purely of the form of the mind, and has an intellectual and no material entity.

14. He is prime (cause) of all material productions in the physical world, and is born of himself with his prime mobile force in the form of the mind.