Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

MIGRATION OF THE CHANDÁLAS. Argument. The perilous journey through the Delusive World. The king continued:—As these calamities continued to rage in this place, by the displeasure of destiny; and the disasters of the last dissolution prematurely overtook the forest and mountaineers here:— 2. Some of these men went out from that place, with their wives and children, in search of some new abodes in foreign lands; as the clouds disperse and disappear from the sky, after the rainy season is over. 3. They were accompanied by their wives and children and close relatives, who clung to them as the members of their bodies; but the lean and infirm were left behind them, like the separated branches of trees. 4. Some of these emigrants were devoured by tigers, as they went out of their houses; as unfledged birds are caught by falcons, as they come out of their nests. 5. Some entered into the fire like moths, to put an end to their miserable lives; others fell into the pits, like fragments of rocks falling from the hills. 6. I separated myself from the connections of my father-in-law and others; and depending upon myself, I escaped narrowly from that distressed country, with my wife and children about me.

7. We passed the pit-falls and storms, and the wild beasts and snakes, without any harm; and came out of that forest safe from all the deadly perils of the way. 8. Having then arrived at the border of that forest, we got to the shade of some palm trees, where I lay down my children from my shoulders as burdens of my sin and woes. 9. I halted here after my tiresome journey and lengthened troubles, as one who had fled from the confines of hell; and took my rest like the withering lotus, from the scorching sun-beams and heat of summer. 10. My Chandála wife also slept under the same tree, and my two boys lay fast asleep in each other’s embrace, under the cooling shade. 11. Afterwards my younger son Prach’chhaka, who was as dear to us as he was the less intelligent, rose up and stood before me. 12. He said with a depressed spirit, and tears gushing out of his eyes, “Papa give me soon some meat-food and drink or else I die”. 13. The little boy repeatedly made the same request, and said with tears in his eyes, that he was dying of hunger.

14. I told him I had no meat, and the more I said so, the more he repeated his foolish craving, which could neither be supplied with nor put down to silence. 15. I was then moved by paternal affection, and affliction of my heart, to tell him, “child, cut off a slice of my flesh, and roast and eat it.” 16. He agreed to it, and said ‘give it then’; because his hunger was so pressing and his vitality was so much exhausted, that he could not decline to crave my flesh for his food. 17. Being then overpowered by affection and compassion I thought of putting an end to all my grief with my life, which became so intolerable to me at his excessive distress. 18. Being unable to endure the pain of my affection, I despaired of my own life; and resolved to resort to death, as my only friend at this last extremity. 19. I collected some wood, and heaped them together for my funeral pile, and having put it on fire, I saw it blaze as I wished. 20. As I was hastening to throw myself on this pile, I was immediately roused from my reverie by the sound of music proceeding from this palace, hailing me as king, and shouting my victory jaya.

21. I understood this conjurer had wrought this enchantment on me, and put me to all these imaginable troubles for so long a period. 22. Like the ignorant, I was subject to a hundred changes of fortune (which can never approach the wise). As the great and mighty King—Lavana, had been recapitulating and expostulating on the vicissitudes of fortune:— 23. The sorcerer suddenly disappeared from his sight, at which the courtiers looked around them with their staring eyes; and then addressed the king, saying:— 24. This man was no sorcerer, our liege lord! who had no mercenary views of his own in this; but it was a divine magic (theurgy), that was displayed to our lord, to represent the lot of humanity and the state of the world. 25. This world is evidently a creation of the mind, and the imaginary world is only a display of the infinite power of the Almighty. (It was a coinage of the brain, a stretch of the imagination which gives images to ideals). 26. These hundreds of worldly systems, display the multifarious powers of Omnipotence; which delude even the minds of the most wise, to believe in the reality of unrealities, as it were by the spell of magic.

27. This delusion being so potent on the minds of wise, it is no wonder, that our king would be overpowered by it, when all common minds are labouring under the same error. 28. This delusive magic was not spread over the mind, by any trick or art of the conjurer; who aimed at nothing more than his own gain, by the act of his sorcery. (It is the divine will, which spreads the illusion alike on all minds). 29. They that love money, never go away of themselves without getting something: therefore we are tossed on the waves of doubt (i.e. doubtful) to take him for a sorcerer. 30. Vasishtha said:—Ráma! though I am sitting here at this moment, before you and others of this assembly; yet I am quite sensible of the truth of this story, which is no fiction like the tale of the boy I have told you before, nor is it any coining or hearsay of mine.

31. Thus the mind is enlarged by the various inventions of its imagination, as a tree is extended by the expansion of its boughs and branches. The extended mind encompasses all things, as an outstretched arbor overspreads on the ground. It is the mind’s comprehension of every thing, and its conversancy with the natures of all things, that serve to lead it to its state of perfection. (The amplitude of the mind, consists in the extent of its knowledge).

DESCRIPTION OF MIND. Argument. The great Magnitude of mental powers, and government of the Mind. Vasishtha said:—Since the subjective Intellect chit, has derived the power of knowing the objective Intelligibles chetyas, from the supreme cause in the beginning; it went on to multiply and diversify the objects of its intelligence, and thus fell from the knowledge of the one intelligent Universal Ego, to the delusion of the particular non egos ad infinitum. (The knowledge of the subjective universal soul being lost, the mind is left to be bewildered in the objective particulars to no end). 2. Thus Ráma, the faculties of the mind, being deluded by the unrealities of particulars, they continue to attribute specialities and differences to the general ones to their utter error. (Multiplication and differentiation of objects, mislead the mind from the universal unity of the only one). 3. The mental powers are ever busy to multiply the unrealities to infinity, as ignorant children are prone to create the false goblins of their fancy, only for their terror and trouble. 4. But the reality soon disperses the troublesome unrealities, and the unsullied understanding drives off the errors of imagination, as the sun-shine dispels the darkness.

5. The mind brings distant objects near it, and throws the nearer ones at a distance; it trots and flutters in living beings, as boys leap and jump in bushes after little birds. 6. The wistful mind is fearful, where there is nothing to fear; as the affrighted traveller takes the stump of a tree for demon, standing on his way. 7. The suspicious mind suspects a friend for a foe, as a drunken sot thinks himself lying on the ground, while he is walking along. 8. The distracted mind, sees the fiery Saturn in the cooling moon; and the nectar being swallowed as poison, acts as poison itself. 9. The building of an aerial castle however untrue, is taken for truth for the time being; and the mind dwelling on hopes, is a dreamer in its waking state. 10. The disease of desire is the delusion of the mind; therefore it is to be rooted out at once with all diligence from the mind. 11. The minds of men being entangled in the net of avarice like poor stags, are rendered as helpless as these beasts of prey, in the forest of the world.

12. He who has removed by his reasoning, the vain anxieties of his mind, has displayed the light of his soul, like that of the unclouded sun to sight. 13. Know therefore that it is mind that make the man and not his body that is called as such: the body is dull matter, but the mind is neither a material nor immaterial substance (as the spirit). 14. Whatever is done with the mind or voluntarily by any man, know Ráma, that act to be actually done by him (since an involuntary action is indifferent by itself); and whatsoever is shunned by it, know that to be kept out in actu. 15. The mind alone makes the whole world, to the utmost end of the spheres; the mind is the vacuum, and it is the air and earth in its greatness. (Since it comprehends them all in itself; and none of these is perceptible without the mind). 16. If the mind do not join a thing with its known properties and qualities; then the sun and the luminaries would appear to be without their light (as it is with the day-blind bats and owls, that take the day light for darkness, and the dark night for their bright day light).

17. The mind assumes the properties of knowledge and ignorance, whence it is called a knowing or unknowing thing; but these properties are not to be attributed to the body, for a living body is never known to be wise, nor a dead carcase an ignorant person. 18. The mind becomes the sight in its act of seeing, and it is hearing also when it hears any thing; it is the feeling of touch in connection with the skin, and it is smelling when connected with the nose. 19. So it becomes taste being connected with the tongue and palate, and takes many other names besides, according to its other faculties. Thus the mind is the chief actor on the stage of the living animal body. 20. It magnifies the minute and makes the true appear as untrue; it sweetens the bitter and sours the sweet, and turns a foe to a friend and vice-versa. 21. In whatever manner the mind represents itself in its various aspects, the same becomes evident to us both in our perceptions and conceptions of them. (i.e. Every body takes things in the same light, as his mind represents them unto him).

22. It was by virtue of such a representation, that the dreaming mind of king Haris chandra, took the course of one night for the long period of a dozen of years. 23. It was owing to a similar idea of the mind, that the whole city of Brahmá appeared to be situated within himself. 24. The presentation of a fair prospect before the imagination, turns the present pain to pleasure; as a man bound in chains forgets his painful state, in the hopes of his release or installation on the next morning. 25. The mind being well fortified and brought under the subjection of reason, brings all the members of the body and internal passions of the heart under our control; but the loose and ungoverned mind, gives a loose rein to them for their going astray; as the loosened thread of a string of pearls, scatters the precious grains at random over the ground. 26. The mind that preserves its clear sightedness, and its equanimity and unalterableness in all places, and under all conditions; retains its even temper and nice discernment at all times, under the testimony of its consciousness, and approbation of its good conscience.

27. With your mind acquainted with the states of all things, but undisturbed by the fluctuations of the objects that come under your cognizance, you must retain, O Ráma! your self-possession at all times, and remain like a dumb and dull body, (without being moved by any thing). 28. The mind is restless of its own nature, with all its vain thoughts and desires within itself; but the man is carried abroad as by its current; over hills and deserts and across rivers and seas, to far and remote cities and countries (in search of gain). 29. The waking mind deems the objects of its desire, to be as sweet as honey, and whatever it does not like, to be as bitter as gall; although they may be sweet to taste; (i.e. the blindness of sensuous minds in their choice of evil for good, and slighting of good as evil). 30. Some minds with too much self reliance in themselves, and without considering the true nature of things; give them different forms and colours, according to their own conceptions and opinions, though they are far from truth. (Every man delights in his own hobby horse).

31. The mind is a pulsation of the power of the Divine Intellect, that ventilates in the breeze and glares in luminous bodies, melts in the liquids and hardens in solid substances. (Compare the lines of Pope: “Glows in the sun &c.” The mind is dependent on the intellect, and the mental operations, are subordinate to the intellectual). 32. It vanishes in vacuity and extends in the space; it dwells in everything at its pleasure, and flies from everywhere at its will. 33. It whitens the black and blackens the white, and is confined to no place or time but extends through all. (The mind can make a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven). 34. The mind being absent or settled elsewhere, we do not taste the sweet, which we suck or swallow or grind under the teeth or lick with the tongue. 35. What is seen by the mind, is seen with the eyes, and what is unseen by it, is never seen by the visual organs; as things lying in the dark are not perceptible to the sight.

36. The mind is embodied in the organic body, accompanied by the sensible organs; but it is the mind that actuates the senses and receives the sensations; the senses are the products of the mind, but the mind is not a production of sensations. 37. Those great souls (philosophers), who have investigated into the manner of the connection between the two quite different substances of the body and mind, and those learned men who show us their mutual relations (the psychologists), are truly worthy of our veneration. 38. A handsome woman decked with flowers in the braids of her hair, and looking loosely with her amorous glances, is like a log of wood, in contact with the body of one, whose mind is absent from himself. (The dalliance of a woman is dead and lost, to the unfeeling heart and unmindful man). 39. The dispassionate Yogi that sits reclined in his abstract meditation in the forest, has no sense of his hands being bitten off by a voracious beast from his body; owing to the absence of his mind. 40. The mind of the sage, which is practised in mental abstraction, may with ease be inclined to convert his pleasures to pain, and his pains to pleasure.

41. The mind employed in some other thought and inattentive to the present discourse, finds it as a detached piece of wood dissevered by an axe. (The presence of the mind joins the parts of a lecture, as its inadvertence disjoins them from their consecutive order). 42. A man sitting at home, and thinking of his standing on the precipice of a mountain, or falling into the hollow cave below, shudders at the idea of his imminent danger: so also one is startled at the prospect of a dreary desert even in his dream, and is bewildered to imagine the vast deep under the clouds. (See Hume on the Association of Ideas). 43. The mind feels a delight at the sight of a lovely spot in its dream, and at seeing the hills, cities and houses stretching on, the clusters of stars shining in the extended plain of the sky. (Objects which are pleasurable or painful to the sight, give pleasure and pain to the mind, when it is connected with that sense). 44. The restless mind is busy to stretch many a hill and dale and cities and houses in our dreams, as these are the billows in the vast ocean of the soul.

45. As the waters of the sea display themselves in huge surges, billows and waves, so the mind which is in the body, displays itself in the various sights exhibited in our dreams. (Meaning, the dreams to be transformations (Vikáras) of the mind, like the waves of the water). 46. As the leaves and branches, flowers and fruits are the products of the shooting seed; so every thing that is seen in our waking dreams, is the creations of our minds. 47. As a golden image is no other than the very gold, so the creatures of our living dreams, are not otherwise than the creations of our fanciful mind. 48. As a drop or shower of rain, and a foam or froth of the wave, are but different forms of water; so the varieties (manatá), of sensible objects are but formations of the same mind. (Lit. formations or transformations of the mind). 49. These are but the thoughts of our minds, that are seen in our waking dreams; like the various garbs which an actor puts on him, to represent different characters in a play. 50. As the king Lavana believed himself to be a chandála for some time, so do we believe ourselves to be so and so, by the thoughts of our minds.

51. Whatever we think ourselves to be in our consciousness, the same soon comes to pass upon us; therefore mould the thoughts of your mind in any way you like. (i.e. As one thinks himself to be, so will he find himself to become in his own conceit). 52. The embodied being beholds many cities and towns, hills and rivers before him; all which are but visions of waking dreams, and stretched out by the inward mind. 53. One sees a demon in a deity, and a snake where there is no snake; it is the idea that fosters the thought, as the king Lavana fostered the thoughts of his ideal forms. 54. As the idea of man includes that of a woman also, and the idea of father comprises that of the son likewise; so the mind includes the wish, and the wish is accompanied by its action with every person. (As when I say I have a mind to do so, I mean I have a wish to do it; and the same wish leads me to its execution. Or that the action is concomitant with the will so the phrase: “take will for the deed”).

55. It is by its wish that the mind is subject to death, and to be born again in other bodies; and though it is a formless thing of its nature, yet it is by its constant habit of thinking, that it contracts the notion of its being a living substance (jíva). 56. The mind is busy with its thoughts of long drawn wishes, which cause its repeated births and deaths, and their concomitants of hopes and fears, and pleasure and pain. (The wish is father of thoughts, and these mould our acts and lives). 57. Pleasure and pain are situated in the mind like the oil in the sesamum seed, and these are thickened or thinned like the oil under particular circumstances of life. Prosperity thickens our pleasure, and adversity our pain; and these are thinned by their reverses again. 58. As it is the greater or lighter pressure of the oil-mill, that thickens or thins the oil, so it is the deeper or lighter attention of the mind, that aggravates or lightens its sense of pleasure or pain. (Loss or gain unfelt, is nothing lost or gained. The pleasure or pain of which we are ignorant, is no pleasure or pain).

59. As our wishes are directed by the particular circumstances of time and place, so the measurements of time and place, are made according to the intensity or laxity of our thoughts. (i.e. The intense application or inattention of the mind, prolongs and shortens the measure of time and place to us). 60. It is the mind that is satisfied and delighted at the fulfilment of our wishes, and not the body which is insensible of its enjoyments. (The commentary explains the participation of the enjoyment both by the body and mind, and not by one independently of the other). 61. The mind is delighted with its imaginary desires within the body, as a secluded woman takes her delight in the seraglio. (The pleasure of imagination pleases the inmost soul, when we have no external and bodily pleasure to enjoy). 62. He who does not give indulgence to levities and fickleness in his heart, is sure to subdue his mind; as one binds an elephant by its chain to the post. 63. He whose mind does not wave to and fro like a brandished sword, but remains fixed as a post or pillar to its best intent and object, is the best of men on earth; all others (with fickle minds), are as insects continually moving in the mind.

64. He whose mind is freed from fickleness, and is sedate in itself, is united with his best object in his meditation of the same. (The unflinching mind, is sure of success). 65. Steadiness of the mind is attended with the stillness of worldly commotions, as the suspension of the churning Mandara, was attended with the calmness of the ocean of milk. 66. The thoughts of the mind being embroiled in worldly cares (of gaining the objects of desire and enjoyments), become the sources of those turbulent passions in the breast, which like poisonous plants fill this baneful world (with their deadly breath). 67. Foolish men that are infatuated by their giddiness and ignorance, revolve round the centre of their hearts, as the giddy bees flutter about the lotus-flower of the lake; till at last grown weary in their giddy circles, they fall down in the encompassing whirlpools, which hurl them in irreparable ruin.

HEALING OF THE HEART AND MIND. Arguments. Prompt relinquishment of desires, and abandonment of Egoism, as the means of the subjection of the mind and intense application of the Intellect. Vasishtha continued:—Now attend to the best remedy, that I will tell you to heal the disease of the heart; which is within one’s own power and harmless, and a sweet potion to taste. 2. It is by the exertion of your own consciousness by yourself, and by diligent relinquishment of the best objects of your desire, that you can bring back your refractory mind under your subjection. 3. He who remains at rest by giving up the objects of his desire, is verily the conqueror of his mind; which is reduced under his subjection as an elephant wanting its tusks. 4. The mind is to be carefully treated as a patient by the prescriptions of reason, and by discriminating the truth from untruth, as we do good diet from what is injurious. 5. Mould your heated imagination by cool reasoning, by precepts of the Sástras, and by association with the dispassionate, as they do the heated iron by a cold hammer.

6. As a boy has no pain to turn himself this way and that in his play; so it is not difficult to turn the mind, from one thing to another at pleasure. 7. Employ your mind to the acts of goodness by the light of your understanding; as you join your soul to the meditation of God by light of your spirit. 8. The renunciation of a highly desirable object, is in the power of one, who resigns himself to the divine will; it is a shame therefore to that worm of human being, who finds this precept difficult for his practice. 9. He who can take the unpleasant for the pleasurable in his understanding; may with ease subdue his mind, as a giant overcomes a boy by his might. 10. It is possible to govern the mind like a horse, by one’s attention and exertion; and the mind being brought to its quietness, it is easy to enter into divine knowledge. 11. Shame to that jackass (lit.: jackalish man), who has not the power to subdue his restless mind, which is entirely under his own subjection, and which he can easily govern.

12. No one can reach the best course of his life, without the tranquility of his mind; which is to be acquired by means of his own exertion, in getting rid of the fond objects of his desire. (The best course of life, is to live free from care, which is unattainable without subjection of our desires). 13. It is by means of destroying the appetites of the mind, by means of reason and knowledge of truth; that one can have his absolute dominion over it, without any change or rival in it. (The rival powers in the kingdom of the mind (manorájya), are the passions and the train of ignorance—moha). 14. The precepts of a preceptor, the instructions of the sástras, the efficacy of mantras, and the force of arguments, are all as trifles as straws, without that calmness of the mind, which can be gained by renunciation of our desires and by the knowledge of truth. 15. The One All and all-pervading quiescent Brahma can be known then only, when the desires of the mind are all cut off by the weapon of indifference to all worldly things. 16. All bodily pains of men are quite at an end, no sooner the mind is at rest, after the removal of mental anxieties by means of true knowledge.

17. Many persons turn their minds to unmindfulness, by too much trust in their exertions and imaginary expectations; and disregarding the power of destiny, which overrules all human efforts. 18. The mind being long practised in its highest duty, of the cultivation of divine knowledge, becomes extinct in the intellect, and is elevated to its higher state of intellectual form. 19. Join yourself to your intellectual or abstract thoughts at first, and then to your spiritual speculations. Being then master of your mind, contemplate on the nature of the Supreme soul. 20. Thus relying on your own exertion, and converting the sensible mind to its state of stoic insensibility, you can attain to that highest state of fixedness, which knows no decay nor destruction. (Spiritual bliss). 21. It is by your exertion and fixed attention, O Ráma! that you can correct the errors of your mind; as one gets over his wrong apprehension of taking one thing for another (such as his mistaking of the east for the west). 22. Calmness of mind, produces the want of anxiety; and the man that has been able to subdue his mind, cares a fig for his subjection of the world under him. (For, what is this world, without its perception in the mind?).

23. Worldly possessions are attended with strife and warfare, and the enjoyments of heaven also, have their rise and fall; but in the improvement of one’s own mind and nature, there is no contention with anybody, nor any obstruction of any kind. 24. It is hard for them to manage their affairs well, who cannot manage to keep their minds under proper control. (Govern yourself ere you can govern others. Or:—Govern your mind, lest it govern you). 25. The thought of one’s being dead, and being born again as a man, continually employ the minds of the ignorant with the idea of their egoism (which is a false one, since the soul has no birth or death, nor any personality of its own). 26. So no body is born here nor dies at any time; it is the mind that conceives its birth and death and migration in other bodies and worlds. (i.e. Its transmigration and apprehension of its rise or fall to heaven or hell). 27. It goes hence to another world, and there appears in another form (of the body and mind); or it is relieved from the encumbrance of flesh, which is called its liberation. Where then is this death and why fear to die (which is no more than progress to a new life?).

28. Whether the mind roves here; or goes to another world with its earthly thoughts, it continues in the same state as before unless it is changed to another form (of purity), by its attainment of liberation (from humanity). 29. It is in vain that we are overwhelmed in sorrow, upon the demise of our brethren and dependants; since we know it is the nature of the mind, to be thus deluded from its state of pure intelligence to that of error. (It is the deluded mind, and not the intelligent soul that is subject to sorrow). 30. It has been repeatedly mentioned both before and afterwards, and in many other places (of this work); that there is no other means of obtaining the pure diet of true knowledge, without subduing the mind (and bringing it under the control of reason). 31. I repeat the same lesson, that there is no other way, save by the government of the unruly mind, to come to the light of the truly real, clear and catholic knowledge of the Supreme. (By catholic knowledge is meant the universally received doctrines of divinity). 32. The mind being destroyed (i.e. all its function, being suspended), the soul attains its tranquility, and the light of the intellect shines forth in the cavity of the heart.

33. Hold fast the discus of reason, and cut off the bias of your mind; be sure that no disease will have the power to molest you, if you can have the good sense to despise the objects of pleasure, which are attended by pain. (All pleasure is followed by pain. Or: Pleasure leads to pain, and pain succeeds pleasure). 34. By lopping the members of the mind, you cut it off altogether; and these being egoism and selfishness which compose the essence of the mind. Shun your sense that ‘it is I’ and ‘these are mine.’ 35. Want of these feelings, casts down the mind like a tree felled by the axe; and disperses it like a scattered cloud from the autumnal sky. 36. The mind is blown away by its destitution of egoism (Ahantá) and meitatism (mamatá), like a cloud by the winds. (Unconsciousness of one’s egoism and personality, is the tantamount to his utter extinction, and unification with the one universal Soul). 37. It is dangerous to wage a war, against winds and weapons, and fire and water, in order to obtain the objects <of> our worldly desire; but there is no danger whatever in destroying the growing soft and tender desires of the mind. (It is easier to govern one’s self than to suppress his enemies).

38. What is good, and what is not so, is well known for certain even to boys; (i.e. the immutability of good and evil is plain to common and simple understandings); therefore employ your mind to what is good, as they train up children in the paths of goodness. (Sow good betimes, to reap its reward in time. If good we plant not, vice will fill the place; and rankest weeds, the richest soils deface). 39. Our minds are as inveterate and indomitable, as ferocious lions of the forest; and they are true victors, who have conquered these, and are thereby entitled to salvation. (Govern your restless mind, and you govern the rest of your kind). 40. Our desires are as fierce lions, with their insatiable thirst after lucre: and they are as delusive as the mirage of the desert, by leading us to dangers. 41. The man that is devoid of desires, cares for nothing, whether the winds may howl with the fury of storms; or the seas break their bounds, or the twelve suns (of the Zodiac) rise at once to burn the universe.

42. The mind is the root, that grows the plants of our good and evil and all our weal and woe. The mind is the tree of the world, and all peoples are as its branches and leaves, (which live by its sap and juice). 43. One prospers every where, who has freed his mind from its desires; and he that lives in the dominion of indifference, rests in his heavenly felicity. 44. The more we curb the desires of our minds, the greater we feel our inward happiness; as the fire being extinguished, we find ourselves cooled from its heat. 45. Should the mind long for millions of worldly mansions in its highest ambition; it is sure to have them spread out to view within the minute particle of its own essence. (The ambitious mind grasps the whole world within its small compass). 46. Opulence in expectancy, is full of anxiety to the mind, and the expected wealth when gained is no less troublesome to it; but the treasure of contentment is fraught with lasting peace of mind, therefore be victorious over your greedy mind by abandonment of all your desires.

47. With the highly holy virtue of your unmindfulness, and with the even-mindedness of those that have known the Divine spirit; as also with the subdued, moderated and defeated yearnings of your heart, make the state of the increate One as your own. (Sedateness of the mind, resembles the state of God).

THE RESTLESSNESS OF THE MIND AND ITS CURE. Argument. Means of weakening the mind and mental Desires. Vasishtha continued:—Whatever be the nature of the object of any man’s desire, his mind does not fail to run after it with great avidity in every place. 2. This eagerness of the mind rises and sets by turns, with the view of the desired object, like the clear bubbles of water foaming and bursting of themselves with the breath of winds. 3. As coldness is the nature of frost, and blackness is that of ink; so is swiftness or momentum the nature of the mind, as stillness is that of the soul. 4. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, why the mind is identified with momentum, and what is the cause of its velocity; tell me also; if there is any other force to impede the motion of the mind. 5. Vasishtha replied:—We have never seen the motionless quiet of the mind; fleetness is the nature of the mind, as heat is that of fire. 6. This vacillating power of motion, which is implanted in the mind, is known to be of the same nature as that of the self-motive force of the Divine mind; which is the cause of the momentum and motion of those worlds.

7. As the essence of air is imperceptible without its vibration, so we can have no notion of the momentum of our minds, apart from the idea of their oscillation. 8. The mind which has no motion is said to be dead and defunct; and the suspension of mental agitation, is the condition of Yoga quietism and leading to our ultimate liberation. 9. The mortification of the mind, is attended with the subsidence of our woes; but the agitated thoughts in the mind, are causes of all our woes. 10. The monster of the mind, being roused from its rest, raises all our dangers and disasters; but its falling into rest and inaction, causes our happiness and perfect felicity. 11. The restlessness of the mind is the effect of its ignorance; therefore Ráma! exert your reason to destroy all its desires (for temporal possessions). 12. Destroy the internal desires of your mind, which are raised by ignorance alone; and attain your supreme felicity by your resignation to the divine will. 13. The mind is a thing that stands between the real and unreal and between intelligence and dull matter, and is moved to and fro by the contending powers on either side.

14. Impelled by dull material force, the mind is lost in the investigation of material objects; till at last by its habitual thought of materiality, it is converted to a material object, resembling dull matter itself. (Such is the materialistic mind). 15. But the mind being guided by its intellectual powers, to the investigation of abstract truths, becomes an intelligent and intellectual principle, by its continued practice of thinking itself as such. (This is immaterial mind). 16. It is by virtue of the exertion of your manly powers and activities, and by force of constant habit and continued practice; that you can succeed to attain any thing, to which, you employ your mind with diligence. (Diligence overcomes all difficulties). 17. You can also be free from fears, and find your rest in your reliance in the sorrowless Being; provided you exercise your manly activities therein, and curb the proclivities of your mind by your intelligence. 18. It must be by the force of your intelligent mind, that you must lift up your deluded mind, which is drowned in the cares of this world. There is no other means that will help you to do so. 19. The mind only is capable of subduing the mind; for who can subdue a king unless he is a king himself?

20. Our minds are the boats, to lift us from the ocean of this world; where we are carried too far by its beating waves, and thrown into the eddies of despair, and where we are caught by the sharks of our greediness. 21. Let your own mind cut the net of the mind, which is ensnared in this world; and extricate your soul, by this wise policy, which is the only means of your liberation. (i.e. Set your mind to correct your mind). 22. Let the wise destroy the desires of their minds, and this will set them free from the bonds of ignorance. 23. Shun your desire for earthly enjoyments and forsake your knowledge of dualism; then get rid of your impressions of entity and non-entity, and be happy with the knowledge of one unity. 24. The thought of the unknowable, will remove the thoughts of knowables; this is equivalent to the destruction of desires, of the mind and ignorance also. 25. The unknown one of which we are unconscious by our knowledge, transcends all whatever is known to us by our consciousness. Our unconsciousness is our nirvána or final extinction, while our consciousness is the cause of our woe.

26. It is by their own attention that men soon come to the knowledge of the knowables; but it is the unknowing or unconsciousness of these that is our nirvána, while our consciousness is the cause of our woe. (Want of self-consciousness, is want of pain. And perfect apathy is the perfection of solipsism). 27. Destroy O Ráma, whatever is desirable to your mind, and is the object of your affection; then knowing them as reduced to nothing, forsake your desires as seedless sprouts (which can never grow); and live content without the feelings of joy and grief.

DESCRIPTION OF IGNORANCE AND DELUSION (AVIDYÁ). Argument. Extirpation of Evil Desires and duality by the true knowledge of unity called the Vidyá. Vasishtha continued:—The false desires which continually rise in the breast; are as the appearances of false moons in the sky, and should be shunned by the wise. 2. They rise in the minds of the unwise amidst their ignorance; but every thing which is known only by its name and not in actuality, can not have its residence in the minds of wise people. (Nominalism as opposed to Realistic Platonism). 3. Be wise, O Ráma; and do not think like the ignorant; but consider well all that I tell you;—there is no second moon in the sky, but it appears so only by deception of our optical visions. 4. There exists nothing real or unreal any where, except the only true essence of God; as there is no substantiality in the continuity of the waves, besides the body of waters. 5. There is no reality in any thing, whether existent or non-existent, all which are mere creations of your shadowy ideality; do not therefore impute any shape or figure to the eternal, boundless and pure spirit of God.

6. You are no maker nor master of anything, then why deem any act or thing as your own (mamatá—meity?) You know not what these existences are, and by whom and wherefore they are made. 7. Neither think yourself as actor, because no actor can attempt to do anything. Discharge whatever is your duty, and remain at your ease with having done your part. 8. Though you are the actor of an action, yet think not yourself as such, minding your inability to do or undo any thing: for how can you boast yourself as the actor, when you know your inability for action. 9. If truth is delectable and untruth is odious, then remain firm to what is good; and be employed in your duties (in the path of truth and goodness). 10. But as the whole world is a gallery, a magic and an unreality; then say what reliance is there in it, and what signifies pleasurableness or unpleasurableness to any body. 11. Know Ráma, this ovum of the world to be a delusion, and being inexistent in itself, appears as a real existence to others. 12. Know this busy sphere of the world, which is so full with its inessence; to be an ideal phantasm presented for the delusion of our minds.

13. It is like the beautiful bamboo plant, all hollow within, and without pith and marrow in the inside; and like the curling waves of the sea, both of which are born to perish without being uprooted from the bottom. (It is impossible to root out the bamboo as well as the rising wave of the water). 14. This world is as volatile as the air and water flying in the air, and hardly to be tangible or held fast in the hand; and as precipitous as the water-fall in its course (hurling down and sweeping away everything before it). 15. It appears as a flowery garden, but never comes to any good use at all; so the billowy sea in the mirage, presents the form of water, without allaying our thirst. 16. Sometimes it seems to be straight, and at others a curve; now it is long and now short, and now it is moving and quiet again; and everything in it, though originally for our good, conspires to our evil only. 17. Though hollow in the inside, the world appears to be full with its apparent contents; and though all the worlds are continually in motion, yet they seem to be standing still.

18. Whether they be dull matter or intelligences, their existence depends upon their motion; and these without stopping any where for a moment, present the sight of their being quite at rest. 19. Though they are as bright as light to sight, they are as opaque as the dark coal in their bowels; and though they are moved by a superior power, they appear to be moving of themselves. 20. They fade away before the brighter light of the sun, but brighten in the darkness of the night; their light is like that of the mirage, by reflection of sunbeams. 21. Human avarice is as a sable serpent, crooked and venomous, thin and soft in its form; but rough and dangerous in its nature, and ever unsteady as a woman. 22. Our love of the world, ceases soon without the objects of our affection; as the lamp is extinguished without its oil, and as the vermilion mark, which is soon effaced. (Here is a pun upon the world sneha meaning a fluid substance as well as affection; and that the world is a dreary waste, without the objects dear to us).

23. Our false hopes are as transient, as the evanescent flash of lightnings; they glare and flare for a moment, but they disappear in the air as these transitory flashes of light. 24. The objects of our desire are often had without our seeking; but they are as frail as the fire of heaven; they appear to vanish like the twinkling lightnings, and being held carefully in the hand, they burn it like the electric fire. (This passage shows the science of electricity and the catching of electric fire, to have been known to the ancients). 25. Many things come to us unasked, and though appearing delightsome at first, they prove troublesome to us at last. Hopes delayed, are as flowers growing out of season, which, neither bear their fruits, nor answer our purposes. (Unseasonal flowers are held as ominous and useless). 26. Every accident tends to our misery, as unpleasant dreams infest our sleep and disturb our rest. 27. It is our delusion (avidyá), that presents these many and big worlds before us; as our dreams produce, sustain and destroy all the appearances of vision in one minute.

28. It was delusion which made one minute, appear as many years to king Lavana; and the space of one night, seem as the long period of a dozen of years to Haris chandra. 29. Such also is the case with separated lovers among rich people, that a single night seems as a live long year to them, in the absence of their beloved. 30. It is this delusive avidyá, that shortens the flight of time to the rich and happy; and prolongs its course, with the poor and miserable: all of whom are subject to the power of delusion vipary’ása. 31. The power of this delusion is essentially spread over all the works of creation, as the light of a lamp, is spread over things in its effulgence and not in substance. 32. As a female form represented in a picture is no woman, and has not the power of doing any thing; so this avidyá which presents us the shapes of our desired objects in the picture of the mind, can produce nothing in reality. 33. The delusion consists in the building of aerial castles in the mind, without their substance; and though these appear in hundreds and thousands of shapes, they have no substantiality in them.

34. It deludes the ignorant, as a mirage misleads the deer in a desert; but it can not deceive the knowing man by its false appearances. 35. These appearances like the foaming waters, are as continuous as they are evanescent, they are as fleeting as the driving frost, which can not be held in the hand. 36. This delusion holds the world in its grasp, and flies aloft with it in the air; it blinds us by the flying dust, which is raised by its furious blasts. (This is delusion of ambitions). 37. Covered with dust and with heat and sweat of its body, it grasps the earth and flies all about the world. The deluded man ever toils and moils, and runs every where after his greed. 38. As the drops of rain water, falling from the clouds, form the great rivers and seas; and as the scattered straws being tied together, make the strong rope for the bondage of beasts; so the combination of all the delusive objects in the world, makes the great delusion of Máyá and Moha. (‘Gutta cum gutta facit lacum’. Drop by drop, makes a lake. Or by drops the lake is drained. And many a little, makes a mickle).

39. The poets describe the fluctuations of the world as a series of waves and the world itself, as a bed of lotuses: pleasant to sight, but floating on the unstable element. But I compare it with the porous stalk of the lotus, which is full of perforations and foramens inside; and as a pool of mud and mire, with the filth of our sins. (The world is full of hidden traps and trapdoors and is a pit of sinfulness). 40. Men think much of their improvement, and of many other things on earth; but there is no improving in this decaying world; which is as a tempting cake with a coating of sweets, but full of deadly gall within. 41. It is as an extinguishing lamp, whose flame is lost and fled we know not where. It is visible as a mist, but try to lay hold on it, and it proves to be nothing. 42. This earth is a handful of ashes, which being flung aloft flies in particles of dust; and the upper sky which appears to be blue, has no blueness in it.

43. There is the same delusion here on earth, as in the appearance of couple of moons in the sky; and in the vision of things in a dream, as also in the motion of immovable things on the land, to the passenger in a boat. (Things taken to be true, prove to be false). 44. Men being long deluded by this error, which has fastly laid hold of their minds, imagine a long duration of the world, as they do of the scenes in their dreams. 45. The mind being thus deluded by this error, sees the wonderful productions of world, to rise and fall within itself like the waves of the sea. 46. Things which are real and good, appear as otherwise in our error; while those that are unreal and noxious, appear as real and good to our deluded understandings. 47. Our strong avarice riding on the vehicle of the desired object, chases the fleeting mind as bird-catchers do the flying birds in nets. 48. Delusion like a mother and wife often offers us fresh delights, with her tender looks and breasts distilling sweet milk.

49. But these delights serve only to poison us, while they seem to cool the worlds with their distillation; just as the crescent orb of the moon, injures us with too much of her moistening influence, while it appears to refresh us with her full bright beams. 50. Blind delusion turns the meek, mild and mute men, to giddy and vociferous fools; as the silent Vetálas become in their revelrous dancings, amidst the silent woods at night. 51. It is under the influence of delusion, that we see the shapes of snakes and serpents, in our brick-built and stone made houses at night falls: (i.e. apprehensions of these in darkness). 52. It makes a single thing appear as double, as in the sight of two moons in the sky; and brings near to us whatever is at a distance, as in our dreams; and even causes us to dream ourselves as dead in sleep. 53. It causes the long to appear as short, as our nightly sleep shortens the duration of time; and makes a moment appear as a year, as in the case of separated lovers. 54. Look at the power of this unsubstantial ignorance, a negative thing, and still there is nothing which it can not alter to some thing else.

55. Therefore be diligent to stop the course of this delusion, by your right knowledge: as they dry up a channel by stopping the current of the stream. 56. Ráma said:—It is wonderful that a false conception, which has no real existence, and is so delicate as almost a nothing (but a name) should thus blind the understanding. 57. It is strange that something without form or figure, without sense or understanding, and which is unreal and vanishing, should so blindfold the world. 58. It is strange that a thing sparkling in darkness, and vanishing in day light, and mope-eyed as the moping owl, should thus keep the world in darkness. 59. It is strange that something prone to the doing of evil (deception), and unable to come to light and flying from sight, and having no bodily form whatever, should thus darken the world. 60. It is a wonder that one acting so miserly, and consorting with the mean and vile, and ever hiding herself in darkness, should thus domineer over the world. 61. It is wonderful that fallacy which is attended with incessant woe and peril, and which is devoid of sense and knowledge, should keep the world in darkness.

62. It is to be wondered that error arising from anger and avarice, creeping crookedly in darkness, and liable to instant death (by its detection), should yet keep the world in blindness. 63. It is surprising that error which is a blind, dull and stupid thing itself, and which is falsely talkative at all times, should yet mislead others in the world. 64. It is astonishing, that falsehood should betray a man, after attaching so close to him as his consort, and showing all her endearments to him; but flying at the approach of his reason. 65. It is strange that man should be blinded by the womanish attire of error, which beguiles the man but dares not to look at him face to face. 66. It is strange that man is blinded by his faithless consort of error, which has no sense nor intelligence, and which dies away without being killed. 67. Tell me Sir, how this error is to be dispelled, which has its seat in the desires, and is deeply rooted in the recesses of the heart and mind, and lead us to the channels of endless misery, by subjecting us to repeated births and deaths, and to the pains and pleasures of life.

DESCRIPTION OF ERROR. Argument. Spiritual knowledge, the only means of dispelling worldly errors, temporal desires and cares. Ráma repeated:—Tell me sir, how this stony blindness of man, is to be removed, which is caused by the train of ignorance or delusion called avidyá. 2. Vasishtha replied:—As the particles of snow, melt away at the sight of the sun, so is this ignorance dispelled in a moment, by a glance of the holy spirit. 3. Till then doth ignorance continue to hurl down the soul and spirit, as from a precipice to the depths of the world, and expose them to woes, as thick as thorny brambles. 4. As long as the desire of seeing the spirit, does not rise of itself in the human soul, so long there is no end of this ignorance (avidyá) and insensibility (Moha). 5. The sight of the supreme Spirit, destroys the knowledge of our self-existence, which is caused by our ignorance; as the light of the sun, destroys the shadows of things. 6. The sight of the all-pervading God, dispels our ignorance in the same manner, as the light of the twelve zodiacal suns (all shining at once), puts the shadows of night to flight from all sides of the horizon.

7. Our desires are the offspring of our ignorance, and the annihilation of these constitutes what we call our liberation; because the man that is devoid of desires, is reckoned the perfect and consummate Siddha. 8. As the night-shade of desires, is dissipated from the region of the mind; the darkness of ignorance is put to flight, by the rise of the intellectual sun (Vivekodaya). 9. As the dark night flies away before the advance of solar light, so does ignorance disappear, before the advancement of true knowledge—Viveka. 10. The stiffness of our desires, tends to bind the mind fast in its worldly chains; as the advance of night serves to increase the fear of goblins in children. 11. Ráma asked:—The knowledge of the phenomenals as true, makes what we call avidyá or ignorance, and it is said to be dispersed by spiritual knowledge. Now tell me sir, what is the nature of the Spirit. 12. Vasishtha replied:—That which is not the subject of thought, which is all-pervasive, and the thought of which is beyond expression and comprehension is the universal spirit (which we call our Lord and God).

13. That which reaches, to the highest empyrean of God, and stretches over the lowest plots of grass on earth, is the all-pervading spirit at all times, and unknown to the ignorant soul. 14. All this is verily Brahma, eternal and imperishable intelligence. To him no imagination of the mind can reach at any time. 15. That which is never born or dead, and which is ever-existent in all worlds, and in which the conditions of being and change are altogether wanting. 16. Which is one and one alone, all and all pervading, and imperishable Unity; which is incomprehensible in thought, and is only of the form of Intellect, is the universal Spirit. 17. It is accompanied with the ever-existent, all-extending, pure and undisturbed Intellect, and is that calm, quiet, even and unchanging state of the soul, which is called the Divine Spirit. 18. There resides also the impure mind, which is in its nature beyond all physical objects, and runs after its own desire; it is conceivable by the Intellect as sullied by its own activity.

19. This ubiquious, all-potent, great and godlike mind, separates itself in its imagination from the Supreme spirit, and rises from it as a wave on the surface of the sea. (So the Sruti:—Etasmat Jayate pranahmanah &c. The life and mind have their rise from Him). 20. There is no fluctuation (Sansriti) nor projection (Vikshepa) in the all-extending tranquil soul of God; but these take place in the mind owing to its desires, which cause its production of all things in the world. (Hence the world and all things in it, are creations of the divine and active mind, and not of the inactive Supreme Soul). 21. Therefore the world being the production of desire or will, has its extinction with the privation of desires; for that which comes the growth of a thing, causes its extinction also; as the wind which kindles the fire, extinguishes it likewise. (Here is a coincidence with the Homœpathic maxim Similes per similibus). 22. The exertion of human efforts, gives rise to the expectation of fruition, but want of desire, causes the cessation of exertions; and consequently puts a stop to the desire of employment, together with our ignorance causing the desire.

23. The thought that ‘I am distinct from Brahma’, binds the mind to the world; but the belief that ‘Brahma is all’ releases the mind from its bondage. 24. Every thought about one’s self, fastens his bondage in this world; but release from selfish thoughts, leads him to his liberation. Cease from thy selfish cares, and thou shalt cease to toil and moil for naught. 25. There is no lake of lotuses in the sky, nor is there a lotus growing in the gold mine, whose fragrance fills the air, and attracts the blue bees to suck its honey. 26. The goddess of ignorance—Avidyá, with her uplifted arms resembling the long stalks of lotus plants, laughs in exultation over her conquests, with the glaring light of shining moonbeams. 27. Such is the net of our wishes spread before us by our minds, which represent unrealities as real, and take a delight to dwell upon them, like children in their toys. 28. So also is the snare spread out by our own ignorance, all over this world, that it ensnares the busy people to their misery in all places, as it binds fast the ignorant men and boys in its chains.

29. Men are busied in worldly affairs with such thoughts, as these that, ‘I am poor and bound in this earth for my life; but I have my hands and feet wherewith I must work for myself’. 30. But they are freed from all affairs of this life, who know themselves as spiritual beings, and their spiritual part is neither subject to bondage nor labour. (They know themselves to be bodiless, in their embodied forms). 31. The thought that ‘I am neither flesh nor bones, but some thing else than my body,’ releases one from his bondage; and one having such assurance in him, is said to have weakened his avidyá or ignorance. 32. Ignorance (avidyá) is painted in the imagination of earthly men, to be as dark as the darkness which surrounds the highest pinnacle of Meru, blazing with the blue light of sapphire, or at the primeval darkness impenetrable by the solar light. (Hence ignorance and darkness are used as synonymous terms). 33. It is also represented by earth-born mortals, as the blackness which naturally covers the face of heaven by its own nature like the blue vault of the sky. (Thus Avidya is represented as the black and the blue goddess Kali).

34. Thus ignorance is pictured with a visible form, in the imagination of the unenlightened; but the enlightened never attribute sensible qualities to inanimate and imaginary objects. 35. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, what is the cause of the blueness of the sky, if it is not the reflexion of the blue gems on the Meru’s peak, nor is it a collection of darkness by itself. 36. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma! the sky being but empty vacuum, cannot have the quality of blueness which is commonly attributed to it; nor is it the bluish lustre of the blue gems which are supposed to abound on the top of Meru. 37. There is neither the possibility of a body of darkness to abide in the sky, when the mundane egg is full of light (which has displaced the primeval darkness); and when the nature of light is the brightness which stretches over the extramundane regions. (This is the zodiacal light reaching to extramundane worlds). 38. O fortunate Ráma! the firmament (súnya) which is a vast vacuum, is open to a sister of ignorance (avidyá) with regard to its inward hollowness. (The sky and ignorance are twin sisters, both equally blank and hollow within, and of unlimited extent, enveloping the worlds within their unconscious wombs).

39. As one after losing his eyesight, beholds but darkness only all about him; so the want of the objects of sight in the womb of vacuity, gives the sky the appearance of a darksome scene. 40. By understanding this, as you come to the knowledge, that the apparent blackness of the sky, is no black colour of its own; so you come to learn the seeming darkness of ignorance to be no darkness in reality (but a figurative expression derived from its similitude to the other). 41. Want of desire or its indifference, is the destroyer of ignorance; and it is as easy to effect it, as to annihilate the lotus-lake in the sky (an Utopia or a castle built in the air, being but an airy nothing). 42. It is better, O good Ráma! to distrust the delusions of this world, and disbelieve the blueness of the sky, than to labour under the error of their reality. 43. The thought that ‘I am dead,’ makes one as sorrowful, as when he dreams of his death in sleep; so also the thought that ‘I am living’ makes one as cheerful, as when he wakes from the deadly dream of his death-like sleep.

44. Foolish imaginations make the mind as stolid as that of a fool; but reasonable reflexions lead it to wisdom and clearsightedness. 45. A moment’s reflexion of the reality of the world and of his own essence, casts a man into the gloom of everlasting ignorance, while his forgetfulness of these, removes all mortal thoughts from his mind. 46. Ignorance is the producer of passions and tempter to all transient objects; it is busy in destroying the knowledge of the soul, and is destroyed by knowledge of the soul only. (Ignorance leads to materialism, but it is lost under spiritual knowledge). 47. Whatever is sought by the mind, is instantly supplied by the organs of action; which serve as ministers subservient to the orders of their king. (The body serves the mind). 48. Hence who so does not attend to the dictates of his mind, in the pursuit of sensible objects, entertains the tranquility of his inmost soul, by his diligent application to spirituality. 49. What did not exist at first, has no existence even now (i.e. material objects); and these that appear as existent, are no other than the quiescent and immaculate essence—Brahma himself. (The eternal is ever existent, and the instantaneous are but the phases and fluctuations of the everlasting).

50. Let no other thought of any person or thing, or of any place or object employ your mind at any time, except that of the immutable, everlasting and unlimited spirit of Brahma. (For what faith or reliance is there in things that are false and fleeting). 51. Rely in the superior powers of your understanding, and exert your sovran intellect (to know the truth); and root out at once all worldly desire by enjoyment of the pleasures of your mind. 52. The great ignorance that rises in the mind and raises the desires of thy heart, has spread the net of thy false hopes for thy ruin, causing thy death and decrepitude under them. 53. Thy wishes burst out in expressions as these that, “these are my sons and these my treasures; I am such a one, and these things are mine.” All this is the effect of a magic spell of ignorance, that binds thee fast in it. 54. Thy body is a void, wherein thy desires have produced all thy selfish thoughts; as the empty winds raise the gliding waves on the surface of the sea (resembling the fleeting moments in the infinity of the Deity).

55. Learn ye that are seekers of truth, that the words: I, mine and this and that, are all meaningless in their true sense; and that there is nothing that may be called real at any time, except the knowledge of the true self and essence of Brahma. 56. The heavens above and the earth below, with all the ranges of hills and mountains on earth, and all the lines of its rivers and lakes, are but the dissolving views of our sight, and are seen in the same or different lights as they are represented by our ignorance. (This is a tenet of the drishtisrishti system of philosophy, which maintains Visual creations or existence of phenomenals, to be dependant upon sight or visual organs and are deceptio visus or fallacies of vision only). 57. The phenomenals rise to view from our ignorance, and disappear before the light of knowledge (as the dreams and spectres of the dark, are put to flight before the rising sun-light). They appear in various forms in the substratum of the soul, as the fallacy of a snake appearing in the substance of a rope.

58. Know Ráma, that the ignorant only are liable to the error, of taking the earth and sun and the stars, for realities; but not so the learned, to whom the Great Brahma is present in all his majesty and full glory, in all places and things. 59. While the ignorant labour under the doubt of the two ideas, of a rope and a snake in the rope; the learned are firm in their belief, and sight of one true God in all things. 60. Do not therefore think as the ignorant do, but consider all things well like the wise and the learned. Forsake your earthly wishes, and do not grovel like the vulgar by believing the unself as the self. (The second clause has the double sense of mistaking an alien as your own, and of taking an unreality for the true God). 61. Of what good is this dull and dumb body to you, Ráma? (in your future state), that you are so overcome by your alternate joy and grief at its pleasure and pain?

62. As the wood of a tree and its gum resin, and its fruit and seed, are not one and the same thing, though they are so closely akin to one another; so is this body and the embodied being, quite separate from one another, though they are so closely united with each other. 63. As the burning of a pair of bellows, does not blow out the fire, nor stop the air blown by another pair, so the vital air is not destroyed by destruction of the body, but finds its way into another form and frame elsewhere. (This is the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul and life in other bodies). 64. The thought that ‘I am happy or miserable,’ is as false as the conception of water in the mirage:—and knowing it as such, give up your misconceptions of pleasure and pain, and place your reliance in the sole truth. 65. O how wonderful is it, that men have so utterly forgotten the true Brahmá, and have placed their reliance in false ignorance (avidyá), the sole cause of errors. 66. Do not, O Ráma! give way to ignorance in your mind, which being overspread by its darkness, will render it difficult for you to pass over the errors of the world.

67. Know ignorance to be a false fiend and deluder of the strongest minds; it is the baneful cause of endless woes, and producer of the poisonous fruits of illusion. 68. It imagines hell fire, in the cooling beams of the watery orb of the moon; and conceives the torments of the infernal fires, proceeding from the refreshing beams of that celestial light. (This passage alludes to the poetical description of moon light as a flame of fire, in respect to a lover, who is impatient at the separation of his beloved, and is burning under the inextinguishable flame of ardent desire). 69. It views a dry desert in the wide waters, beating with billows and undulating with the fragrance of the aqueous kalpa flowers; and imagines a dry mirage in the empty clouds of autumn. (This alludes also to the wild imageries of poets, proceeding from their false imagination and ignorance). 70. Ignorance builds the imaginary castles in empty air, and causes the error of rising and falling towers in the clouds; it is the delusion of our fancy, that makes us feel the emotions of pleasure and pain in our dreams.

71. If the mind is not filled and led away by worldly desires, there is no fear then of our falling into the dangers, which the day-dreams of our earthly affairs incessantly present before us. 72. The more does our false knowledge (error) lay hold of our minds, the more we feel the torments of hell and its punishments in us, as one dreams of night-mares in his sleep. 73. The mind being pierced by error as by the thorny stalk of a lotus, sees the whole world revolving before it like the sea rolling with its waves. 74. Ignorance taking possession of the mind, converts the enthroned princes to peasants; and reduces them to a condition worse than that of beastly huntsmen. (All tyrants are the creatures of ignorance). 75. Therefore, Ráma! give up the earthly desires, that serve at best to bind down the (celestial) soul to this mortal earth and its mortifying cares; and remain as the pure and white crystal, with reflecting the hues of all things around in your stainless mind. 76. Employ thy mind to thy duties, without being tarnished by thy attachment to any; but remain as the unsullied crystal, receiving the reflections of outward objects, without being stained by any.

77. Knowing everything with avidity in thy watchful mind, and performing all thy duties with due submission, and keeping from the common track with thy exalted mind, thou wilt raise thyself above comparison with any other person.

CAUSES OF HAPPINESS AND MISERY. Argument. The Nature and Powers of the Mind elucidated in the moral of Prince Lavana’s story. Válmíki relates:—Being thus admonished by the high minded Vasishtha, the lotus eyes of Ráma became unfolded as new-blown flowers. 2. He with his expanded heart and blooming face, shone forth with a pure grace, like the fresh lotus reviving at the end of night, under the vivifying beams of the rising sun. 3. His smiling countenance shone forth as the shining moon, with his inward enlightenment and wonder; and then with the nectarious beams of his bright and white pearly teeth, he spoke out these words. 4. Ráma said:—O wonder! that the want of ignorance should subdue all things, as if it were to bind the huge hills with the thin threads of lotus stalks. (Wondrous achievements of science). 5. O! that this straw of the earth, which shows itself to be so compact a body in the world; is no more than the production of our ignorance, which shows the unreal as a reality. 6. Tell me further for my enlightenment regarding the true nature of this magical earth, which rolls as a ceaseless stream, running amidst the etherial worlds.

7. There is another great doubt that infests my breast, and it is with regard to the state which attended on the fortunate Lavana at last. 8. Tell me moreover regarding the embodied soul and the animated body, whether they are in concord or discord with one another, and which of them is the active agent and recipient of the rewards of acts in this earth. 9. Tell me also who was that sorcerer and where he fled, after putting the good prince Lavana to all his tribulation, and then restoring him to his former exalted position. 10. Vasishtha said:—The body is as a frame of wood work, and contains nothing (spiritual) in it; it receives the reflexion of an intelligence in it as in a dream, and this is called the mind. 11. This mind becomes the living principal (life), and is endued with the power of thinking also. It is as unstable as a boat on the current of world of affairs, and plays the part of a fickle monkey, amidst the busy castle of the world. 12. The active principle in the body, is known under the several appellations of the mind, life and egoism (or consciousness); and having a body for its abode, is employed in a variety of actions.

13. This principle is subject to endless pains and pleasures in its unenlightened or unawakened state, and the body bears no relation with them. (The mind is the perceptive and sensitive principle and not the body). 14. The unenlightened understanding again has received many fictitious names, according to the various faculties which it exhibits in its acts. 15. As long as the unawakened mind is in its sleeping state, it perceives the busy bustle of the world as it were in his dream, and which is unknown to the waking or enlightened mind. 16. As long as the living being is not awakened from its dormancy, so long it has to labour under the inseparable mist of worldly errors. 17. But the darkness over-hanging on the minds of the enlightened, is as soon put to flight as the shade of night overspreading the bed of lotuses, is dispersed at sun rise. 18. That which is called the heart, the mind, the living soul, ignorance and desire by the learned, and what is also styled the principle of action, is the same embodied being that is subject both to the feelings of pleasure and pain.

19. The body is dull matter and is insensible of pain and pleasure; it is the embodied being, which is said to be subject to these by men of right reason: and this by reason of its impervious ignorance and irrationality, is the cause of its own misery. 20. The living soul is the subject of its good and bad actions; but it becomes confined in its body by reason of its irrationality, and remains pent up there like the silkworm in its cocoon. 21. The mind being fast bound to its ignorance, exerts its faculties in various ways, and turns round like a wheel in its various pursuits and employments. 22. It is the mind dwelling in the body, that makes it to rise and set, to eat and drink, to walk and go, and to hurt and kill, all which are acts of the mind, and not of the body. 23. As the master of the house does his many acts in it, and not the house itself; so the mind acts its several parts in the body, and not the body by itself. 24. The mind is the active and passive agent of all the actions and passions, and of the pains and pleasures of the body; and it is the mind only that makes the man.

25. Hear me now tell you the useful moral of the story of Lavana; and how he was transformed to a Chandála, by derangement of his mind. 26. The mind has to feel the effects of its actions whether good or evil; and in order that you may understand it well, hear attentively what I will now relate unto you. 27. Lavana who was born of the line of king Harischandra, thought within himself one day, as he was sitting apart from all others of his court. 28. My grand-father was a great king and performed the Rájasúya sacrifice in act; and I, being born of his line, must perform the same in my mind (i.e. mentally). 29. Having determined so, and getting the things ready for the sacrifice, he entered the sacrificial hall for his initiation in the sacred rites. 30. He called the sacrificial priests, and honoured the holy saints; he invited the gods to it, and kindled the sacrificial fire. 31. Having performed the sacrifice to his heart’s content, and honoured the gods, sages and Bráhmans; he went to a forest to reside there for a year. 32. Having then made presents of all his wealth to Bráhmans and other men, he awoke from his slumber in the same forest by the evening of that day.

33. Thus the king Lavana attained the merit of the sacrifice, in his internal satisfaction of having attained the meritoriousness of the sacrifice. 34. Hence learn to know the mind to be the recipient of pleasure and pain; therefore employ your attention, Ráma! to the purification of your mind. 35. Every man becomes perfect in his mind in its full time and proper place; but he is utterly lost who believes himself to be composed of his body only. 36. The mind being roused to transcendental reason, all miseries are removed from the rational understanding; just as the beams of the rising sun falling upon the lotus-bud, dispel the darkness that had closely contracted its folded petals.

BIRTH AND INCARNATION OF ADEPTS IN YOGA. Argument. Production of the Body from the Mind. Ráma asked:—What evidence is there sir, in proof of Lavana’s obtaining the reward of his mental sacrifice of Rájasúya, in his transformation to the state of the Chandála, as it was wrought upon him by the enchantment of the magician? 2. Vasishtha answered:—I was myself present in the court-house of king Lavana, at the time when the magician made his appearance there, and I saw all that took place there with my own eyes. 3. After the magician had gone and done his work, I with the other courtiers, was respectfully requested by the king Lavana, to explain to him the cause (of the dream and its circumstances). 4. After I had pondered the matter and clearly seen its cause, I expounded the meaning of the magician’s spell, in the way as I shall now relate to you, my Ráma! 5. I remembered that all the performers of Rájasúya sacrifice, were subjected to various painful difficulties and dangers, under which they had to suffer for a full dozen of years. 6. It was then that Indra, the lord of heaven had compassion for Lavana, and sent his heavenly messenger in the form of the magician to avert his calamity.

7. He taxed the Rájasúya sacrificer with the inflictment of the very many hardships in his dream, and departed in his aerial journey to the abode of the gods and Siddhas. 8. (Prose) Thus Ráma! it is quite evident and there is no doubt in it. The mind is the active and passive agent of all kinds of actions and their sequences. (a). Therefore rub out the dirt of your heart, and polish the gem of your mind; and having melted it down like the particle of an icicle, by the fire of your reason, attain to your chief good summum bonum at last. (b). Know the mind as self-same with ignorance (avidyá), which presents these multitudes of beings before you, and produces the endless varieties of things by its magical power. (c). There is no difference in the meanings of the words ignorance, mind, understanding and living soul, as in the word tree and all its synonyms. (d). Knowing this truth, keep a steady mind freed from all its desires; and as the orb of the clear sun of your intellect has its rise, so the darkness of your nolens and volens flies away from you.

(e). Know also this truth, that there is nothing in the world which is not to be seen by you, and which can not be made your own, or alienated from you. Nothing is there that does not die or what is not yours or others. All things become all at all times. (This dogma is based on a dictum of the Vedánta given in the Madhu Bráhmana. That nothing is confined in any place or person at all times, but passes from one to another in its turn and time). 9. The multitudes of existent bodies and their known properties, meet together in the substantiality (of the self-same Brahma); as the various kinds of unburnt clay vessels, are melted down in the same watery substance. 10. Ráma said:—You said sir, that it is by weakening the desires of our mind, that we can put an end to our pleasures and pains; but tell me now, how is it possible to stop the course of our naturally fickle minds. 11. Vasishtha replied:—Hear, O thou bright moon of Raghu’s race! the proper course that I will tell thee for quieting the restless mind; by knowing this thou shalt obtain the peace of thy mind, and be freed from the actions of thy organs of sense.

12. I have told you before of the triple nature of the production of beings here below, which I believe, you well remember. 13. Of these the first is that power (Brahmá), who assumed to himself the shape of the Divine Will (Sankalpa), and saw in his presence whatever he wished to produce, and which brought the mundane system into existence. 14. He thought of many changes in his mind, as those of birth and death, of pleasure and pain, of the course of nature and effect of ignorance and the like; and then having ordained them as he willed, he disappeared of himself as snow before the solar light. 15. Thus this god, the personification of Will, rises and sets repeatedly, as he is prompted from time to time by his inward wish. (So does every living being come out of the mould of its internal desire. Or that:—it is the wish, that frames and fashions every body, or the will that moulds the mind). 16. So there are millions of Brahmás born in this mundane egg, and many that have gone by and are yet to come, whose number is innumerable (and who are incarnations of their desires only).

17. So are all living beings in the same predicament with Brahmá, proceeding continually from the entity of God. Now I will tell you the manner in which they live, and are liberated from the bond of life. 18. The mental power of Brahmá issuing from him, rests on the wide expanse of vacuum which is spread before it; then being joined with the essence of ether, becomes solidified in the shape of desire. 19. Then finding the miniature of matter spread out before it, it becomes the quintessence of the quintuple elements. Having assumed afterwards the inward senses, it becomes a suitable elementary body composed of the finest particles of the five elements. It enters into grains and vegetables, which re-enter into the bowels of animals in the form of food. 20. The essence of this food in the form of semen, gives birth to living beings to infinity. 21. The male child betakes himself in his boy-hood, to his tutor for the acquisition of knowledge. 22. The boy next assumes his wondrous form of youth, which next arrives to the state of manhood. 23. The man afterwards learns to choose something for himself, and reject others by the clearsightedness of his internal faculties.

24. The man that is possessed of such right discrimination of good and evil, and of right and wrong, and who is confident of the purity of his own nature, and of his belonging to the best caste (of a Brahmán); attains by degrees the supernatural powers for his own good, as also for the enlightenment of his mind, by means of his knowledge of the seven essential grounds of Yoga meditation.

DIFFERENT STATES OF KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE. Argument. The septuple grounds of true and false Knowledge and their mixed modes. And firstly, of self-abstraction or abstract knowledge of one or swarúpa; and then of the different grounds of Ignorance. Ráma said:—Please sir, tell me in brief, what are the grounds of yoga meditation, which produce the seven kinds of consummation, which are aimed at by the yogi adepts. You sir, who are best acquainted with all recondite truths, must know it better than all others. 2. Vasishtha replied:—They consist of the seven states of ignorance (ajnána-bhúmi), and as many of knowledge also; and these again diverge into many others, by their mutual intermixture. (Participating the natures of one another, and forming the mixed modes of states of truth and error). 3. All these states (both of right and wrong cognitions), being deep rooted in the nature of man (mahá-satta), either by his habit or of training, made produce their respective fruits or results (tending to his elevation or degradation in this world and the next). Note. Habit or natural disposition (pravritti) is the cause of leading to ignorance and its resulting error; but good training—sádhana and better endeavours—prayatna, are the causes of right knowledge and elevation.

4. Attend now to the nature of the sevenfold states or grounds of ignorance; and you will come to know thereby, the nature of the septuple grounds of knowledge also. 5. Know this as the shortest lesson, that I will give thee of the definitions of true knowledge and ignorance; that, it is the remaining in one’s own true nature (swarúpa or suiform state), that constitutes his highest knowledge and liberation; and his divergence from it to the knowledge of his ego (egoism—ahanta), is the cause of his ignorance, and leads him to the error and bondage of this world. 6. Of these, they that do not deviate from their consciousness—samvitti of themselves—swarúpa, as composed of the pure ens or essence only (suddha-san-mátra), are not liable to ignorance; because of their want of passions and affections, and of the feelings of envy and enmity in them. (The highest intelligence of one’s self, is the consciousness of his self-existence, or that “I am that I am” as a spiritual being; because the spirit or soul is the true self).

7. But falling off from the consciousness of self-entity—swarúpa, and diving into the intellect—Chit, in search of the thoughts of cognizable objects (chetyárthas), is the greatest ignorance and error of mankind. (No error is greater than to fall off from the subjective and run after the objective). 8. The truce that takes place in the mind, in the interim of a past and future thought of one object to another (arthadar thántara); know that respite of the mind in thinking, to be the resting of the soul, in the consciousness of its self-entity swarúpa. 9. That state of the soul which is at calm after the setting of the thoughts and desires of the mind; and which is as cold and quiet as the bosom of a stone, and yet without the torpitude of slumber or dull drowsiness; is called the supineness of the soul in its recognition of itself. 10. That state of the soul, which is devoid of its sense of egoism and destitute of its knowledge of dualism, and its distinction from the state of the one universal soul, and shines forth with its unsleeping intelligence, is said to be at rest in itself or swarúpa.

11. But this state of the pure and self-intelligent soul, is obscured by the various states of ignorance, whose grounds you will now hear me relate unto you. These are the three states of wakefulness or jágrat, known as the embryonic waking (or vijajágrat), the ordinary waking, and the intense waking called the mahajágrat. (i.e. the hypnotism or hybernation of the soul, being reckoned its intelligent state, its waking is deemed as the ground of its ignorance, and the more is it awake to the concerns of life, the more it is said to be liable to error). 12. Again the different states of its dreaming (swapnam or somnum), are also said to be the grounds of its ignorance and these are the waking dream, the sleeping dream, the sleepy waking and sound sleep or sushupti. These are the seven grounds of ignorance. (Meaning hereby, all the three states of waking, dreaming and sound sleep (jágrat, swapna and sushupta), to be the grounds fertile with our ignorance and error). 13. These are the seven-fold grounds, productive of sheer ignorance, and which when joined with one another, become many more and mixed ones, known under different denominations as you will hear by and by.

14. At first there was the intelligent Intellect (Chaitanya Chit), which gave rise to the nameless and pure intelligence Suddha-Chit; which became the source of the would-be mind and living soul. 15. This intellect remained as the ever waking embryonic seed of all, wherefore it is called the waking seed (Vijajágrat); and as it is the first condition of cognition, it is said to be the primal waking state. 16. Now know the waking state to be next to the primal waking intelligence of God, and it consists of the belief of the individual personality, of the ego and meity,—aham and mama; i.e. this am I and these are mine by chance—prág-abháva. (The first is the knowledge of the impersonal soul, and the second the knowledge of personal or individual souls). 17. The glaring or great waking—mahajágrat, consists in the firm belief that I am such a one, and this thing is mine, by virtue of my merits in this or by-gone times or Karman. (This positive knowledge of one’s self and his properties, is the greatest error of the waking man).

18. The cognition of the reality of any thing either by bias—rudhádhyása or mistake—arudha, is called the waking dream; as the sight of two moons in the halo, of silver in shells, and water in the mirage; as also the imaginary castle building of day dreamers. 19. Dreaming in sleep is of many kinds, as known to one on his waking, who doubts their truth owing to their short-lived duration (as it was in the dreaming of Lavana). 20. The reliance which is placed in things seen in a dream, after one wakes from his sleep, is called his waking dream, and lasting in its remembrance only in his mind. (Such is the reliance in divine inspirations and prophetic dreams which come to be fulfilled). 21. A thing long unseen and appearing dimly with a stalwart figure in the dream, if taken for a real thing of the waking state, is called also a waking dream. (As that of Brutus on his seeing the stalwart figure of Cæsar). 22. A dream dreamt either in the whole body or dead body of the dreamer, appears as a phantom of the waking state: (as a living old man remembers his past youthful person, and a departed soul viewing the body it has left behind).

23. Besides these six states, there is a torpid—jada state of the living soul, which is called his sushupta—hypnotism or sound sleep, and is capable of feeling its future pleasures and pains. (The soul retains even in this torpid state, the self-consciousness of its merit and demerit (as impressions—sanskáras in itself, and the sense of the consequent bliss or misery, which is to attend upon it)). 24. In this last state of the soul or mind, all outward objects from a straw up to a mountain, appear as mere atoms of dust in its presence; as the mind views the miniature of the world in profound meditation. 25. I have thus told you Ráma, the features of true knowledge and error in brief, but each of these states branches out into a hundred forms, with various traits of their own. 26. A long continued waking dream is accounted as the waking state—jágrat, and it becomes diversified according to the diversity of its objects. (i.e. Waking is but a continued dreaming). 27. The waking state contains under it the conditions of the wakeful soul of God; also there are many things under these conditions which mislead men from one error to another; as a storm casts the boats into whirlpools and eddies.

28. Some of the lengthened dreams in sleep, appear as the waking sight of day light; while others though seen in the broad day-light of the waking state, are no better than night-dreams seen in the day time, and are thence called our day dreams. 29. I have thus far related to you the seven grades of the grounds of ignorance, which with all their varieties, are to be carefully avoided by the right use of our reason, and by the sight of the Supreme soul in our-selves.

DIRECTIONS TO THE STAGES OF KNOWLEDGE. Argument. Definitions of the seven Grounds of Knowledge, together with that of Adepts—árúdhasin in Yoga, and also of Liberation. Vasishtha continued:—O sinless Ráma, attend now to the sevenfold stages of cognoscence, by the knowledge of which you will no more plunge into the mire of ignorance. 2. Disputants are apt to hold out many more stages of Yoga meditation; but in my opinion these (septuple stages) are sufficient for the attainment of the chief good on ultimate liberation. (The disputants are the Patánjala Yoga philosophers, who maintain various modes of discipline, for attaining to particular perfections of consummation—Siddhi; but the main object of this Sástra is the summum bonum (parama-purushártha) which is obtainable by means of the seven stages—Bhúmikas which are expounded herein below). 3. Knowledge is understanding, which consists in knowing these seven stages only; but liberation—mukti, which is the object of knowledge (jnána), transcends the acquaintance of these septuple stages. 4. Knowledge of truth is liberation (moksha), and all these three are used as synonymous terms; because the living being that has known the truth, is freed from transmigration as by his liberation also. (The three words mukti, moksha and jnána imply the same thing).

5. The grounds of knowledge comprise the desire of becoming good—subhechhá, and this good will is the first step. Then comes discretion or reasoning (vicháraná) the second, followed by purity of mind (tanu-manasa), which is the third grade to the gaining of knowledge. 6. The fourth is self-reliance as the true refuge—Sattá-patti, then asansakti or worldly apathy as the fifth. The sixth is padárthabháva or the power of abstraction, and the seventh or the last stage of knowledge is turya-gati or generalization of all in one. 7. Liberation is placed at the end of these, and is attained without difficulty after them. Attend now to the definitions of these steps as I shall explain them unto you. 8. First of all is the desire of goodness, springing from dispassionateness to worldly matters, and consisting in the thought, “why do I sit idle, I must know the Sástras in the company of good men.” 9. The second is discretion, which arises from association with wise and good men, study of the Sástras, habitual aversion to worldliness, and consists in an inclination to good conduct, and the doing of all sorts of good acts.

10. The third is the subduing of the mind, and restraining it from sensual enjoyments; and these are produced by the two former qualities of good will and discretion. 11. The fourth is self-reliance, and dependence upon the Divine spirit as the true refuge of this soul. This is attainable by means of the three qualities described above. 12. The fifth is worldly apathy, as it is shown by one’s detachment from all earthly concerns and society of men, by means of the former quadruple internal delight (which comes from above). 13. By practice of the said fivefold virtues, as also by the feeling of self-satisfaction and inward delight (spiritual joy); man is freed from his thoughts and cares, about all internal and external objects. 14. Then comes the powers of cogitation into the abstract meanings of things, as the sixth step to the attainment of true knowledge. It is fostered either by one’s own exertion, or guidance of others in search of truth. 15. Continued habitude of these six qualifications and incognition of differences in religion, and the reducing of them all to the knowledge of one true God of nature, is called generalization. (Because all things in general, proceed from the one and are finally reduced in to the same).

16. This universal generalization appertains to the nature of the living liberation of the man, who beholds all things in one and in the same light. Above this is the state of that glorious light, which is arrived by the disembodied soul. 17. Those fortunate men, O Ráma, who have arrived to the seventh stage of their knowledge, are those great minds that delight in the light of their souls, and have reached to their highest state of humanity. 18. The living liberated are not plunged in the waters of pleasure and sorrow, but remain sedate and unmoved in both states; they are at liberty either to do or slight to discharge the duties of their conditions and positions in society. 19. These men being roused from their deep meditation by intruders, betake themselves to their secular duties, like men awakened from their slumber (at their own option). 20. Being ravished by the inward delight of their souls, they feel no pleasure in the delights of the world; just as men immerged in sound sleep, can feel no delight at the dalliance of beauties about them.

21. These seven stages of knowledge are known only to the wise and thinking men, and not to beasts and brutes and immoveable things all around us. They are unknown to the barbarians and those that are barbarous in their minds and dispositions. 22. But any one that has attained to these states of knowledge, whether it be a beast or barbarian, an embodied being or disembodied spirit, has undoubtedly obtained its liberation. 23. Knowledge severs the bonds of ignorance, and by loosening them, produces the liberation of our souls: it is the sole cause of removing the fallacy of the appearance of water in the mirage, and the like errors. 24. Those who being freed from ignorance, have not arrived at their ultimate perfection of disembodied liberation; have yet secured the salvation of their souls, by being placed in these stages of knowledge in their embodied state during their life time. 25. Some have passed all these stages, and others over two or three of them; some have passed the six grades, while a few have attained to their seventh state all at once (as the sages Sanaka, Nárada and other holy saints have done from their very birth).

26. Some have gone over three stages, and others have attained the last; some have passed four stages, and some no more than one or two of them. 27. There are some that have advanced only a quarter or half or three fourths of a stage. Some have passed over four quarters and a half, and some six and a half. 28. Common people walking upon this earth, know nothing regarding these passengers in the paths of knowledge; but remain as blind as their eyes were dazzled by some planetary light or eclipsed by its shadow. 29. Those wise men are compared to victorious kings, who stand victorious on these seven grounds of knowledge. The celestial elephants are nothing before them; and mighty warriors must bend their heads before them. 30. Those great minds that are victors on these grounds of knowledge, are worthy of veneration, as they are conquerors of their enemies of their hearts and senses; and they are entitled to a station above that of an emperor and an autocrat, samrat and virat, both in this world and in the next in their embodied and disembodied liberations—sadeha and videha muktis. NOTES:—These terms called the grades of knowledge may be better understood in their appropriate English expressions, as:— 1. Desire of improvement. 2. Habit of reasoning.

3. Fixity of attention. 4. Self-dependence—Intuition 5. Freedom from bias or onesidedness. 6. Abstraction or abstract knowledge. 7. Generalization of all in the universal unity. 8. Liberation is anaesthesia or cessation of action, sensation and thoughts.

ILLUSTRATION OF THE GOLD-RING. Argument. Ascertaining the True Unity by rejecting the illusory forms and on the said Grounds of Knowledge. Vasishtha said:—The human soul reflecting on its egoism, forgets its essence of the Supreme soul; as the gold-ring thinking on its formal rotundity, loses its thought of the substantial gold whereof it is made. 2. Ráma said:—Please tell me sir, how the gold can have its consciousness of its form of the ring, as the soul is conscious of its transformation to egoism. 3. Vasishtha said:—The questions of sensible men, relate only to the substances of things, and not to the production and dissolution of the existent formal parts of things, and neither to those of the non-existent; so you should ask of the substances of the soul and gold, and not of the ego and the ring, which are unsubstantial nullities in nature. (So men appraise the value of the gold of which the ring is made, and not by the form of the ring). 4. When the jeweller sells his gold-ring for the price of gold, he undoubtedly delivers the gold which is the substance of the ring and not the ring without its substance. (So the shapes of things are nothing at all, but the essential substance—Brahma underlying all things, is all in all).

5. Ráma asked:—If such is the case that you take the gold for the ring, then what becomes of the ring as we commonly take it to be? Explain this to me, that I may thereby know the substance of Brahma (underlying all appearances). 6. Vasishtha said:—All form, O Ráma, is formless and accidental quality, and no essential property of things. So if you would ascertain the nature of a nullity, then tell me the shape and qualities of a barren woman’s son (which are null and nothing). 7. Do not fall into the error of taking the circularity of the ring, as an essential property of it; the form of a thing is only apparent and not prominent to the sight. (In European philosophy, form is defined as the essence of a thing, for without it nothing is conceivable. But matter being the recipient of form, it does form any part of its essence. Vasishtha speaking of matter as void of form, means the materia prima of Aristotle, or the elementary sorts of it).

8. The water in the mirage, the two moons in the sky, the egoism of men and the forms of things, though appearing as real ones to sight and thought, cannot be proved as separate existences apart from their subjects. (All these therefore are fallacies vanishing before vichárana or reasoning, the second ground of true knowledge). 9. Again the likeness of silver that appears in pearl-shells, can not be realized in the substance of the pearl-mother, or even a particle of it at any time or any place. (The Sanskrit alliterations of kanam, kshanam, kvanu, cannot be preserved in translation). 10. It is the incircumspect view of a thing that makes a nullity appear as a reality, as the appearance of silver in the shell and the water in the mirage (all which are but deceptions of sight and other senses, and are therefore never trustworthy). 11. The nullity of a nil appears as an ens to sight, as also the fallacy of a thing as something where there is nothing of the kind (as of silver in the pearl-mother and water in the mirage).

12. Sometimes an unreal shadow acts the part of a real substance, as the false apprehension of a ghost kills a lad with the fear of being killed by it. (Fright of goblins and bogies of mormos and ogres, have killed many men in the dark). 13. There remains nothing in the gold-jewel except gold, after its form of jewellery is destroyed; therefore the forms of the ring and bracelet are no more, than drops of oil or water on a heap of sand. The forms are absorbed in the substance, as the fluids in dust or sand. 14. There is nothing real or unreal on earth, except the false creations of our brain (as appearances in our dreams); and these whether known as real or unreal, are equally productive of their consequences, as the sights and fears of spectres in children. (We are equally encouraged by actual rewards and flattering hopes, as we are depressed at real degradation and its threatening fear).

15. A thing whether it is so or not, proves yet as such as it is believed to be, by different kinds and minds of men; as poison becomes as effective as elixir to the sick, and ambrosia proves as heinous as hemlock with the intemperate. (So is false faith thought to be as efficacious by the vulgar as the true belief of the wise). 16. Belief in the only essence of the soul, constitutes true knowledge, and not in its likeness of the ego and mind, as it is generally believed in this world. Therefore abandon the thought of your false and unfounded egoism or individual existence. (This is said to be self-reliance or dependance on the universal soul of God). 17. As there is no rotundity of the ring inherent in gold; so there is no individuality of egoism in the all-pervading universal soul. 18. There is nothing everlasting beside Brahma, and no personality of Him as a Brahmá, Vishnu or any other. There is no substantive existence as the world, but off spring of Brahmá called the patriarchs. (All these are said to be negative terms in many passages of the srutis as the following:—

There is no substantiality except that of Brahma. There is no personality (ádesa) of him. He is Brahma the supreme soul and no other. He is neither the outward nor inward nor he is nothing.) 19. There are no other worlds beside Brahma, nor is the heaven without Him. The hills, the demons, the mind and body all rest in that spirit which is no one of these. 20. He is no elementary principle, nor is he any cause as the material or efficient. He is none of the three times of past, present and future but all; nor is he anything in being or not-being (in esse or posse or in nubibus). 21. He is beyond your egoism or tuism, ipseism and suism, and all your entities and non-entities. There is no attribution nor particularity in Him, who is above all your ideas, and is none of the ideal personifications of your notions (i.e. He is none of the mythic persons of abstract ideas as Love and the like). 22. He is the plenum of the world, supporting and moving all, being unmoved and unsupported by any. He is everlasting and undecaying bliss; having no name or symbol or cause of his own. (He is the being that pervades through and presides over all—sanmátram).

23. He is no sat or est or a being that is born and existent, nor an asat—nonest (i.e. extinct); he is neither the beginning, middle or end of anything, but is all in all. He is unthinkable in the mind, and unutterable by speech. He is vacuum about the vacuity, and a bliss above all felicity. 24. Ráma said:—I understand now Brahma to be self-same in all things, yet I want to know what is this creation, that we see all about us. (i.e. Are they the same with Brahma or distinct from him?) 25. Vasishtha replied: The supreme spirit being perfectly tranquil, and all things being situated in Him, it is wrong to speak of this creation or that, when there is no such thing as a creation at any time. 26. All things exist in the all containing spirit of God, as the whole body of water is contained in the universal ocean; but there is fluctuation in the waters owing to their fluidity, whereas there is no motion in the quiet and motionless spirit of God. 27. The light of the luminaries shines of itself, but not so the Divine light; it is the nature of all lights to shine of themselves, but the light of Brahma is not visible to sight.

28. As the waves of the ocean rise and fall in the body of its waters, so do these phenomena appear as the noumena in the mind of God (as his ever-varying thoughts). 29. To men of little understandings, these thoughts of the Divine mind appear as realities; and they think this sort of ideal creation, will be lasting for ages. 30. Creation is ascertained to be a cognition (a thought) of the Divine Mind; it is not a thing different from the mind of God, as the visible sky is no other than a part of Infinity. 31. The production and extinction of the world, are mere thoughts of the Divine mind; as the formation and dissolution of ornaments take place in the self-same substance of gold. 32. The mind that has obtained its calm composure, views the creation as full with the presence of God; but those that are led by their own convictions, take the inexistent for reality, as children believe the ghosts as real existences. 33. The consciousness of ego (or the subjective self-existence), is the cause of the error of the objective knowledge of creation; but the tranquil unconsciousness of ourselves, brings us to the knowledge of the supreme, who is above the objective and inert creation.

34. These different created things appear in a different light to the sapient, who views them all in the unity of God, as the toy puppets of a militia, are well known to the intelligent to be made and composed of mud and clay. 35. This plenitude of the world is without its beginning and end, and appears as a faultless or perfect peace of workmanship. It is full with the fullness of the supreme Being, and remains full in the fullness of God. 36. This plenum which appears as the created world, is essentially the Great Brahma, and situated in his greatness; just as the sky is situated in the sky, tranquility in tranquility, and felicity in felicity. (These are absolute and identic terms, as the whole is the whole &c.). 37. Look at the reflexion of a longsome landscape in a mirror, and the picture of a far stretching city in the miniature; and you will find the distances of the objects lost in their closeness. So the distances of worlds are lost in their propinquity to one another in the spirit of God.

38. The world is thought as a nonentity by some, and as an entity by others; by their taking it in the different lights of its being a thing beside God, and its being but a reflection of Brahma. (In the former case it is a nonentity as there can be nothing without God; in the latter sense it is real entity being identic with God). 39. After all, it can have no real entity, being like the picture of a city and not as the city itself. It is as false as the appearance of limpid water in the desert mirage, and that of the double moon in the sky. 40. As it is the practice of magicians, to show magic cities in the air, by sprinkling handfuls of dust before our eyes; so doth our erroneous consciousness represent the unreal world, as a reality unto us. 41. Unless our inborn ignorance (error) like an arbour of noxious plants, is burnt down to the very root by the flame of right reasoning, it will not cease to spread out its branches, and grow the rankest weeds of our imaginary pleasures and sorrows.