Reading section 72

37. But they neither rise nor remain in the soul itself, which is as transparent as the empty air; they appear to the intellect as a vision seen in a dream.

38. As the view beheld in a dream, presents the sights of all things in one place, so does every thing appear to the eye of the beholder of the other world as in his dream.

39. Again whatever is seen in the other world, the same occurs to men in their present states also; wherefore the reality of this and unreality of the other world, are both alike to a state of dreaming.

40. And as there is no difference in the waves of the same sea-water, so the produced visible creation is no other than the unproduced intellectual world, both of which are equally indestructible: (the one being but a copy of the other).

41. But in reality the appearance is nothing but a reflection of the intellect; and which apart from the intelligible spirit, is merely an empty vacuity.

42. The creation though presided by the intelligible spirit, is itself a mere void, its intelligible soul being the only substance of it as the water of the waves.

43. The waves though formed of water, are themselves as false as the horns of hares; and their appearance as natural objects: is altogether false (because they are the effects of the auxiliary cause of the winds which have raised them).

44. Hence there being no visible object in reality (except a false appearance of such), how can the observer have any idea of the visible, which loses its delusion at the moment of his death.

45. After disappearance of the visible outer world from sight, the soul reflects on its reminiscence of the creation in its inner world of the mind, according to the proper time and place of every thing.

46. It remembers its birth, its parents, its age and its residence, with its learning and all other pursuits in their exact manner and order.

47. It thinks of its friends and servants, and of the success and failure of its attempts. And thus the increate and incorporeal soul, ruminates on the events of its created and corporeal state in its intellectual form.

48. It does not however remain long in this state, but enters a new body soon after its death, to which the properties of the mind and senses, are added afterwards in their proper times.

49. It then becomes a baby, and finds a new father and mother, and begins to grow. Thus whether one may perceive it or not, it is all the product of his former reminiscence.

50. Then upon waking from this state of trance, like a fruit from the cell of a flower, it comes to find that a single moment appeared to it as the period of an age.

51. So King Harish Chandra of yore thought one night as a period of twelve years; and so one day seems as long as a year to them that are separated from their beloved objects.

52. Again as the birth or death of one in his dream, or his getting a begotten father in infancy, or a hungry man’s faring on dainty food in thought, is all false:

53. So when a sated man says he is starving, or one declares he is an eye witness of a thing he has not seen, or an empty space is full of people, or that he has got a lost treasure in his dream, who is there to believe him?

54. But this visible world rests in the invisible spirit of God, as the property of pungency, resides in the particles, of the pepper seed, and as the painted pictures on a column. But where are the open and clear sighted eyes to perceive the same?

INTERPRETATION OF LÍLÁ’S VISION.

55. The vision of Lílá, called samádhi in Yoga and _clairvoyance_ of spiritualism, was the abstract meditation of her lord in her memory. Which presented her with a full view of every thing imprinted in it. The memory is taken for the whole intellect _chit_, which is identified with God, in whose essence the images of all things, are said to be eternally present.

CHAPTER XXI.

GUIDE TO PEACE.

Soon after the insensibility occasioned by one’s death is over, there appears to him (soul) the sight of the world, as he viewed it with his open eyes when he was living.

2. It presents before him the circle of the sky and its sides with the cycle of its seasons and times, and shows him the deeds of his pious and secular acts, as they were to continue to eternity.

3. Objects never seen nor thought of before, also offer themselves to his view, as the sight of his own death in a dream, and as they were the prints in his memory.

4. But the infinity of objects, appearing in the empty sphere of the immaterial intellect, is mere illusion, and the baseless city of the world, like an aerial castle, is but the creation of imagination.

5. It is the remembrance of the past world, that makes it known to us (because it is impossible to recognise any thing without a previous impression of its kind in the mind). Hence the length of a _kalpa_ age and the shortness of a moment, are but erroneous impressions proceeding from the rapidity and slowness of our thoughts.

6. Therefore knowledge, based upon previous notions or otherwise, is of two kinds, and things known without their cause, are attributed to Divine Intelligence (as the hidden cause of all).

7. We are conscious also of thoughts, unthought of before in our minds, as we often have in our dreams; and think of our parents after their demise by mistake of other persons as such.

8. Sometimes genius supercedes the province of memory, as in the first creation or discovery of a thing, which is afterwards continued by its remembrance.

9. According to some, those visible worlds are said to have remained in their ideal state in the Divine mind; and according to others, that there were no pre-existent notions of these in the mind of God.

10. According to some others, the world manifested itself not from the memory, but by the power and will of God; while others maintain it to be the production of a fortuitous combination, of intelligence and atomic principles on a sudden (_Kákatálíya sanyoga_).

11. It is the entire forgetfulness of the world, which is styled liberation, and which can not be had from attachment to what is desirable or aversion of the undesirable.

12. It is difficult to effect an entire negation, both of one’s subjective as well as objective knowledge of his self, and the existence of the outer world; and yet no body can be freed without obliteration of both.

13. As the fallacy of taking a rope for a snake, is not removed until the meaning of the world snake, is known to be inapplicable to the rope; so no one can have rest and peace of his mind, unless he is convinced of the illusive nature of the world.

14. One party, who is at peace with himself (by his abandonment of the world), can not be wholly at rest without divine knowledge; as the ghost of his inward ignorance, may overtake him after his getting rid of the devil of worldliness.

15. The world is certainly a monster in itself without the knowledge of its Author; but the difficulty of knowing the first cause, has rendered it an impassable wilderness.

16. Lílá said:—If reminiscence be the cause of one’s reproduction, then say, O goddess! what were the causes of the birth of the Bráhmanic pair, without the vestiges of their past remembrance.

17. The goddess replied:—Know that Brahmá the first progenitor of mankind, who was absolute in himself, did not retain any vestige of his past remembrance in him.

18. The first born, who had nothing to remember of a prior birth, was born in the lotus with his own intelligence—_chaitanya_; (and not because of his remembrance).

19. The lord of creatures being thus born by chance of his own genius or creative power, and without any assignable cause or design on his part, reflected within himself “now I am become another and the source of creation.”

20. Whatever is thus born of itself, is as it were nothing and never produced at all, but remained as the absolute intellect itself in _nubibus_ (chinnabhas).

21. It is the Supreme being that is the sole cause of both states of reminiscence (_i.e._ the one caused by vestiges of prior impressions, and the other produced by prior desires); and both the conditions of cause and effect combine in Him in the sphere of his intellect.

22. Thus it is the knowledge of the union of the cause and effect, and the auxiliary cause in Him, that gives us our tranquillity and naught otherwise.

23. Causality and consequence are mere empty words of no significance, since it is the recognition of the universal intellect, which constitutes true wisdom.

24. Hence nothing is produced that is seen in the phenomenal, or known in the noumenal or intellectual world (_Chid-jagat_); but every thing is situated within the space of the sphere of the intellect in one’s own soul.

25. Lílá said:—O! wonderful was the sight thou hast shown me, O goddess; it was a fair prospect of the world as in its morning light, and as brilliant as in the glare of a lightning.

26. Now goddess! deign to satisfy my curiosity, until I become conversant with it by my intense application and study.

27. Kindly take me to that dwelling where the Bráhman pair dwelt together, and show me that mountainous spot of their former residence.

28. The goddess replied:—If you want to see that sight, you shall have to be immaculate, by forsaking the sense of your personality (_mana_ or _meum_), and betaking yourself to the clairvoyance or clear sightedness of seeing the unintelligible Intellect (_achetya-chit_) within the soul.

29. You shall then find yourself in a vacuous atmosphere (_vyomátman_), and situated in the sky (_nabhas-nubibus_), resembling the prospects of earthly men, and the apartments of the firmament (_i.e._ all _nil_ and void).

30. In this state we shall be able to see them with all their possessions without any obstruction; otherwise this body is a great barrier in the way of spiritual vision.

31. Lílá said:—Tell me kindly, O goddess! the reason, why do we not see the other world with these eyes, nor go there with these bodies of ours.

32. The goddess replied:—The reason is that you take the true futurity for false, and believe the untrue present as true. For these worlds which are formless, appear as having forms to your eyes, as you take the substance gold in its form of a ring.

33. Gold though fashioned as a circlet, has no circularity in it; so the spirit of God appearing in the form of the world, is not the world itself.

34. The world is a vacuity full with the spirit of God; and whatever else is visible in it, is as the dust appearing to fly over the sea. (Hence called _máyá_ or illusion of vision, as specks peopling the summer skies).

35. This illusory quintessence of the world is all false, the true reality being the subjective Brahma alone; and in support of this truth we have the evidence of our guides in Vedánta philosophy, and the conviction of our consciousness.

36. The Brahma believer sees Brahma alone and no other anywhere, and he looks to Brahma through Brahma himself, as the creator and preserver of all, and whose nature includes all other attributes in itself.

37. Brahma is not known only as the author of his work of the creation of worlds, but as existent of himself without any causation or auxiliary causality (_i.e._ as neither the creator or created, nor supporter of nor supported by another).

38. Until you are trained by your practice of Yoga, to rely in one unity, by discarding all duality and variety in your belief, so long you are barred from viewing Brahma in his true light.