Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

THE RENEWED BATTLE OF THE GODS AND DEMONS. Argument. The rising Desires of the Demons, causing them to resume the Battle. Vasishtha continued:—Saying so, the god Brahmá vanished from the sight of the gods, as the wave of the sea retires and mixes with its waters, after having dashed and crashed against the shore. 2. The gods, having heard the words of Brahmá, returned to their respective abodes; as the breeze bearing the fragrance of the lotus, wafts it to the forests on all sides. 3. They halted in their delightsome houses for some days, as the bees rest themselves in the cells of flowers after their wanderings. 4. Having refreshed and invigorated themselves in the course of time, they gave the alarm of their rising, with the beating of their drums, sounding as the peal of the last day. 5. Immediately the demons rose from the infernal regions, and met the gods in the midway air, and commenced their dreadful onset upon them. 6. Then there was a clashing of the armours, and clattering of swords and arrows, the flashing of lances and spears, and the crackling of mallets and various other weapons, as battle axes and discuses, thunderbolts, and hurling of rockstones and huge trees and the like.

7. There was also many magical instruments, which ran on all sides like the torrents of rivers; while rocks and hills, high mountains and huge trees, were flung and hurled from both sides, filling the earth with confused noise and rumbling. 8. The encampment of the gods, was beset by a magical flood of the demons, resembling the stream of the Ganges; while showers of firearms and missiles of all sorts, were hurled upon their heads from above. 9. Many big bodies of the gods and demons, rose and fought and fell by turns, as the elemental bodies of earth and the other elements, rise to and disappear from view by the act of Máyá or illusion. (The enormous bodies of the warriors, fought with one another in the same manner, as the jarring elements clash against each other). 10. Big bombs broke the heads of mountains, and the earth became a vast sheet of blood like a sanguine sea. The heaps of dead bodies on both sides, rose as forests to the face of heaven.

11. Living lions with iron bodies, and rows of saw-like teeth and nails white as Kása flowers, were let loose by the magic art to roam rampant in the airy field; devouring the stones, flung by the gods and demons, and bursting out into shells and shots and many other weapons. 12. The serpentine weapons flew with their mountainous shapes in the ocean of the sky; having their eyes flashing with their venomous heat, and burning with the fire of the twelve suns on the last day of desolation. 13. The hydraulic engine sent forth floods of weapons, whirling as whirlpools, and sounding loud as the rattling thunder; and sweeping the hills and rocks in their current. 14. The stone missiles which were thrown by the Garuda engine, to the aerial battle-field of the gods, emitted at intervals water and fire, and sometimes shone as the sun, and at others became altogether dark. 15. The Garuda weapons flew and roared in the sky, and the fire-arms spread a conflict of burning hills above; the burning towers of the gods fell upon the earth and, the world became as unendurable as in its conflagration on the last day.

16. The demons jumped up to the sky from the surface of the earth, as birds fly to heaven from mountain tops. The gods fell violently on the earth, as the fragment of a rock falls precipitately on the ground. 17. The long weapons sticking to the bodies of the deities and demons, were as bushes with their burning pain; thus their big statures appeared as rocks decorated with arbors growing upon them. 18. The gods and demons, roving with their mountainous bodies, all streaming in blood, appeared as the evening clouds of heaven, pouring the purple floods of celestial Gangá (Mandákiní). 19. Showers of weapons were falling as water-falls or showers of rain, and the tide of thunders flowed as fast as the fall of meteoric fire in promiscuous confusion. 20. Those skilled in the arts, were pouring floods of purple fluids, mixed with the red clay of mountains, from the pipes of elephants’ trunks; as they sputter the festive water of Phagua, mixed with the red powder (phága) through the syringe (phichkári). (The pouring, of holy (hori) water is a sacrament of Krishnites, as well as of Christians; but this baptismal function of Krishna among his comrades, is now become a mockery and foolery even among the coreligionist-vaishnavites. The text expresses it as—punyavarsana or purifying sprinkling).

21. The Devas and Asuras, though worried by one another, did not yet give up their hope of victory, but hurled the weapons from their hands for mutual annoyance; and riding on the broad backs of big elephants, they wandered in the air, spreading their effulgence all around. 22. They then wandered in the sky like flights of inauspicious locusts, with their bodies pierced in the heads, hands, arms, and breasts, and filled the vault of the world like the flying clouds, obscuring the sun and the sides of heaven, and the surface and heights of the earth. 23. The earth was battered and rent to pieces by the fragments of broken weapons, falling from the waists of the combatants, who assailed one another with their loud shouts. 24. The sky re-echoed to the thunder-claps of the mutual strokes of the weapons, the clattering of the stones and trees, and the blows of the warriors on one another, as it was the bustle of the day of universal destruction. 25. The disordered world seemed to approach its untimely end, by the blowing of the furious winds mixed with fire and water (as in the chaotic state); and the many suns of the deities and demons, shining above and below (as it is predicted of the dreaded last day).

26. All the quarters of heaven, seemed to be crying aloud, with the sounds of the hurling weapons, rolling as mountain peaks, roaring as lions, and borne by the blowing winds on all sides. 27. The sky appeared as an ocean of illusion, burning with the bodies of the warriors like flaming trees, and rolling in surges of the dead bodies of the gods and demons, floating on it like mountains; while the skirts of the earth, seemed as forest, made by the clubs and lances and spears, and many other weapons incessantly falling upon them. 28. The horizon was surrounded by the big and impenetrable line of demoniac bodies, resembling the chain of Sumeru mountains girding the earth; while the earth itself resembled the ocean filled with the mountainous bodies of fallen warriors, and towers of the celestial cities blown down by the winds. 29. The sky was filled with violent sounds, and the earth and its mountains, were washed by torrents of blood; the blood-sucking goblins danced on all sides, and filled the cavity of the world with confusion.

30. The dreadful warfare of the gods and Titans, resembled the tumults which rage through the endless space of the world, and that rise and fall with the vicissitudes of pleasure and pain, which it is incessantly subject to. (i.e. The world is a field of continued warfare of good and evil, like the battle-field of the gods and demons).

DEFEAT OF THE DEMONS. Argument. The Demons elated with the pride of their bodily strength, are at last foiled and put to flight by the gods. Vasishtha continued:—In this manner, the energetic and murderous Asuras, repeated their attacks and waged many wars with the gods. 2. They carried on their warfare sometimes by fraud and often by their aggressiveness; and frequently after a truce or open war was made with the gods. They sometimes took themselves to flight, and having recruited their strength, they met again in the open field; and at others they lay in ambush, and concealed themselves in their subterranean caves. 3. Thus they waged their battle for five and thirty years against the celestials, by repeatedly flying and withdrawing themselves from the field, and then reappearing in it with their arms. 4. They fought again for five years, eight months and ten days, darting their fire arms, trees and stones and thunders upon the gods. 5. Being used to warfare for so long a period, they at last grew proud of their superior strength and repeated successes, and entertained the desire of their final victory. 6. Their constant practice in arms made them sure of their success, as the nearness of objects casts their reflection in the mirror. (Constant application makes one hopeful of success).

7. But as distant objects are never reflected in the glass, so the desire for any thing, is never successful without intense application to it. 8. So when the desires of the demons Dáma and others, became identified with their selves, their souls were degraded from their greatness, and confined to the belief of the desired objects. 9. All worldly desires lead to erroneous expectations, and those that are entangled in the snares of their expectations, are thereby reduced to the meanness of their spirits. 10. Falling into the errors of egotism and selfishness, they were led to the blunder of mei tatem or thinking these things as mine; just as a man mistakes a rope for a snake. 11. Being reduced to the depravity of selfishness, they began to think their personalities to consist in their bodies, and to reflect how their bodies from the head to foot could be safe and secure from harm. 12. They lost their patience by continually thinking on the stability of their bodies, and their properties and pleasures of life. (i.e. The eager desire of worldly gain and good, grows into impatience at last). 13. Desire of their enjoyments, diminished their strength and valour; and their former acts of gallantry now became a dead letter to them.

14. They thought only how to become lords of the earth, and thus became lazy and enervated, as lotus-flowers without water. (As the thought of grandeur enervated the Romans to impotence). 15. Their pride and egoism led their inclination to the pleasures of good eating and drinking, and to the possession of every worldly good. (Luxury is the bane of valour). 16. They began to hesitate in joining the warfare, and became as timid as the timorous deer, to encounter the furious elephants in their ravages of the forest. 17. They moved slowly in despair of their victory, and for fear of losing their lives, in their encounter with the furious elephants (of the gods) in the field. 18. These cowards wishing to preserve their bodies from the hands of death, became as powerless as to rest satisfied with having the feet of their enemies set up on their heads. (i.e. They fell at the feet of their foes to spare their lives; (as they say; that cowards die many times before their death)). 19. Thus these enervated demons, were as disabled to kill the enemy standing before them; as the fire is unable to consume the sacred ghee offering, when it is not kindled by its fuel.

20. They became as gnats before the aggressive gods, and stood with their bruised bodies like beaten soldiers. 21. What needs saying more, than that the demons being overpowered by the gods, fled away from the field of battle for fear of their lives. 22. When the demons Dáma, Vyála, Kata and others, who were renounced before the gods in their prowess, fled cowardly in different ways:— 23. The force of the Daityas, fell before the deities, and fled from the air on all sides, like the falling stars of heaven, at the end of a kalpa age or last day (of judgment). 24. They fell upon the summits of mountains, and in the arbours of the Sumeru range; some were enwrapt in the folds of the clouds above, and others fell on the banks of distant seas below. 25. Many fell in the cavities of the eddies of seas, and in the abyss of the ocean, and in the running streams; some fell into far distant forests, and others dropped down amidst the burning woods of wild fire.

26. Some being pierced by the arrows of the celestials, fell in distant countries, villages and cities on earth; and others were hurled in thick jungles of wild beasts, and in sandy deserts and in wild conflagrations. (i.e. The demons were hurled down by the gods from high heaven to the earth below). 27. Many fell in the polar regions, some alighting on the mountain tops, and others sinking in the lakes below; while several of them were tossed over the countries of Ándhra, Dravida, Kashmir and Persia. 28. Some sank in billowy seas and in the watery maze of Ganges, and others fell on distant islands, in different parts of the Jambudwípa, and in the nets of fisher-men. 29. Thus the enemies of the gods, lay everywhere with their mountainous bodies, all full of scars from head to foot; and maimed in their hands and arms. 30. Some were hanging on the branches of trees, by their outstretched entrails, gushing out with blood; others with their cropt off crowns and heads, were lying on the ground with open and fiery eyes. 31. Many were lying with their broken armours and weapons, slashed by the superior power of the adversary, and with their robes and attires all dismantled and torn by their fall.

32. Their helmets which were terrific by their blaze, were hanging down their necks; and the braids of their hairs woven with stones, hung loosely about their bodies. 33. Their heads which were covered with hard brazen and pointed coronets, were broken by slabs of stone, which were pelted upon them from the hands of the gods. 34. In this manner the demons were destroyed on all sides, together with all weapons at the end of the battle; which devoured them, as the sea water dissolves the dust.

ACCOUNT OF THE SUBSEQUENT LIVES OF THE DEMONS. Argument. Account of the torments of the Demons in the regions of Pluto, and their succeeding births. Vasishtha continued:—Upon destruction of the demons, the gods were exceedingly joyous; but Dáma and the other leaders of the Daityas, became immerged in sorrow and grief. 2. Upon this Sambara was full of wrath, and his anger was kindled like the all destroying fire against his generals, whom he called aloud by their names and said, where are they? 3. But they fled from their abodes for fear of his ire, and hid themselves in the seventh sphere of the infernal regions. 4. There dwelt the horrid myrmidons of death, formidable as their lord Pluto (Yama) himself; and who were glad with their charge of guarding the abyss of hell. 5. Dauntless warders of the hell-gate received them into their favour, and having given them shelter in the hell-pit, gave them their three maiden daughters in marriage. 6. They there passed in their company, a period of ten thousand years, and gave a free vent to their evil desires up to the end of their lives. (The evil thoughts being the progeny of hell).

7. Their time passed away in such thoughts as these, that, “this is my consort and this my daughter, and I am their lord:” and they were bound together in the ties of mutual affections as strong as the chain of death. 8. It happened on one occasion that Yama—the god of retributive justice, gave his call to that spot, in order to survey the state of affairs in the doleful pits of hell. 9. The three Asuras, being unware of his rank and dignity, (by seeing him unattended with his ensigns), failed to make their obeisance to the lord of hell, by taking him to their peril as one of his servants. 10. Then a nod of his eyebrows, assigned to them a place in the burning furnace of hell; where they were immediately cast by the stern porters of hell gate. 11. There they lay burning with their wives and children, until they were consumed to death, like a straw-hut and withered trees. 12. The evil desires and wicked propensities, which they contracted in the company of the hellish train, caused their transmigration to the forms of Kirátas, for carrying on their slaughters and atrocities like the myrmidons of Yama.

13. Getting rid of that birth, they were next born as ravens, and then as vultures and falcons of mountain caves (preying on the harmless birds below). 14. They were then transformed to the forms of hogs in the land of Trigarta, and then as mountain rams in Magadha, and afterwards of heinous reptiles in caves and holes. 15. Thus after passing successively into a variety of other forms, they are now lying as fishes in the wood-land lakes of Cashmir. 16. Being burnt in hell fire at first, they have now their respite in the watery lake, and drink its filthy water, whereby they neither die nor live to their hearts content. 17. Having thus passed over and over into various births, and being transformed again and again to be reborn on earth, they are rolling like waves of the sea to all eternity. 18. Thus like their endless desires, they have been eternally rolling like weeds in the ocean of the earth; and there is no end of their pains until the end of their desires.

INVESTIGATION OF REALITY AND UNREALITY Argument. Egoism the cause of Poverty and Calamity, illustrated in the instance of Dáma and others. Vasishtha continued:—It was for your enlightenment, O high minded Ráma! that I have related to you the instance of Dáma and Vyála, that you may derive instruction thereby, and not let it go for nothing as a mere idle story. 2. Following after untruth by slighting the truth, is attended with the danger of incurring endless miseries, which the careless pursuer after it, is little aware of. 3. Mind! how great was the leadership of Sambara’s army, (once held by Dáma and his colleagues), and whereby they defeated the hosts of the immortal deities, and reflect on the change of their state to contemptible fishes in a dry and dirty quagmire. 4. Mind their former fortitude, which put to flight the legions of the immortals; and think on their base servility as hunters, under the chief of Kirátas afterwards. 5. See their unselfishness of mind and great patience at first, and then see their vain desires and assumption of the vanity of egotism at last. 6. Selfish egotism is the root of the wide extended branches of misery in the forest of the world, which produces and bears the poisonous blossoms of desire.

7. Therefore, O Ráma! be diligent to wipe off from thy heart the sense of thy egoism, and try to be happy by thinking always of the nullity of thyself. 8. The error of egoism like a dark cloud, hidst the bright disk of the moon of truth under its gloom, and causes its cooling beams to disappear from sight. 9. The three Daityas Dáma, Vyála and Kata, being under the demoniac influence of Egoism, believed their nonentity as positive entity by the excess of their illusion. 10. They are now living as fishes in the muddy pool of a lake, among the forest lands of Kashmira, where they are content at present with feeding with zest upon the moss and weeds growing in it. (The watery land of Kashmir is well-known to abound in fishes feeding on aquatic herbs and moss). 11. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how they came to existence when they were nonexistent before; for neither can a nil be an ens, nor an entity become a nonentity at any time.

12. Vasishtha replied:—So it is, O strong armed Ráma! that nothing can ever be something, or anything can ever be nothing. But it is possible for a little thing to be great, as for a great one to be reduced to minuteness. (As it is the case in the evolution and involutions of beings). 13. Say what nonentity has come to being, or what entity has been lasting for ever. All these I will explain to you by their best proofs and examples. 14. Ráma answered:—Why sir, all that is existent is ever present before us as our own bodies, and all things beside ourselves; but you are speaking of Dáma and the demons, as mere nullities and yet to be in existence. 15. Yes Ráma, it was in the same way, that the non-existent and unreal Dáma and others seemed to be in existence by mere illusion, as the mirage appears to us to be full of water by our optical delusion (or deception of vision). 16. It is in like manner that ourselves, these gods and demigods, and all things besides, are unrealities in fact, and yet we seem to turn about and speak and act as real persons.

17. My existence is as unreal as thine, and yet it appears as real as we dream our death in sleep. (So we dream of our existence while we are awake). 18. As the sight of a dead friend in a dream is not a reality, so the notion of the reality of the world, ceases upon the conviction of its unreality, as that of the demise of the person seen in a dream. 19. But such assertions of our nihility are not acceptable to them, who are deluded to the belief of the reality of sensible objects. It is the habit of thinking its reality, that will not listen to its contradiction. 20. This mistaken impression of the reality of the world, is never to be effaced without the knowledge of its unreality, derived from the sástras, and the assuetude of thinking it so. 21. He who preaches the unreality of the world and the reality of Brahma, is derided by the ignorant as a mad man; (for his negation of the seeming reality, and assertion of the unseen God).

22. The learned and the ignorant cannot agree on this subject, as the drunken and sobermen can not meet together. It is one who has the distinct knowledge of light and darkness, that knows the difference between the shade and sunlight. 23. It is as impossible to turn the ignorant to truth, from their belief in the reality of unrealities, as to make a dead body to stand on it legs by any effort. 24. It is in vain to preach the doctrine of “to pan”, that “Brahma is all” to the vulgar, who for want of their knowledge of abstract meditation, are devoted to their sensible notions. 25. There prohibition is an admonition, giving to the ignorant, (who are incapable of persuasions); as for the learned who know themselves to be Brahma, it is useless to lecture them on this subject (which they are already acquainted with). 26. The intelligent man, who believes that the supremely quiescent spirit of Brahma, pervades the whole universe, is not to be led away by any from his firm belief.

27. So nothing can shake the faith of that man, who knows himself as no other, beside the Supreme Being who is all in all; and thinks himself to be dependent on the substantiality of God, as the formal ring depends on its substance of gold. 28. The ignorant have no notion of the spirit, beside that of matter, which they believe as the cause and effect (Kárya Kárana) of its own production; but the learned man sees the substantive spirit, in all forms of creation, as he views the substance of gold in all the ornaments made of that metal. 29. The ignorant man is composed of his egoism only, and the sage is fraught with his spirituality alone; and neither of them is ever thwarted from his own belief. 30. What is one’s nature or habit (of thinking), can hardly be altered at any time; for it would be foolish in one, who has been habituated to think himself as a man, to take himself for a pot or otherwise. 31. Hence though ourselves and others, and that Dáma and the demons are nothing in reality; yet who can believe that we or these or those and not what ourselves to be.

32. There is but One Being that is really existent, who is truth and consciousness himself, and of the nature of the vacuum and pure understanding. He is immaculate, all pervading, quiescent and without his rise or fall. 33. Being perfect quietude and void, he seems as nothing existent; and all these creations subsist in that vacuity as particles of its own splendour. 34. As the stars are seen to shine resplendent in the darkness of night, and the worms and waves are seen to float on the surface of the waters, so do all these phenomena appear to occur in his reality. 35. Whatever that being purposes himself to be, he conceives himself to be immediately the same: it is that vacuous Intellect only which is the true reality, and all others are also real, as viewed in it and rising and setting in it out of its own will (volition or bidding). 36. Therefore there is nothing real or unreal in the three worlds, but all of or the same form as it is viewed by the Intellect, and rising before it of its own spontaneity. (The three worlds are composed of this earth and the worlds above and beneath it, called as swarga, martya and pátála).

37. We have also sprung from that Will Divine as Dáma and others; hence there is neither any reality or unreality in any of us, except at the time (when we exist or cease to do so). 38. This infinite and formless void of the Intellect, is ubiquitous and all pervading; and in whatever form this intellect manifests itself in any place, it appears there just in the same figure and manner. 39. As the divine consciousness expanded itself with the images of Dáma and others, it immediately assumed those shapes by its notions of the same. (But here it was the consciousness of Sambara or Satan, which manifested itself in those shapes, and implies every thing to be but a manifestation of our notion of it). 40. So it is with every one of us, that all things are produced to our view, according to their notions which are presented to our consciousness. (This is the tenet of conceptualism or idealism, which bears resemblance to the doctrine of Realism. See Cousin’s treatise “De Intellectibus”). 41. What we call the world, is the representation of things to us as in our dream; it is a hollow body as a bubble rising in the empty ocean of the Intellect, and appearing as the water in the mirage.

42. The waking state of the vacuous intellect, is styled the phenomenal world, and its state of sleep and rest, is what we call liberation, emancipation or salvation from pain (átyantika dukkha nivritti moksha). 43. But the Intellect which never sleeps, nor has to be awakened at any time (but is ever wakeful), is the vacuity of the Divine Mind, in which the world is ever present in its visible form (and to which nothing is invisible). 44. There the work of creation is united with the rest of nirvána, and the cessation from the act of creation, is joined with uninterrupted quiescence; and no difference of alternate work and rest whatever subsists in God any time. (There is no such thing as “God rested from his works”). 45. The Divine Intellect views its own form in the world, and the world in itself in its true sense; as the blinded eye sees the internal light in its orbit. (?) 46. The Divine Intellect like the blinded eye, sees nothing from without, but views every form within itself; because there is no visible nor phenomenal world, beside what is situated within the vacuous sphere of the intellect.

47. There are all these things every where, as we have ideas of them in our minds; but there is never any thing any where, of which we have no previous idea in the mind. It is the one quiet spirit of God, which lies extended in all these forms coming to our knowledge. Therefore knowing him as all in all, give up all your fears and sorrows and duality, rest in peace in his unity. 48. The great intellect of God, is as solid and clear as a block of crystal, which is both dense and transparent in the inside. They appear to be all hollow within, but replete with the images of all things from without.

ON GOOD CONDUCT. Argument. Passing from the meaner to higher births, is the way to the attainment of Liberation, and supreme felicity. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how Dáma, Vyála and Kata obtained their liberation at last like all other virtuous souls, and got released from the torments of hell, like children getting rid of the fear of Yakshas and Pisáchas. 2. Vasishtha replied:—Hear, O thou support of Raghu’s race! what Yama said in respect of Dáma, Vyála and their companions, when they besought for their liberation through his attendants in hell. 3. That Dáma and others would obtain their liberation, upon their release from their demoniac bodies by death; and upon hearing the account of their lives and actions. 4. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how, when and from what source, Dáma and others, came to learn the accounts of their lives, and in what manner they obtained their release from hell. 5. Vasishtha replied:—These demons being transformed to fishes in a pool, by the bank of the great lotus lake in Kashmere, underwent many miserable births, in their finny forms in the same bog. 6. Being then crushed to death in that marshy ground under the feet of buffaloes, they were transformed afterwards to the shapes of cranes, frequenting that lake of lotuses.

7. There they fed upon the moss and mushrooms and tender petals of lotuses, and had to live upon the leaves of aquatic plants and creepers, that floated on the surface of the waves. 8. They swung in cradles of flowers, and rested on beds of blue lotuses; and dived in vortices of the waters, or flew under the cooling showers of rainy clouds. 9. These charming cranes and herons, were at last becleansed of their brutish foulness, by their vegetable food of sweet fruits and flowers, and by their pure beverage of the crystal lake, the food of holy saints. 10. Having by these means obtained a clear understanding, they were prepared for their release from the brutish state, as men when enabled to distinguish and get hold of the qualities of satva and rajas (i.e. of goodness and virtue), from that of tamas or wrong and evil, are entitled to their liberation. 11. Now there is a city by name of Adhisthána, in the happy valley of Kashmere, which is beset by mountains and trees on all sides, and very romantic in its appearance. 12. There is a hill in the midst of that city known as Pradyumna Sekhara, which bears resemblance to a pistil, rising from the pericarp within the cell of a lotus-flower.

13. On the top of that hill, there is an edifice towering above all other buildings; and piercing the sky with its high turrets, which appears like pinnacles above its summit. 14. On the north-east corner of that edifice, there is a hollow at the top of its towering head; which is overgrown with moss, and is continually resounding to the blowing winds. 15. There the demon Vyála built his nest in the form of a sparrow, and chirped his meaningless notes, as one repeats the Vedic hymns without knowing their meanings. (This chanting is elsewhere compared with the croaking of frogs). 16. There was at that time a prince in the same city, by name of Yasaskara or the renowned, who reigned there like Indra over the gods in heaven. 17. Then the demon Dáma became a gnat and dwelt in that dwelling, and continued to buzz his low tune in the crevice of a lofty column of that building. 18. It then came to pass, that the citizens of Adhisthána, prepared a play ground by name of Ratnávatí-vehara in that city.

19. There the minister of the king known as Narasinha by name, took his residence. He understood the fates of human kind, as the astronomer knows the stars of heaven on a small celestial globe, which he holds in his hand. 20. It happened at that time, that the deceitful demon Kata, is as reborn as a parrot, and became the favourite of the minister, by being kept in a silver cage in his house. 21. It then turned out that the minister recited this poetical narrative of the Titan war to the inmates of the house. 22. And the parrot Kata, happening to hear it, remembered his past life, whereby he was absolved of his sins, and attained his final liberation. 23. The sparrow dwelling on the top of the Pradyumna hill, also chanced to hear the narration of his life in that place, and obtained his emancipation thereby. 24. Dáma who in the form of a gnat, resided in the palace, happened also to hear the minister’s recital of his tale, and obtained thereby his peace and release. 25. In this manner, O Ráma! the sparrow on the Pradyumna mount, the gnat in the palace, and the parrot on the play ground, had all their liberation.

26. Thus I have related to you the whole of the story of the demon Dáma and others, which will fully convince you of the vanity of the world. 27. It is the ignorant only that are tempted to vanity by their error, as they are led to the delusion of water in a mirage; and so the great also are liable like these demons, to fall low from their high stations by their error. 28. Think of one of these, that reduced the high Meru and Mandara mountains with a nod of his eyebrows, was constrained to remain as a contemptible gnat in the chink of a pillar in the palace. (So the huge Satan entered the body of the small and hateful serpent, and the gigantic devils in the hateful bodies of the herd of swine). 29. Look at another who threatened to destroy the sun and moon with a slap, living at last as a poor sparrow in a hole of the peak of the Pradyumna mountain. 30. Look at the third who balanced the mount Meru like a flower bouquet in his hand, lying imprisoned as a parrot in the cage at the house of Nrisingha.

31. When the sphere of the pure intellect, is tinged with the hue of egotism, it is debased to another form without changing its nature (by another birth). 32. It is because of the wrong desire of a man that he takes the untruth for truth, as if by the excessive thirst of a person, that he mistakes the mirage for water, and thereby loses both his way and his life. 33. Those men only can ford across the ocean of the world, who by the natural bent of their good understanding, are inclined to the study of the sástras, and look forward to their liberation, by rejecting whatever is vicious and untrue. 34. Those who are prone to false reasoning and heresy, by rejecting the revelations, are subject to various changes and miseries, and fall like the running water into the pit, by loss of their best interests in life. 35. But those who walk by the dictates of conscience, and follow the path pointed by the Ágama (Veda), are saved from destruction, and attain their best state (of perfection and bliss). 36. O highminded Ráma! he whose mind always longs after having this thing and that, loses the best gain of his manliness (parama purushártha) by his avarice, and leaves not even ashes or traces behind.

37. The high-minded man regards the world as a straw, and shuns all its concerns as a snake casts off its slough. 38. He whose mind is illumined by the wondrous light of truth, is always taken under the protection of the gods, as the mundane egg is protected by Brahmá (or rather under the wings of Brahmá’s swan, hatching over its egg). 39. Nobody should walk in paths which are long and wearisome, crooked and winding, and encompassed by dangers and difficulties; because Ráhu—the ascending node, lost its life by its curvilinear course, to drink the nectarine beams of the moon. 40. He who abides by the dictates of the true sástras, and associates with the best of men, are never subject to the darkness of error. 41. Those who are renowned for their virtues, have the power to bring their destiny under their command, convert all their evils to good, and render their prosperity perpetual. 42. Those who are unsatisfied with their qualifications (but wish to qualify themselves the more), and those who thirst after knowledge and are seekers of truth, are truly called as human beings, all others are but brutes.

43. Those, the lakes of whose hearts are brightened by the moonbeams of fame (i.e. whose heart are desirous of fame); have the form of Hari seated in their hearts, as in the sea of milk. 44. The repeated desire of enjoying what has been enjoyed, and of seeing what has often been seen, is not the way to get rid of the world; but is the cause of repeated birth, for the same enjoyments. 45. Continue to abide by the established rule of conduct, act according to the sástras and good usages, and break off the bonds of worldly enjoyments, which are all but vanities. 46. Let the world resound with the renown of your virtues reaching to the skies; because thy renown will immortalize thy name, and not the enjoyments thou hast enjoyed. 47. Those whose good deeds shine as moonbeams, and are sung by the maidens of heaven, are said to be truly living, while all others unknown to fame are really dead. 48. They that aspire to their utmost perfection by their unfailing exertions, and act according to the precepts of the sástras, are surely successful in their attempt. 49. Abiding patiently by the Sástra, without hastening for success; and perfecting one’s self by long practice, produce the ripe fruits of consummation.

50. Now Ráma, renounce all your sorrow and fear, your anxieties, pride and hastiness; conduct yourself by the ordinances of law and sástras, and immortalize your name. 51. Take care, that your sensuous soul does not perish as a prey in the snare of your sensual appetites, nor as a blind old man by falling in the hidden pits of this world. 52. Do not allow yourself henceforward to be degraded below the vulgar; but consider well the sástras as the best weapons, for defeating the dangers and difficulties of the world. 53. Why do you endanger your life in the muddy pit of this world, like an elephant falling in a pitfall under the keen arrows of the enemy? Avoid only to taste of its enjoyments, and you are free from all danger. 54. Of what avail is wealth without knowledge; therefore devote yourself to learning, and consider well your riches to be but trash and bubbles. 55. The knowledge of heretical sástras, has made beasts of men, by making them only miserable and unhappy by their unprofitable arguments. 56. Now wake and shake off the dullness of your long, deep and death-like sleep, like the torpor of the old tortoise lying in the bog.

57. Rise and accept an antidote to ward off your old age and death; and it is knowledge of this prescription, that all wealth and property are for our evils, and all pleasures and enjoyments, tend only to sicken and enervate our frames. 58. Know your difficulty to be your prosperity, and your disrespect to be your great gain. Conduct yourself according to the purport of the sástras, as they are supported by good usage. 59. Acts done according to the sástras and good usage also, are productive of the best fruits of immortality. 60. He who acts well according to good usage, and considers everything by good reasons, and is indifferent to the pains and pleasures of the world; such a one flourishes like an arbor in the spring, with the fruits and flowers of long life and fame, virtues and good qualities and prosperity.

CONSIDERATION OF EGOISM. Argument. Of good attempts, good company and good studies; also of liberation by Renunciation of Egoism and Worldly Bondage. Vasishtha continued:—Seeing the complete success of every undertaking, depending on your own exertion at all times and places, you should never be slack in your energy at all. 2. See how Nandi gratified the wishes of all his friends and relations by his own exertions, and how he became victorious over death itself, by his adoration of Mahádeva by the side of a lake. 3. See also, how the Dánavas too got the better of the gods, who were fraught with every perfection, by their greater wealth and prowess, as the elephants destroy a lake of lotuses. 4. See, how Marutta the King of demons, created another world like that of Brahmá, by means of his sacrifice through the great sage Samvarta (the law giver). 5. See, how Viswámitra (the military chief) obtained the dignity of Bráhmanhood by his great energy and continued exertions. He obtained by his austerities what is impossible to be gained by another. 6. See, how the poor and unfortunate Upamanyu, obtained his nectarious food of the cake and curdled milk, by his worship of Siva, from the milky ocean in days of yore.

7. See how the god Vishnu devoured (destroyed), like a wild fire the demons of the triple world, likening the tender filaments of lotuses; and how the sage Sweta became victorious over death by means of his firm faith in Siva (as it is described in the Linga Purána). 8. Remember, how the chaste Sávitrí, brought back her spouse Satyavána from the realm of death, by her prevailing on stern Yama with the suavity of her discourse. 9. There is no great exertion of any kind that goes unrewarded in this world; all impossibility is thought possible by ardent pursuit after it (or to the ardent pursuer, as it is said: Fortune is found by the swiftest pursuer). 10. So men having full knowledge of the spirit, and exerting their utmost devotion, are enabled to root out their destiny of transmigration, which is fraught with so much pain and pleasure (both of which are equally hurtful to the soul). 11. All visible things are full of danger to the sight of the intelligent. There is no pleasure to be had from anything, without its concomitant pain (either preceding or following it).

12. Though it is difficult to know the Supreme Brahma, and facile to attain supreme felicity; yet should Brahma be sought at first, as the giver of all felicity. (Seek happiness through its giver—the Great God). 13. Forsake your pride, and rely on your unalterable peace of mind; consider well your worthiness in your understanding, and stick to your attendance on the wise and good. 14. There is no other way for your salvation in this ocean of the world, save by your attendance on the wise. All your pilgrimage, austerity and learning of the sástras, are of no avail to your liberation. 15. He is called the wise, whose greediness, anger and erroneous conceptions, are on their wane day by day; and who walks in the path of rectitude, as it is inculcated in the Sástra. 16. The society of spiritual guides, serves to dispel the visibles from the sight of the devout, as the invisibles are hidden from sight (i.e. as they are not in being). 17. In the absence of all other objects, there remains the Supreme Spirit alone in view, and the human soul having nothing else to rest upon, rests at last in the Supreme Soul only.

18. The visibles did not exist before, nor are they produced from naught; they are not in existence though seen in our presence, nor are they to exist in future. The supreme alone exist for ever without change or decay. 19. I have already shown you by various instances the falsehood of the visibles (in the book of Genesis); I will now show you the falsity of existence, as it is known to the learned. 20. Now that our passive consciousness of the three worlds, being the sober truth with the wise, there can be no room for the unrealities of matter and máyá—illusion, to enter into our belief. (We know nothing of the external world, except our inward consciousness of it. Berkeley). 21. Whatever wonders are displayed by the active intellect to the inactive soul, the same is thought to be the world. (There is no outward world, beside the working of the intellect). 22. The notion of the sphere of the world, is derived from the rays of the central intellect, stretching to the circumference of the understanding, and there being no difference between the radiating point and the radiated circle, acknowledge the identity of the radiator, the radii and the periphery. (i.e. Of the intellect, its intelligence and the world).

23. The twinklings of the intellectual eye in its acts of opening and shutting, cause the notions of the appearance and disappearance of the world in continued succession. 24. One unacquainted with the true sense of Ego, is blind amidst the luminous sphere of the intellect, but he who knows its true meaning, finds himself amidst the sphere of spiritual light (or rather loses himself in the divine light). 25. He that understands the Divine Ego, does no more retain the notion of his own egoism; but mixes with the Supreme soul, as a drop of water is lost in the waters of the ocean. 26. In reality there exists no I or thou nor the visible world nor anything else; but all these blend upon right reasoning in the One Ego, which remains and subsists after all other existences. 27. Even clear understandings are sometimes clouded by false apparitions, as those of ogres &c.; when there are no such things, just as children are seized with false fear of goblins. 28. As long as the moonlight of the intellect, is obscured by the darkness of egoism, so long the lotus lake of spirituality, will not come to its bloom.

29. The feeling of egoism being wiped off from the mind, the sense of self and selfish passions, will vanish of themselves from the heart; and there will be an utter end of the fears of death and hell, as also of the desires of heaven and liberation. 30. So long as the egoistic feelings float about, like clouds over the sphere of the mind, there will be no end of desires, growing in the heart like weeds in the plains. 31. As long as the cloud of egotism continue to overcast the mind and obscure its intelligence, the humidity of dullness will fill its sphere, and prevent the light of intellect to pierce through it. 32. Egoistic pride is unmannerly in men, and is taken in the light of vanity, it is the cause of sorrow and not delight; and is as bug-bears to boys. 33. The vain assumption of egoism, is productive of a great many errors, it leads to the ambition of gaining an infinity of worlds, as it was in the cases of the foolish demons. 34. The conceit that I am such and such (a great man), is an error than which there is none other, nor is ever likely to be a greater error to lead us to utter darkness.

35. Whatever joy or grief betides us at any time in this changeful world, is all the effect of the rotatory wheels of egoism, turning up and down at every moment. 36. He who weeds and roots out the germs of egoism from his heart, he verily prevents the arbor of his worldliness (Samsára Vriksha), from jutting out in a hundred branches. 37. Egoism is the sprout of the trees of our lives, in their interminable revolutions through the world; and meity or the sense that “this is mine,” is the cause that makes them expand in a thousand branches. (I am one, but claim many things as mine). 38. Swift as the flight of birds, do our desires and desirable objects disappear from us; and upon mature consideration, they prove to be but bubbles, bursting on the evanescent waves of our lives. 39. It is for want of the knowledge of the one Ego, that we think ourselves as I, thou, this or the other; and it is by shutting out our view of the only soul, that we see the incessant revolutions of this world and that. 40. As long as the darkness of egoism reigns over the wilderness of human life, so long doth the goblin of selfishness infest it with its wanton revelry.

41. The vile man that is seized by the avaricious demon of selfishness, is at an utter loss of any moral precept, and any mantra of his religion to satisfy his wants. 42. Ráma said:—Tell me, O venerable Bráhman, how we may be enabled to suppress our egoism or selfishness, for evading the dangers and difficulties in our course through the world. 43. Vasishtha replied:—It is by seeking to settle mind in the resplendent soul, as it shines in the transparent mirror of the intellect, that it is possible for any body to suppress the consciousness, of his self or personal existence. (i.e. By losing one’s self in the self-existence of the Supreme Soul). 44. A closer investigation into human life, proves it to be a maze full with the false shows of magic. It is not worth loving or hating, nor capable of causing our egoism or pride. 45. He whose soul is free from egoism, and devoid of the impression of the phenomenals; whose course of life runs in an even tenor, is the man who can have no sense of egoism in him. (Whose life doth in one even tenor run, and end its days as it has begun. Pope.)

46. He who knowing his internal self to be beyond the external world, and neither desires nor dislikes anything in it, but preserves the serenity of his temper at all times, is not susceptible of egoism. 47. Whoso thinks himself to be the inward noumena, and distinct from the outward phenomena, and keeps the calm equanimity of his mind, is not ruffled by the feeling of his egoism. 48. Ráma said:—Tell me, sir, what is the form of egoism, and whether it consists in the body or mind or of both of these, and whether it is got rid of with the riddance of the body. 49. Vasishtha replied:—There are three sorts of egoism, Ráma! in this triple world, two of which are of superior nature, but the third is of a vile kind and is to be abandoned by all. 50. The first is the supreme and undivided Ego, which is diffused throughout the world; it is the Supreme soul (Paramátma), beside which there is nothing in nature.

51. The feeling of this kind of egoism, leads to the liberation of men, as in the state of the living-liberated; but the knowledge of the ego, as distinct and apart from all, and thought to be as minute as the hundredth part of a hair, is the next form of self-consciousness, which is good also. 52. This second form of egoism, leads also to the liberation of human souls, even in the present state of their existence, known as the state of living-liberation (Jívan-Mukta). 53. The other kind of egoism, which is composed of the knowledge of the body, with all its members as parts of the Ego, is the last and worst kind of it, which takes the body for the soul or self. 54. This third and last kind, forms the popular belief of mankind, who take their bodies as parts of themselves; it is the basest form of egoism, and must be forsaken in the same manner, as we shun our inveterate enemies. 55. The man that is debased by this kind of egoism, can never come to his right sense; but becomes subject to all the evils of life, under the thrall of the powerful enemy.

56. Possest with this wrong notion of himself, every man is incessantly troubled in his mind by various desires, which expose him to all the evils of life. 57. By means of the better egoisms, men transform themselves to gods; but the common form of it, debases a man to the state of a beast and its attendant evils. 58. That I am not the body, is the certainty arrived at by the great and good, who believing themselves to be of the first two kinds, are superior to the vulgar. 59. Belief in the first two kinds, raises men above the common level; but that in the lower kind, brings every misery on mankind. 60. It was owing to their baser egoism, that the demons Dáma, Vyála and others, were reduced to that deplorable state, as it is related in their tale. 61. Ráma said:—Tell me, sir, the state of that man, who by discarding the third or popular kind of egoism from his mind, attains the well being of his soul in both the present and future worlds.

62. Vasishtha replied:—Having cast off this noxious egoism, (which is to be got rid of by every body), a man rests in the Supreme Spirit in the same manner, as the believers in the two other sorts of it. (i.e. Of the Supreme and superior sorts of spiritual egoisms, consisting in the belief of one’s self, as the impersonal or personal soul—the undivided or individual spirit). 63. The two former views of egoism, place the egotist in the all pervasive or all exclusive spirit (in the Ego of the Divine Unity). 64. But all these egoisms which are in reality but different forms of dualism, being lost in the unity, all consciousness of distinct personality, is absorbed in the Supreme monism. 65. The good understanding should always strive to its utmost, to get rid of its common and gross egotism, in order to feel in itself the ineffable felicity of the unity. 66. Renunciation of the unholy belief of one’s self personality in his material body, is the greatest good that one can attain to for his highest state of felicity parama padam.

67. The man that forsakes the feeling of his egoism (or personality) from his mind, is not debased nor goes to perdition by either his indifference to or management of worldly affairs. (i.e. The doing or refraining from bodily or worldly actions, is equally indifferent to the philosophic mind). 68. The man who has got rid of his egoism by the subsidence of his selfishness in himself, is indifferent to pain and pleasure, as the satiate are to the taste of sweet or sour. 69. The man detesting the pleasures of life, has his full bliss presented before himself; as the mind cleared of its doubts and darkness, has nothing hidden from its sight. 70. It is by investigation into the nature of egoism, and forsaking this gross selfishness, that a man crosses over the ocean of the world of his own accord.

71. The man who having nothing of his own, and knowing himself as nothing, yet has all and thinks himself as all in all, and who though possessed of wealth and properties, has the magnanimity of his soul to disown them to himself; he is verily situated in the Supreme soul, and finds his rest in the state of Supreme bliss. (i.e. The world is the Lord’s, and human soul as a particle of the Divine, has its share in all and every thing).

END OF THE STORY OF DÁMA AND VYÁLA. Argument. The Gods annoyed by Bhíma and others apply to Hari, who thereupon destroys them with Sambara also. Vasishtha continued:—Now, hear me relate to you, what Sambara did after the flight of Dáma and his train; and how he remained in his rocky stronghold in the infernal region (Pátála). 2. After the complete overthrow of the whole army of Sambara, and their downfall from heaven like innumerable rain drops, falling from an over-spreading cloud, and afterwards dispersing itself and disappearing in autumn:— 3. Sambara remained motionless for many years in his strong citadel, at the loss of his forces defeated by the gods; and then thought within himself, about the best means of overcoming the celestials. 4. He said, “the demons Dáma and others, that I produced by my black-art of exorcism, are all overthrown in battle, by their foolishness and vanity of pride and egotism. 5. “I will now produce some other demons by the power of my charm, and endue them both with the power of reason and acquaintance with spiritual science, in order that they may know and judge for themselves.

6. “These then being acquainted with the true nature of things, and devoid of false views, will not be subject to pride or vanity, but be able to vanquish the deities in combat”. 7. Thinking so in himself, the arch-fiend produced a host of good demons by his skill in sorcery; and these creatures of his spell filled the space of the sky, as bubbles foam and float on the surface of the sea. 8. They were all knowing and acquainted with the knowables; they were all dispassionate and sinless, and solely intent on their alloted duties, with composed minds and good dispositions. 9. They were known under the different names of Bhíma, Bhása and Dridha; and they looked upon all earthly things as straws, by the holiness of their hearts. 10. These infernal spirits burst out of the ether and sprang up to the upper world, and then spread over the face of the sky as a flight of locusts. They cracked as guns, and roared and rolled about as the clouds of the rainy season. 11. They fought with the gods for many cycles of years, and yet they were not elated with pride, owing to their being under the guidance of reason and judgement.

12. For until they were to have the desire of having anything, and thinking it as “this is my own”, so long were they insensible of their personal existence, such as “this is I, and that one is another”; and consequently invincible by any. (Selfishness reduces <one> to slavery and subjections). 13. They were fearless in fighting with the gods, from the knowledge of their being equally mortal as themselves; and from their want of the knowledge of any difference subsisting between one another. (i.e. They regarded themselves and their adversaries with an equal eye of indifference, as all were equally doomed to death, and therefore never feared to die). 14. They rushed out with a firm conviction that, the unsubstantial body is nothing, and the intellect is lodged in the pure soul; and that there is nothing which we call as I or another. 15. Then these demons who were devoid of the sense of themselves and their fears were necessarily dauntless of the fear of their decease or death; and were employed in their present duties, without the thoughts of the past and future.

16. Their minds were attached to nothing, they slew their enemies without thinking themselves as their slayers; they did their duties and thought themselves as no doers of them; and they were utterly free from all their desires. 17. They waged the war under the sense of doing their duty to their master; while their own nature was entirely free from all passion and affection, and of even tenor at all times. 18. The infernal force under the command of Bhíma, Bhása and Dridha, bruised and burned and slew and devoured the celestial phalanx, as men knead and fry and boil the rice and afterward eat up as their food. 19. The celestial army being harassed on all sides by Bhíma, Bhása, and Dridha, fled precipitately from the height of heaven, as the Ganges runs down from Himálayan height. 20. The discomfited legion of the deities, then resorted to the god Hari, sleeping on the surface of the ocean of milk; as the bodies of the clouds of heaven, are driven by the winds to the tops of mountains (beyond the region of storm).

21. The god lying folded in the coils of the serpent, as a consort in the arms of his mistress; gave the gods their hope of final success in future. (Hari or Krishna on the serpent, is typical of Christ’s bruising the head of the satanic serpent). 22. The gods kept themselves hid in that ocean, until it pleased the lord Hari, to proceed out of it for the destruction of the demons. 23. Then there was a dreadful war between Vishnu and Sambara, which broke and bore away the mountains as in an untimely great deluge of the earth. 24. The mighty demon being at last overthrown by the might of Náráyana, was sent to and settled in the city of Vishnu after his death. (Because those that are either saved or slain by Vishnu, are equally entitled to his paradise). 25. The demons of Bhíma, Bhása and Dridha, were also killed in their unequal struggle with Vishnu, and were extinguished like lamps by the wind. 26. They became extinct like flames of fire, and it was not known whither their vital flame had fled. Because it is the desire of a person that leads him to another state, but these having no wish in them, had no other place to go.

27. Hence the wishless soul is liberated, but not the wistful mind; therefore use your reason, O Ráma, to have a wishless mind and soul. 28. A full investigation into truth, will put down your desires at once; and the extinction of desires, will restore your mind to rest like an extinguished candle. 29. Consummate wisdom consists in the knowledge of there being nothing real in this world, and that our knowledge of reality is utterly false, and that nihility of thing, is the true reality. 30. The whole world is full with the spirit of God, whatever otherwise one may think of it at any time; there can be no other thought of it except that it is a nihility, and this forms our perfect knowledge of it. 31. The two significant words of the will and mind are mere insignificant fictions, as head and trunk of the ascending and descending nodes of a planet; which upon their right understanding, are lost in the Supreme Spirit. (i.e. It is only the divine will and spirit that is all in all). 32. The mind being accompanied by its desires, is kept confined in this world, but when that is released from these, it is said to have its liberation.

33. The mind has gained its existence in the belief of men, owing to the many ideas of pots and pictures (ghata-patadí); and other things which are imprinted in it; but these thoughts being repressed, the mind also vanishes of itself like the phantoms of goblins (yakshas—yakkas). 34. The demons Dáma, Vyála and Kata, were destroyed by reliance on their minds (i.e. by thinking their bodies as their souls); but Bhíma, Bhása and Dridha were saved by their belief in the Supreme soul, as pervading all things. Therefore, O Ráma! reject the examples of the former, imitate that of the latter. 35. “Be not guided by the example of Dáma, Vyála and Kata,” is the lesson that was first delivered to me by Brahmá—the lotus-born and my progenitor himself. 36. This lesson I repeat to you, O Ráma, as my intelligent pupil, that you may never follow the example of the wicked demons Dáma and others; but imitate the conduct of the good spirits, Bhíma and others in your conduct. 37. It is incessant pain and pleasure that forms the fearful feature of this world, and there is no other way of evading all its pangs and pains, save by your apathetic behaviour, which must be your crowning glory in this life.

DESCRIPTION OF INSOUCIANCE. Argument. On the Abandonment of worldly desires, as conducive to the composure of the Mind, and society of the good, accompanied with rationality and spiritual knowledge, constituting the Samádhi of the soul. Vasishtha continued:—Blessed are the virtuous, who have cleansed their hearts from the dirt of ignorance; and victorious are those heroes, who have conquered their insatiable and ungovernable minds. 2. It is self-control or the government of one’s own mind, that is the only means of wading through all the troubles and distresses, and amidst all the dangers and difficulties of this world. 3. Hear the summary of all knowledge, and retain and cultivate constantly it in your mind; that the desire of enjoyment (avarice) is our bondage in the world, and its abandonment is our release from it. 4. What need is there of many precepts, learn this one truth as the sum substance of all, that all pleasures are poisonous and pernicious, and you must fly from them as from venomous snakes and a raging fire. 5. Consider well and repeatedly in yourself, that all sensible objects are as hydras and dragons; and their enjoyment is gall and poison. Avoid them at a distance and pursue after your lasting good.

6. The cupidinous mind is productive of pernicious evils, as the sterile ground is fertile only in thorns and brambles. (The vitiated mind brings forth but vice, as the vicious heart teems with guilt). 7. The mind devoid of desire, lacks its expansion, as the heart wanting its passions and affections, is curbed and contracted in itself. 8. The goodly disposed mind ever teems with virtues, that are opposed to wrong acts and vice, as the ground of a good quality, grows only the good and useful trees in spite of weeds and bushes. 9. When the mind gains its serenity by culture of good qualities, the mist of its errors and ignorance gradually fade and fly away, like clouds before the rising sun. 10. The good qualities coming to shine in the sphere of the mind, like stars in the moonlight sky, gives rise to the luminary of reason to shine over it, like the bright sun of the day. 11. And as the practice of patience grows familiar in the mind, like the medicinal vansa-lochana within the bamboo; it gives rise to the quality of firmness in the man, as the moon brightens the vernal sky.

12. The society of the good is an arbour, affording its cooling shade of peace, and yielding the fruit of salvation. Its effect in righteous men, is like that of the stately sarala-tree, distilling the juice of spiritual joy from the fruitage of samádhi (sang-froid). 13. Thus prepared, the mind becomes devoid of its desires and enmity, and is freed from all troubles and anxieties. It becomes obtuse to the feelings of grief and joy, and of pain and pleasure also, and all its restlessness dies in itself. 14. Its doubts in the truths of the scriptures die away, as the ephemerides and all its curiosities for novelties, are put to a stop. Its veil of myths and fictions is unveiled, and its ointment of error is rubbed out of it. 15. Its attempts and efforts, malice and disdain, distress and disease, are all removed from it; and the mist of its grief and sorrow, and the chain of affections, are all blown and torn away. 16. It discards the progeny of its doubts, repudiates the consorts of its avarice, and breaks loose from the prison-house of its body. It then seeks the welfare of the soul, and attains its godly state of holiness.

17. It abandons the causes of its stoutness (i.e. its nourishments and enjoyments), and relinquishes its choice of this thing and that; and then remembering the dignity of the soul, it casts off the covering of its body as a straw. 18. The elevation of the mind in worldly affairs, tends to its destruction, and its depression in these leads to its spiritual elevation. The wise always lower their minds (pride); but fools are for elevating them (to their ruin). 19. The mind makes the world its own, and ranges all about it; it raises the mountains and mounts over them; it is as the infinite vacuum, and comprehends all vacuity in itself; and it makes gods of friends and foes of others unto us. 20. The understanding being soiled by doubts, and forgetting the true nature of the intellect, takes upon it the name of the mind, when it is full of all its worldly desires. 21. And the intellect being perverted by its various desires, is called the living soul; the animal soul being distinct from the rational soul. 22. The understanding which forgets its intellectuality, and falls into the error of its own personality, is what we call the internal principle of the mind which is all hollow within.

23. The soul is not the man of the world (i.e. no worldly being), nor is it the body or its blood. All material bodies are but gross and dull matter; but the soul in the body is empty air and intangible. 24. The body being dissected into atoms, and analysed in all its particles, presents nothing but blood and entrails as the plantain tree, which when cut into pieces, presents naught but its folded rinds. 25. Know the mind and living soul as making a man, and assuming his mortal form; the mind takes its form by itself according to his own option. 26. Man stretches his own sphere of action by his own option only to entrap himself in it, as the silkworm weaves its cocoon for its own imprisonment. 27. The soul lays down its error of being the body, when it has to forsake the same at some time or other (i.e. sooner or later), and assume another form as the germ sprouts forth into leaves. (i.e. The body is not the soul, nor is the soul the same with the body, as the materialist would have it; because the soul has its transmigration, which the body has not).

28. As is the desire or thought in the mind, so is it born in its next state of metempsychosis. Hence the new born babe is given to sleeping, because it thinks itself to be dead, and lying in the night-time of his death. It is also given to the dreaming of those things, which had been the objects of its desire or thought in its previous state or birth. (This establishes the doctrine of innate ideas in the dreaming state of new-born babies). 29. So sour becomes sweet by mixture with sugar, and the bitter seed produces sweet fruits by being sown with honey. So on the contrary, sweet becomes bitter by intermixture of gall and wormwood. (This is a fact in horticulture.—Áráma Sástra, and applies to the goodness and badness of the human mind, according to its good and bad associations). 30. Aiming after goodness and greatness, makes a man good and great; as one wishing to be an Indra or a lord, dreams of his lordliness in his sleep. (The mind makes the man). 31. Inclination to meanness bemeans a man, and a tendency to vileness vilifies his conduct in life; as one deluded by his fancy of devils, comes to see their apparitions in his nightly visions.

32. But what is naturally foul or fair, can hardly turn otherwise at any time; as the limpid lake never becomes muddy, nor the dirty pool ever becomes glassy. (Nature of a thing is unchangeable). 33. The perverted mind produces the fruits of its perversion in all its actions, while puremindedness is fraught with the effects of its purity everywhere. 34. Good and great men never forsake their goodness and greatness, even in their fall and decline; so the glorious sun fills the vault of heaven with his glory, even when he is sinking below (the horizon). 35. There is no restriction or freedom of the human soul, to or from any action or thing herein; it is a mere passive and neutral consciousness, of all that passes before it as a magic scene. 36. The world is a magical city, and as a mirage appearing to sight; it is of the nature of the delusive panorama, showing many moons of the one, whose unity admits of no duality. So the one Brahma is represented as many by delusion. (The Hindus, contrary to Europeans, have many suns but one moon. Escas—Chandra).

37. All this is verily the essence of Brahma, and this is the sober reality; the substantive world is an unsubstantiality, and peers out to view as a hollow phantom. (It is a phantasmagoria of phantasms). 38. That I am not the infinite but an infinitesimal, is the misjudgment of the ignorant; but the certitude of my infinity and supremacy, is the means of my absorption in the Infinite and Supreme. 39. The belief of one’s individuality in his undivided, all pervasive and transparent soul, as “I am this,” is the cause of his bondage to his personality, and is a web spun by his erroneous dualism. (Knowledge of a separate existence apart from solity, amounts to a dualistic creed). 40. Want of the knowledge of one’s bondage or freedom, and of his unity or duality, and his belief in the totality of Brahma, is the supreme truth of true philosophy. 41. Perfect transparency of the soul, amounting to its nihility, and its want of attachment to visible appearances, as also its unmindfulness of all that is, are the conditions for beholding Brahma in it. There is no other way to this.

42. The purity of the mind produced by acts of holiness, is the condition for receiving the sight of Brahma; as it is the whiteness of the cloth that can receive any colour upon it. 43. Think thy soul, O Ráma! as same with the souls of all other persons, and abstain from all other thoughts, of what is desirable or undesirable, what invigorates or enfeebles the body, and what brings liberation after bondage, or Salvation after sinfulness. (Since none of these states appertains to the universal soul, which is quite free from them). 44. The mirror of the mind being cleansed by the knowledge of the sástras, and dispassionateness of the understanding, it receives the reflexion of Brahma, as the clear crystal reflects the images of things. 45. The sight which is conversant with visible objects and not with images and ideas in the mind, is called false vision of what is soon lost from view. (i.e. Mental sight is more lasting than that of the visual organs). 46. When the mind is fixed upon God, by abstracting its sight from all mental and ocular visions, it has then the view of the Supreme before it. (This is called spiritual vision).

47. The visible sights which are obvious to view, are all but unreal phantoms; it is the absorption of the mind in the Divine, that makes it identical with the same and no other. 48. The visibles now present before us being absent from our view, either before or after our sight of them, must be considered as absent in the interim also. Therefore one unacquainted with his mind, is as insensible as the man that knows not what he holds in his hand. 49. One having no knowledge that “the world is the same with the Supreme spirit,” is always subject to misery; but the negation of the visibles as distinct from God, gives us both the pleasure of our enjoyments here, and our liberation in future. 50. It is ignorance to say the water is one thing and its wave is another; but it shows one’s intelligence, who says they are the one and the same thing. 51. The vanities of the world, are fraught with sorrow, therefore discard all its appendages from thee. The abandonment of superfluity, will conduce to thy attainment of wisdom at last. 52. The mind being composed of vain desires, is an unreality in itself; say therefore, O Ráma! why should you sorrow for something which in reality is nothing.

53. Do you, O Ráma! look upon all things as traps set to ensnare the soul; and regard them with the eye of an unkind kinsman looking upon his relatives, with an eye of apathy and unconcern. 54. As the unkind relative is unconcerned with the joys and griefs of his relations; so shouldst thou remain aloof from all things, by knowing the falsehood of their natures. 55. Rely on that eternal Spirit, which is infinite knowledge and felicity, and which is between the viewer and the view (i.e. betwixt the noumenon and the phenomenon). The mind being fixed to that truth, will adhere to it as clay, after the swiftness of its flight is at an end. 56. The airy flight of the mind being restrained, the sluggish body must cease to run about; and the cloud of the dust of ignorance, will no more spread over the city of the world. 57. When the rains of our desires are over, and the calmness of the mind is restored; when the shuddering coldness of dulness has fled, and when the mud of worldliness is dried up:—

58. When the channel of our thirst is dried up, and the drinking pots are sucked up and emptied; when the forest of the heart is cleared, and its brambles are rooted out, and the frost of false knowledge has disappeared:— 59. It is then that the mist of error vanishes from view, like the shadow of night on the approach of dawn; and the frigidity of dullness is put to flight, like the poison of snake-bite by the potent charm of mantras. 60. Then the rivulets of our desires, do not run down the rock of the body; nor do the peacocks of our fleeting wishes, fly and sport on its top. 61. The sphere of our consciousness becomes as the clear sky; and the luminary of the living soul, shines as brightly over it as the midday sun. 62. The cloud of error is dispelled and succeeded by the light of reason; and the longings of the soul, being purified of their dross, make it shine brilliantly amidst its sphere. 63. Then raptures of serene delight, shoot forth in the soul like blooming blossoms in the open air; and a cool light is shed upon it, like the cooling beams of the autumnal moon.

64. This ecstacy of the soul, unfolds all prosperity before it, and fructifies with abundance the well cultivated ground of the reasoning mind. (Truth is the fruit of holy joy in the reasonable mind). 65. It sheds its clear lustre all over the world, and shows the depths of the hills and forests, and everything on earth in their clearest light. (Heavenly joy unfolds all things to light). 66. It expands the mind and makes it translucent, and the heart as a clear lake, renders blooming with blossoms of the lotus of satva, and without the dust—rajas of egoism. It is never infested by the swarming passions of pride or tamas. 67. The mind then being purged of its selfishness, turns to universal benevolence and philanthropy; and being quite calm in itself without any desire of its own, it reigns as lord over the city of its body. 68. The man whose investigation has made him acquainted with all things, whose soul is enlightened with truth; whose mind is melted down from his highmindedness; who is calm and quiet in his understanding, and looks at the unpleasant course of the births and deaths of men with pity; he verily lives happily in the realm of his body, without his feverish anxieties about anything.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INTELLECTUAL SPHERE. Argument. The Intellect as pervading all things, and making us acquainted with them. Ráma said:—Tell me O Bráhman! how the mundane system subsists in the extra mundane immaterial soul, for the sake of my advancement in knowledge. 2. Vasishtha replied:—The worlds having no separate existence (before or after their formation) except in the Supreme mind, they are all situated in the Divine Intellect, like the unheaving and unseen would be waves of the sea. 3. As the all-pervading sky is not to be seen owing to its extreme tenuity; so the undivided nature of the all-pervasive intellect, is not to be perceived on account of its rarity. 4. As the gem has its brilliancy in it, whether it is moved or unmoved by any body, so the unreal world has its potential existence in the Divine Spirit, both in its states of action and inactivity. (Hence the eternity of the world in the Eternal Mind). 5. As the clouds abiding in the sky, do not touch the sky or have a tangible feeling of its vacuity; so the worlds subsisting in the receptacle of the Intellectual soul, have no contact with the extraneous (pará) intellect, which is unconnected with its contents.

6. As the light residing in the waters of the sea or a pot of water, is not connected either with the water or pot, nor is it felt by us but by its reflexion; so the intangible soul abides unconnected in its receptacle of the body, and reflects itself to our knowledge only. 7. The intellect is devoid of every desire and designation; it is the indestructible soul, and is named by our intelligence of it as (Chetya) intelligible; or from some one of our intelligible ideas as the living soul &c. 8. It is clearer than the translucent air, and finer than it by a hundred times; it is known as an undivided whole by the learned; who view it as identic with the whole undivided world, which it comprehends within itself. 9. As the sea water shows itself in various forms in all its waves, so the intellect does not differ from it, in showing us its various representations of its own motion. 10. The diversities of our subjective and objective knowledge of myself and thyself and these (ego, tu &c.), are like the varieties of waves and billows in the ocean of the intellect, these are but erroneous notions, since they are representations of the same element, and the very same intellect.

11. The various states of the intellect (Chit), intellection (Chintá), intelligence (Chittam) and intelligibles (Chetyas), all appertain to the main principle of the soul. They are differently conceived by the learned and ignorant, but the difference is a mere conceit (Kalpaná). 12. The intellect presents its two different aspects to the wise and unwise people; to the ignorant, it shows its unreal nature in the realistic conception of the world, while to the learned it exhibits its luminous form in the identity of all things (with God). 13. The intellect enlightens the luminous bodies of the sun and stars, by its internal (intellectual) light; it gives a relish to things by its internal taste; and it gives birth to all beings from its inborn ideas of them. 14. It neither rises nor sets, nor gets up nor sits; it neither proceeds nor recedes to or fro, it is not here nor is it no where. (Omniscience is present everywhere and is ever the same). 15. The pure and transpicuous intellect which is situated in the soul, displays in itself the phantasmagoria which is called the world.

16. As a heap of fire emits its flame, and a luminous body blazes with its rays; and as the sea swells in surges and breaks in with its arms, so the intellect bursts out in its creations. (Omniscience is the cause and not percipience of the world—God makes all things, and does not perceive them like us). 17. Thus the intellect which is selfmanifest and omnipresent of its own nature, developes and envelopes the world by its own manifestation and occultation, and by its acts of integration and segregation (sánhára and nirhára); or the acts of accretion and secretion. 18. It is led by its own error and of its own accord, to forget and forsake its state of infinitude; and then by assuming its individual personality of egoism (that I am), it is converted to an ignoramus. (So men of contracted views turn to be dunces). 19. It falls from its knowledge of generals to that of particulars, by its act of specialization; and comes to the discrimination of the positive, and negative, and of inclusion and exclusion (or admission or rejection).

20. It strives and struggles within the confines of the sensuous body (owing to its degradation from spirituality); and it multiplies in these bodies like the weeds sprouting out of the bosom of the earth. (i.e. From its unity becomes a multiplicity in the many animal bodies). 21. It is the intellect that stretches the spacious vacuum, to make room for the subsistence and growth of every thing; and makes the all and ever moving air and the liquid water, for the vitality and nourishment of all. 22. It makes the firm earth (terrafirma) and the light-some fire and the fixed worlds all around; and employs time by its injunctions and prohibitions, (to do or undo any thing). 23. It gives fragrance to flowers, and grows by degrees their filaments and pistils; and it makes the moisture of the porous ground, to grow vegetables on earth. 24. The rooted trees fructify with fruits, by their juicy saps from beneath; and they produce their fruitage, and display their foliage with lineaments in them, as their veins and arteries. 25. It renovates the forest with its gifts of various hues, and dyes them with the variety of colours in the rainbow of Indra.

26. It bids the folia, fruits and flowers to wait on the flowery season of spring; and then brings their fruitage to perfection, under the heat of the summer sun. 27. It makes the dark blue clouds of heaven, to wait on the approach of the rainy weather; and causes the harvest of fields, to follow in the train of autumn. 28. The cold season is decorated with its smiling frost, in its faces of the ten sides of the sky; and the dewy weather is made to waft its icicles of dew drops, on the pinions of the chilling winds of winter. 29. It makes the ever moving time, to revolve in its rotation of years and cycles and Yuga—ages; and causes the tide of creation to roll on in its waves of worlds, on its bosom of the ocean of eternity. 30. Its decrees remain fixed with a wonderful stability, and the earth (terra or dhara), continues firm (dhíra or sthira), with its quality of containing all things. (In this sloka there is both a homonym and paronym of similar sound and sense in the word dhará derived from the root dhri: namely, dhírá, dhará, = sthirá, terra and dharana and dharini).

31. It made the universe teem with fourteen kinds of beings in its as many worlds of the chaturdasa-bhuvanas; and these are as different in their modes of life as in their forms and figures. (The Atharvan or last Veda reckons tri-sapta or thrice seven worlds). 32. These are repeatedly produced from and reduced to nothing, and move in their wonted courses for ever, as bubbles in the waterless ocean of eternity. 33. Here the miserable multitudes, moving mad in vain struggles after their desired objects, and in their imbecility under the subjection of disease and death. They are incessantly coming to life and going away in their exits, remaining in their living states and acquiring their ends, and for ever running to and fro, in their repeated births and deaths in this world.

UPASAMA. THE SAMENESS OR QUIETISM OF THE SOUL. Argument:—The sameness of the Spirit from its want of perturbation by worldly matters; and equanimity of the mind in all circumstances. Vasishtha added:—In this manner are these series of worlds, revolving in their invariable course, and repeatedly appearing and disappearing in the substantiality of Brahma. 2. All this is derived from the one self-existence, and have become the reciprocal causes of one another, by their mutual transformations; and again they are destroyed of themselves by their mutual destructiveness of one another. 3. But as the motion of the waters on the surface, does not affect the waters in the depth of the sea; so the fluctuations of the changing scenes of nature, make no alteration in the ever tranquil spirit of Brahma. 4. As the desert in summer heat, presents the waters of mirage to the clear sky, so the false world, shows its delusive appearances to the mind. 5. As the calm soul seems to be giddy in the state of one’s drunkenness, so the essence of the intellect which is always the same, appears as otherwise in its ignorance.

6. The world is neither a reality nor unreality; it is situated in the Intellect but appears to be placed without it. It is not separate from the soul, although it seems to be different from it, as the ornament appears to differ from its gold. 7. Ráma! that soul of yours whereby you have the perception of form and figures and of sound and smell, is the Supreme Brahma pervading all things. 8. The pure soul being one in many, and inherent in all external objects, cannot be thought as distinct from those, that appear otherwise than itself. 9. Ráma! it is the difference of human thoughts, that judges differently of the existence and non-existence of things, and of their good and bad natures also; it judges the existence of the world, either as situated in or without the Divine Spirit. 10. Whereas it is impossible for any thing to exist beside the Spirit of God, it was the Spirit that “willed to become many”. And as there was nothing beside itself, which it could think of or find for itself, it was necessary that it became so of itself, and without the aid of any extraneous matter. (Prose).

11. (Prose). Therefore the will to do this or that, or try for one thing or other, does not relate to the soul but to the mind. Thus the optionless soul, having no will of its own, does nothing except cogitating on what is in itself. It is no active agent, owing to the union of all agency, instrumentality and objectivity in itself. It abides nowhere, being both the recipient and content, or the container and the contained of everything in itself. Neither is the will-less soul actionless likewise, when the acts of creation are palpable in itself (karmaprasidhi). Nor is it possible that there is any other cause of them. (Nanyakartá dvítiryakam. Sruti). 12. Ráma! you must know the nature of Brahma to be no other (vetara—non alter) than this; and knowing him as no agent and without a second, be free from all anxiety. 13. I will tell you further that:—Though you may continue to do a great many acts here, yet tell me in a word, what dost thou do that is worth doing. Rely on the want of your own agency, and be quiet as the sapient sage. Remain as calm and still, as the clear ocean when unshaken by the breeze.

14. Again knowing well, that it is not possible for the swiftest runners to reach their goal of perfection, how far so ever they may go. You must desist in your mind from pursuing after worldly objects, and persist to meditate on the spirituality of your inward and intellectual soul.

THE SAME QUIETNESS OR QUIETUDE OF THE SPIRIT. Argument. The unconnected Soul being connected with the Mind, is believed as the Active Spirit by the unwise. But the quiet spirit of the wise, which is unaffected by its actions, is ever free and emancipate from the acts. Vasishtha resumed:—(Prose). Such being the state of the wise, the actions they are seen to do, whether of goodness or otherwise or pleasurable or painful, in and whatsoever they are engaged, are nil and as nothing, and do not affect them as they do the other worldly mortals. (The unconcernedness of the wise, is opposed to the great concern of fools in their actions). 2. For what is it that is called an action, but the exertion of mental and voluntary energies, with a fixed determination and desire of performing some physical acts, which they call the actions of a person. (But the apathetic minds of the wise, being insensible both of the purposes and their ends, there is no imputation of agency which can ever attach to them. (Gloss)).

3. The production of an act by appliance of the proper means, and the exertion and action of the body in conformity with one’s ability, and the completion of the effect compatible with one’s intention, together with the enjoyment of the result of such agency, are defined and determined as the action of the man. (It is the deliberate and voluntary doing of an act, and not the unintentional physical action, that constitutes human agency. Gloss). 4. (Verse). Moreover, whether a man is agent or no agent of an action, and whether he goes to heaven or dwells in hell, his mind is subject to the same feelings, as he has the desires in his heart. (The mind makes a heaven of hell, and a hell of heaven by its good or bad thoughts. Milton). 5. (Prose). Hence the agency of the ignorant, arises from their wishing to do a thing, whether they do it or not; but not so of the wise, who having no will, are not culpable even for their involuntary actions. Untutored minds are full with the weeds of vice, but well cultivated souls are quite devoid of them. Gloss. (So: “If good we plant not, vice will fill the place: And rankest weeds the richest soils deface”).

6. He who has the knowledge of truth (tatwajnána), becomes relaxed in his earthly desires; and though he acts his part well, he does not long eagerly for its result as others. He acts with his body but with a quiet unconcerned mind. When successful, he attributes the gain to the will of God; but the worldly minded arrogate the result to themselves, though they could not bring it about. 7. Whatever the mind intends, comes verily to pass, and nothing is achieved without the application of the mind; whereupon the agency belongeth to the mind and not to the body. (An involuntary action is not a deed). 8. The world doth proceed from the Mind (Divine); it is the mind (by being a development of it), and is situated in the (infinite and eternal) mind; knowing all things as such manifestations of the powers of the intellect, the wise man remains in the coolness of his desire or luke warmness.

9. The minds of spiritualists (or those knowing the soul), come to the state of that perfect insensibility of their desires, as when the false watery mirage is set down by the raining clouds, and the particles of morning dews, are dried up by the raging sun. It is then that the soul is said to rest in its perfect bliss (The turya—sans souci or impassibility). 10. This is not the felicity of the gusto of pleasure, nor the dolour of sorrow or discontent; it consists not in the liveliness of living beings, nor in the torpidity of stones. It is not situated in the midst of these antitheses (i.e. in the sandhisthána or golden medium between these); but in the knowing mind which is Bhumánanda—all rapture and ravishment. (Neither is il allegro nor il spinseroso, the true bliss of man). 11. But the ignorant mind (which is unacquainted with this state of transport) is transported by its thirst after the moving waters of earthly pleasures; as an elephant is misled to the foul pool, where he is plunged in its mud and mire, without finding any thing that is really good.

12. Here is another instance of it based upon a stanza in the Sruti, which says that:—A man dreaming himself to be falling into a pit, feels the fear of his fall in his imagination even when he has been sleeping in his bed; but another who actually falls in a pit when he is fast asleep, is quite insensible of his falls. Thus it is the mind which paints its own pleasure and pains, and not the bodily action or its inactivity. 13. Hence whether a man is the doer of an action or not, he perceives nothing of it, when his mind is engrossed in some other thought or action; but he views every thing within himself, who beholds them on the abstract meditation of his mind. The thinking mind sees the outward objects, as reflexions of his pure intellect cast without him. (The spiritualist regards the outward as images of his inward ideas, in opposition to the materialist, who considers the internal ideas to be but reflexions derived from external impressions).

14. Thus the man knowing the knowable soul, knows himself as inaccessible to the feelings of pleasure and pain. Knowing this as certain, he finds the existence of no other thing, apart from what is contained in the container of his soul, which is as a thousandth part of a hair. This being ascertained, he views every thing in himself. With this certainty of knowledge, he comes to know his self as the reflector of all things, and present in all of them. After these ascertainments, he comes to the conclusion that he is not subject to pain or pleasure. Thus freed from anxieties, the mind freely exercises its powers over all customary duties, without being concerned with them. 15. He who knows the self, remains joyous even in his calamity, and shines as the moonlight, which enlightens the world. He knows that it is his mind and not hisself, that is the agent of his actions although he is the doer of them: and knowing the agency of the mind in all his actions, he does not assume to himself the merit of the exercise of his limbs, hands and feet, nor expects to reap the rewards of all his assiduous labours and acts.

16. Mental actions (thoughts) being brought to practice, tend to involve their unguarded agents of ungoverned minds, into the endurance of its consequence. Thus the mind is the seed (root) of all efforts and exertions, of all acts and actions, of all their results and productions, and the source of suffering the consequences of actions. By doing away with your mind, you make a clean sweep of all your actions, and thereby avoid all your miseries resulting from your acts. All these are at an end with the anaesthesia of the mind. It is a practice in Yoga to allay (laisser aller), the excitement of the mind to its ever varying purposes. 17. Behold the boy is led by his mind (fancy) to build his toy or hobby-horse, which he dresses and daubs at his wilfull play, without showing any concern or feeling of pleasure or pain, in its making or breaking of it at his pleasure. So doth man build his aerial castle, and level it without the sense of his gain or loss therein. It is by his acting in this manner in all worldly matters, that no man is spiritually entangled to them. (Do your duties and deal with all with a total unconcernedness and indifference).

18. What cause can there be for your sorrow, amidst the dangers and delights of this world, but that you have the one and not the other. But what thing is there that is delectable and delightful to be desired in this world, which is not evanescent and perishable at the same time, save yourself (soul), which is neither the active nor passive agent of your actions and enjoyments; though they attribute the actions and their fruitions to it by their error. 19. The importance of actions and passions to living beings, is a mistake and not veritable truth. Because by the right consideration of things, we find no action nor passion bearing any relation to the soul. Its attachment or aversion to the senses and sensible actions and enjoyments, is felt only by the sensualist, and not by them that are unconscious of sensuous affections (as the apathetic ascetics). 20. There is no liberation in this world for the worldly minded, while it is fully felt by the liberal minded Yogi, whose mind is freed from its attachments to the world, in its state of living liberation. (Jívan-mukta).

21. Though the Sage is rapt in the light of his self-consciousness, yet he does not disregard to distinguish the unity and duality, the true entity from the non-entities, and to view the omnipotence in all potencies or powers that are displayed in nature (for these display His power and goodness beyond our thought). 22. (Verse). To him there is no bond or freedom, nor liberation nor bondage whatever, and the miseries of ignorance are all lost in the light of his enlightenment. (Bondage and freedom here refer to their causes or acts (কর্ম্ম) by the figure of metonymy; and that these bear no relation to the abstracted or spiritualistic Yogi). 23. It is in vain to wish for liberation, when the mind is tied down to the earth; and so it is redundant to talk of bondage, when the mind is already fastened to it. Shun them both by ignoring your egoism, and remain fixed to the true Ego, and continue thus to manage yourself with your unruffled mind on earth. (The whole of this is a lesson of the Stoical and Platonic philosophic and unimpassioned passivity).

ON THE UNITY OF ALL THINGS. Argument. Explanation of Divine Omnipotence, and inability of Vasishtha to give full exposition of it. Ráma rejoined:—(Prose) Tell me, O high-minded sage, how could the creation proceed from the Supreme Brahma, whom you represent to remain as a painting in the tableau of vacuity. 2. Vasishtha replied:—O prince, such is the nature of Brahma, that all power incessantly flows from him, wherefore every power is said to reside in him. (It is unvedantic to say, that Brahma is omnipotent or the reservoir of power, and not omnipotence or identic with all power himself). 3. In him resides entity and non-entity, in him there is unity, duality and plurality, and the beginning and end of all things. (Because omnipotence has the power to be all things, which limited powers cannot do). 4. This is one and no other else (i.e. it is all that is, and there is none else beside it (Id est non alter). It is as the sea, whose waters have endless varieties of shapes, and represent the images of myriads of stars in its bosom; rising spontaneously of themselves).

5. The density of the Intellect makes the mind, and the mind brings forth all the powers of thinking, willing or volition, and of acting or action. These it produces, accumulates, contains, shows and then absorbs in itself. 6. (Verse) Brahma is the source of all living beings, and of all things seen all around us. His power is the cause of exhibiting all things, in their incessant course or quiescence. 7. All things spring from the Supreme Spirit, and they reside in his all comprehensive mind. They are of the same nature with that of their source, as the water of the sweet and saltish lakes. 8. Ráma interrupted here and said:—Sir, your discourse is very dark, and I cannot understand the meaning of the words of your speech. 9. There is that nature of Brahma, which you said to be beyond the perception of the mind and senses, and what are these perishable things, which you say to have proceeded from him. If your reasoning comes to this end, I cannot then rely upon it. 10. Because it is the law of production, that anything that is produced from something, is invariably of the same nature with that of its producer.

11. As light is produced from light, corns come from corn, and man is born of man, and all kinds come out of their own kind. 12. And so the productions of the immutable Spirit, must also be unchangeable and spiritual too in their nature. 13. Beside this the Intellectual Spirit of God, is pure and immaculate; while this creation is all impure and gross matter. 14. The great Sage said upon hearing these words:—Brahma is all purity and there is no impurity in him; the waves moving on the surface of the sea may be foul, but they do not soil the waters of the deep. 15. You cannot conceive Ráma, of there being a second person or thing beside the One Brahma; as you can have no conception of fire beside its heat. (Its light being adscititious). 16. Ráma rejoined:—Sir, Brahma is devoid of sorrow, while the world is full of sorrows. I cannot therefore clearly understand your words; when you say this to be the offspring of that. (The maculate equal to the immaculate or the perishable to the imperishable is absurd). 17. Válmíki said to Bharadwája:—The great Sage Vasishtha remained silent at these words of Ráma; and stopped in his lecture with the thoughtfulness of his mind.

18. His mind lost its wonted clearness (in its confusion), and then recovering its perspicacity, he pondered within himself in the following manner. 19. The educated and intelligent mind, that has known the knowable One, has of itself got to the end of the subject of liberation, by its own reasoning and intuition as that of Ráma. 20. It is no fault of the educated to be doubtful of something, until it is explained to them to their full satisfaction, as in the case of Rághava. (Relating the identity of the cause and its effect). 21. But the half-educated are not fit to receive spiritual instruction, because their view of the visibles, which dwells on obvious objects, proves the cause of their ruin (by obstructing their sight of the spiritual). 22. But he who has come to the sight of transcendental light, and got a clear insight of spiritual truths, feels no desire for sensual enjoyments; but advances in course of time to the conclusion, that Brahma is All in all things (to pan). (The transcendental philosophy of modern German schools, has arrived at the same conclusion of Pantheism, Ho Theos to pan).

23. The disciple is to be prepared and purified at first, with the precepts and practice of quietism and self-control (Sama and damá); and is then to be initiated in the creed that “All this is Brahma, and that thyself art that pure Spirit.” 24. But who so teaches the faith of “all is Brahma” to the half taught and the ignorant; verily entangles him in the strong snare of hell. (Because they take the visible for the invisible, which leads them to nature and idol worships which casts them to hell). 25. The well discerning Sage should tell them, that are enlightened in their understandings, whose desire of sensual gratifications has abated, and who are freed from their worldly desires, that they are purged of the dirt of their ignorance, and are prepared to receive religious and spiritual instruction. 26. The spiritual guide who instructs his pupil without weighing well his habits and conduct, is a silly pedagogue and sinks into hell and has to dwell there until the last day of judgment; (to answer for misleading his disciples).

27. The venerable Vasishtha, who was the chief of sages, and like the luminous sun on earth, having considered these things, spoke to Ráma as follows. (The sages are said to be luminous both from the fairness of their Aryan complexions, as also on account of their enlightened understandings). 28. Vasishtha said:—I will tell thee Ráma at the conclusion, of this lecture, whether the attribution of the dross of gross bodies, is applicable to Brahma or not. (i.e. How a spiritual body may assume a material form &c.). 29. Know now that Brahma is almighty, all pervading, ubiquitous and is all himself, because of his omnipotence, which can do and become all and every thing of itself. 30. As you see the various practices of magicians and the trickeries of jugglers, in producing, presenting, and abstracting many things in the sight of men, that are all but unreal shows; so doth Brahma produce, present and retract all things from and into himself. 31. The world is filled with gardens as those in fairy lands, and the sky is replenished with the airy castles of Gandharvas and the abodes of gods; and men are seen to descend from the cloudless sky, to the surface of the earth, and rise upwards to heaven (in vimánas or balloons).

32. Fairy cities like the palaces of the Gandharvas of the etherial regions, are shown on earth, and filled with the fairies of the Fairy land. (i.e. The courts and palaces of princes, which vie with the abodes of gods). 33. Whatever there is or has been or is to be in this world in future, are like reflexions of the revolving sky and heavenly bodies, or a brazen ball affixed to the top of a tower, and darting its golden light below. 34. All these are but exhibitions of the various forms of manifestations of the selfsame God. (“These as they change,—these are but the varied God.” Thomson. So Wordsworth and the Persian Mystics). 35. Whatever takes place at any time or place and in any form, is but the variety of the One Self-existent reality. Why therefore, O Ráma! should you give vent to your sorrow or joy, or wonder at any change of time or place or nature and form of things, which are full of the spirit of God, and exhibit the endless aspects of the Infinitive Mood. 36. Let the intelligent preserve the sameness (samata) of their minds and dispositions amidst all changes; knowing them as the varying conditions of the same unvarying Mind.

37. He who sees his God in all, and is fraught with equanimity, has no cause of his wonder of surprise, his grief or delight or any fluctuation of his mind, in any change in nature or vicissitude of his fortune (because the one Omnipresence is present in all events, and its Omnipotence directs all potentialities). 38. The unaltered mind continues to view the varieties of the power of his Maker, in all the variations of time and place, and of all external circumstances. 39. The Lord proposes these plans in the formation of his creation, and exhibits as the sea does its waves in endless varieties and successions from the plenitude of his mind. 40. So the Lord manifests the powers situated in himself, as the sea does its waves in itself. Or as the milk forms the butter, the earth produces the pot (ghata), and the thread is woven into the cloth (pata). So the bata or fig tree brings forth its fruit, and all other varied forms are contained in their sources. But these formal changes are phenomenal not real. They are mere appearances of the spectrum, as those of apparitions and spectres.

41. There is no other agent or object, nor an actor and its act, or any thing which is acted upon, nor is there any thing that becomes nothing except it by but a variety of the one unity. (In nihilo riverti posse). 42. The mind that witnesses the spiritual truths, and remains with its unimpaired equanimity, and is undepressed by external accidents, comes to see the light of truth in itself. (Truth like the sun shineth in the inmost soul). 43. (Verse). There being the lamp, there is its light also; and the sun shining brings the day with him. Where there is the flower, there is its odour likewise; so where there is the living soul, there is the light or knowledge of the world in it. 44. The world appearing all around, is as the light of the soul; it appears as the motion of the wind, whereof we have no notion of its reality or unreality. (So says Herbert Spencer concerning our notion of motion. We see the wheel in motion and changing its place, but have no idea of its motion).

45. The immaculate Soul, is the prime mobile power of the appearance and disappearance of the myriads of gross bodies which like the revolving stars of the sky, and the season flowers of the spring, appear and reappear to us by turns, like the ups and downs of wheels in motion. (We see their revolutions, but neither see their motion nor the soul the giver of motion). 46. All things die away when our souls are without us, but how can any thing be null when we are in possession of our souls? (Everything exists with ourselves, but we lose all, with loss of our souls). 47. All things appear before us in the presence of our souls, and they vanish from before us in their absence from the body. (Every thing is existent with us with the existence of our souls, and nothing is perceived by us without them, as when we are dead). 48. Everything is born with us with our souls, and is lost with loss of them. (The living have all, but the dead are lost to view. And the human soul, when in conjunction with the Divine, has a clear view of everything).