Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

32. These five-fold elements are verily the only seeds of all things in the world. They are the seeds of the primary momentum that was given to them (in the beginning). In our notions, they are the seeds of elementary bodies, but in their real nature, they are the increate ideal shapes of the Intellect replenishing the world.

ON THE PRODUCTION OF THE SELF-BORN. Vasishtha said:— Ráma! When the Supreme Brahma remains in his resplendent and tranquil state (before creation), there is no essence of etherial light or heat or even darkness produced in the intellectual spirit. (But they lie hidden there as if buried in oblivion). 2. The Sat-God has the attribute of Chetya—intellectuality at first, and it is from the intellection (Chetana) of his intellectual part (Chetyánsa), that the epithet of mind (Chitta) is attributed to him. The faculties (Sakti) of his intellect (Chit), are called its intelligence (Chetaná). 3. The Chit or intellect has then the attribute of the Living soul (Jíva), from its intelligence (Chetaná), and connection with the chetya or intelligible objects in nature. It is next attributed with the title of máyá or illusion, from the subjection of its Chetya or cognizable objects only to itself—Aham mátra. 4. It has then the attribute of understanding (buddhi), from the excess of its egoism (ahantá), which is full with the purposes of its mind and the elements of sound &c. (i.e. with a desire for all sensible objects). 5. This (living, deluded and self reflecting) ego, is puffed up with thoughts of (possessing) all things, and looks upon the great arbour of the visible world (as the great garden for its pleasure and gain).

6. But the living souls, like so many evanescent objects seen in a dream, are made to rise and fall one after the other, in this great forest of the world surrounded by the skies. 7. But the world is (as continuous) as the grove of Karajna plants, growing from unsown seeds; and its elementary bodies of the water, fire, earth and air, have no regard for any body; (that is living or dead). 8. The intellect which is the soul of the universe, creates afterwards the earth and all other things, as one remembering the objects of his dream (recalls them to his memory). 9. Wherever there is the germ of the world, it develops itself even at that place; the live elements are the five fold seed of the world, but the undecaying intellect is the seed of the quintuple (pancha-bhúta). 10. As is the seed so is its fruit; hence know the world to be a form and full of God; and the spacious firmament to be the reservoir of the quintuple elements in the beginning of creation. 11. The soul like the body, is composed of the powers of the Intellect, and does not subsist of itself; but being inflated by the same, it extends its bulk.

12. But the vacuous form of the intellect, which is seated in the spiritual body of the soul, cannot be composed of solid reality (as the primary elements of matter). This is not possible; hence nothing can come out from an impossibility. 13. Again that which is changeable in its form, cannot have its sameness at all times: hence if the essence of the quintuple elements, be attributed to Brahma, from the idea of their being the quintessence of his spirit, there can be no immaterial and immutable Brahma. 14. Therefore know this quintuple to be the developed Brahma himself, as he evolved them in the beginning, and as he is their producer for the creation of the world. 15. Thus He being the prime cause of their production, there is nothing that is produced (without) him, and the world is no product of itself. 16. The unreal appears as real as a city seen in a dream, and as a castle built in air by our hopes: so we place the living soul in ourselves, which has its foundation in the vacuous spirit of God.

17. Thus the brilliant spirit, which is situated in the Divine Intellect, being no earthly or any other material substance, is styled the living soul, and remains in vacuum as a luminous body rising in the sky. 18. Hear now how this vacuous living soul, comes to be embodied in the human body, after its detachment as a spark from the totality of vital spirits, in the empty sphere of divine Intellect. 19. The soul thinks itself as “a minute particle of light” at first, and then it considers itself as growing in the sphere of its consciousness. 20. The unreal appearing as real, proves to be unreal at last; as the fictitious moon becomes a nullity afterwards; so the soul continues to view itself subjectively and objectively both as the viewer and the view. 21. Thus the single self becomes double as one sees his own death in a dream; and thus it waxes into bigness and thinks its vital spark as a star. (This is the form of the lingadeha or sentient soul within the body). 22. As the soul goes on thinking itself the microcosm of the world (Viswarúpa), so it falsely thinks itself as such in reality, as it is expressed by the dictum “Soham” “so am I.”

23. By thinking himself as such, man comes to believe it as true, as one believes himself as a traveller in his dream. So by thinking the soul as a star, he views it so within himself. 24. By continued meditation of his soul as such, he loses his external sensations, and views this star in his cranium. 25. He sees the soul within him though it be without him; just as the mirror reflects the distant hill in itself; and the soul remains confined within him, as a body is confined in a well, and as a sound is shut up in the hollow of a cave. 26. The consciousness of our dreams and desires, is but a particle (attribute) of the living soul, whose real form is that of a star waking (keeping watch) within us. (Consciousness of external objects in our dream and desire, is compared to the reflection of outward images in a glass or bubble of water, and to the echo of a distant sound in a hollow cave). 27. Now this vacuous life, which is composed of the essences of the mind, understanding and knowledge, resides in the hollow sheath of the star. (The star is supposed to be the eye-sight and residence of life. Gloss).

28. It appears to me to take its flight to the sky, to see what is passing there (i.e. the manner in which the mental eye of the Yogi penetrates the regions of air). And then it enters the body by two holes, which have the names of the external organs (of sight) given them afterwards. (The whole sphere of air is thought to teem with life or living souls and spirits, which rove free in the air, until they are made to enter and pass out of the body by two unknown holes, whether of the nostrils or sockets or glottis, remains undefined and undetermined). 29. The organs by which the embodied living soul, is to see (external objects), are called the eyes-netras (from their receiving (nayana) the light of the soul). That by which it is to feel, is styled the skin (twak or touch); and those whereby it is to hear, are termed the ears (srutis from sru to hear, corresponding with suna or shunu in vernaculars and Persian). 30. The organ of smelling is the nose—ghrána from its bearing the scent—ghrána to the soul; and that of taste is named as tongue rasaná, for its conducting the rasa taste or flavour to the spirit.

31. Then there is the breathing air (the air of breath or breath of life), which actuates the energies of the organs of action. It is this air which is the cause—of vision, and mover of the internal organs of the mind and thought. 32. This (vital breath) supports the embodied and all supporting soul (átiváhika-dehátmá) in the vacuity of the body, and fills and kindles it as the air does a spark of fire. 33. The word Jíva or the living soul (zoa), is brought under a figurative sense, ‘to mean something real in the unreal body’. Hence Brahmá is said to be the life and soul of the unreal world. 34. The gross embodied soul, is of the form of vacuum like the mind and yet it imagines itself to reside in an ovum in the body, as Brahmá is supposed to be seated in the mundane egg. (i.e. The soul loses its light airy shape and free range, by being confined in the body).

35. Some view the spirit of God as floating on the surface of the (ante-mundane) waters (in the form of Náráyana); and others view it in the person of the Lord of creatures (Brahmá); while there are others, who look at it as infused throughout the creation in the figure of viráj. These are called the subtile and gross bodies of the soul (sthúla and súkshma saríras). 36. The soul or spirit is the spacious womb of productions, and the means of executing its own purposes, and of knowing the proper time and place, and the article and the manner of action (modus operandi). 37. The mind is the inventor of words, expressive of ideas (in the soul), and subjects itself to the arbitary sounds of its own invention. Hence God is erroneously said to be embodied in words (sabda Brahma of Mimánsá philosophy) in this world of errors. 38. The unproduced and self-born Brahmá, that has risen of himself (and represents the mind), is as unreal as the soaring of a man in the sky in his dream. 39. This all supporting-embodied soul, is the prime Lord of creatures, who is said to have formed this illusory frame of the world.

40. But there was nothing formed or born in it (in reality); nor is there any substance to be found in the world. It is the same vacuous form of Brahma still, whose essence is known to extend as the infinite space itself. 41. Things appearing as real, are as unreal as an imaginary city (Utopia), which presents a variety (of forms and colours) to the fancy, without being built or painted by any body. (The phenomenal appearance of the world, is likened to a phantasmagoria). 42. Nothing that is unmade or unthought of, can be real (either in substance or idea); and the gods Brahmá and others, being freed from their avocations at the universal dissolution of existence, could neither resume their functions nor have materials for the same. 43. The self-born Brahmá, having then neither his remembrance of the past, nor any material appliance at hand, could neither form an ideal or material world out of nothing. Therefore production of Brahmá and formation of the universe are alike (chimerical). 44. The earth and all other existences, are but the eternal ideas of the divine mind, and they appear to us as objects of a dream in our waking state: (when they vanish into airy nothing).

45. The divine spirit is known to be vacuum only, and so also is the world ever known to be: (because the like produces the like). So all waters are alike liquid bodies, though they are made to pass under different names. 46. This creation is every where the same in the Supreme Spirit. It is but an evolution of the same (though presenting different aspects to us); and the creator is always and everywhere immutable in his nature. 47. The vacuous universe, under the name of the mundane egg, shines as clearly as the Divine Spirit: it is calm in its appearance, and becomes disturbed by causes born in itself. (Nature is uniform, but ruffled by accidents). 48. It is supported by the supportless supporter of all, who is one and without a second, but devoid of unity in (the variety of his) creation. All this is born in his consciousness, and therefore there is nothing that is produced anew. 49. He, who is of the form of unlimited space, and without any vacuity in it (because nature abhors a vacuum); who is transparent yet teeming with abundance; who is the whole world (God in nature), without any worldliness in him; is verily the substratum of all.

50. He, who is neither the container nor the contained, nor the view of the world; who is neither the world nor its creator (Brahmá), and about whom there can be no dispute nor disputant; is verily the unknown God. 51. He, who is neither the passing world nor any of its passing things; who is quite at rest, yet situated in all things, (whether moving or quiescent); is the only Brahma that shines of himself in himself (as the soul of and all in all). 52. As we form in ourselves the image of a whirlpool, by the idea of the fluidity of water in our minds; so the sight of the world produces the false notion of its reality in the mind. 53. All unrealities become extinct at the end, as we see the death of our frail bodies in dreams. So we find on the contrary the essential part of our soul, to be unscathed by its own nature of indestructibility, and remaining in the form of everlasting consciousness in the atmosphere of our intellects.

54. Brahmá the prime Lord of creatures, is ever manifest by himself in the form of vacuity in the Supreme spirit; and he being of a spiritual form as the mind, has no material body formed of earth as all other corporeal beings; and is therefore both real and unborn (in his essence).

ESTABLISHMENT OF BRAHMA. Vasishtha added:— In this manner the visible world, myself, thyself and all other things are nothing; all these being unmade and unborn are inexistent: it is the Supreme spirit only that is existent of itself. 2. The primeval vacuous soul is awakened at first of itself, and by its own energy from its quietness, and begins to have a motion in itself like the troubled waters of the deep. 3. It then begins to reflect in itself, as in a dream or in imagination, without changing its vacuous form, which is likened to a rock with the inward faculty of thought. 4. The body of the Great Viráj also, is devoid of any material form, either of earthly or any other elemental shape, (as it is viewed in the Vedas). It is purely a spiritual, intellectual and etherial form, and as transparent as the ether itself. 5. It is undecaying and steady as a rock, and as airy as a city seen in a dream. It is immovable as the line of a regiment represented in a picture.

6. All other souls are as pictures of dolls and puppets, painted and not engraven on the body of Viráj as upon a huge pillar; and he standing as an uncarved column in the empty sphere of Brahmá, represents all souls (and not bodies) as they are mere pictures on it. 7. The prime Lord of creatures is said to be self-born at first, and he is known as the increate (Brahmá), for want of his prior acts to cause his birth. (He is coeternal with the eternal Brahma, and is therefore not subject to birth and death). 8. The primeval patriarchs, who obtain their ultimate liberation at the final dissolution of the world, have no antecedent cause to be reborn as unliberated mortals. (So the emancipate souls of the living and dead, are freed from the doom of regeneration.) 9. Brahma, who is the reflector of all souls, is himself invisible in the inward mirror of other souls: (i.e. he reflects all images in himself, but never casts his own reflexion upon any). He is neither the view nor the viewer, and neither the creation nor the creator himself. (These being the functions of the creative and representative powers of Brahmá and Viráj).

10. Though thus negated of all predicates, yet is Brahma the soul of all predicables, that may be affirmed or denied of him (since he is all in all). He is the source of these chains of living beings, as light is the cause of a line of lighted lamps in illuminations. 11. The will of the gods (Brahmá and Viráj), proceeding from the volition of Brahma, is of that spiritual nature as the other; just as one dream rising in another, is equally unsubstantial as the first: (i.e. the products of spiritual causes, are also spiritual, by the rule of the homogeneity of the cause and effect). 12. Hence all living souls, which are evolved from the breathing of the Supreme Spirit, are of the same nature as their origin for want of an auxiliary causality. (God made man in his own image, and as perfect as himself: and this man is manas the Brahmá, or as he is named Adam, corresponding with Adima or Adyam purusham—the first male or Protogonus).

13. Want of a secondary agency, produces the equality of effects with their cause (as the fruits and flowers of trees, are of the same kind with the parent tree, unless there rises a difference in them by cause of engraftments). Hence the uniformity of created things, proves the conception of their creation by a secondary cause, to be wholly erroneous. 14. Brahma himself is the prime soul of Viráj and self-same with him, and Viráj is the soul of creation and identical with it. He is the vacuous vitality of all; and it is from him that the unreal earth and other things have their rise. (Viráj is the spirit of God diffused in nature). 15. Ráma said:—Tell me, whether the living soul, is a limited thing or an unlimited mass of life; or does the unbounded spirit of God, exist in the shape of a mountainous heap of living souls: (i.e. whether it is to be taken in a collective or integral sense, and whether it forms a totality—samashti existent in the Divinity, of which all individual souls are either as parts vyashti or separate existences).

16. Are these living souls like showers of rain-water falling from above, or as the drizzling drops of waves in the vast ocean of creation, or as the sparks of fire struck out of a red-hot iron, and from whence they flow, and by whom they are emitted. 17. Tell me sir, the truth concerning the profusion of living souls, and though I have a partial knowledge of it, I require it to be more fully and clearly explained by you. 18. Vasishtha replied:—There being but one living soul of the universe, you can not call it a multitude. Your question therefore is quite out of place, as the query about the horns of hares (which do not exist in nature). 19. There are no detached living souls, O Ráma, nor are they to be found in multitudes any where, nor was there a mountainous heap of souls known to have existed at any time. 20. Living soul is but a fictitious word, and it is heaped with many fictions, all of which, you must know for certain, do not apply to the soul.

21. There is but one pure and immaculate Brahma, who is mere Intellect (chinmátram) and all pervasive. He assumes to himself all attributes by his almighty power. (Here Brahma is represented not only as Omniscient and Omnipotent; but as saguna also by his assumption of all attributes). 22. The living soul is viewed by many to evolve itself from the intellect into many visible and invisible forms (múrta-mútam); just as a plant is seen to develope itself into its fruits and flowers. 23. They add to their knowledge of the soul the attributes of the living principle, understanding, action, motion, mind and unity and duality, as if these appertain to its nature. 24. But all this is caused by ignorance, while right understanding assigns them to Brahma. The ignorant are bewildered by these distinct views (of the soul), and will not be awakened to sense. 25. These different believers are lost (in their various views), as the light is lost under darkness. They will never come to the knowledge of truth as it is the case with the ignorant. 26. Know Brahma himself as the living soul without any divisibility or distinction. He is without beginning or end. He is omnipotent, and is of the form of the great Intellect which forms his essence.

27. His want of minuteness (i.e. his fulness) in all places, precludes his distinctive appellations every where. Whatever attributes are given him (by fiction), are all to be understood to mean Brahma himself. 28. Ráma asked:—How comes it, O Bráhman? that the totality of the living souls in the world, is guided by the will of one universal soul, which governs the whole, and to which all others are subject. 29. Vasishtha replied:—Brahma the great living soul and Omnipotent power, remained from eternity with his volition (satya sankalpa—fixed determination) of creation, without partition or alteration of himself. 30. Whatever is wished by that great soul, comes to take place immediately. The wish it formed in its unity at first, became a positive duality at last. Then its wish “to be many” (Aham bahu syam), became the separate existences afterwards. 31. All these dualities of his self-divided powers (the different living souls), had their several routines of action allotted to them, as “this is for that”; meaning “this being is for that duty, and such action is for such end”.

32. Thus though there can be no act without exertion (by the general rule as in the case of mortals), yet the predominant will of Brahmá, is always prevailing without its exertion to action, (as in the case of saints whose wills are effective of their ends without the aid of action). 33. Though they that bear the name of living beings, effect their purposes by exertion of their energies, yet they can effect nothing without acting according to the law appointed by the predominant power. 34. If the law of the predominant power, is effective of its end (i.e. the law of action for production of acts); then the exertions of the subordinate powers (the living souls), must also be attended with success: (i.e. the attainment of the like result of the like action). 35. Thus Brahma alone is the great living soul that exists for ever and without end; and these millions of living beings are no other in the world (than agents of the divine energies). 36. It is with a consciousness of the intellectual soul (i.e. the inward knowledge of the divinity within themselves), that all living souls are born in this world; but losing that consciousness (their knowledge of God) afterwards, they became alienated from him.

37. Hence men of inferior souls, should pursue the course of conduct led by the superior souls, for regaining their spiritual life átmajívatwam, as the copper becomes transformed into gold (by chemical process). 38. Thus the whole body of living beings, that had been as inexistent as air before, come into existence, and rise resplendent with the wonderful intellect. 39. Whoso perceives this wondrous intellect in his mind, and gets afterwards a body and the consciousness of his egoism, he is then said to be an embodied living soul. 40. The mind that is gratified with intellectual delights, becomes as expanded as the intellect itself, and thinks those pleasures to constitute the sum total of worldly enjoyments. 41. The Intellect is said to remain unchanged in all its succeeding stages; and though it never changes from that state, yet it wakes (developes) by a power intrinsic in itself. 42. The uninterrupted activity of the Intellect, indulges itself in the amusement of manifesting the intelligibles in the form of the world (i.e. Of evolving the knowables from its own knowledge of them. Or it is the pleasure of the intellect to unfold the secrets of nature to view).

43. The extent of the intellectual faculty, is wider and more rarefied than the surrounding air, and yet it perceives its distinct egoism by itself and of its own nature. (The subjective knowledge of ego—self). 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. 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.

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. 16. It is as transparent as the sky, and without any solidity at all; it is as empty as empty air, and as a city pictured in imagination. 17. Attend now to the story of the Temple which is pleasant to hear, and which will impress this truth deeply in your mind.

18. Ráma said:—Tell me at once, O Bráhman, the long and short of the story of the temple, which will help my understanding of these things. 19. Vasishtha said:—There lived of yore a prince on the surface of the earth, whose name was Padma from his being like the blooming and fragrant lotus of his race; and who was equally blessed with wisdom, prosperity and good children. 20. He observed the bounds of his duties, as the sea preserves the boundaries of countries; and destroyed the mist of his adversaries, as the sun dispels the darkness at night. He was as the moon to his lotus-like queen, and as burning fire to the hay of evils and crimes. 21. He was the asylum of the learned, as the mount Meru was the residence of the gods; he was the moon of fair fame risen from the ocean of the earth; and was as a lake to the geese of good qualities; and like the sun to the lotuses of purity. 22. He was as a blast to the creepers of his antagonists in warfare; and as a lion to the elephants of his mind (appetites). He was the favourite of all learning, and a patron of the learned, and a mine of all admirable qualities.

23. He stood fixed as the mount Mandara, after it had churned the ocean of the demons. He was as the vernal season to the blossoms of joy, and as the god of the floral bow to the flowers of blooming prosperity. 24. He was the gentle breeze to the vacillation of the playful creepers, and as the god Hari in his valour and energy. He shone as the moon on the florets of good manners, and as wildfire to the brambles of licentiousness. 25. His consort was the happy Líla, playful as her name implied, and fraught with every grace, as if the goddess of prosperity, had appeared in person upon earth. 26. She was gentle with her submissiveness to her lord, and was sweet in her speech without art; she was always happy and slow in her movements, and ever smiling as the moon. 27. Her lovely lotus-white face was decorated with painted spots, and her fair form which was as fresh as a new blown bud, appeared as a moving bed of lotuses.

28. She was buxom as a playful plant, and bright as a branch of kunda flowers, and full of glee and good humour. With her palms red as corals, and her fingers white as lilies, she was in her person a congeries of vernal beauties. 29. Her pure form was sacred to touch, and conferred a hilarity to the heart, as the holy stream of the Ganges, exhilarates the flock of swans floating upon it. 30. She was as a second Rati, born to serve her lord, who was Káma in person on earth to give joy to all souls. 31. She was sorry at his sorrow, and delighted to see him delightful; and was thoughtful to see him pensive. Thus was she an exact picture of her lord, except that she was afraid to find him angry.

JOY AND GRIEF OF THE PRINCESS. This single wived husband, enjoyed the pleasure of an undivided and unfeigned love, in company with his only consort, as with an Apsará (or heavenly nymph) on earth. (The Apsaras are the Abisares of Ptolemy and Absairs of the Persians: a term applied to the fairy race in the watery valley of Cashmere, supposed to be the site of Paradise-Firdous, and the scene of innocent attachment). 2. The seats of their youthful sports were the gardens and groves, the arbours of shrubberies, and forests of Tamála trees. They sported also in the pleasant arbours of creepers and delightful alcoves of flowers. 3. They delighted themselves in the inner apartments, on beds decked with fragrant flowers, and on walks strewn over with fresh blossoms. They amused in their swinging cradles in their pleasure gardens in spring, and in rowing their tow-boats in summer heat. 4. Hills overgrown with sandal woods and shades of shady forests; the alcoves of Nípa and Kadamba trees, and coverts of the Páribhadra or Devadáru-cedars, were their favourite resorts in summer. 5. They sat besides the beds of kunda and Mandára plants, redolent with the fragrance of full-blown flowers; and strayed about the vernal green-woods, resounding with the melody of kokilas’ notes.

6. The glossy beds of grassy tufts, the mossy seats of woods and lawns, and water-falls flooding the level lands with showers of rain (were also their favourite resorts). 7. Mountain layers overlaid with gems, minerals and richest stones; the shrines of gods and saints, holy hermitages and places of pilgrimage, were oft visited by them. 8. Lakes of full-blown lotuses and lilies, smiling Kumudas of various hues, and wood-lands darkened by green foliage, or overhung with flowers and fruitage, were their frequent haunts. 9. They passed their time in the amorous dalliances of godlike youths; and their personal beauty, was graced by the generous pastimes, of their mutual fondness and affection. 10. They amused each other with bon-mots and witticisms and solution of riddles; with story telling and playing the tricks of hold-fists mushti-bandha (purmuthi), and the various games of chess and dice. 11. They diverted themselves with the reading of dramas and narratives, and interpretation of stanzas difficult even to the learned. And sometimes they roamed about cities, towns and villages. 12. They decorated their persons with wreaths of flowers and ornaments of various kinds; fared and feasted on a variety of flavours, and moved about with playful negligence.

13. They chewed betel leaves mixed with moistened mace and camphor, and saffron; and hid the love marks on their bodies, under wreaths of flowers and corals, with which they were adorned. 14. They played the frolics of “hide and find” (Beng. lukichuri), tossing of wreaths and garlands, and swinging one another in cradles bestrewn with flowers. 15. They made their trips in pleasure-boats, and on yokes of elephants and tame camels; and sported in their pleasure-ponds by pattering water upon one another. 16. They had their manly and womanly dances, the sprightly tándava and the merry lásya; and songs of masculine and effeminate voices the Kalá and gíta. They had symphonious and euphonious music, and played on the lute and tabor, (the wired and percussive instruments). 17. They passed in their flowery conveyances through gardens and parterres, by river sides and highways, and amidst their inner apartments and royal palaces. 18. The loving and beloved princess being thus brought up in pleasure and indulgence, thought at one time with a wistful heart within herself:— 19. “How will this my lord and ruler of earth, who is in the bloom of youth and prosperity, and who is dearer to me than my life, be free from old age and death.

20. “And how will I enjoy his company on beds of flowers in the palace, possessed of my youth and free-will, for the long long period of hundreds of years. 21. “I will therefore endeavour with all my vigilance and prayers, and austerities and endeavours, how this moon-faced prince, may become free from death and decline. 22. “I will ask the most knowing, and the most austere and very learned Bráhmans, how men may evade death.” 23. She accordingly invited the Bráhmans and honoured them with presents, and asked them lowly, to tell her how men might become immortal on earth. 24. The Bráhmans replied:—“Great queen! holy men may obtain success in every thing by their austerities, prayers and observance of religious rites; but no body can ever attain to immortality here below.” 25. Hearing this from the mouths of the Bráhmans, she thought again in her own mind, and with fear for the demise of her loving lord. 26. “Should it happen, that I come to die before my lord, I shall then be released from all pain of separation from him, and be quite at rest in myself.

27. “But if my husband happen to die before me, even after a thousand years of our lives, I shall so manage it, that his soul (the immortal part of his body), may not depart from the confines of this mansion (the charnel-house). 28. “So that the spirit of my lord, will rove about the holy vault in the inner apartment, and I shall feel the satisfaction of moving about in his presence at all times.” 29. “I will commence even from this day, to worship Sarasvatí—the goddess of Intelligence, and offer my prayers to her for this purpose, with observance of fasts and other rites to my heart’s content.” 30. Having determined so, she betook herself to observe the strict ceremonials of the Sástra, and without the knowledge of her lord. 31. She kept her fasts, and broke them at the end of every third night; and then entertained the gods, Bráhmans, the priests and holy people, with feasts and due honours. 32. She was then employed in the performance of her daily ablutions, in her act of alms-giving, in the observance of her austerities and in meditation; in all of which she was painstaking, an observant of the rules of pious theism.

33. She attended also to her incognizant husband at stated times, and ministered unto him to the utmost, her duties as required by law and usage. 34. Thus observant of her vows, the young princess passed a hundred of her trinoctial ceremony, with resolute and persevering pains-taking and unfailing austerities. 35. The fair goddess of speech, was pleased at the completion of her hundredth trinoctial observance, in which she was honoured by her, with all outward and spiritual complaisance, and then bespoke to her. 36. Sarasvatí said:—“I am pleased my child! with thy continued devotion to me, and thy constant devotedness to thy husband. Now ask the boon that thou wouldst have of me.” 37. The princess replied:—“Be victorious, O moon-bright goddess! that puttest to an end all the pains of our birth and death, and the troubles, afflictions and evils of this world; and that like the sun, puttest to flight the darkness of our affections and afflictions in this life. 38. “Save me O goddess, and thou parent of the world, and have pity on this wretched devotee, and grant her these two boons, that she supplicates of thee. 39. “The one is, that after my husband is dead, his soul may not go beyond the precincts of this shrine in the inner apartment.

40. “The second is, that thou shalt hear my prayer, and appear before me, whenever I raise my voice to thee, for having thy sight and blessing.” 41. Hearing this, the goddess said, “Be it so;” and immediately disappeared in the air (whence she came); as the wave subsides in the sea whence it rises to view. 42. The princess being blessed by the presence and good grace of the goddess, was as delighted as a doe at the hearing of music. 43. The wheel of time rolled on its two semicircles of the fort-nights. The spikes of months, the arcs of the seasons, the loops of days and nights and the orbit of years. The axle composed of fleeting moments; giving incessant momentum to the wheel. 44. The perceptions of the prince, entered into the inner man within the body (lingadeha); and he looked in a short time, as dry as a withered leaf without its juicy gloss. 45. The dead body of the warlike prince, being laid over the sepulchre, in the inside of the palace, the princess began to fade away at its sight, like a lotus flower without its natal water (of the lake).

46. Her lips grew pale by her hot and poisoned breath of sorrow; and she was in the agony of death, as a doe pierced by a dart (in her mortal part). 47. Her eyes were covered in darkness at the death of her lord, as a house becomes dark at the extinction of the light of its lamp. 48. She became leaner every moment, in her sad melancholy; and turned as a dried channel covered with dirt in lieu of its water. 49. She moved one moment and was then mute as a statue; she was about to die of grief, as the ruddy goose at the separation of her mate. 50. Then the etherial goddess Sarasvatí, took pity on the excess of her grief, and showed as much compassion for her relief, as the first shower of rain, does to the dying fishes in a drying pond.

STORY OF THE DOUBTFUL REALM OR REVERIE OF LÍLÁ. Sarasvatí said:—Remove my child, the dead body of thy husband to yonder shrine! and strew those flowers over it, and thou shalt have thy husband again. 2. Never will this body rot or fade as long as the flowers are fresh over it, and know thy husband will shortly return to life again. (The strewing of flowers over the dead body and the grave, is a practice common in many religions). 3. His living soul which is as pure as air, will never depart from this cemetery of thy inner apartment. (The departed soul is believed to hover about the crypt or cairn until the day of resurrection). 4. The black-eyed princess, with her eyebrows resembling a cluster of black-bees, heard this consolatory speech of the goddess, and was cheered in her spirit, as the lotus-bed on return of the rains. 5. She placed the corpse of her husband there, and hid it under the flowers, and remained in expectation of its rising, as a poor man fosters the hope of finding a treasure. 6. It was at midnight of the very day, when all the members of the family had fallen fast asleep, that Lílá repaired to the shrine in the inward apartment.

7. There she meditated on the goddess of knowledge, in the recess of her understanding, and called her in earnest in the sorrow of her heart, when she heard the divine voice thus addressing to her. 8. “Why dost thou call me, child, and why art thou so sorrowful in thy countenance? The world is full of errors, glaring as false water in a mirage.” 9. Lílá answered:—“Tell me goddess, where my husband resides at present, and what he has been doing now. Take me to his presence, as I am unable to bear the load of my life without him.” 10. The goddess replied:—“His spirit is now roving in the sky, of which there are three kinds:—one the firmament or region of the sensible worlds; the other is the region of the mind, the seat of volition and creation; and third is the region of Intellect, which contains the two others. 11. “Your husband’s soul is now in the sheath of the region of Intellect (being withdrawn both from the regions of the visible world and sensuous mind). It is now by seeking in the region of the Intellect, that things which are inexistent here, are to be found there.

12. “As in passing from one place to another, you are conscious of standing in the mid spot (which is neither the one nor the other); so you will arrive in an instant at the intermediate region of the intellectual world (lying between this sensible and spiritual worlds). 13. “If you will abide in that intellectual world, after forsaking all your mental desires, you will certainly come to the knowledge of that spiritual Being who comprehends all in himself. 14. “It is only by your knowledge of the negative existence of the world, that you can come to know the positive existence of that Being, as you will now be able to do by my grace, and by no other means whatever.” (Forget the sensible to get to the Spiritual. Hafiz). 15. Vasishtha said:—so saying, the goddess repaired to her heavenly seat; and Lílá sat gladly in her mood of steadfast meditation. (Platonism). 16. She quitted in a moment the prison house of her body, and her soul broke out of its inner bound of the mind, to fly freely in the air, like a bird freed from its cage: (so Plato compares the flight of the parting soul with that of a bird from its cage).

17. She ascended to the airy region of the Intellect, and saw (by her intellectual light) her husband seated there in his seat, amidst a group of princes and rulers of the earth (who had received various forms and states according to their acts and desires). 18. He was seated on a throne, and lauded with the loud acclamations of “Long live the king,” and “Be he victorious.” His officers were prompt in the discharge of their several duties. 19. The royal palace and hall were decorated with rows of flags, and there was an assemblage of unnumbered sages and saints, Bráhmans and Rishis at the eastern entrance of the hall. 20. There stood a levy of innumerable princes and chiefs of men at the southern porch, and a bevy of young ladies standing at the western door-way. 21. The northern gateway was blocked by lines of horse, carriages and elephants; when a guard advanced and informed the king of a warfare in Deccan. 22. He said that the chief of Karnatic, has made an attack on the eastern frontier; and that the chieftain of Surat, has brought to subjection the barbarous tribes on the north; and that the ruler of Malwa, has besieged the city of Tonkan on the west.

23. Then there was the reception of the ambassador from Lanká, coming from the coast of the southern sea. 24. There appeared next the Siddhas, coming from the Mahendra mountains bordering the eastern main, and traversing the numerous rivers of their fluvial districts; as also the ambassador of the Guhyaka or Yaksha tribes, inhabiting the shores of the northern sea. 25. There were likewise the envoys, visiting the shores of the western main, and relating the state of affairs of that territory to the king. The whole courtyard was filled with lustre by the assemblage of unnumbered chieftains from all quarters. 26. The recitals of Bráhmans on sacrificial altars, died away under the sound of the timbrels; and the loud shouts of panegyrists, were re-echoed by the uproar of elephants. 27. The vault of heaven, resounding to the sound of the vocal and instrumental music; and the dust raised by the procession of elephants and chariots, and the trotting of horses’ hoofs, obscured the face of the sky as by a cloud. 28. The air was perfumed by the fragrance of flowers, camphor and heaps of frankincense; and the royal hall was filled with presents sent from different provinces.

29. His fair fame shone forth as a burning hill of white camphor, and raised a column of splendour reaching to the sky, and casting into shade the solar light. 30. There were the rulers of districts, who were busily employed in their grave and momentous duties, and the great architects who conducted the building of many cities. 31. Then the ardent Lílá entered the court-hall of the ruler of men, and unseen by any, just as one void mixes with another void, and as air is lost in the air. 32. She wandered about without being seen by any body there; just as a fair figure, formed by false imagination of our fond desire, is not to be perceived by any one without ourselves. 33. In this manner she continued to walk about the palace unperceived by all, as the aerial castle built in one’s mind, is not perceived by another. 34. She beheld them all assembled in the royal court in their former forms, and saw all the cities of the princes, as concentrated in that single city of her lord’s. 35. She viewed the same places, the same dealings, the same concourse of boys, and the same sorts of men and women, and the same ministers as before.

36. She saw the same rulers of earth, and the very same Pandits as before; the identic courtiers and the self-same servants as ever. 37. There was the same assemblage of the learned men and friends as before, and the like throng of citizens pursuing their former course of business. 38. She saw on a sudden, the flames of wild fire spreading on all sides even in broad midday light; and the sun and moon appearing both at once in the sky, and the clouds roaring with a tremendous noise, with the whistling of the winds. 39. She saw the trees, the hills, the rivers and the cities flourishing with population; and the many towns, and villages and forests all about. 40. She beheld her royal consort as a boy of ten years of age after shaking off his former frame of old age, sitting amidst the hall with all his former retinue, and all the inhabitants of his village.

DESCRIPTION OF THE COURT HOUSE AND THE CORTES. 41. Lílá having seen all these began to reflect within herself, whether the inhabitants of this place were living beings or the ghosts of their former living souls. 42. Then having recovered her sense at the removal of her trance, she entered into her inner apartment at midnight, and found the inmates fast bound in sleep. 43. She raised one by one her sleeping companions, and said she was anxious to visit the royal hall. 44. She wanted to be seated beside the throne of her lord, and to clear her doubt by seeing the courtiers all alive. 45. The royal menials rose up at her call, and obedient to her command they said “Be it so,” and attended to their respective duties. 46. A train of club-bearers ran to all sides to call the courtiers from the city, and sweepers came and swept the ground as clean as the sun had shed his rays upon it. 47. A better set of servants cleansed the court-yard as clean, as autumn days clear the firmament of its rainy clouds. 48. Rows of lights were placed about the court-yard, which looked as beautiful as clusters of stars in the clear sky.

49. The ground of the court-yard was filled by throngs of people, as the earth was covered of yore by floods of the great deluge. 50. The dignified ministers and chiefs attended first and took their respective seats, and appeared as a set of the newly created rulers of people of the world on all sides, or the regents of the quarters of the sky. 51. The cooling and fragrant odour of thickly pasted camphor filled the palace, and the sweet-scented zephyrs breathed profusely the fragrance of the lotus flowers, which they bore from all sides. 52. The chamberlains stood all around in their white garbs, and appeared as an assemblage of silvery clouds, hanging over the burning hills under the equator. 53. The ground was strewn over by the morning breeze with heaps of flowers, bright as the beaming dawn dispelling the gloom of night, and etiolated as clusters of stars fallen upon the ground. 54. The palace was crowded by the retinue of the chiefs of the land, and seemed as it was a lake full of full-blown lotuses, with the fair swimming swans rambling about them.

55. There Lílá took her seat on a golden seat by the side of the throne, and appeared as the beauteous Rati seated in the joyous heart of Káma (i.e. as Venus sitting in the lap of aureate lighted Phoebus). 56. She saw all the princes seated in their order as before, and the elders of the people and the nobles of men and all her friends and relatives, seated in their proper places. 57. She was highly delighted to behold them all in their former states, and shone forth as the moon with the brightness of her countenance, to find them all alive again.

EXPOSURE OF THE ERRORS OF THIS WORLD. She said, “I have much consolation in you, and now will I console my sorrowing heart.” So saying, she made a sign for the assembly to break, and rose from her royal seat. 2. She entered the inner apartment and sat by the side of the dead body of her lord, hidden under the heap of flowers, and thus began to reflect within herself. 3. She exclaimed:—“O the wondrous magic! that presents these people of my place situated in the same manner without myself, as they were seen to be seated within me. 4. “O how great is the extent of this delusion, as to contain the same high hills, and the same spacious forests of palm and Hintála trees, both in the outside as well as they are situated in the inside of myself. 5. “As the mirror shows the reflexion of the hills within itself as they are without it, so the reflector of the intellect presents the whole creation inwardly as it has outwards of itself. 6. “I must now invoke the goddess of wisdom to ascertain which of these is illusion, and which the sober and certain reality.”

7. So saying, she worshipped and invoked the goddess, and beheld her immediately present before herself, in the form of a virgin. 8. She made the goddess sit on the elevated seat, and having seated herself low upon the ground before her, asked that divine power to tell her the truth. 9. Lílá said:—“Vouchsafe, O goddess, and clear this doubt of thy suppliant; for it is thy wisdom which has framed this beautiful system of the universe at first and knows the truth. (Divine wisdom is the prime cause of all). 10. “Tell me, O great goddess, about what I am going to lay before thee at present, for it is by thy favour alone that I may be successful to know it. 11. “I saw the pattern of this world in the intellect, which is more transparent than the etherial sphere, and as extensive as to contain millions and millions of miles in a small space of it. 12. “It is what no definite words can express, and what is known as the calm, cool and ineffable light. This is called the unintelligible intelligence, and is without any cover or support (nirávarana nirbhitti).

13. “It exhibits the reflexions of space and the course of time, and those of the sky and its light, and the course of events concentrating in itself. 14. “Thus the images of the worlds, are to be seen both within and without the intellect, and it is hard to distinguish the real and unreal ones between them.” 15. The goddess asked:—Tell me fair lady, what is the nature of the real world, and what you mean, by its unreality. 16. Lílá replied:—I know the nature of the real to be such as I find myself to be sitting here, and looking upon you as seated in this place. 17. And I mean that to be unreal, as the state in which I beheld my husband in the etherial region erewhile; because vacuity has no limit of time or place in it. 18. The goddess rejoined:—The real creation cannot produce an unreal figure, nor a similar cause produce a dissimilar effect. 19. Lílá replied:—But we often see, O goddess! dissimilar effects to be produced from similar causes: thus, the earth and earthen pot though similar in their substance, yet the one is seen to melt in water, and the other to carry water in it.

20. The goddess said:—Yes, when an act is done by the aid of auxiliary means, there the effect is found to be somewhat different from the primary cause. (Thus the earthen pot being produced by the auxiliary appliances of fire, the potter’s wheel and the like, differs in its quality from the original clay). 21. Say O beauteous lady! what were the causes of thy husband’s being born in this earth? The same led to his birth in the other world also (i.e. the merit of the acts and desires of men, are the causes of their transmigrations in both worlds). 22. When the soul has fled from here, how can the earth follow him there any more, and what auxiliary causes can there be in connection with this cause? 23. Wherever there arises a coaction with its apparent causality, it is usually attributed by every one to some unknown antecedent cause or motive. 24. Lílá said:—Methinks goddess, that it was the expansion of my husband’s memory that was the cause of his regenerations; because it is certain that reminiscence is the cause of the reproduction of objects before us. 25. The goddess replied that, memory is an aerial substance, and its productions are as unsubstantial as itself.

26. Lílá said:—Yes I find reminiscence to be an airy thing, and its reproduction of my husband and all other things within me to be but empty shadows in the mind. 27. The goddess replied:—So verily was this reproduction of thy husband and all those things which appeared to thy sight in thy reverie; and so, my daughter, is the appearance of all things I see in this world. 28. Lílá said:—Tell me goddess for the removal of my conception of the reality of the world, how the false appearance of my formless lord, was produced before me by the unreal world, (since nothing unsubstantial can cast a shadow). 29. The goddess replied:—As this illusive world appeared a reality to thee before thy reminiscence of it, so must thou know all this to be unreal from what I am going to relate to thee. 30. There is in some part of the sphere of the Intellect the great fabric of the world, with the glassy vault of the firmament for its roof on all sides.

31. The Meru (the polar axle or mountain) is its pillar, beset around by the regents of the ten sides, as statues carved upon it. The fourteen regions are as so many apartments of it, and the hollow concavity containing the three worlds, is lighted by the lamp of the luminous sun. 32. Its corners are inhabited by living creatures resembling ants and emmets, which are surrounded by mountains appearing as ant-hills in the sight of Brahmá, the prime lord of creatures and the primeval patriarch of many races of men. 33. All animal beings are as worms confined in the cocoons (prison houses) of their own making. The azure skies above and below are as the soot of this house, beset by bodies of Siddhas (or departed spirits), resembling groups of gnats buzzing in the air. 34. The fleeting clouds are the smoke of this house or as webs of spiders in its corners, and the hollow air is full of aerial spirits, like holes of bamboos filled with flies. 35. There are also the playful spirits of gods and demigods, hovering over human habitations, as swarms of busy and buzzing bees about vessels of honey.

36. Here there lay amidst the cavity of heaven, earth and the infernal regions, tracts of land well watered by rivers, lakes and the sea on all sides. 37. In a corner of this land, there was situated a secluded piece of ground (a vale or village), sheltered by hills and craigs about it. 38. In this secluded spot thus sheltered by hills, rivers and forests, there lived a Bráhman with his wife and children, free from disease and care of gain and fear of a ruler, and passed his days in his fire-worship and hospitality, with the produce of his kine and lands.

STORY OF A FORMER VASISHTHA AND HIS WIFE. This Bráhman was equal to his namesake—the sage Vasishtha, in his age and attire, in his learning and wealth, and in all his actions and pursuits, except in his profession. (The one being a secular man, and the other the priest of the royal family). 2. His name was Vasishtha, and that of his wife Arundhatí; who was as fair as the moon, and as the star of the same name on earth. 3. She resembled her namesake the priestess of the solar race, in her virtues and parts and in all things, except in her soul and body. 4. She passed her time in true love and affection in his company, and was his all in the world, with her sweet smiling face resembling the Kumuda flower. 5. This Bráhman had been sitting once under the shady sarala trees, on the table land of his native hill, when he saw the ruler of the land, passing with his gaudy train below. 6. He was accompanied by all the members of the royal family and his troops and soldiers, and was going to a chase, with a clamour that resounded in the hills and forests.

7. The white flappers shed a stream of moon light, and the lifted banners appeared as a moving forest, and the white umbrellas made the sky a canopy to them. 8. The air was filled with dust raised by the hoofs of horses from the ground, and lines of elephants with their high haúdás, seemed as moving towers, to protect them from the solar heat and sultry winds. 9. The wild animals were running on all sides at the loud uproar of the party, resembling the roaring of a whirlpool, and shining gems and jewels were flashing all about on the persons of the party. 10. The Bráhman saw the procession and said to himself, “O how charming is royalty, which is fraught with such splendour and prosperity.” 11. Ah! how shall I become the monarch of all the ten sides, and have such a retinue of horse and elephants and foot soldiers, with a similar train of flags and flappers and blazing umbrellas. 12. When will the breeze waft the fragrance of kunda flowers, and the farina of lotuses to my bed-chamber, to lull me and my consorts to sleep.

13. When shall I adorn the countenances of my chamber maids with camphor and sandal paste, and enlighten the faces of the four quarters with my fair fame, as the moon-beams decorate the night. 14. With these thoughts, the Bráhman was thenceforth determined to apply himself with vigilance, to the rigid austerities of his religion for life. 15. He was at last overtaken by infirmities which shattered his frame, as the sleets of snowfall, batter the blooming lotuses in the lake. 16. Seeing his approaching death, his faithful wife was fading away with fear, as a creeper withers at the departure of spring, for fear of the summer heat. 17. This lady then began to worship me (the personification of Wisdom) like thyself, for obtaining the boon of immortality which is hard to be had. 18. She prayed saying:—Ordain, O goddess! that the spirit of my lord may not depart from this sepulchre after his demise: and I granted her request. 19. After sometime the Bráhman died, and his vacuous spirit remained in the vacuity of that abode. 20. This aeriform spirit of the Bráhman, assumed the shape of a mighty man on earth, by virtue of the excessive desire and merit of acts in his former state of existence.

21. He became the victorious monarch of the three realms, by subjugating the surface of the earth by his might, by laying hold on the high steeps (of the gods) by his valour, and his kind protection of the nether lands (watery regions) under his sway. 22. He was as a conflagration to the forest of his enemies, and as the steadfast Meru amidst the rushing winds of business on all sides. He was as the sun expanding the lotus-like hearts of the virtuous, and as the god of the makara ensign (Kama or Cupid) to the eyes of women. 23. He was the model of all learning, and the all giving Kalpa tree to his suitors; he was the footstool of great Pandits, and as the full-moon shedding the ambrosial beams of polity all around. 24. But after the Bráhman was dead, and his dead body had disappeared in the forms of elementary particles in air, and his airy spirit had reposed in the aerial intellectual soul within the empty space of his house. 25. His Bráhmanic widow (born of the priestly class), was pining away in her sorrow, and her heart was rent in twain as the dried pod of Simbi.

26. She became a dead body like her husband, and her spirit by shuffling off its mortal coil, resumed its subtile and immortal form, in which it met the departed ghost of her husband. 27. She advanced to her lord, as rapidly as a river runs to meet the sea below its level; and became as cheerful to join him, as a cluster of flowers to inhale the vernal air. 28. The houses, lands and all the immovable properties and movable riches of this Bráhman, are still existent in that rocky village, and it is only eight days past, that the souls of this loving pair, are reunited in the hollow vault of their house.

THE MORAL OF THE TALE OF LÍLÁ. The goddess said:—That Bráhman whom I said before, had become a monarch on earth, is the same with thy husband, and his wife Arundhati, is no other than thyself—the best of women. 2. You two are the same pair now reigning over this realm, and resembling a pair of doves in your nuptial love, and the deities Siva and Párvati in your might. 3. I have thus related to you the state of your past lives, that you may know the living soul to be but air, and the knowledge of its reality is but an error. 4. The erroneous knowledge (derived from sense), casts its reflection in the intellect, and causes its error also (errors in the senses breed errors in the mind); and this makes you doubtful of the truth and untruth of the two states (of the sensible and intellectual worlds). 5. Therefore the question, ‘which is true and which is untrue,’ has no better solution than that all creations (whether visible or invisible, mental or ideal), are equally false and unsubstantial. 6. Vasishtha said:—Hearing these words of the goddess, Lílá was confused in her mind, and with her eyes staring with wonder, she addressed her softly.

7. Lílá said:—How is it, O goddess! that your words are so incoherent with truth, you make us the same, with the Brahmanic pair, who are in their own house, and we are sitting here in our palace. 8. And how is it possible that the small space of the room in which my husband’s body is lying, could contain those spacious lands and hills and the ten sides of the sky: (as I already saw in my trance—Samádhi). 9. It is as impossible as to confine an elephant in a mustard seed, and as the fighting of a gnat with a body of lions in a nut-shell. 10. It is as incredible as to believe a lotus seed containing a hill in it, and to be devoured by a little bee; or that the peacocks are dancing on hearing the roaring of clouds in a dream. 11. It is equally inconsistent to say, O great goddess of gods! that this earth with all its mountains and other things, are contained within the small space of a sleeping room. 12. Deign therefore, O goddess to explain this mystery clearly unto me; because it is by thy favour only that the learned are cleared of their doubts.

13. The goddess said:—Hear me fair lady! I do not tell thee a lie; because transgression of the law is a thing unknown to us. (The law is nánritam vadeta—never tell an untruth). 14. It is I that establish the law when others are about to break it; if then I should slight the same, who else is there who would observe it. 15. The living soul of the village Bráhman, saw within itself and in the very house, the image of this great kingdom, as his departed spirit now views the same in its empty vacuity. (Therefore both these states are equally ideal). 16. But you have lost the remembrance of the states of your former lives after death, as they lose the recollection of waking events in the dreaming state. 17. As the appearance of the three worlds in dream, and their formation in the imagination; or as the description of a warfare in an epic poem and water in the mirage of a maru or sandy desert (are all false):

18. So were the hills and habitations which were seen in the empty space of the Bráhman’s house, which was no other than the capacity of his own mind to form the images of its fancy, and receive the external impressions like a reflecting mirror (all mere ideal). 19. All these though unreal, yet they appear as real substances on account of the reality of the intellect, which is seated in the cavity of the inmost sheath of the body and reflects the images. 20. But these images, which are derived from the remembrance of unreal objects of the world, are as unreal as those objects which cast their reflexions in the intellect; just as the waves rising in the river of a mirage, are as unreal as the mirage itself. 21. Know this seat (sadana) of yours, which is set in this closet (kosha) of the house, as well as myself and thyself and all things about us, to be but the reflections of our intellect only, without which nothing would be perceptible, as to one who is devoid of his intellect.

22. Our dreams and fallacies, our desires and fancies, as also our notions and ideas, serve as the best evidences, that afford us their light for the understanding of this truth: (that nothing is true beside the subjective mind, which creates and forms, produces and presents all objects to our view). 23. The spirit of the Bráhman resided in the vacuity of his house (the body), with the seas and forests and the earth (i.e. their impressions) within itself, as the bee abides in the lotus. 24. Thus the habitable globe with every thing it contains, is situated in a small cell in one corner of the intellect, as a spot of flimsy cloud in the firmament. 25. The House of the Bráhman was situated in the same locality of the intellect, which contains all the worlds in one of its atomic particles. 26. The intelligent soul contains in every atom of it, unnumbered worlds within worlds, enough to remove your doubt; of the Bráhman’s viewing a whole realm within the space of his intellect. 27. Lílá asked:—How can the Bráhmanic pair be ourselves, when they are dead only eight days before, and we have been reigning here for so many years?

28. The goddess replied:—There is neither any limit of space or duration, nor any distance of place or length of time in reality: hear me now tell you the reason of it. 29. As the universe is the reflexion of the divine mind, so are infinity and eternity but representations of himself. 30. Attend to what I tell you about the manner in which we form the idea of time, and its distinct parts of a moment and an age, in the same way as we make the distinction of individualities in me, thee and this or that person (which are essentially the same undivided spirit and duration).

State of the Human soul after death. 31. Hear now, that no sooner does any one come to feel the insensibility consequent to his death, than he forgets his former nature and thinks himself as another being. 32. He then assumes an empty form in the womb of vacuity in the twinkling of an eye, and being contained in that container, he thinks within himself in the same receptacle. 33. “This is my body with its hands and feet.” Thus the body he thinks upon, he finds the same presented before him. 34. He then thinks in himself: “I am the son of this father and am so many years old; these are my dear friends and this is my pleasant abode.” 35. “I was born and became a boy, and then grew up to this age. There are all my friends and in the same course of their lives.” 36. Thus the compact density of the sphere of his soul, presents him many other figures, which appear to rise in it as in some part of the world. 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.

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. 39. Being settled in this belief of unity, we find ourselves by our constant practice of Yoga communion, to rest in the Supreme spirit. 40. We then find our bodies mixing with the air as an aerial substance, and at last come to the sight of Brahma with these our mortal frames. 41. Being then endued with pure, enlightened and spiritual frames, like those of Brahmá and the gods, the holy saints are placed in some part of the divine essence.

42. Without practice of yoga, you can not approach God with your mortal frame. The soul that is sullied by sense, can never see the image of God. 43. It is impossible for one to arrive at the aerial castle (objects of the wish) of another, when it is not possible for him to come to the castle (wished for object), which he has himself built in air. 44. Forsake therefore this gross body, and assume your light intellectual frame; then betake yourself to the practice of yoga, that you may see God face to face. 45. As it may be possible to realize an aerial castle by the labour of building it, so it is possible to behold God, either with this body or without it, by practice of yoga only and not otherwise. 46. And as the erroneous conception of the existence of the world, has continued since its first creation (by the will of Brahma); so it has been ever since attributed to an eternal fate—niyati (by fatalists), and to an illusory power (máyá sakti of Máyá vadis). 47. Lílá asked:—Thou saidst O goddess? that we shall go together to the abode of the Brahman pair, but I ask thee to tell me, how are we to effect our journey there?

48. As for me, I shall be able to go there with the purer part of my essence the sentient soul (after leaving this my gross body here). But tell me how wilt thou that art pure intellect (chetas), go to that place? 49. The goddess replied:—I tell thee lady, that the divine will is an aerial tree, and its fruits are as unsubstantial as air, having no figure nor form nor substance in them. 50. And whatever is formed by the will of God from the pure essence of his intelligent nature, is only a likeness of himself, and bears little difference from its original. 51. This body of mine is of the like kind, and I will not lay it aside, but find out that place by means of this as the breeze finds the odours. 52. And as water mixes with water, fire with fire and air with air, so does this spiritual body easily join with any material form that it likes. 53. But a corporeal body cannot mix with an incorporeal substance, nor a solid rock become the same with an ideal hill. 54. And as your body, which is composed both of its spiritual and mental parts, has become corporeal by its habitual tendency to corporeality.

55. So your material body becomes spiritual (átiváhika), by means of your leaning to spirituality, as in your sleep, in your protracted meditation, insensibility, fancies and reveries. 56. Your spiritual nature will then return to your body, when your earthly desires are lessened and curbed within the mind. 57. Lílá said:—Say goddess, what becomes of the spiritual body after it has attained its compactness by constant practice of yoga; whether it becomes indestructible, or perishes like all other finite bodies. 58. The goddess replied:—Any thing that exists is perishable, and of course liable to death; but how can that thing die which is nothing, and is imperishable in its nature? (Such is the spirit). 59. Again the fallacy of the snake in a rope being removed, the snake disappears of itself, and no one doubts of it any more. 60. Thus, as the true knowledge of the rope, removes the erroneous conception of the snake in it, so the recognition of the spiritual body, dispels the misconception of its materiality. 61. All imagery is at an end when there is no image at all, as the art of statuary must cease for want of stones on earth. (Thus they attribute materiality to the immaterial spirit from their familiarity with matter).

62. We see clearly our bodies full of the spirit of God, which you can not perceive owing to your gross understanding. 63. In the beginning when the intellect—chit, is engrossed with the imagination of the mind—chitta, it loses thenceforth its sight of the only one object (the unity of God). 64. Lílá asked:—But how can imagination have any room or trace out anything in that unity, wherein the divisions of time and space and all things, are lost in an undistinguishable mass? 65. The goddess replied:—Like the bracelet in gold and waves in water, the show of truth in dreams, and the resemblance of aerial castles:— 66. As all these vanish on the right apprehension of them, so the imaginary attributes of the unpredicable God, are all nothing whatever. 67. As there is no dust in the sky, so there can be no ascribing of any attribute or partial property to God; whose nature is indivisible and unimaginable, who is an unborn unity, tranquil and all-pervading. 68. Whatever shines about us, is the pure light of that being, who scatters his lustre like a transcendental gem all around. 69. Lílá said:—If it is so at all times, then tell me, O goddess! how we happened to fall into the error of attributing duality and diversity to His nature.

70. The goddess replied:—It was your want of reason that has led you to error so long; and it is the absence of reasoning that is the natural bane of mankind, and requires to be remedied by your attending to reason. 71. When reason takes the place of the want of reason, it introduces in a moment the light of knowledge in the soul, in lieu of its former darkness. 72. As reason advances, your want of reason and knowledge and your bondage to prejudice, are put to flight; and then you have an unobstructed liberation and pure understanding in this world. 73. As long as you had remained without reasoning on this subject, so long were you either dormant or wandering in error. 74. You are awakened from this day both to your reason and liberation, and the seeds for the suppression of your desires, are sown in your heart. 75. At first neither was this visible world presented to you nor you to it, how long will you therefore reside in it, and what other desires have you herein?

76. Withdraw your mind from its thoughts of the visitor, visibles and vision of this world, and settle it in the idea of the entire negation of all existence, then fix your meditation solely in the supreme Being, and sit in a state of unalterable insensibility (by forgetting yourself to a stone). 77. When the seed of inappetency has taken root in your heart, and begun to germinate in it, the sprouts of your affections and hatred (literally—pathos and apathy), will be destroyed of themselves. 78. Then the impression of the world will be utterly effaced from the mind, and an unshaken anesthesia will overtake you all at once. 79. Remaining thus entranced in your abstract meditation, you will have in process of time a soul, as luminous as a luminary in the clear firmament of heaven, freed from the concatenation of all causes and their consequences for evermore.

ABANDONMENT OF DESIRES. Básaná Tyága. The goddess continued:— As objects seen in a dream, prove to be false as the dream, on being roused from sleep and upon knowing them as fumes of fancy; so the belief in the reality of the body, becomes unfounded upon dissolution of our desires. 2. As the thing dreamt of disappears upon waking, so does the waking body disappear in sleep, when the desires lie dormant in the soul. 3. As our corporeal bodies are awakened after the states of our dreaming and desiring, so is our spiritual body awakened after we cease to think of our corporeal states. 4. As a sound sleep succeeds the dormancy which is devoid of desires (i.e. when we are unconscious of the actions and volition of our minds); so does the tranquillity of liberation follow the state of our inappetency even in our waking bodies. 5. The desire of living-liberated men (jívan-muktas), is not properly any desire at all, since it is the pure desire relating to universal weal and happiness. 6. The sleep in which the will and wish are dormant, is called the sound sleep susupta, but the dormancy of desires in the waking state, is known as insensibility moha or múrchhá.

7. Again the sleep which is wholly devoid of desire, is designated the turíya or the fourth stage of yoga, and which in the waking state is called samádhi or union with Supreme. 8. The living man, whose life is freed from all desires in this world, is called the living liberated—jívan-mukta, a state which is unknown to them that are not liberated (amukta). 9. When the mind becomes a pure essence (as in its samádhi), and its desires are weakened, it becomes spiritualised (ativáhika), and then it glows and flows, as the snow melts to water by application of heat. 10. The spiritualised mind, being awakened (as if it were from its drowsiness or lethargy), mixes with the holy spirits of departed souls in the other world. 11. When your egoism is moderated by your practice of yoga, then the perception of the invisible, will of itself rise clearly before your mind. 12. And when spiritual knowledge gains a firm footing in your mind, you will then behold the hallowed scenes of the other world more than your expectation. 13. Therefore O blameless lady! try your utmost to deaden your desires, and when you have gained sufficient strength in that practice, know yourself to be liberated in this life.

14. Until the moon of your intellectual knowledge, comes to shine forth fully with her cooling beams, so long you shall have to leave this body of yours here, in order to have a view of the other world. 15. This fleshy body of yours, can have no tangible connection with one which is without flesh; nor can the intellectual body (lingadeha), perform any action of the corporeal system. 16. I have told you all this according to my best knowledge, and the state of things as they are: and my sayings are known even to boys, to be as efficacious as the curse or blessing of a deity. 17. It is the habitual reliance of men in their gross bodies, and their fond attachment to them, that bind their souls down, and bring them back to the earth; while the weakening of earthly desires serve to clothe them with spiritual bodies. 18. No body believes in his having a spiritual body here even at his death bed; but every one thinks the dying man to be dead with his body for ever. 19. This body however, neither dies, nor is it alive at any time; for both life and death are mere resemblances of aerial dreams and desires in all respects.

20. The life and death of beings here below, are as false as the appearances and disappearance of persons in imagination, (or a man in the moon), or of dolls in play or puppet shows. 21. Lílá said:—The pure knowledge, O goddess! that thou hast imparted to me, serves on its being instilled into my ears, as a healing balm to the pain caused by the phenomenals.

ON THE PRACTICE OF YOGA. 22. Now tell me the name and nature of the practice, that may be of use to Spiritualism, how it is to be perfected and what is the end of such perfection. 23. The goddess replied:—Whatever a man attempts to do here at any time, he can hardly ever effect its completion, without his painful practice of it to the utmost of his power. 24. Practice is said by the wise, to consist in the conference of the same thing with one another, in understanding it thoroughly, and in devoting one’s self solely to his object. 25. And those great souls become successful in this world, who are disgusted with the world, and are moderate in their enjoyments and desires, and do not think on the attainment of what they are in want of. 26. And those great minds are said to be best trained, which are graced with liberal views, and are delighted with the relish of unconcernedness with the world, and enraptured with the streams of heavenly felicity. 27. Again they are called the best practised in divine knowledge, who are employed in preaching the absolute negation of the knower and knowables in this world, by the light of reasoning and Sástras.

28. Also the knowledge, that there was nothing produced in the beginning, and that nothing which is visible, as this world or one’s self, is true at any time, is called to be practical knowledge by some. 29. The strong tendency of the soul towards the spirit of God, which results from a knowledge of the nihility of visibles, and subsidence of the passions, is said to be the effect of the practice of Yoga. 30. But mere knowledge of the inexistence of the world, without subduing the passions, is known as knowledge without practice, and is of no good to its possessor. 31. Consciousness of the inexistence of the visible world, constitutes the true knowledge of the knowable. This habitude of the mind is called the practice of Yoga, and leads one to his final extinction—nirvána. 32. The mind thus prepared by practice of Yoga, awakens the intelligence which lay dormant in the dark night of this world, and which now sheds its cooling showers of reason, like dew drops in the frosty night of autumn.

33. As the sage was sermonizing in this manner, the day departed as to its evening service, and led the assembled train to their evening ablutions. They met again with their mutual greetings at the rising beams of the sun after the darkness of night was dispelled.

THE AERIAL JOURNEY OF SPIRITUAL BODIES. Vasishtha said:— After this conference between the goddess and that excellent lady on that night, they found the inmates of the family fast asleep in the inner apartment. 2. They entered the charnel-house which was closely shut on all sides by latches fastened to the doors and windows, and which was perfumed with the fragrance of heaps of flowers. 3. They sat beside the corpse decorated with fresh flowers and garments, with their faces shining like the fair full-moon; and brightening the place. 4. They then went to the cemetery and stood motionless on the spot, as if they were sculptures engraven on marble columns, or as pictures drawn upon the wall. 5. They shook off all their thoughts and cares, and became as contracted as the faded blossoms of the lotus at the decline of the day, when their fragrance has fled from them. 6. They remained still, calm and quiet and without any motion of their limbs, like a sheet of clouds hanging on the mountain top in the calm of autumn. 7. They continued in fixed attention without any external sensation, like some lonely creepers shrivelled for want of the moisture of the season.