Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

14. Women, devoid of understanding, and graced with their personal charms, are the idols of these people; who are fond of their golden forms, without knowing them to be the flames of hell fire. 15. Wealth, the fond object of the foolish people, is fraught with every ill and evil desire; its pleasure is poison and productive of misery, and its prosperity is replete with dangers. 16. Its use in the doing of meritorious deeds, and various acts of piety, is also fraught with a great many evils, which I have not the power to recount. (The works of merit being productive of pride and passions, and those of piety being the source of transmigration). 17. Therefore Ráma! keep your sight on the full view (clairvoyance) of your spirit, by retracting it from the external visibles and internal thoughts; and conduct yourself in this world as one liberated in his life-time. 18. Being free from all your inward passions and feelings of affection, and having given up all your desires and expectations; continue in the performance of your outward duties in this world. 19. Follow all your duties in life with a noble pliability of your disposition; but preserve the philosophic renunciation of everything in your mind, and conduct yourself accordingly in this world.

20. Think well on the fleeting states of all earthly things, and fix your mind in the lasting nature of your soul; and thus conduct yourself in this transitory stage, with the thoughts of eternity in your mind. 21. Conduct yourself, Ráma, with your inward indifference and want of all desire: but show your outward desire for whatever is good and great. Be cold blooded within yourself but full of ardour in your external demeanour. 22. Conduct yourself among men, O Ráma! with a feigned activity in your outward appearance, but with real inaction in your mind; show yourself as the doer of your deeds, but know in your mind to be no actor at all. 23. Conduct yourself such, O Ráma! with your full knowledge of this world, as if you are acquainted with the natures of all beings herein; and go wherever you please with your intimate acquaintance of everything there. 24. Demean yourself with mankind, with a feigned appearance of joy and grief, and of condolence and congratulation with others, and an assumed shape of activity and action among mankind. 25. Manage yourself, O Ráma! with full possession of your mind, and untinged by pride and vanity, as if it were as clear as the spotless sky.

26. Go on through your life unshackled by the bonds of desire, and join in all the outward acts of life, with an unaltered evenness of your mind under every circumstance. 27. Do not give room to the thoughts of your bondage or liberation in this world, nor of the embodiment or release of your soul here; but think the revolving worlds to be a magic scene, and preserve perfect tranquility of your mind. 28. Know all this as an illusion, and it is ignorance only, that presents the false appearance of the world to sight; and yet we take them for true, as you view the water in the burning beams of the sun in a desert. 29. The unobstructed, uniform and all pervading soul, can have no restriction or bondage; and what is unrestricted in itself, cannot have its release also. 30. It is want of true knowledge, that presents the false view of the world before us; but the knowledge of truth disperses the view; as the knowledge of the rope, dispels the fallacy of the snake in it. 31. You have known the true essence of your being by your right discernment (that it is He—the Sat); you are thereby freed from the sense of your personality, and are set free as the subtile air.

32. You have known the truth, and must give up your knowledge of untruth, together with the thoughts of your friends and relatives, all which are unreal in their natures. 33. Such being the case, you must consider yourself (your soul), as something other than those: and that you have received the same, from the Supreme source of all. 34. This soul bears no relation to your friends or possession, to your good or evil actions, or to anything whatever in this world; 35. When you are convinced that this very soul constitutes your essence; you have nothing to fear from the erroneous conception of the world, which is no more than a misconception. 36. You can have no concern, with the weal or woe of a friend or foe, who is not born so to you; for every one being born for himself, you have no cause of joy or grief for any body (whether he is friendly or not to you). 37. If thou knowest that thou hadst been before (creation), and shalt be so for everafterwards (to eternity); you are truly wise.

38. Shouldst thou feel so much for the friends, by whom thou art beset in this life; why dost thou then not mourn for them, that are dead and gone in thy present and past lives? 39. If thou wert something otherwise than what thou art at present, and shalt have to be something different from what now thou art, why then shouldst thou sorrow for what has not its self-identity? (i.e. the body which is changed in all its transmigrations). 40. If thou art to be born no more, after thy past and present births (i.e. if there be no further transmigration of thy soul), then thou hast no cause for sorrow, being extinct thyself in the Supreme Spirit. 41. Therefore there is no cause of sorrow, in aught that occurs according to the course of nature; but rather be joyous in pursuing the duties of thy present life (for want of thy knowledge of thy past and future states). 42. But do not indulge the excess of thy joy or grief, but preserve thy equanimity everywhere; by knowing the Supreme Spirit to pervade in all places. 43. Know thyself to be the form of the infinite spirit, and stretching wide like the extended vacuum; and that thou art the pure eternal light, and the focus of full effulgence.

44. Know thy eternal and invisible soul, to be distinct from all worldly substances; and to be a particle of that universal soul, which dwells in and stretches through the hearts of all bodies; and is like the unseen thread, running through the holes and connecting the links of a necklace (or like the string in the beads of a rosary). (This connecting soul is denominated the Sútrátmá, which fills, bounds, connects and equals all). 45. That the continuation of the world, is caused by the reproduction of what has been before, is what you learn from the unlearned; and not so from the learned (who know the world to be nothing). Know this and not that, and be happy in this life. 46. The course of the world and this life, is ever tending to decay and disease. It is ignorance that represents them to be progressing to perfection. But you who are intelligent, knowest their real natures (of frailty and unreality). 47. What else can be the nature of error but falsehood, and what may the state of sleep be, but dream and drowsiness? (So is this world a mistaken existence, and this life a mere dream of unreal appearance, which so vividly shines before you).

48. Whom do you call your good friend, and whom do you say your great enemy? They all belong to the Sole One, and proceed alike from the Divine will. 49. Everything is frail and fickle, and has its rise and fall from and into the Supreme Spirit; it likens the wave of the sea, rising and falling from and into the same water. 50. The worlds are rolling upward and going down again, like the axis and spokes of a wheel. (The rotations of the planets in their circuits above and below the sun). 51. The celestials sometimes fall into hell, and the infernals are sometimes raised to heaven; animals of one kind are regenerated in another form, and the people of one continent and island are reborn in another (as men are led from one country and climate to another, and settle there). 52. The opulent are reduced to indigence, and the indigent are raised to affluence; and all beings are seen to be rising and falling in a hundred ways.

53. Who has seen the wheel of fortune, to move on slowly in one straight forward course for ever, and not tumbling in its ups and downs, nor turning to this side and that in its winding and uneven route. Fixedness of fortune is a fiction, as that of finding the frost in fire. 54. Those that are called great fortunes, and their components and appendages as also many good friends and relations; are all seen to fly away in a few days of this transient life. 55. The thought of something as one’s own and another’s, and of this and that as mine, thine, his or others’, are as false as the appearance of double suns and moons in the sky. 56. That this is a friend and this other a foe, and that this is myself and that one is another, are all but false conceptions of your mind, and must be wiped off from it (since the whole is but the one Ego). 57. Make it thy pleasure however to mix with the blinded populace, and those that are lost to reason; and deal with them in thy usual unaltered way. (Mix with the thoughtless mob, but think with the thoughtful wise. So says Sadi: I learnt morals from the immoral, adabaz bedabanamokhtam).

58. Conduct thyself in such a manner in thy journey through this world, that thou mayst not sink under the burden of thy cares of it. 59. When thou comest to thy reason, to lay down thy earthly cares and desires; then shalt thou have that composure of thy mind, which will exonerate thee from all thy duties and dealings in life. 60. It is the part of lowminded men, to reckon one as a friend and another as no friend; but noble minded men do not observe such distinctions between man and man. (Lit. Their minds are not clouded by the mist of distinction). 61. There is nothing wherein I am not (or where there is not the Ego); and nothing which is not mine (i.e. beyond the Ego: the learned who have considered it well, make no difference of persons in their minds). 62. The intellects of the wise, are as clear as the spacious firmament, and there is no rising nor setting of their intellectual light, which views everything as serenely as in the serenity of the atmosphere and as plainly as the plain surface of the earth.

63. Know Ráma! all created beings, are friendly and useful to you, and there is no body nor any in the world, wherewith you are not related in some way on your part. (No body is a unit himself, but forms a part of the universal whole). 64. It is erroneous to look <on> any one as a friend or foe, among the various orders of created beings in the universe; which in reality may be serviceable to you, however unfriendly they may appear at first.

ON HOLY KNOWLEDGE. Argument. Story of Punya and Pávana, and the instruction of the former to the latter. Vasishtha continued:—I will now set before you an example on the subject (of the distinction of friend and foe), in the instance of two brothers, who were born of a sage on the banks of Ganges, going in three directions of tripatha or trisrot as trivia. 2. Hear then this holy and wonderful tale of antiquity, which now occurs to my mind on the subject of friends and enemies, which I have been relating to you. 3. There is in this continent of Jambudvípa (Asia), a mountainous region beset by groves and forests, with the high mount of Mahendra rising above the rest. 4. It touched the sky with its lofty peaks, and the arbour of its kalpa trees; spread its shadow over the hermits and kinnaras that resorted under its bower. 5. It resounded with the carol of the sages, who chaunted the Sámaveda hymns on it, in their passage from its caverns and peaks to the region of Indra (the god of the vault of heaven). 6. The fleecy clouds which incessantly drizzled with rain water from its thousand peaks; and washed the plants and flowers below, appeared as tufts of hair hanging down from heaven to earth.

7. The mountain re-echoed to the loud roars of the impetuous octopede Sarabhas, with the thunder claps of kalpa clouds from the hollow mouths of its dark and deep clouds. (So Himálaya is said to warble to the tunes of Kinnaras from its cavern mounts). 8. The thundering noise of its cascades falling into its caverns from precipice to precipice, has put to blush the loud roar of the Surges of the sea. 9. There on tableland upon the craggy top of the mountain, flowed the sacred stream of the heavenly Ganges, for the ablution and beverage of the hermits. 10. There on the banks of the trivious river—tripatha—Gangá, was a gemming mountain, sparkling as bright gold, and decorated with blossoming trees. 11. There lived a sage by name of Dirghatapas, who was a personification of devotion, and a man of enlightened understanding; he had a noble mind, and was inured in austerities of devotion. 12. This sage was blessed with two boys as beautiful as the full moon, and named Punya and Pávana (the meritorious and holy), who were as intelligent as the sons of Brihaspati, known by the names of the two Kachas.

13. He lived there on the bank of the river, and amidst a grove of fruit trees, with his wife and the two sons born of them. 14. In course of time the two boys arrived to their age of discretion, and the elder of them named Punya or meritorious, was superior to the other in all his merits. 15. The younger boy named Pávana or the holy, was half awakened in his intellect, like the half blown lotus at the dawn of the day; and his want of intelligence kept him from the knowledge of truth, and in the uncertainty of his faith. 16. Then in the course of the all destroying time, the sage came to complete a century of years, and his tall body and long life, were reduced in their strength by his age and infirmity. 17. Being thus reduced by decrepitude in his vitality, he bade adieu to his desires in this world, which was so frail and full of a hundred fearful accidents to human life (namely, the pains attending upon birth, old age and death, and the fears of future transmigration and falling into hell fire).

18. The old devotee Dirghatapas, quitted at last his mortal frame in the grotto of the mount; as a bird quits its old nest for ever, or as a water-bearer lays down the log of his burthen from his shoulders. 19. His spirit then fled like the fragrance of a flower to that vacuous space, which is ever tranquil, free from attributes and thought, and is of the nature of the pure intellect. 20. The wife of the sage finding his body lying lifeless on the ground, fell down upon it, and remained motionless like a lotus flower nipt from its stalk. 21. Having been long accustomed to the practice of yoga, according to the instruction of her husband; she quitted her undecayed body, as a bee flits from an unfaded flower to the empty air. 22. Her soul followed her husband’s, unseen by men, as the light of the stars disappears in the air at the dawn of the day. 23. Seeing the demise of both parents, the elder son Punya was busily employed in performing their funeral services; but the younger Pávana was deeply absorbed in grief at their loss.

24. Being overwhelmed by sorrow in his mind, he wandered about in the woods; and not having the firmness of his elder brother, he continued to wail in his mourning. 25. The magnanimous Punya performed the funeral ceremonies of his parents, and then went in search of his brother mourning in the woods. 26. Punya said:—Why my boy, is thy soul overcast by the cloud of thy grief; and why dost thou shed the tears from thy lotus-eyes, as profusely as the showers of the rain, only to render thee blind. 27. Know my intelligent boy, that both thy father and mother, have gone to their ultimate blissful state in the Supreme Spirit, called the state of salvation or liberation. 28. That is the last resort of all living beings, and that is the blessed state of all self subdued souls; why then mourn for them, that have returned to and are reunited with their own proper nature. 29. Thou dost in vain indulge thyself in thy false and fruitless grief, and mournest for what is not to be mourned for at all: (rather rejoice at it owing to their ultimate liberation). 30. Neither is she thy mother nor he thy father; nor art thou the only son of them, that have had numerous offspring in their repeated births.

31. Thou hadst also thousands of fathers and mothers in thy by-gone births, in as much as there are the streams of running waters in every forest. 32. Thou art not the only son of them, that had innumerable sons before thee; for the generations of men, have passed away like the currents of a running stream. 33. Our parents also had numberless offspring in their past lives, and the branches of human generation are as numerous, as the innumerable fruits and flowers on trees. 34. The numbers of our friends and relatives in our repeated lives in this world, have been as great, as the innumerable fruits and flowers of a large tree, in all its passed seasons. 35. If we are to lament over the loss of our parents and children, that are dead and gone; then why not lament also for those, that we have lost and left behind in all our past lives? 36. It is all but a delusion, O my fortunate boy, that is presented before us in this illusive world; while in truth, O my sensible child, we have nobody, whom we may call to be our real friends or positive enemies in this world.

37. There is no loss of any body or thing in their true sense in the world; but they appear to exist and disappear, like the appearance of water in the dry desert. 38. The royal dignity that thou seest here, adorned with the stately umbrella and flapping fans; is but a dream lasting for a few days. 39. Consider these phenomena in their true light, and thou wilt find my boy, that none of these nor ourselves nor any one of us, are to last for ever: shun therefore thy error of the passing world from thy mind for ever. 40. That these are dead and gone, and these are existent before us, are but errors of our minds, and creatures of our false notions and fond desires, and without any reality in them. 41. Our notions and desires, paint and present these various changes before our sight; as the solar rays represent the water in the mirage. So our fancies working in the field of our ignorance, produce the erroneous conceptions, which roll on like currents in the eventful ocean of the world, with the waves of favorable and unfavorable events to us.

REMONSTRATION OF PÁVANA. Argument. Punya’s relation of his various transmigrations and their woes to Pávana. Punya said:—Who is our father and who our mother, and who are our friends and relatives, except our notion of them as such; and these again are as the dust raised by the gusts of our airy fancy? 2. The conceptions of friends and foes, of our sons and relations are the products of our affection and hatred to them; and these being the effects of our ignorance, are soon made to disappear into airy nothing, upon enlightenment of the understanding. 3. The thought of one as a friend, makes him a friend, and thinking one as an enemy makes him an enemy; the knowledge of a thing as honey and of another as poison, is owing to our opinion of it. 4. There being but one universal soul equally pervading the whole, there can be no reason of the conception of one as a friend and of another as an enemy. 5. Think my boy in thy mind what thou art, and what is that thing which makes thy identity, when thy body is but a composition of bones, ribs, flesh and blood, and not thyself.

6. Being viewed in its true light, there is nothing as myself or thyself; it is a fallacy of our understanding, that makes me think myself as Punya and thee as Pávana. 7. Who is thy father and who thy son, who thy mother and who thy friend? One Supreme-self pervades all infinity, whom callest thou the self, and whom the not self (i.e. thine and not thine). 8. If thou art a spiritual substance (linga saríra), and hast undergone many births, then thou hadst many friends and properties in thy past lives, why dost not think of them also? 9. Thou hadst many friends in the flowery plains, where thou hadst thy pasture in thy former form of a stag; why thinkest not of those deer, who were once thy dear companions? 10. Why dost thou not lament for thy lost companions of swans, in the pleasant pool of lotuses, where thou didst dive and swim about in the form of a gander? 11. Why not lament for thy fellow arbors in the woodlands, where thou once stoodest as a stately tree among them? 12. Thou hadst thy comrades of lions on the rugged craigs of mountains, why dost not lament for them also?

13. Thou hadst many of thy mates among the fishes, in the limpid lakes decked with lotuses; why not lament for thy separation from them? 14. Thou hadst been in the country of Dasárna (confluence of the ten rivers), as a monkey in the grey and green woods: a prince hadst thou been in land of frost; and a raven in the woods of Pundra. 15. Thou hadst been an elephant in the land of Haihayas, and an ass in that of Trigarta; thou hadst become a dog in the country of Salya, and a bird in the wood of sarala or sál trees. 16. Thou hadst been a pípal tree on the Vindhyan mountains, and a wood insect in a large oak (bata) tree; thou hadst been a cock on the Mandara mountain, and then born as a Bráhman in one of its caverns (the abode of Rishis). 17. Thou wast a Bráhman in Kosala, and a partridge in Bengal; a horse hadst thou been in the snowy land, and a beast in the sacred ground of Brahmá at Pushkara (Pokhra). 18. Thou hadst been an insect in the trunk of a palm tree, a gnat in a big tree, and a crane in the woods of Vindhya, that art now my younger brother.

19. Thou hadst been an ant for six months, and lain within the thin bark of a bhugpetera tree in a glen of the Himálayan hills, that art now born as my younger brother. 20. Thou hadst been a millepede in a dunghill at a distant village; where thou didst dwell for a year and half, that art now become my younger brother. 21. Thou wast once the youngling of a Pulinda (a hill tribe woman), and didst dwell on her dugs like the honey sucking bee on the pericarp of a lotus. The same art thou now my younger brother. 22. In this manner my boy, wast thou born in many other shapes, and hadst to wander all about the Jambudvípa, for myriads of years: And now art thou my younger brother. 23. Thus I see the post states of thy existence, caused by the antecedent desires of thy soul; I see all this by my nice discernment, and my clear and all-viewing sight. 24. I also remember the several births that I had to undergo in my state of (spiritual) ignorance, and then as I see clearly before my enlightened sight.

25. I also was a parrot in the land of Trigarta, and a frog at the beach of a river; I became a small bird in a forest, and was then born in these woods. 26. Having been a Pulinda huntsman in Vindhya, and then as a tree in Bengal, and afterwards a camel in the Vindhya range, I am at last born in this forest. 27. I who had been a chátaka bird in the Himálayas, and a prince in the Paundra province; and then as a mighty tiger in the forests of the sahya hill, am now become your elder brother. 28. He that had been a vulture for ten years, and a shark for five months and a lion for a full century; is now thy elder brother in this place. 29. I was a chakora wood in the village of Andhara, and a ruler in the snowy regions; and then as the proud son of a priest named Sailáchárya in a hilly tract. 30. I remember the various customs and pursuits of different peoples on earth, that I had to observe and follow in my repeated transmigrations among them.

31. In these several migrations, I had many fathers and mothers, and many more of my brothers and sisters, as also friends and relatives to hundreds and thousands. 32. For whom shall I lament and whom forget among this number; shall I wail for them only that I lose in this life? But these also are to be buried in oblivion like the rest, and such is the course of the world. 33. Numberless fathers have gone by, and unnumbered mothers also have passed and died away; so innumerable generations of men have perished and disappeared, like the falling off of withered leaves. 34. There are no bounds, my boy, of our pleasures and pains in this sublunary world; lay them all aside, and let us remain unmindful of all existence (whether past, present or future)! 35. Forsake thy thoughts of false appearances, and relinquish thy firm conviction of thy own egoism, and look to that ultimate course which has led the learned to their final beatitude. 36. What is this commotion of the people for, but a struggling for rising or falling (to heaven or hell); strive therefore for neither, but live regardless of both like indifferent philosopher (and permit thyself to heaven).

37. Live free from thy cares of existence and inexistence, and then thou shalt be freed from thy fears of decay and death. Remember unruffled thyself alone, and be not moved by any from thy self possession by the accidents to life like the ignorant. 38. Know thou hast no birth nor death, nor weal or woe of any kind, nor a father or mother, nor friend nor foe anywhere. Thou art only thy pure spirit, and nothing of an unspiritual nature. 39. The world is a stage presenting many acts and scenes; and they only play their parts well, who are excited neither by its passions and feelings. 40. Those that are indifferent in their views, have their quietude amidst all the occurrences of life; and those that have known the True One, remain only to witness the course of nature. 41. The knowers of God do their acts, without thinking themselves their actors; just as the lamps of night witness the objects around, without their consciousness of the same. 42. The wise witness the objects as they are reflected in the mirror of their minds, just as the looking glass and gems receive the images of things.

43. Now my boy, rub out all thy wishes and the vestiges of thy remembrance from thy mind, and view the image of the serene spirit of God in thy inmost soul. Learn to live like the great sages with the sight of thy spiritual light, and by effacing all false impressions from thy mind.

REPRESSION OF DESIRES BY MEANS OF YOGA-MEDITATION. Argument. Desires are the shackles of the soul, and release from them leading to its liberation. Vasishtha continued:—Pávana being admonished by Punya in the said manner, became as enlightened in his intellect, as the landscape at the dawn of day. 2. They continued henceforward to abide in that forest, with the perfection of their spiritual knowledge, and they wandered about in the woods to their hearts content. 3. After a long time they had both their extinction, and rested in their disembodied state of nirvána; as the oilless lamp wastes away of itself. 4. Thus is the end of the great boast of men, of having large trains and numberless friends in their embodied states of lifetime, of which alas! they carry nothing with them to their afterlife, nor leave anything behind, which they can properly call as theirs. 5. The best means of our release from the multifarious objects of our desire, is the utter suppression of our appetites, rather than the fostering of them. 6. It is the hankering after objects, that augment our appetite, as our thinking on something increases our thoughts about it. Just so as the fire is emblazoned by supply of the fuel, and extinguished by its want.

7. Now rise O Ráma! and remain aloft as in thy aerial car, by getting loose of your worldly desires; and looking pitifully on the miseries of grovelling mortals from above. 8. This is the divine state known as the position of Brahma, which looks from above with unconcerned serenity upon all. By gaining this state, the ignorant also are freed from misery. 9. One walking with reason as his companion, and having his good understanding for his consort, is not liable to fall into the dangerous trap-doors, which lie hid in his way through life. 10. Being bereft of all properties, and destitute of friends, one has no other help to lift him up in his adversity, beside his own patience and reliance in God. 11. Let men elevate their minds with learning and dispassionateness, and with the virtues of self-dignity and valour, in order to rise over the difficulties of the world. 12. There is no greater good to be derived by any other means, than by the greatness of mind. It gives a security which no wealth nor earthly treasure can confer on men.

13. It is only men of weak and crazy minds, that are often made to swing to and fro, and to rise and sink up and below, in the tempestuous ocean of the world. 14. The mind that is fraught with knowledge, and is full with the light of truth in it, finds the world filled with ambrosial water, and moves over it as easily, as a man walking on his dry shoes, or on a ground spread over with leather. 15. It is the want of desire, that fills the mind more than the fulfilment of its desires; dry up the channel of desire, as the autumnal heat parches a pool. 16. Else it empties the heart (by sucking up the heart blood), and lays open its gaps to be filled by air. The hearts of the avaricious are as dry as the bed of the dead sea, which was sucked up (drained), by Agasti (son of the sage Agastya). 17. The spacious garden of human heart, doth so long flourish with the fruits of humanity and greatness, as the restless ape of avarice does not infest its fair trees. (The mental powers are the trees, and the virtues are the fruits and flowers thereof).

18. The mind that is devoid of avarice, views the triple world with the twinkling of an eye. The comprehensive mind views all space and time as a minim, in comparison to its conception of the infinite Brahma with itself. 19. There is that coolness (sangfroid) in the mind of the unavaricious man, as is not to be found in the watery luminary of the moon; nor in the icy caverns of the snow-capt Himálayas. And neither the coldness of the plantain juice nor sandal paste, is comparable with the cool-headedness of inappetency. 20. The undesirous mind shines more brightly, than the disk of the full moon, and the bright countenance of the goddess of prosperity (Lakshmí). 21. The urchin of appetence darkens the mind in the same manner, as a cloud covers the disk of the moon, and as ink-black obliterates a fair picture. 22. The arbour of desire stretches its branches, far and wide on every side, and darkens the space of the mind with their gloomy shadow. 23. The branching tree of desire being cut down by its root, the plant of patience which was stinted under it, shoots forth in a hundred branches.

24. When the unfading arbour of patience, takes the place of the uprooted desires; it produces the tree of paradise, yielding the fruits of immortality. (Patience reigns over the untransmuted ill). 25. O well-intentioned Ráma! if you do not allow the sprouts of your mental desires, to germinate in your bosom, you have then nothing to fear in this world. 26. When you become sober-minded after moderating your heart’s desires, you will then have the plant of liberation growing in its full luxuriance in your heart. 27. When the rapacious owl of your desire, nestles in your mind, it is sure you will be invaded by every evil, which the foreboding bird brings on its abode. 28. Thinking is the power of the mind, and the thoughts dwell upon the objects of desire; abandon therefore thy thoughts and their objects, and be happy with thy thoughtlessness of everything. 29. Anything that depends on any faculty, is lost also upon inaction of that faculty; therefore it is by suppression of your thinking (or thoughts), that you can put down your desires, and thereby have rest and peace of your mind.

30. Be free minded, O Ráma! by tearing off all its worldly ties, and become a great soul by suppressing your mean desires of earthly frailties: for who is there that is not set free, by being loosened from the fetters of desire, that bind his mind to this earth.

NARRATIVE OF VIROCHANA. Argument. Account of King Bali and his Kingdom, and the Infernal Regions; His Resignation of the World, and Rambles over the Sumeru mountains. Vasishtha said:—O Ráma! that art the bright moon of Raghu’s race, you should also follow the example of Bali, in acquiring wisdom by self-discernment. (Bali the Daitya king and founder of Maha Bali Pura, called Mavalipura in Deccan, and in Southey’s poem on its Ruins). 2. Ráma said:—Venerable Sir, that art acquainted with all natures, it is by thy favour that I have gained in my heart all that is worth gaining; and that is our final rest in the purest state of infinite bliss. 3. O sir, it is by your favor, that my mind is freed from the great delusion of my multifarious desires; as the sky is cleared of the massy clouds of the rainy weather in autumn. 4. My soul is at rest and as cold as a stone; it is filled with the ambrosial draught of Divine knowledge and its holy light; I find myself to rest in perfect bliss, and as illumined as the queen of the stars, rising in her full light in the evening.

5. O thou dispeller of my doubts, and resemblest the clear autumnal sky, that clears the clouds of the rainy season! I am never full and satiate with all thy holy teachings to me. 6. Relate to me Sir! for the advancement of my knowledge, how Bali came to know the transcendental truth. Explain it fully unto me, as holy saints reserve nothing from their suppliant pupils. 7. Vasishtha replied:—Attend Ráma! to the interesting narrative of Bali, and your attentive hearing of it, will give you the knowledge of the endless and everlasting truth and immutable verities. 8. There is in the womb of this earth, and in some particular part of it, a place called the infernal region, which is situated below this earth. (The Infra or Pátála means the antipodes and is full of water). 9. It is peopled by the milk white Naiades or marine goddesses, born in the milky ocean-sweet water, and of the race of demons, who filled every gap and chasm of it with their progeny. (The subterranean cells, were peopled by the earth-born Titans). 10. In some places it was peopled by huge serpents, with a hundred and thousand heads; which hissed loudly with their parted and forky tongues, and their long projected fangs.

11. In other places there were the mountainous bodies of demons, walking in their lofty strides, and seeming to fling above the balls of the worlds as their bonbons, in order to devour them. 12. In another place there were big elephants, upholding the earth on their elevated probosces, and supporting the islands upon their strong and projected tusks. (These elephants were of the antediluvian world, whose fossiled remains are found under the ground). 13. There were ghosts and devils in other places, making hideous shrieks and noise; and there were groups of hellish bodies, and putrid carcasses of ghostly shapes. 14. The depth of the nether world concealed in its darksome womb, rich mines of gems and metals, lying under the surface of the earth, and reaching to the seventh layer of pátála or infernal regions. 15. Another part of this place, was sanctified by the dust of the lotus-like feet of the divine Kapila (Siva or Pluto); who was adored by the gods and demigods, by prostration of their exalted heads at his holy feet.

16. Another part of it was presided by the god Siva, in his form of a golden phallus (linga); which was worshipped by the ladies of the demons, with abundant offerings and merry revelries. (Siva or Pluto—the infernal god was fond of Bacchanals and revels). 17. Bali the son of Virochana, reigned in this place as the king of demons, who supported the burden of his kingdom, on the pillars of their mighty arms. 18. He forced the gods, Vidyádharas, serpents, and the king of the gods, to serve at his feet like his vassal train, and they were glad to serve him as their lord. 19. He was protected by Hari, who contains the gemming worlds in the treasure of his bowels (brahmánda—bhándodara), and is the preserver of all embodied beings, and the support of the sovereigns of the earth. 20. His name struck terror in the heart of Airávata, and made his cheeks fade with fear; as the sound of a peacock petrifies the entrails of serpents (because the peacock is a serpivorous bird). 21. The intense heat of his valour, dried up the waters of the septuple oceans of the earth; and turned them to seven dry beds, as under the fire of the universal Conflagration.

22. But the smoke of his sacrificial fire, was an amulet to the people for supply of water; and it caused the rains to fall as profusely from above as the seas fallen below from the waters above. (This alludes to the dynamite which was ignorantly believed to be a talisman). 23. His frowning look, made the high heads of mountains stoop low to the ground; and caused the lofty skies to lower with water, like the high branches of trees when overloaded with fruits. (It means, that the mountains and skies were obedient to his bidding). 24. This mighty monarch reigned over the demons for myriads of years, after he had made an easy conquest of all the treasures and luxuries of the world. 25. Thus he lived for many ages, which glided on like the course of a river rolling about like the waters of whirlpool; and witnessed the incessant flux and reflux of the generations of gods, demons and men, of the three worlds. 26. The king of the demons felt at last, a distaste to all the enjoyments of life, which he had tasted to surfeit; and he felt also an uneasiness amidst the variety of his pleasures.

27. He retired to the farthest polar mount of Meru, and there sitting at the balcony of one of its gemming pinnacles, he reflected on the state of this world and the vanity of mortal life. 28. How long yet, thought he in himself, shall I have to rule over this world with my indefatigable labour; and how much more must I remain to roam about the triple world, in my successive transmigrations? 29. Of what use is it to me to have this unrivaled sovereignty, which is a wonder in the three worlds; and of what good is it to me, to enjoy this plenteous luxury, which is so charming to the senses? 30. Of what permanent delight are all these pleasures to me, which are pleasant only for the present short time, and are sure to lose all their taste with my zest in them in the next moment? 31. There is the same rotation of days and nights in unvarying succession, and the repetition of the same acts day after day. It is rather shameful and no way pleasant to any one, to continue in the same unvaried course of life for a great length of time.

32. The same embraces of our beloved ones, and partaking of the same food day by day, are amusements fit for playful boys only, but are disgraceful and disgusting to great minds. 33. What man of taste is there, that will not be disgusted to taste the same sweets over and over again, which he has tasted all along, and which have become vapid and tasteless to-day; and what sensible man can continue in the same course, without the feelings of shame and remorse? 34. The revolving days and nights bring the same revolution of duties, and I ween this repetition of the same acts—kritasya karanam, is as ridiculous to the wise, as the mastication of his grinded meat—charbita charbana. (Kritasya karanam násti, mritasya maranam yathá. There is no doing of an act, which has been done? Nor the dying of a man, that’s already dead). 35. The actions of men are as those of the waves, which rise to fall and then rise again to subside in the waters. (This rising and falling over and anon again, is to no purpose whatever).

36. The repetition of the same act, is the employment of mad men; and the wise man is laughed at, who reiterates the same chime, as the conjugation of a verb by boys, in all its moods, tenses and inflexions. 37. What action is that which being once completed, does not recur to us any more, but crowns its actor with his full success all at once? (It is cessation from repetition of the same action, i.e. inaction). 38. Or if this bustle of the world, were for a short duration only, yet what is the good that we can derive from our engaging in this commotion? 39. The course of actions is as interminable, as the ceaseless repetends of boyish sports; it is hollow harping on the same string, which the more it is played upon, the more it reverberates to its hollow sound. (The acts of men make a renown and vain blustering sound only, and no real good to the actor). 40. I see no such gain from any of our actions, which being once gained, may prevent our further exertions. (Action leads to action, but non-action is a leader to quiescence or naiskarma).

41. What can our actions bring forth, beside the objects of sensible gratification? They cannot bring about anything that is imperishable. Saying so, Bali fell in a trance of his profound meditation. 42. Coming then to himself; he said:—“Ah! I now come to remember, what I had heard from my father”: so saying he stretched his eye-brows, and gave vent to what he thought in his mind. 43. “I had formerly asked my father Virochana, who was versed in spiritual knowledge, and acquainted with the manners of the people of former and later ages”. 44. Saying: what is that ultimate state of being, where all our pains and pleasures cease to exist; and after the attainment of which, we have no more to wander about the world, or pass through repeated transmigrations. 45. What is that final state towards which all our endeavours are directed, and where our minds are freed from their error; and where we obtain our full rest, after all our wanderings and transmigrations? 46. What is that best of gains, which gives full satisfaction to the cravings of the soul; and what is that glorious object, whose sight transcends all other objects of vision?

47. All those various luxuries and superfluities of the world, are no way conducive to our real happiness; in as much as they mislead the mind to error, and corrupt the souls of even the wisest of men. 48. “Therefore, O father, show me that state of imperishable felicity, whereby I may attain to my everlasting repose and tranquility”. 49. My father having heard these words of mine, as he was then sitting under the shade of the kalpa tree of paradise, whose flowers were fairer far than the bright beams of the nocturnal luminary, and overspread the ground all around; spoke to me in his sweet mellifluous accents the following speech, for the purpose of removing my error.

SPEECH OF VIROCHANA ON SUBJECTION OF THE MIND. Argument. The soul and mind personified as a monarch and his minister. Virochana said:—There is an extensive country, my son, somewhere in this universe, with a spacious concavity therein, whose ample space is able to hold thousands of worlds and many more spheres in it. 2. It is devoid of the wide oceans and seas and high mountains, as there are in this earth; and there are not such forests, rivers and lakes, nor holy places of pilgrimage, as you see here below. 3. There is neither land nor sky, nor the heavenly orbs as on high; nor are there these suns and moons, nor the regents of the spheres, nor their inhabitants of gods and demons. 4. There are no races of Yakshas and Rakshas, nor those tribes of plants and trees, woods or grass; nor the moving and immovable beings, as you see upon the earth. 5. There is no water, no land, no fire nor air; nor are there the sides of the compass, nor the regions you call above and below. There is no light nor shadow, nor the peoples, nor the gods Hari, Indra and Siva, nor any of the inferior deities or demigods there.

6. There is a great sovereign of that place, who is full of ineffable light. He is the creator and pervader of all, and is all in all, but quite quiescent in all places and things. 7. He had elected a minister, who was clever in administration and brought about what was impossible to be done, and prevented all mishaps from coming to pass. 8. He neither ate nor drank, nor did nor knew anything, beside minding and doing his master’s behests. In all other respects he was as inactive as a block of stone. 9. He conducted every business for his master, who remained quite retired from all his business, with enjoyment of his rest and ease in his seclusion, leaving all his concerns to be managed by his minister. 10. Bali said:—Tell me sir, what place is that which is devoid of all population, and free from all disease and difficulty; who knows that place, and how can it be reached at by any body. 11. Who is that sovereign of sovran power, and who that minister of so great might; and who being quite apart from the world, are inseparably connected with it, and are invincible by our almighty demoniac power. (This monarch and master is the soul and his minister is the mind).

12. Relate to me, O thou dread of the gods! this marvelous story of the great might of that minister, in order to remove the cloud of doubt from my mind, and also why he is unconquerable by us. 13. Virochana replied:—Know my son, this mighty minister to be irresistible by the gigantic force of the Asura giants, even though they were aided by millions of demons fighting on their side. 14. He is invincible, my son, by the god of a thousand eyes (Indra), and also by the gods of riches and death (Kubera and Yama), who conquer all, and neither the immortals nor giants, can ever overpower him by their might. 15. All weapons are defeated in their attempt to hurt him, and the swords and mallets, spears and bolts, disks and cudgels, that are hurled against him, are broken to pieces as upon their striking against a solid rock. 16. He is unapproachable by missiles, and invulnerable by arms and weapons, and unseizable by the dexterity of warriors; and it is by his resistless might, that he has brought the gods and demigods under his subjection.

17. It was he (the proud mind) that defeated our forefathers, the mighty Hiranyas (Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakasipu), before they were destroyed by the great Vishnu; who felled the big Asuras, as a storm breaks down the sturdy and rocklike oaks. 18. The gods Náráyana and others (who had been the instructors of men), were all foiled by him and confined in their cells of the wombs of their mothers (by an imprecation of the sage Bhrigu, who denounced them to become incarnate in human forms). 19. It is by his favour that Káma (Cupid), the god with his flower bow and five arrows, has been enabled to subdue and overcome the three worlds, and boasts of being their sole emperor. (Káma called also Manoja, is the child of mana or mind, and Kandarpa for his boast of his triumph). 20. The gods and demigods, the intelligent and the foolish, the deformed and the irascible, are all actuated by his influence. (Love is the leader to action according to Plato). 21. The repeated wars between the gods and Asuras, are the sports of this minister (who deliberates in secret the destinies of all beings. The restless mind is continually at warfare).

22. This minister is only manageable by its lord—the silent soul, or else it is as dull as an immovable rock or restless as the wind. 23. It is in the long run of its advancement in spiritual knowledge, that the soul feels a desire in itself to subdue its minister; who is otherwise ungovernable of its nature by lenient measures. (Govern your mind or it will govern you. The mind is best taught by whip). 24. You are then said to be valiant, if you can conquer this greatest of the giants in the three worlds, who has been worrying all people out for their breath. (The mind longs for occupation). 25. After the rising of the intellect, the world appears as a flower garden, and like the lake of blooming lotuses at sunrise; and its setting covers the world in darkness as at sunset (i.e. in unconsciousness). 26. It is only by the aid of this intellect of yours, and by removal of your ignorance, that you can subdue this minister, and be famed for your wisdom. (Good government of the mind, is more renowned than that of a realm).

27. By subduing this minister, you become the subduer of the world, though you are no victor of it; and by your unsubjection of this, you can have no subjection over the world, though may be the master of it. 28. Therefore be diligent to overcome this minister, by your best and most ardent exertions, on account of effecting your perfect consummation, and securing your everlasting happiness. 29. It is easy for him to overcome the triple world, and keep all its beings of gods and demons, and the bodies of Nágas and men, together with the races of Yakshas and Rakshas, and the tribes of serpents and Kinnaras, who has been able to subdue this minister by his superior might. (Govern yourself, and you govern all besides).

ON THE HEALING AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND. Argument. Quelling of the misleading mind, and waiting upon the sovereign soul, with the perfection of Platonic Quietism. Bali said:—Tell me sir, plainly who is this minister of so great might, and by what expedients can so mighty a being be vanquished and brought under subjection. 2. Virochana replied:—Though that minister, is invincible and stands above all in his great might; yet I will tell you the expedients, whereby he may be overcome by you or any one else. 3. Son! It is by employment of proper means that he may be easily brought under subjection, and by neglect of which he will have the upper hand of you like the snake poison, if it is not repelled in time by means of efficacious mantras and incantations. 4. The ministerial mind being brought up like a boy in the right way he should go; leads the man to the presence of the sovran soul, as the rája yoga or royal service advances the servant before his king. 5. The appearance of the master makes the minister disappear from sight; as the disappearance of the minister, brings one to the full view of his king.

6. As long as one does not approach to the presence of his king, he cannot fail to serve the minister; and so long as he is employed in service of the minister, he cannot come to the sight of his king. 7. The king being kept out of sight, the minister is seen to exercise his might; but the minister being kept out of view, the king alone appears in full view. 8. Therefore must we begin with the practice of both these exercises at once; namely, approaching by degrees to the sight of the king, and slighting gradually the authority of the minister. 9. It must be by the exercise of your continued manly exertions and diligent application, that you employ yourself in both these practices, in order to arrive to the state of your well being. 10. When you are successful in your practice, you are sure to reach to that blissful country; and though you are a prince of the demons, you can have nothing to obstract your entrance into it. 11. That is a place for the abode of the blessed, whose desires are at rest and whose doubts are dissipated, and whose hearts are filled with perpetual joy and calmness.

12. Now hear me, explain to you, my son, what that place is which I called a country. It is the seat of liberation (moksha), and where there is an end of all our pains. 13. The king of that place is the soul of divine essence, which transcends all other substances; and it is the mind which is appointed by that soul as its wise minister. 14. The mind which contains the ideal world in its bosom, exhibits its sensible form to the senses afterwards; as the clod of clay containing the mould of the pot, shows itself as the model of a pot to view; and the smoke having the pattern of the cloud in its essence, represents its shadowy forms in the sky. (The pattern of everything is engraven in the mind). 15. Hence the mind being conquered, everything is subdued and brought under subjection; but the mind is invincible without adoption of proper means for its subjugation. 16. Bali interrogated:—What are these means, sir, which we are to adopt for quelling the mind; tell it plainly to me, that I may resort to the same, for this conquering invincible barrier of bliss.

17. Virochana answered: The means for subduing the mind, are the want of reliance and confidence on all external and sensible things, and absence of all desire for temporal possessions. 18. This is the best expedient for removal of the great delusion of this world, and subduing the big elephant of the mind at once. 19. This expedient is both very easy and practicable on one hand, as it is arduous and impracticable on the other. It is the constant habit of thinking so that makes it facile, but the want of such habitude renders it difficult. 20. It is the gradual habit of renouncing our fondness for temporal objects, that shows itself in time in our resignation of the world; as continuous watering at the roots of plants, makes them grow to large trees afterwards. 21. It is as hard to master anything even by the most cunning, without its proper cultivation for some time; as it is impossible to reap the harvest from an unsown and uncultivated field. 22. So long are all embodied souls destined to rove about the wilderness of the world, as there is the want of resignation in their heart of all the sensible objects in nature.

23. It is impossible without the habit of apathy, to have a distaste for sensible objects, as it is no way possible for an ablebodied man, to travel abroad by sitting motionless at home. 24. The firm determination of abandoning the stays of life, and a habitual aversion to pleasures and enjoyments, make a man to advance to purity, as a plant grows in open air to its full height. 25. There is no good to be derived on earth, without the exertion of one’s manliness, and man must give up his pleasure and the vexation of his spirit, in order to reap the fruit of his actions. 26. People speak of a power as destiny here, which has neither any shape nor form of itself. It means whatever comes to pass, and is also called our lot or fatality. 27. The word destiny is used also by mankind, to mean an accident over which they have no control, and to which they submit with passive obedience. 28. They use the word destiny for repression of our joy and grief (at what is unavoidable); but destiny however fixed as fate, is overcome and set aside by means of manly exertions (in many instances).

29. As the delusion of the mirage, is dispelled by the light of its true nature; so it is the exertion of manliness, which upsets destiny by effecting whatever it wishes to bring about. 30. If we should seek to know the cause for the good or bad results of our actions, we must learn that they turn as well as the mind wishes to mould them to being. 31. Whatever the mind desires and decrees, the same become the destiny; there is nothing destined (or distinctly to be known), as what we may call to be destined or undestined. 32. It is the mind that does all this, and is the employer of destiny; it destines the destined acts of destiny. 33. Life or the living soul is spread out in the hollow sphere of the world, like air in vacuum. The psychic fluid circulates through all space. (The psychic fluid extending throughout the universe, according to the theory of Stahl). 34. Destiny is no reality, but a term invented to express the property of fixity, as the word rock is used to denote stability. Hence there is no fixed fate or destiny, as long as the mind retains its free will and activity.

35. After the mind is set at rest, there remains the principle of the living soul (Jíva—zoo). This is called the purusha or embodied spirit, which is the source of the energies of the body and mind. 36. Whatever the living soul intends to do by means of its spiritual force, the same comes to take place and no other. (There being not even the influence of the mind to retard its action. So my son, there is no other power in the world except that of spirit or spiritual force). 37. Reliance on this spiritual power will uproot your dependance on bodily nutriments; and there is no hope of spiritual happiness, until there is a distaste towards temporal enjoyments. 38. It is hard to attain to the dignity of the all conquering self-sufficiency, as long as one has the dastardly spirit of his earthly cravings. 39. As long as one is swinging in the cradle of worldly affairs, it is hard for him to find his rest in the bower of peaceful tranquility. 40. It is hard for you to get rid of your serpentine (crooked) desires, without your continued practice of indifference to and unconcernedness with worldly affairs.

41. Bali rejoined:—Tell me, O lord of demons! in what manner, indifference to worldly enjoyments, takes a deep root in the human heart; and produces the fruit of longevity of the embodied spirit on earth. (By longevity is meant the spiritual life of man, and his resting in the divine Spirit, by being freed from the accidents of mortal life). 42. Virochana replied:—It is the sight of the inward spirit, which is productive of indifference to worldly things; as the growth of vines is productive of the grapes in autumn. 43. It is the sight of the inward Spirit, which produces our internal unconcernedness with the world; as it is the glance of the rising sun, which infuses its lustre in the cup of the lotus. 44. Therefore sharpen your intellect, by the whetstone of right reasoning; and see the Supreme Spirit, by withdrawing your mind from worldly enjoyments. 45. There are two modes of intellectual enjoyment, of which one consists of book learning, and the other is derived from attendance on the lectures of the preceptor, by those that are imperfect in their knowledge. (i.e. The one is theoretical for adepts and the other is practical for novices).

46. Those who are a little advanced in learning, have the double advantage of their mental enjoyment, namely: their reflection of book learning and consultation with wise preceptors on practical points. (Hence the practice of Yoga requires a Yogi guide also). 47. Those who are accomplished in learning, have also two parts of their duties to perform; namely, the profession of the sástras teaching them to others, and the practice of indifference for themselves. (But the last and lowest kind, only have to wait on the guru and reflect on what they hear from him). 48. The soul being purified, the man is fitted for Spiritual learning; as it is the clean linen only which is fit to receive every good tincture upon it. 49. The mind is to be trained by degrees, like a boy in the path of learning; namely by means of persuasion and good lectures, and then by teaching of the sástras, and lastly by discussion of their doctrines. 50. After its perfection in learning and dispersion of all difficulties and doubts, the mind shines as a piece of pure crystal, and emits its lustre like the cooling moonbeams.

51. It then sees by its consummate knowledge and clear understanding, in both the form of its God the Spirit, and the body which is the seat of its enjoyments on earth. 52. It constantly sees the spirit before it, by means of its understanding and reason; which help it also to relinquish its desire for worldly objects and enjoyments. 53. The sight of the Spirit produces the want of desires, and the absence of these shows the light of the spirit to its sight; therefore they are related to each other like the wick and oil of the lamp, in producing the light, and dispelling the darkness of the night. 54. After the loss of relish in worldly enjoyments, and the sight of the Supreme Spirit, the soul finds its perpetual rest in the essence of the Supreme Brahma. 55. The living souls that place their happiness in worldly objects, can never have the taste of true felicity, unless they rely themselves wholly in the Supreme Spirit. 56. It may be possible to derive some delight from acts of charity, sacrifices and holy pilgrimage; but none of these can give the everlasting rest of the Spirit.

57. No one feels a distaste for pleasure, unless he examines its nature and effects in himself; and nothing can teach the way of seeing the soul, unless the soul reflects on itself. 58. Those things are of no good whatever, my boy, that may be had without one’s own exertion in gaining it; nor is there any true happiness, without the resignation of earthly enjoyments. 59. The Supreme felicity of rest in the state of Brahma, is to be bad nowhere in this wide world, either in this mundane sphere, or anywhere else beyond these spheres. 60. Therefore expect always how your soul may find its rest in the divine Spirit, by relying on the exertion of your manliness, and leaving aside your dependance on the eventualities of destiny. 61. The wise man detests all worldly enjoyments as if they are the strong bolts or barriers at the door of bliss; and it is the settled aversion to earthly pleasures, that brings a man to his right reason. 62. As the increasing gloominess of rainy clouds, is followed by the serenity of autumnal skies, so clear reasoning comes after detestation of enjoyments, which fly at the advance of reason.

63. As the seas and the clouds of heaven, help one another by lending their waters in turn; so apathy to pleasures and right reasoning, tend to produce each other by turns. 64. So disbelief in destiny, and engagement in manly exertion, are sequences of one another, as reciprocities of service are consequences of mutual friendship. 65. It must be by the gnashing of your teeth (i.e. by your firm resolve), that you should create a distaste even of those things, which you have acquired by legal means and conformably to the custom of your country. 66. You must first acquire your wealth by means of your manly exertions, and then get good and clever men in your company by means of your wealth (i.e. patronise the learned therewith, and improve your mind by their instructions). 67. Association with the wise produces an aversion to the sensual enjoyments of life, by exciting the reasoning power, which gains for its reward an increase of knowledge and learning. 68. These lead gradually to the acquirement of that state of consummation, which is concomitant with the utter renunciation of worldly objects. 69. It is then by means of your reasoning that you attain to that Supreme State of perfection, in which you obtain your perfect rest and the holiness of your soul.

70. You will then fall no more in the mud of your misconceptions; but as a pure essence, you will have no dependance on anything, but become as the venerable Siva yourself. 71. Thus the steps of attaining consummation, are first of all the acquisition of wealth, according to the custom of the caste and country; and then its employment in the service of wise and learned men. Next follows your abandonment of the world, which is succeeded by your attainment of Spiritual knowledge, by the cultivation of your reasoning powers.

REFLECTIONS OF BALI. Argument. Rise of intellectual light in Bali’s mind, and his Reference to Sukra for Advice. Bali said:—In this manner did my sapient father advise me before on this subject, which I fortunately remember at the present moment for the enlightenment of my understanding. 2. It is now that I feel my aversion to the enjoyments of life, and come to perceive by my good luck the bliss of tranquility, to liken the clear and cooling ambrosial drink of heavenly bliss. 3. I am tired of all my possessions, and am weary of my continued accumulation of wealth, for the satisfaction of my endless desires. The live-long care of the family also has grown tiresome to me. 4. But how charming is this peace and tranquility of my soul, which is quite even and all cool within itself. Here are all our pleasures and pains brought to meet upon the same level of equality and indifference. 5. I am quite unconcerned with any thing and am highly delighted with my indifference to all things; I am gladdened within myself as by the beams of the full-moon, and feel the orb of the full moon rising within myself.

6. O! the trouble of acquiring riches, which is attended by the loud bustle of the world and agitation in the mind, and the heart burn and fatigue of the body; and is accompanied with incessant anxiety and affliction of the heart. 7. The limbs and flesh of the body, are smashed by labour; and all bodily exercises that pleased me once, now appear to be the long and lost labours of my former ignorance. 8. I have seen the sights of whatever was worth seeing, and enjoyed the enjoyments which knew no bounds; I have overcome all beings; but what is the good (that I have derived from all this)? 9. There is only a reiteration of the very same things, that I had there, here and elsewhere; and I found nowhere now any thing new, that I had not seen or known before. 10. I am now sitting here in full possession of myself, by resigning every thing and its thought from my mind; and thereby I find that nothing whatever nor even its thought forms any component-part of myself.

11. The best things in the heaven above, earth and in this infernal region, are reckoned to be their damsels, gems and jewels; but all these are destroyed and wasted sooner or later by the cruel hand of time. 12. I have acted foolishly all this time, by waging a continuous struggle with the gods, for the sake of the trifle of worldly possessions. (The wars of the earth-born demons and the foreign deities are well known in the early history of the world). 13. What is this phantom of the world, but a creation of the brain; what then is the harm of forsaking it forever in which great souls take no delight whatever? 14. Alas! that I have spent such a large portion of my life-time, in pursuing after trifles in the ignorant giddiness of my mind. 15. My fickle and fluctuating desires, have led me to do many acts of foolishness, in this world of odds and trifles, which now fill me with remorse and regret. (Remembrance of the past, is fraught with regret).

16. But it is in vain to be overwhelmed with the sad thoughts of the past, while I should use my manly exertions to improve the present. (The present time is in our hand, but who the past can recall, or the future command). 17. It is by reflecting on the eternal cause of the endless infinity of souls in the soul, that one can attain his perfect felicity; as the gods got the ambrosia from the Milky ocean. (True bliss is to be derived from the blissful Deity). 18. I most consult my preceptor Sukra, concerning the Ego and the soul and spiritual vision, of the soul of souls in order to expel my ignorance in these matters. 19. I must refer these questions to the most venerable Sukra, who is always complacent to his favorites; and then it is possible that by his advice I shall be settled in the highest perfection of seeing the supreme spirit, in my spirit, because the words of the wise, are ever fraught with full meaning and are fruitful of the desired object.

ADMONITION OF SUKRA TO BALI. Argument. Sukra’s appearance at the call of Bali; and his advice to him on the attainment of divine knowledge. Vasishtha said:—So saying the mighty Bali closed his eyes, and thought upon the lotus-eyed Sukra, abiding in his heavenly abode. (Sukra the planet Venus represented as the preceptor of demons, as Vrihaspati the planet Jupiter is said to be the Spiritual guide of the deities). 2. Sukra, who sat intently meditating on the all pervading spirit of God, came to know in his mind, that he was remembered by his disciple Bali in his city. 3. Then Sukra the son of Bhrigu, whose soul was united with the all pervading infinite and omniscient spirit, descended with his heavenly body at the gemming window of Bali (decorated with glass doors). 4. Bali knew the body of his guide by its lustre, as the lotus-flower perceives the rising sun by his dawning beams. 5. He then honoured his guru or guide, by adoring his feet on a seat decked with gems, and with offering of mandára flowers upon him.

6. As Sukra took his rest on the gemming seat from the labour of his journey, he was strewn over with offerings of gems on his body, and heaps of mandára flowers upon his head; after which Bali addressed him thus:— 7. Venerable sir, this illustrious presence of thy grace before me, emboldens me to address to thee, as the morning sun-beams send all mankind to their daily work. 8. I have come to feel an aversion, Sir, to all kinds of worldly enjoyments, which are productive of the delusion of our souls; and want to know the truth relating to it, in order to dispel my ignorance of myself. 9. Tell me, sir, in short, what are these enjoyments good for, and how far they extend; and what am I, thou or these people in reality. (Extent of enjoyments—bhoga, means their limitation and duration). 10. Sukra answered:—I can not tell you in length about it, as I have soon to repair to my place in the sky. Hear me O monarch of demons tell this much briefly to you at present.

11. There is verily but the intellect in reality, and all this existence beside is verily the intellect and full of intellect: The mind is the intellect, and I, thou and these people are collectively the very intellect. (Gloss. These sayings are based on the srutis, namely: All these are but different aspects of the one intellect. Again: All things depend on the chit. Also:—This chit am I, thou and this Brahma and Indra and all others. There is no other looker or the subjective; or the hearer or objective beside the chit: and so forth). 12. If you are wise, know you derive every thing from this Chit—the universal Intellect; or else all gifts of fortune are as useless to you as the offering of butter on ashes (which cannot consume it, or make a burnt offering of it to the gods). 13. Taking the intellect as something thinkable or object of thought, is the snare of the mind; but the belief of its freeness or incomprehensibility, is what confers liberation to the soul. The incomprehensible intellect is verily the universal soul, which is the sum of all doctrines. (All faiths and doctrines tend to the belief of one unknowable God).

14. Knowing this for certain, look on everything as such; and behold the spirit in thy spirit, in order to arrive to the state of the Infinite spirit. (Or else the adoration of a finite object, must lead to a finite state). 15. I have instantly to repair to the sky, where the seven munis are assembled (the seven planets or the seven stars of the Pleiades—saptarshi?), where I have to continue in the performance of my divine service. 16. I tell you, O king! that you must not of yourself get rid of your duties, as long as you are in this body of yours, even though your mind may be freed from everything. (The embodied being must continue in the discharge of his bodily duty). 17. So saying, Sukra flew as a bee besmeared with the farinaceous gold-dust of the lotus, to the aureate vault of heaven; and passed through the watery path of the waving clouds, to where the revolving planets were ready to receive him.

HEBETUDE OF BALI. Argument. Bali attains to his state of Ecstacy, by his observance of Sukra’s precepts. Vasishtha said:—After Sukra, the son of Bhrigu and senior in the assembly of gods and demigods, had made his departure, Bali the best among the intelligent, reflected thus in himself. 2. Truly has the seer said, that the Intellect composes the three worlds, and that I am this Intellect, and the Intellect fills all the quarters, and shows itself in all our actions. 3. It is the Intellect which pervades the inside and outside of every thing, and there is nothing anywhere which is without the Intellect. 4. It is the Intellect that perceives the sunbeams and moonlight, or else there would be no distinction between them and darkness, had not there been this intellectual perception. 5. If there were no such intellectual perception as this earth is land, then there would be no distinction of earth and water, nor the word earth apply to land. 6. If the Intellect would not understand the vast space as the quarters of the sky, and the mountains as vast protuberances on earth; then who would call the sides and the mountains by those names?

7. If the world were not known as the world and the vacuum as vacuity, then who would distinguish them by the names that are in common use? 8. If this big body was not perceived by the intellect, how proper could the bodies of embodied beings be called by their names? 9. The Intellect resides in every organ of sense, it dwells in the body, mind and all its desires; the intellect is in the internal and external parts of the body, and the intellect is all that is in existent and non-existent. (Because the intellect has the notions of all these things, which would not come to exist, if they were not in the intellect). 10. The Intellect forms my wholeself, by its feeling and knowing of everything that I feel and know; or else I can neither perceive or conceive nor do anything with my body alone, and without guidance of the intellect. 11. What avails this body of mine, which is inert and insensible as a block of wood or stone; it is the intellect that makes my self, and it is the intelligent spirit which is the universal Soul.

12. I am the intellect which resides in the sun and in the sky, and I am the intellect which dwells in the bodies of all beings; I am the same intellect which guides the gods and demigods, and dwells alike in the movables and immovable bodies. 13. The intellect being the sole existence, it is in vain to suppose aught besides; and their being naught otherwise, there can be no difference of a friend or foe to us. 14. What is it if I Bali, strike off the head of a person from his body, I can not injure the soul which is everywhere and fills all space. 15. The feelings of love and enmity are properties of the intellect (Soul), and are not separated from it by its separation from the body. Hence the passions and feelings are inseparable from the Intellect or soul. 16. There is nothing to be thought of beside the Intellect, and nothing to be obtained anywhere, except from the spacious womb of the Intellect, which comprehends all the three worlds. 17. But the passions and feelings, the mind and its powers, are mere attributes and not properties of the Intellect; which being altogether a simple and pure essence, is free from every attribute.

18. The Intellect—chit is the Ego, the omnipresent, all pervasive and ever felicitous soul; it is beyond all other attributes, and without a duality or parts. 19. The term Intellect—chit which is applied to the nameless power of intellection—chiti, is but a verbal symbol signifying the omniscient Intelligence, which is manifest in all places. (i.e. The Divine Intellect is both omniscient as well as omnipresent, while human understanding is narrow and circumscribed). 20. The Ego is the Supreme Lord, that is ever awake and sees all things without manifesting any appearance of himself. He is purely transparent and beyond all visible appearances. 21. All its attributes are lame, partial and imperfect. Even time which has its phases and parts, is not a proper attribute for it. It is but a glimpse of its light that rises before us, but the eternal and infinite light, is beyond our comprehension. 22. I must think of it only in the form of light in my own self, and know it apart from all other thinkables and thoughts, and quite aloof from all shades and colours. 23. I salute his self-same form of Intelligence, and the power of Intellection, unaccompanied by the intelligible, and employed in its proper sphere.

24. I salute that light of his in me, which represents every thing to me; which is beyond all thought, and is of the form of Intellect, going everywhere and filling all space. 25. It is the quiet consciousness of all beings, the real Intellect (sach-chit), the Ego and the Great; the Ego which is as infinite as space, and yet minuter than an atom, and spreading in all alike. 26. I am not subject to the states of pleasure and pain, I am conscious of my self and of no other existence besides myself; and I am Intelligence without the intelligibles spread out before me. 27. No worldly entity nor non-entity (i.e. neither the gain of any object nor its want), can work any change in me; for the possession of worldly objects would destroy me at once (by their separating my soul from God). 28. In my opinion there is nothing that is distinct from me, when we know all things as the produce of the same source. 29. What one gets or loses is no gain or loss to any (i.e. to the gainer or loser), because the same Ego always abides in all, and is the Maker of all and pervading everywhere.

30. Whether I am any of the thinkable objects or not, it matters me little to know; since the Intellect is always a single thing, though its intelligibles (i.e. its productions or thoughts), are endless. 31. I am so long in sorrow, as my soul is not united with the Holy spirit. So saying, the most discerning Bali fell to a deep meditation. 32. He reflected on the half mantra of Om (i.e. the dot only); an emblem of the Infinite God; and sat quietly with all his desires and fancies lying dormant in him. 33. He sat undaunted, by suppressing his thoughts and his thinking powers within him; and remained with his subdued desires, after having lost the consciousness of his meditation, and of his being the meditator and also of meditated object. (i.e. Without knowing himself as the subject or object of his thoughts and acts). 34. While Bali was entranced in this manner at the window which was decked with gems, he became illumined in his mind as a lighted lamp flaming unshaken by the wind. And he remained long in his steady posture as a statue carved of a stone.

35. He sat with his mind as clear as the autumnal sky after having cast off all his desires and mental anxieties, and being filled within himself with his spiritual light.

DESCRIPTION OF BALI’S ANAESTHESIA. Argument. Anxiety of the demons at the supineness of Bali, and the Appearance of Sukra with them before him. Vasishtha continued:—The servile demons of Bali (being impatient at this numbness of their king), ascended hastily to his high crystal palace, and stood at the door of his chamber. 2. There were his ministers Dimbha and others among them, and his generals Kumuda and others also. There were likewise the princes Sukra and others in the number, and his champions Vritta and the rest. 3. There were Hayagríva and the other captains of his armies, with his friends Akraja and others. His associates Laduka and some more joined the train, with his servants Valluka and many more. 4. There were also the gods Kubera, Yama and Indra that paid him their tribute; and the Yakshas, Vidyádhars and Nágas that rendered him their services. (Were the Vidyádhars the Vedias or gipsies of modern India?). 5. There were the heavenly nymphs Rambhá and Tilottamá in the number, with the fanning and flapping damsels of his court; and the deputies of different provinces and of hilly and maritime districts, were also in attendance. 6. These accompanied by the Siddhas inhabiting different parts of the three worlds, all waited at that place to tender their services to Bali.

7. They beheld Bali with reverence, with his head hanging down with the crown upon it, and his arms hanging loosely with the pendant bracelets on them. 8. Seeing him thus, the great Asuras made their obeisance to him in due form, and were stupified with sorrow and fear, and struck with wonder and joy by turns at this sad plight of his. 9. The ministers kept pondering about what was the case with him, and the demons besought their all knowing preceptor Sukra, for his explaining the case to them. 10. Quick as thought they beheld the shining figure of Sukra, standing confest to their sight, as if they saw the phantom of their imagination appearing palpable to view. 11. Sukra being honoured by the demons, took his seat on a sofa; and saw in his silent meditation, the state of the mind of the king of demons. 12. He remained for a while to behold with delight, how the mind of Bali was freed from errors, by the exercise of its reasoning powers. 13. The illustrious preceptor, the lustre of whose person put to shame the brightness of the milky ocean, then said smiling to the listening throng of the demons:

14. Know ye demons, this Bali to have become an adept in his spiritual knowledge, and to have fixed his seat in holy light, by the working of his intellect (i.e. by his intuition only). 15. Let him alone, ye good demons, remain in this position, resting in himself and beholding the imperishable one within himself in his reverie. 16. Lo! here the weary pilgrim to have got his rest, and his mind is freed from the errors of this false world. Disturb him not with your speech, who is now as cold as ice. 17. He has now received that light of knowledge amidst the gloom of ignorance, as the waking man beholds the full blaze of the sun, after dispersion of the darkness of his sleep at dawn. 18. He will in time wake from his trance, and rise like the germ of a seed, sprouting from the seed vessel in its proper season. 19. Go ye leaders of the demons from here, and perform your respective duties assigned to you by your master; for it will take a thousand years, for Bali to wake from his trance (as a moment’s sleep makes a myriad of years in a dream).

20. After Sukra the Guru and guide of the demons, had spoken in this manner, they were filled with alternate joy and grief in their hearts, and cast aside their anxiety about him, as a tree casts its withered leaves away. 21. The Asuras then left their king Bali to rest in his palace in the aforesaid manner, and returned to their respective offices, as they had been employed heretofore. 22. It now became night, and all men retired to their earthly abodes, the serpents entered into their holes, the stars appeared in the skies, and the gods reposed in their celestial domes. The regents of all sides and mountainous tracts, went to their own quarters, and the beasts of the forest and birds of the air, fled and flew to their own coverts and nests.

BALI’S RESUSCITATION TO SENSIBILITY. Argument. Self-confinement of the Living-liberated Bali in the Infernal Regions. Vasishtha related:—After the thousand years of the celestials, had rolled on in Bali’s unconsciousness; he was roused to his sensibility, at the beating of heavenly drums by the gods above (the loud peal of clouds). 2. Bali being awake, his city (Mavalipura) was renovated with fresh beauty, as the lotus-bed is revivified by the rising sun in the eastern horizon (Vairincha or Brahma-loka, placed at the sunrising points). 3. Bali not finding the demons before him after he was awaked, fell to the reflecting of the reveries during his state of entrancement (Samádhi). 4. O how charming! said he, was that cooling rapture of spiritual delight, in which my soul had been enrapt for a short time. 5. O how I long to resume that state of felicity! because these outward enjoyments which I have relished to my fill, have ceased to please me any more. 6. I do not find the waves of those delights even in the orb of the moon, as I felt in the raptures which undulated in my soul, during the entranced state of my insensibility.

7. Bali was again attempting to resume his state of inexcitability, when he was interrupted by the attendant demons, as the moon is intercepted by the surrounding clouds. 8. He cast a glancing look upon them, and was going to close his eyes in meditation; after making his prostration on the ground; but was instantly obtruded upon by their gigantic statures standing all around him. 9. He then reflected in himself and said: The intellect being devoid of its option, there is nothing for me to desire; but the mind being fond of pleasures vainly pursues after them: (which it cannot fully gain, enjoy or long retain). 10. Why should I desire my emancipation, when I am not confined by or attached to anything here: it is but a childish freak to seek for liberation, when I am not bound or bound to anything below. (The soul is perfectly free of itself, but it is the mind that enchains it to earth). 11. I have no desire of enfranchisement nor fear for incarceration, since the disappearance of my ignorance; what need have I then of meditation, and of what good is meditation to me?

12. Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind (there being no efficacy or inefficacy of either). We must depend on our manliness, and hail all that comes to pass on us without rejoicing or shrinking (since all good and evil proceed from God). 13. I require neither thoughtfulness nor thoughtlessness, nor enjoyments nor their privation, but must remain unmoved and firm as one sane and sound. 14. I have no longing for the spiritual, nor craving for temporal things; I have neither to remain in the meditative mood, nor in the state of giddy worldliness. 15. I am not dead (because my soul is immortal); nor can I be living (because the soul is not connected with life). I am not a reality (as the body), nor an unreality (composed of spiritual essence only); nor I am a material or aerial body (being neither this body nor Vital air). Neither am I of this world or any other, but self-same ego—the Great. 16. When I am in this world, I will remain here in quiet; I am not here, I abide calmly in the solace of my soul.

17. What shall I do with my meditation, and what with all my royalty; let any thing come to pass as it may; I am nothing for this or that, nor is anything mine. 18. Though I have nothing to do (because I am not a free agent; nor master of my actions); yet I must do the duties appertaining to my station in society. (Doing the duties of one’s station in life, is reckoned by some as the only obligation of man here below. So says the poet: “Act well thy part, there all the honor lies.”). 19. After ascertaining so in his mind, Bali the wisest of the wise, looked upon the demons with complacence, as the sun looketh upon the lotuses. 20. With the nods and glancings of his eyes, he received their homages; as the passing winds bear the odours of the flowers along with them (meaning to say: His cursory glances bore their regards, as the fleet winds bear the fragrance of flowers the rose). 21. Then Bali ceasing to think on the object of his meditation; accosted them concerning their respective offices under him. 22. He honoured the devas and his gurus with due respect, and saluted his friends and officers with his best regards.

23. He honoured with his largesse, all his servants and suitors; and he pleased the attendant maidens with various persons. 24. So he continued to prosper in every department of his government, until he made up his mind to perform a great sacrifice (yajna) at one time. 25. He satisfied all beings with his great gifts, and gratified the great gods and sages with due honour and veneration. He then commenced the ceremony of the sacrifice under the guidance of Sukra and the chief gurus and priests. 26. Then Vishnu the lord of Lakshmí, came to know that Bali had no desire of earthly fruition; and appeared at his sacrifice to crown him with the success of his undertaking, and confer upon him his desired blessing. 27. He cunningly persuaded him, to make a gift of the world to Indra his elder brother, who was insatiably fond of all kinds of enjoyment. (Indra was elder to Vishnu, who was thence called Upendra or the junior Indra).

28. Having deceived Bali by his artifices of dispossessing him of the three worlds, he shut him in the nether world, as they confine a monkey in a cave under the ground. (This was by Vishnu’s incarnation in the form of a dwarf or puny man, who <was> considered to be the most cunning among men; multum in parvo; or a man in miniature). 29. Thus Bali continues to remain in his confinement to this day, with his mind fixed in meditation, for the purpose of his attainment of Indraship again in a future state of life. 30. The living liberated Bali, being thus restrained in the infernal cave, looks upon his former prosperity and present adversity in the same light. 31. There is no rising or setting of his intelligence, in the states of his pleasure or pain; but it remained one and the same in its full brightness, like the disk of the sun in a painting. 32. He saw the repeated flux and reflux of worldly enjoyments, and thence settled his mind in an utter indifference about them. 33. He overcame multitudes of the vicissitudes of life for myriads of years, in all his transmigrations, in the three worlds, and found at last, his rest in his utter disregard of all mortal things.

34. He felt thousands of comforts and disquiets, and hundreds of pleasures and privations of life, and after his long experience of these, he found his repose in his perfect quiescence. 35. Bali having forsaken his desire of enjoyments, enjoyed the fulness of his mind in the privation of his wants; and rejoiced in self-sufficiency of his soul, in the loneliness of his subterranean cave. 36. After a course of many years, Bali regained his sovereignty of the world, and governed it for a long time to his heart’s content. 37. But he was neither elated by his elevation to the dignity of Indra—the lord of gods; nor was he depressed at this prostration from prosperity. 38. He was one and the same person in every state of his life, and enjoyed the equanimity of his soul, resembling the serenity of the etherial sphere. 39. I have related to you the whole story of Bali’s attainment of true wisdom, and advise you now, O Ráma! to imitate his example for your elevation, to the same state of perfection. 40. Learn as Bali did by his own discernment, to think yourself as the immortal and everlasting soul; and try to reach to the state of your oneness or solity with the Supreme Unity, by your manliness (of self-controul and self-resignation).

41. Bali the lord of the demons, exercised full authority over the three worlds, for more than a millennium; but at last he came to feel an utter distaste, to all the enjoyments of life. 42. Therefore, O Victorious Ráma, forego the enjoyments of life, which are sure to be attended with a distaste and nausea at the end, and betake yourself to that state or true felicity, which never grows insipid at any time. 43. These visible sights, O Ráma! are as multifarious as they are temptations to the soul; they appear as even and charming as a distant mountain appears to view; but it proves to be rough and rugged as you approach to it. (The pleasant paths of life, cannot entice the wise; they are smooth without, but rugged within). 44. Restrain your mind in the cavity of your heart, from its flight in pursuit of the perishable objects of enjoyment, either in this life, or in the next, which are so alluring to all men of common sense. 45. Know yourself, as the self-same intellect, which shines as the sun throughout the universe; and illumines every object in nature, without any distinction of or partiality to one or the other.

46. Know yourself O mighty Ráma! to be the infinite spirit, and the transcendent soul of all bodies; which has manifested itself in manifold forms, that are as the bodies of the internal intellect. 47. Know your soul as a thread, passing through, and interwoven with every thing in existence; and like a string connecting all the links of creation, as so many gems of a necklace or the beads of a rosary. (This hypostasis of the supreme spirit, is known as the sútrátmá or the all-connecting soul of the universe; as the poet expresses it. Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, as full as perfect in a hair as heart. Pope). 48. Know yourself as the unborn and embodied soul of Virát, which is never born nor ever dies; and never fall into the mistake of thinking the pure intellect, to be subject to birth or death. (The embodied soul of Virát, is the universal soul as what the poet says: “Whose body nature is, and god the soul).” 49. Know your desires to be the causes of your birth, life, death and diseases; therefore shun your cupidity of enjoyments, and enjoy all things in the manner of the all witnessing intellect. (i.e. Indulge yourself in your intellectual and not corporeal enjoyments).

50. If you remain in the everlasting light of the sun of your intellect, you will come to find the phenomenal world to be but a phantom of your dream. 51. Never regret nor sorrow for any thing, nor think of your pleasures and pains, which do not affect your soul; you are the pure intellect and the all pervading soul, which manifests itself in every thing. 52. Know the desirables (or worldly enjoyments) to be your evils, and the undesirable (self-mortification) to be for your good. Therefore shun the former by your continued practice of the latter. 53. By forsaking your views of the desirables and undesirables, you will contract a habit of hebetude; which when it takes a deep root in your heart, you have no more to be reborn in the world. 54. Retract your mind from every thing, to which it runs like a boy after vain baubles; and settle it in yourself for your own good. 55. Thus by restraining the mind by your best exertions, as also by your habit of self-control, you will subdue the rampant elephant of your mind, and reach to your highest bliss afterwards.

56. Do not become as one of those ignorant fools, who believe their bodies as their real good; and who are infatuated by sophistry and infidelity, and deluded by impostors to the gratification of their sensual appetites. 57. What man is more ignorant in this world and more subject to its evils, than one who derived his Spiritual knowledge from one who is a smatterer in theology, and relies on the dogmas of pretenders and false doctors in divinity. 58. Do you dispel the cloud of false reasoning from the atmosphere of your mind, by the hurricane of our right reasoning, which drives all darkness before it. 59. You can not be said to have your right reasoning, so long as you do not come to the light and sight of the soul, both by your own exertion and grace of the Supreme Spirit. 60. Neither the Veda nor Vedánta, nor the science of logic or any other sástras, can give you any light of the soul, unless it appears of itself within you. 61. It is by means of your self culture, aided by my instruction and divine grace, that you have gained your perfect knowledge, and appear to rest yourself in the Supreme Spirit.

62. There are three causes of your coming to spiritual light. Firstly your want of the knowledge of a duality, and then the effulgence of your intellectual luminary (thy soul) by the grace of God and lastly the wide extent of your knowledge derived from my instructions. 63. You are now freed from your mental maladies, and have become sane and sound by abandonment of your desires, by removal of your doubts and errors, and by forsaking the mist of your fondness for external objects. 64. O Ráma! as you get rid of the faults (errors) of your understanding, so you advance by degrees in gaining your knowledge, in cherishing your resignation, in destroying your defects, in imbibing the bliss of ecstacy, in wandering with exultation, and in elevating your soul to the sixth sphere. But all this is not enough unless you attend to Brahmahood itself. (These are called the Sapta bhúmiká or seven stages of the practice of Yoga).

FALL OF HIRANYAKASIPU AND RISE OF PRAHLÁDA. Argument. Slaughter of Demons by Hari. Vasishtha continued:—Attend Ráma, to the instructive narrative of Prahláda—the lord of demons; who became an adept by his own intuition. 2. There was a mighty demon in the infernal regions, Hiranyakasipu by name; who was as valiant as Naráyana himself, and had expelled the gods and demigods from their abodes. 3. He mastered all the treasures of the world, and wrested its possession from the hands of Hari; as the swan encroaches upon the right of the bee, on the large folia of the lotus. 4. He vanquished the Gods and Asuras, and reigned over the whole earth, as the elephant masters the lotus-bed, by expulsion of the drove of swans from it. 5. Thus the lord of the Asuras, having usurped the monarchy of the three worlds, begot many sons in course of time, as the spring brings forth the shoots of trees. 6. These boys grew up to manhood in time, with the display of their manly prowess; and like so many brilliant suns, stretched their thousand rays on all sides of the earth and skies.

7. Among them Prahláda the eldest prince became the regent, as the Kaustubha diamond has the pre-eminence among all other precious gems. (The Kaustubha gem was set in the breast-plate of Vishnu). 8. The father Hiranyakasipu delighted exceedingly in his fortunate son Prahláda, as the year rejoices in its flowering time of the spring (i.e. the father delights in his promising lad, as the year in its vernal season). 9. Supported by his son on one hand, and possessed of his force and treasures on the other; he became puffed up with his pride, as the swollen elephant emitting his froth from his triangular mouth. (Composed of the two sides of the tusks, and the lower part). 10. Shining with his lustre and elated by his pride, he dried and drew up the moisture of the earth, by his unbearable taxation; as the all-destroying suns of universal dissolution, parch up the world by their rays. (Here is a play of the word Kara, in its triple sense of the hand, tax and solar rays). 11. His conduct annoyed the gods and the sun and moon, as the behaviour of a haughty boy, becomes unbearable to his fellow comrades.

12. They all applied to Brahmá, for destruction of the arch demon; because the repeated misdemeanours of the wicked, are unbearable to the good and great. 13. It was then that the leonine Hari-Narasingha, clattered his nails resembling the tusks of an elephant; and thundered aloud like the rumbling noise of the Dig-hastes (the regent elephants of all the quarters of heaven), that filled the concave world as on its last doomsday. 14. The tusk-like nails and teeth of Vishnu, glittered like flashing lightnings in the sky; and the radiance of his earrings filled the hollow sphere of heaven, with curling flames of living fire. (The word dwija or twice born is applied to the nails and teeth, as to the moon and a twiceborn Bráhman). 15. The sides and caverns of mountains presented a fearful aspect; and the huge trees were shaken by a tremendous tempest; that rent the skies and tore the vault of heaven. (This is the only place where the word dodruma occurs for the Greek dendron in Sanskrit, shortened to dru a tree, the root of Druid a woodman). 16. He emitted gusts of wind from his mouth and entrails, which drove the mountains before them; and his eyeballs flashed with the living fire of his rage, which was about to consume the world.

17. His shining mane shook with the glare of sun-beams, and the pores of the hairs on his body, emitted the sparks of fire like the craters of a volcano. 18. The mountains on all sides, shook with a tremendous shaking, and the whole body of Hari, shot forth a variety of arms in every direction. 19. Hari in his leoantheopic form of half a man and half a lion, killed the gigantic demon by goring him with his tusks, as when an elephant bores the body of a horse with a grating sound. 20. The population of the Pandemonium, was burnt down by the gushing fire of his eye balls; which flamed as the all-devouring conflagration of the last doomsday. 21. The breath of his nostrils like a hurricane; drove everything before it; and the clapping of his arms (bahwasphota), beat as loud surges on the hollow shores. 22. The demons fled from before him as moths from the burning fire, and they became extinct as extinguished lamps, at the blazing light of the day. 23. After the burning of the Pandemonium, and expulsion of the demons, the infernal regions presented a void waste, as at the last devastation of the world.

24. After the Lord had extirpated the demoniac race, at the end of the Titanic age, he disappeared from view with the grateful greetings of the synod of gods. 25. The surviving sons of the demon, who had fled from the burning of their city, were afterwards led back to it by Prahláda; as the migrating fowls are made to return to the dry bed of a lake by a shower of rains. 26. There they mourned over the dead bodies of the demons, and lamented at the loss of their possessions, and performed at last the funeral ceremonies of their departed friends and relatives. 27. After burning the dead bodies of their friends, they invited the relics of the demons; that had found their safety by flight, to return to their deserted habitations again. 28. The Asuras and their leaders, now continued to mourn with their disconsolate minds and disfigured bodies, like lotuses beaten down by the frost. They remained without any effort or attempt as the figures in a painting; and without any hope of resuscitation, like a withered tree or an arbour stricken by lightning.

PRAHLÁDA’S FAITH IN VISHNU. Argument. Prahláda’s Lamentations at the slaughter of the demons, and his conversion to Vishnuism. Vasishtha continued:—Prahláda remained disconsolate in his subterranean region, brooding over the melancholy thoughts of the destruction of the Dánavas and their habitations. 2. Ah! what is to become of us, said he, when this Hari is bent to destroy the best amongst us, like a monkey nipping the growing shoots and sprouts of trees. 3. I do not see the Daityas anywhere in earth or in the infernal regions, that are left in the enjoyment of their properties; but are stunted in their growth like the lotuses growing on mountain tops. 4. They rise only to fall like the loud beating of a drum, and their rising is simultaneous with their falling as of the waves in the sea. (i.e. no sooner they rise, than they are destined to fall). 5. Woe unto us! that are so miserable in both our inward and outward circumstances; and happy are our enemies of light (Devas), that have their ascendency over us. O the terrors of darkness! 6. But our friends of the dark infernal regions, are all darkened in their souls with dismay: also their fortune is as transitory as the expansion of the lotus-leaf by day, and its contraction at night.

7. We see the gods, who were mean servants at the feet of our father, to have usurped his kingdom; in the manner of the timid deer, usurping the sovereignty of the lion in the forest. (So said the sons of Tipu Sultan, when they saw the English polluting his library with their hands). 8. We find our friends on the other hand, to be all disfigured and effortless; and sitting melancholy and dejected in their hopelessness, like lotuses with their withered leaves and petals. 9. We see the houses of our gigantic demons, filled with clouds of dusts and frost, wafted by gusts of wind by day and night; and resembling the fumes of fire which burnt them down. 10. The inner apartments are laid open without their doors and enclosures, and are overgrown with the sprouts of barley, shooting out as blades of sapphires from underneath the ground. 11. Ah! what is impossible to irresistible fate, that has so reduced the mighty demons; who are while used to pluck the flowers from the mountain tops of Meru like big elephants, and are now come to the sad plight of the wandering Devas of yore.

12. Our ladies are lurking like the timorous deer, at the rustling of the breeze amidst the leaves of trees, for fear of the darts of the enemy whistling and hurling in the open air. 13. O! the gemming blossoms of the guluncha arborets, with which our ladies used to decorate their ears, are now shorn and torn and left forlorn (desolate) by the hands of Hari, like the lorn and lonesome heaths of the desert. 14. They have robbed us of the all-producing kalpa-trees, and planted them in their mandana pleasure gardens now teeming with their shooting gems and verdant leaflets in the etherial sphere. 15. The eyes of haughty demons, that formerly looked with pity on the faces of their captured gods; are now indignantly looked upon by the victorious gods, who have made captives of them. 16. It is known, that the water (liquid ichor) which is poured from the mouths of the spouting elephants of heaven on the tops of the mountains, falls down in the form of cascades, and gives rise to rivers on earth. (It means the water spouts resembling the trunks of elephants, which lifted the sea water to the sky, and let them fall on mountain tops to run as rivers below).

17. But the froth exuding from the faces of our elephantic giants, is dried up to dust at the sights of the Devas, as a channel is sucked up in the dry and dreary desert of sand. 18. Ah! where have those Daityas fled, whose bodies were as big as the peaks of mount Meru once, and were fanned by the fragrant breeze, breathing with the odorous dust of Mandára flowers. (Mandára is the name of a flower of the garden of Paradise). 19. The beauteous ladies of the gods and Gandharvas, that were once detained as captives in the inner apartments of demons, are now snatched from us, and placed on Meru (the seat of the gods), as if they are transplanted there to grow as heavenly plants. 20. O how painful is it to think! that the fading graces of our captured girls, are now mocked by the heavenly nymphs, in their disdainful dance over their defeat and disgrace. 21. O it is painful to think! that the attending damsels, that fanned my father with their chouri flappers, are now waiting upon the thousand-eyed Indra in their servile toil.