Reading section 67

44. Its knowledge of self, springs of itself in itself like the water of a fountain; and it perceives itself (its _ego_) to be but an atom amidst the endless worlds.

45. It perceives also in itself the beautiful and wondrous world, which is amazing to the understanding, and which is thereafter named the universe. (_i.e._ The one existing in the other and not without it: meaning, the soul to be the seat of both the subjective and objective knowledge).

46. Now Ráma, our _egoism_ being but a conception of the intellect is a mere fiction (_kalpaná_); and the elementary principles being but creatures of egoism, they are also fictions of the intellect.

47. Again the living soul being but a resultant of our acts and desires, you have to renounce these causes, in order to get rid of your knowledge of _ego_ and _tu_ (_i.e._ of the existence of yourself and that of others); and then you attain to the knowledge of the true one, after discarding the fictions of the real and unreal.

48. As the sky looks as clear as ever, after the shadows of clouds are dispersed from it, so does the soul look as bright as it existed at first in the intellect, after its overshadowing fictions have been removed.

49. The universe is a vacuum, and the world is a name for the field of our exertions. This vacuity is the abode of the gods (_Viswa_ and _Viráj_, both of whom are formless). The wonderful frame of plastic nature, is but a form of the formless intellect and no other.

50. What is one’s nature never leaves him at any time; how then can a form or figure be given to the formless Divinity?

51. The divine intellect is exempt from all the names and forms which are given to unintelligent worldly things, it being the pervader and enlivener, of all that shines in the world. (Intellect is the power of understanding).

52. The mind, understanding and egoism, with the elements, the hills and skies, and all things that compose and support the world, are made of the essences proceeding from the intellect. (The intellect from _interlegere_ contains all things).

53. Know the world to compose the mind-_chitta_ of the intellect-_chit_ of God, because the mind does not subsist without the world. Want of the world would prove the inexistence of the mind and intellect which consist of the world. (Hence the identity of the intelligent world with the mind and intellect of God).

54. The intellect like the pepper seed, is possest of an exquisite property within itself, and bears like the flavour of the other, the element of the living soul, which is the element of animated nature.

55. As the mind exerts its power and assumes its sense of egoism, it derives the principle of the living soul from the Intellect, which with its breath of life and action, is called a living being afterwards. (The mind is what thinks, moves and acts).

56. The intellect (_chit_), exhibiting itself as the mind (_chitta_), bears the name of the purpose it has to accomplish, which being temporary and changeable, is different from the _chit_ and a nullity. (The mind being the principle of volition, is applied also to the object of the will, as we say, I have a mind to play; which is equal to the expression, I have a playful mind: and this state of the mind being variable, is said to be null).

57. The distinction of actor and act, does not consist in the intellect, it being eternal, is neither the author or the work itself. But the living soul, which is active and productive of acts, is called the _purusha_ or the embodied soul residing in the body—_purau-sete_. It is action which makes the man-_purusha_, from which is derived his manhood-_paurusha_.

58. Life with the action of the mind constitutes the mind of man. The mind taking a sensitive form, employs the organs of sense to their different functions. (The sensitivity of the mind bears an active and not the passive sense of sensitiveness or sensibility).

59. He, the radiance of the light of whose intellect, is the cause of infinite blessings to the world, is both its author and workmanship from all eternity, and there is none beside him. (He is the _Pratyagátmá_ the all-pervading soul).

60. Hence the ego or living soul is indivisible, uninflammable, unsoilable and undriable in its essence; it is everlasting and infinite (ubiquious), and as immovable as a mountain. (The living soul is viewed in the light of the eternal soul).

61. There are many that dispute on this point, as they dispute on other matters, in their error, and mislead others into the same; but we are set free from all mistake. (The disputants are the dualists, who make a distinction between the eternal and created souls. (_Jívátmá-paramátmá-dvaita-vádis_)).

62. The dualist relying on the phenomena, is deceived by their varying appearances; but the believer in the formless unity, relies in the everlasting blessed spirit (which he views in his intellect).

63. Fondness for intellectual culture, is attended with the vernal blossoms of intellect, which are as white as the clear firmament, and as numberless as the parts of time.

64. The intellect exhibits itself in the form of the boundless and wonderful mundane egg, and it breathes out the breath of its own spirit in the same egg. (The breathing soul is called the _sútrátmá_ one of the ten hypostases of Brahma, the vital air is the first of the elementary bodies, in the order of emanation _alias_ creation).

65. It then showed itself in the wondrous form of the antimundane waters, not as they rise from springs or fall into reservoirs, as also in those of the substances constituting the bodies of the best of beings.

66. It next shone forth with its own intellectual light, which shines as bright as the humid beams of the full moon.

67. Then as the intellect rises in full light with its internal knowledge, upon disappearance of the visibles from sight; so also it is transformed to dullness by dwelling upon gross objects, when it is said to be lie dormant. In this state of the intellect, it is lowered to and confined in the earth.

68. The world is in motion by the force of the Intellect, in whose great vacuity it is settled; it is lighted by the light of that Intellect, and is therefore said to be both existent as well as inexistent by itself.

69. Like the vacuity of that Intellect, the world is said now to exist and now to be inexistent; and like the light of that Intellect, it now appears and now disappears from view.

70. Like the fleeting wind which is breathed by that Intellect, the world is now in existence and now inexistent; and like the cloudy and unclouded sphere of that Intellect, the world is now in being and now a not being.

71. Like the broad day light of that Intellect, the world is now in existence, and like the disappearance of that light, it now becomes nothing. It is formed like collyrium from the particles of the oil of the _rajas_ quality of the Intellect.

72. It is the intellectual fire that gives warmth to the world, and it is the alabaster (conch) of the intellect that causes its whiteness; the rock of intellect gives it hardness, and its water causes its fluidity.

73. The sweetness of the world, is derived from the sugar of the intellect, and its juiciness from the milk in the divine mind; its coldness is from the ice, and its heat from the fire contained in the same. (_i.e._ The divine Intellect is the material cause (_upádána kárana_) of the world).

74. The world is oily by the mustard seeds contained in the Intellect; and billowy in the sea of the divine mind. It is dulcet by the honey and aureate by the gold contained in the same.

75. The world is a fruit of the tree of Intellect, and its fragrance is derived from the flowers growing in the arbour of the mind. It is the _ens_ of the Intellect, that gives the world its entity, and it is the mould of the eternal mind, that gives its form.

76. The difference is, that this world is changeful, while the clear atmosphere of the Intellect has no change in it; and the unreal world becomes real, when it is seen as full of the Divine spirit.

77. The invariable self-sameness of the Divine spirit, makes the entity and non-entity of the world alike (because it has no existence of its own, but in the Supreme soul). And the words ‘part and whole’ are wholly meaningless, because both of these are full with the divine spirit.

78. Fie to them, that deride notions as false talk; because the world with its hills, and seas, earth and rivers, is all untrue without the notion of God’s presence in it. (The Buddhists are perceptionalists, and have no faith in any thing beyond their sensible perceptions (_pratyaksha_); but the Vedantic spiritualists, on the contrary, are abstract conceptionalists, and believe nothing to be true, of which they have no notion or inward conception).

79. The intellect being an unity, cannot be mistaken for a part of any thing; and though it may become as solid as a stone, yet it shines brightly in the sphere of its vacuity.[13]

80. It has a clear vacuous space in its inside, as a transparent crystal, which reflects the images of all objects, though it is as clear as the sky.

81. As the lines on the leaves of trees, are neither the parts of the leaves nor distinct from them, so the world situated in the Intellect, is no part of it nor separate from it.

82. No detached soul is of heterogeneous growth, but retains in its nature the nature of the intellect, and Brahmá is the primary cause of causes. (Hence called Hiranyagarbha.)

83. The mind is of its own nature a causal principle, by reason of its notion of the Intellect; but its existence is hard to be proved, when it is insensible and unconscious of the intellect.

84. Whatever is in the root, comes out in the tree, as we see the seed shoot forth in plants of its own species.

85. All the worlds are as void as vacuity, and yet they appear otherwise, as they are situated in the Great Intellect. All this is the seat of the Supreme, and you must know it by your intellection.

86. As the Muni spake these words, the day declined to its evening twilight. The assembly broke with mutual salutations, to perform their vesperal ablutions, and met again at the court hall with the rising sunbeams, after dispersion of the nocturnal gloom.

CHAPTER XV.

STORY OF THE TEMPLE AND ITS PRINCE.

Vasishtha said:—The world is a void and as null as the pearls in the sky (seen by optical delusion). It is as unreal as the soul in the vacuity of the intellect.

2. All its objects appear, as unengraven images on the column of the mind, which is without any engraving or engraver of it.

3. As the intermotion of the waters in the sea, causes the waves to rise of themselves, so the visibles as they appear to us, are as waves in the calm spirit of the Supreme. (The variety of the waves, with the pearls, shells and froth they pour out, resemble the multiformity of worldly productions).

4. As sun-beams seen under the water, and as water appearing in the sands of the desert (mirage); so it is the fancy, that paints the world as true to us; and its bulk is like that of an atom, appearing as a hill (when seen through the microscope).

5. The fancied world is no more than a facsimile of the mind of its Maker, just as the sun beams under the water, are but reflexions of the light above; and no other than a negative notion (a false idea).

6. The ideal world is but an aerial castle, and this earth (with its contents), is as unreal as a dream, and as false as the objects of our desire.

7. The earth appearing as solid, is in the light of philosophy, no better than the liquid water of a river, in the mirage of a sandy desert, and is never in existence.

8. The illusive forms of the visibles, in this supposed substantial form of the world, resemble at least, but aerial castles and rivers in the mirage.

9. The visionary scenes of the world being taken to the scales, will be found when weighed, to be light as air and as hollow as vacuum.

10. The ignorant that are taken away by the sound of words in disregard of sense, will find when they come to sense, that there is no difference between the world and Brahma: (the one being but the reflection of the other).

11. The dull world is the issue of the Intellect, like the beams of the sun in the sky. The light of the intellect, is as light as the rarefied rays of the sun; but it raises like the other, the huge clouds, to water the shooting seeds of plants.

12. As a city in a dream, is finer than one seen in the waking state, so this visionary world is as subtile as an imaginary one.

13. Know therefore the insensible world to be the inverse of the sensible soul, and the substantive world as the reverse of the unsubstantial vacuum. The words plenum and vacuum are both as inane as airy breath, because these opposites are but different views of the same Intellect.

14. Know therefore this visible world to be no production at all; it is as nameless as it is undeveloped, and as inexistent as its seeming existence.

15. The universe is the sphere of the spirit of God in the infinite space; it has no foundation elsewhere except in that Spirit of which it is but a particle, and filling a space equal to a bit of infinity.