Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

12. His soul then fled on the wings of his intelligence, to the primary and final cause of causes; as the current of the stream runs to the main ocean, by breaking down its bounds of the banks on its way. 13. The intelligent soul being freed from its remorse (of leaving the body), and released from the conditions of its transmigration, became one with the immaculate spirit; and was then absorbed in the Supreme One; as the air contained in a pot, mixes with the all-encompassing firmament after the pot is broken.

MEETING OF SURAGHU AND PARIGHA. Argument. The praiseworthy deeds of good Princes. Vasishtha said:—O lotus-eyed Rághava! do you likewise act in the manner as Suraghu, and rely yourself in the sole existence of the Supreme one, for cleansing your iniquities, and for your getting rid of all sorrow in this world. 2. The mind will no longer pant or sorrow, when it comes to have this ecumenical sight in itself; as a child is no more afraid of dark, when it gets the light of a lamp in the room. 3. The discriminating mind of Suraghu found its rest in perfect tranquility; as a fool finds his security by laying hold of a big bundle of straws. 4. Having this holy sight in your view, and by your preaching this light to others, do you continue to enjoy this uniform insouciance (Samádhi) in yourself, and shine forth as a bright gem before the world. 5. Ráma said:—Tell me O chief of sages, what is this uniform insouciance, and set my mind at rest, which is now fluttering like the plumes of a peacock discomposed by the winds. 6. Vasishtha replied:—Attend therefore, O Ráma! to the marvelous story of that enlightened and sagely prince Suraghu, and how he conducted himself by subsisting on the leaves of trees.

7. I will relate to you also the communication which went on between two princes, both of whom were equally enlightened in their souls, and situated in the same sort of uniform quietism. 8. There was a mighty king of the Plahvas (Persians) known by the name of Parigha; who was a victor of his enemies, and also the support of his realm, as the axle is the support of a carriage. 9. He was joined in true friendship with Suraghu, and was as closely allied to him as the god of love with the vernal spring. 10. It happened at one time, that a great drought occurred in the land of Suraghu, and it was attended by a famine, resembling the final desolation of the earth, brought on by the sins of men. 11. It destroyed a great number of his people, who were exhausted by hunger and debility; as a conflagration destroys the unnumbered living animals of the forest. 12. Seeing this great disaster of his people, Parigha was overwhelmed in grief; and he left his capital in despair, as a traveller leaves a city burnt down to the ground.

13. He was so sorely soul-sick at his inability to remove this unavertible calamity of his subjects, that he went to a forest to devote himself to devotion like Jíva the chief of devote. (Jíva is another name of Buddha, who betook himself to the forest on seeing the woes of human kind). 14. He entered a deep wood unseen by and unknown to his people, and there passed his time in his disgust with the world, and afar and away from mankind. 15. He employed himself in his austere devotion in the cavern of a mountain, and remained sober-minded, with his subsistence upon dry and withered leaves of trees. 16. It was by his subsisting on dry leaves for a long time, as fire devours them always, that he obtained the surname of the leaf-eater among the assembled devotees on that spot. 17. It was thenceforward that the good and royal sage passed under his title of the leaf-eater among the holy sages in all parts of Jambúdvípa (Asia). 18. Having thus conducted himself with his most rigid austerities for many years, he attained the divine knowledge by his long practice of self-purification, and by grace of the supreme soul.

19. He obtained his self-liberation by his avoidance of enmity and the passions and affections of anger, pity and other feelings and desires; and by his attainment of mental calmness and an enlightened understanding. 20. He wandered ad libitum all about the temple of the triple world (composed of earth, heaven and the nether regions); and mixed in the company of the siddhas and sádhyas, as the bees mix with the company of swans about the lotus beds. 21. His peregrination led him at one time, to visit the city of Hema-jata, which was built with gemming stones, and shone as brightly as a peak of the mount Meru (which is represented to be composed of gold and resplendent stones). 22. Here he met with his old friend the king of that city, and saluted each other with mutual fondness. They were both delivered from the darkness of ignorance, and were perfect in their knowledge of the knowable. 23. They accosted mutually with saying, “O! It is by virtue of our good fortune that we come to meet one another”. 24. They embraced each other in their arms and with joyous countenances, and then sat on the one and same seat, as when the sun and moon are in conjunction.

25. Parigha said:—My heart rejoices to see you with full satisfaction; and my mind receives a coolness as if it immerged in the cooling orb of the moon. 26. Unfeigned friendship like true love, shoots forth in a hundred branches in our separation from each other; as a tree growing by the side of a pool, stretches its boughs all around, until it is washed away with its roots by the current. 27. The remembrance of the confidential talks, merry sports and idle plays of our early days awakes in me, O my good friend! those innocent joys afresh in me. 28. I know well, O sinless friend, that the divine knowledge which I have gained by my long and painful devotion and by the grace of God, is already known to you from the preachings of the sapient sage Mándavya to you. 29. But let me ask, are you not placed beyond the reach of sorrow, and set in your rest and tranquility; and are you situated in the supreme cause of all, and as firmly as if you were seated upon the unshaken rock of Meru? 30. Do you ever feel that auspicious self gratifying grace in your soul, which purifies the fountain of your mind, as the autumnal sky clears the springs of water on earth?

31. Do you, O ruler of your people, perform all your acts, with a complacent air and steady mind, as you were discharging your duties for the good of mankind? 32. Do the people in your realm live in safety, to enjoy their prosperity and competence, and are they all free from disease, danger and anxieties of life? 33. Is this land plentiful in its harvests, and are the trees here bending down with their fruitage; and do the people here enjoy the fruit of their labour and the objects of their desire? 34. Is your good fame spread about in all quarters, like the clear and cooling beams of the full moon; and does it cover the face of this land, like a sheet of snowfall on the ground? 35. Is the space of all quarters of the sky, filled with the renown of your virtues, as to leave no gap in it; and as the roots and stalks of lotus bushes overspread the tank, and choke and check the course of its waters? 36. Do the young minds and virgins of your villages, street and walk about pleasantly over the plains and fields here abouts; and do they loudly laud forth your heart cheering applause (or their merry songs)?

37. Does all welfare attend on you, with respect to your prosperity, wealth and possessions and the produce of your fields; and do your family, children and dependents fare well in this city? 38. Do you enjoy your health free from all disease and complaint; and reap the reward of your meritorious acts done for this life and the next (such as sacrifices made for future rewards). 39. Are you indifferent in your mind with regard to temporary enjoyments, which appear pleasant for a moment, but prove to be our deadly enemies at last. 40. O! it is after a very long separation, that we come to meet again; it is my good fortune that rejoins me to you, as the spring revisits the dales with verdure. 41. There are no such joys here, nor such woes even in this world: which do not happen to the lot of the living in their union with, and separation from one another. 42. We are quite altered in our circumstances, during our long separation; and yet how we happened to meet each other in the same unchanged state of our minds, by a wonderful accident of destiny.

43. Suraghu replied:—Yes, sir, the course of destiny is as crooked as that of a serpent; nor is there any man that can penetrate into the depth of the mysterious nature of destiny. 44. There is nothing impossible to destiny, which has after the lapse of so long a time, has reunited us in one place, from the vast distance of the two countries asunder. 45. O great sir! we are all in good health and prosperity in this place, and have been supremely blest by your graciousness unto us. 46. Behold us purified and cleansed of our sins, by your holy presence among us; and the arbor of our merits has borne the fruit of our peace and satisfaction at your sight. 47. O royal sage! we enjoy all prosperity in this our native city; and your presence here this day, has made it shoot forth, in a hundred off-shoots of joy and happiness. 48. O noble minded sir! your appearance and speech, have sprinkled this place with sweet nectarine drops, joy and holiness; because the company of the virtuous, is reckoned to equal the supreme felicity of man.

ON THE NATURE OF QUIETISM AND QUIETUS. Argument. A discussion about Active and Inactive Devotion and Godliness. Vasishtha related:—The prince Parigha then resumed his confidential speech, expressive of the affection he formerly bore to Suraghu and added:— 2. Parigha said:—Whatever acts of goodness are done by men of well governed minds, in this earth of strife, they all redound to their happiness; but the evil deeds of ungoverned minds are not so, but lead to their misery. 3. Do you rely, sir, in that state of perfect rest which is free from desire; and do you rest in that state of supineness—samádhi, which is styled transcendental Coma or trance (paramopsama)? 4. Suraghu replied:—Tell me sir, what you mean by the abandonment of all desires; and what is meant by that perfect lethargy, which they call as transcendental coma or trance. 5. Tell me, O high minded Sir, how can that man be called unentranced, who is enrapt in his supreme intelligence (or knowledge of the supreme), and at the same time is attendant to his worldly concerns. 6. Men of enlightened understandings, however, they are employed in the observance of their usual worldly affairs, are yet said to be enraptured with their knowledge of the solity of the supreme soul.

7. But how can one be said to be beatified, whose mind is unsubdued and whose nature is indomitable; although he may keep his position in the posture of padmásana with his folded palms. 8. The knowledge of truth which burns away all worldly desires as straws, is termed the true catalepsy (samádhi) of the soul; rather than the sedentariness and taciturnity observed by secluded devotees. 9. The knowledge which is attended with continued rest and self-content, and gives an insight into the nature of things, is called the paragoge (paraprajná), and repose (samádhi) of the soul by the wise. (Paragogies or palpable knowledge, is opposed to anagogies or hidden knowledge). 10. Immobility of the mind by pride and enmity, is known by the term samádhi or quietness to the wise; when the mind is as unmoved as the fixed rock against the howling winds of the passions. (i.e. The mind which is unshaken and unmoved by passions and desires).

11. The mind is also said to have its stillness samádhi, when it is devoid of anxious thoughts and cares, and is acquainted with the natures of its wished for objects; and yet freed from its choice of and aversion to the objects of its liking or dislike. This is also said to be the fulness or perfection of the mind. 12. Again the mind of the magnanimous, is said to stand in its stillness of samádhi or quietism, ever since it is joined with its understanding, and acts conjointly with the same. 13. But this pause of samádhi being stretched too far to a dead lock, is liable to break down by itself; as the fibre of a lotus-stalk upon its being drawn too long by the hand of a boy. Dead and dormant quiescence is the opposite extreme of sensible quietism. 14. As the sun does not cease from giving his light to the other hemisphere, after he sets from dispensing the day over this part, so doth our intelligence continue to glow, even after it has run its course in this life. (So there is no dead stop called the entire pause—púrna samádhi, or utter extinction of the soul at any time).

15. As the course of a stream is never at a stop, notwithstanding the incessant gliding of its currents; so the course of our thoughts hath no suspension from its knowing of further truths. (The mind is ever progressive in its acquisition of knowledge, which proves the impossibility of its cessation). 16. As the ever continuous duration, never loses the sight of the fleeting moments of time; so the sempiternal soul is never in abeyance, to mark the flitting thoughts of its mind. 17. As the ever current time, never forgets to run its wonted course; so the intelligent understanding is never remiss, to scan the nature of the mysterious Intellect, which guides its course. 18. The thoughts of an intelligent being, run in as quick a succession; as the continued rotation of the parts of time; and this is when the mind wanders at random, and is not settled in the sole object of its meditation. 19. As the lifeless soul has no perception of any external object; so the soul unconscious of itself, has no knowledge of the course of time; as in the state of sleep, delirium and insensibility.

20. As there is no skilful man, without some skill or other in the world; so there is no intelligent being, without the knowledge of his soul and self-consciousness here. 21. I find myself to be enlightened and wakeful, and pure and holy at all times; and that my mind is tranquil, and my soul at its rest on all occasions. 22. I find nothing to intercept the sweet repose of my soul, which has found its anchorage in my uninterrupted communion with the holy spirit. 23. Hence my mind is never without its quiescence at any time, nor is it unquiet at any moment, its being solely resigned to spiritual meditation. 24. I see the all pervading and everlasting soul, in every thing and in every manner; and know not whether it be the rest or unrest on my soul, which has found both its quiet and employment, in its perpetual meditation of the Divine Spirit. 25. Great men of quiescent spirits, continue always in an even and uniform tone and tenor of their minds with themselves; therefore the difference betwixt the rest and restlessness of the soul, is a mere verbal distinction, and bear no shade of difference and in their signification.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE ABOVE. Argument. The Best means of self-contented happiness. Parigha said:—Prince, I find you to be truly wise and enlightened in your beatitude; and dost shine as the fullmoon with your inward coolness. 2. I see in you the fulness of sweet delight, and the shadow of prosperity resting upon you; and you appear as graceful as the water lily, with your pleasing and cooling countenance. 3. The clearness, extent, the fullness and depth of your understanding, give you the appearance of the deep, clear and extensive ocean, when it ceases to be perturbed by the loud winds and waves. 4. The pure and full delight of your inward soul, which is free from the cloud of egotism, gives it the grace of the clear expanse of the autumnal sky. 5. I see you composed in your mind in all places, and find you contented at all times; you are moreover devoid of passions, and all these combine to add to you an unutterable grace. 6. You have got over the bounds, of knowing whatever is good and evil in this world; and your great understanding, has made you acquainted with every thing in its entirety.

7. Your mind is cheered with the knowledge of all existence and non-existence, and your body is freed from the evil of repeated birth and death—the common lot of all beings. 8. You have gleaned the truth from whatever is untrue, and are as satiate with your true knowledge, as the gods were satisfied with drinking the water of immortality which they churned out of the brackish water of the ocean. 9. Suraghu replied: There is nothing in this world, O royal sage! which we may choose as inestimable to us; for all that shines and glitters here, are nothing in reality and have no intrinsic value. 10. In this manner there being nothing desirable here to us, there is nothing disgusting to us neither; because the want of a thing intimates the want of its contrary also. 11. The idea of the meanness of the most part of worldly things, and that of the greatness of others on particular occasions, are both weakened and obliterated from my mind. (i.e. The best thing that is of service at some time, and the very best thing that is useless at others, are all indifferent to the wise).

12. It is time and place that give importance to the object, and lower the best ones in our estimation; therefore it behooves the intelligent, neither to be lavish in the praise or dispraise of one or the other. 13. It is according to our estimation of another, that we praise or dispraise the same; and we esteem whatever is desirable to us; but they are the most intelligent, that give their preference to what is the best, and of the greatest good is to us. 14. But the world abounding in its woods and seas, and mountains and living animals, presents us nothing that is to be desired for our lasting and substantial good. 15. What is there that we should desire, when there is nothing worth desiring in this world; save bodies composed of flesh and bones, and wood and stones, all of which are worthless and frail. 16. As we cease to desire, so we get rid of our fawning and hatred also; as the setting of the sun is attended with the loss of both light and heat.

17. It is useless verbiage to expatiate on the subject; it is enough to know this truth for our happiness here, i.e. to have our desires under subjection, and an evenness of our minds under all conditions, attended with inward placidity and universal regard for all.

SERMON ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Argument. The way to guard the mind from faults, and deliver the soul from misery. Vasishtha resumed:—After Suraghu and Parigha had ended their discussion on the errors of this world, they honoured one another with due respect, and retired gladly to their respective duties of the day. 2. Now Ráma, as you have heard the whole of this instructive dialogue between them, do you try to profit thereby by a mature consideration of the same. 3. It is by reasoning with the learned, that the wits are sharpened with intelligence; and the egotism of men melts down in their minds, like the raining of a thick black cloud in the sky. 4. It spreads a clear and calm composure over the mind, as the revisit of cloudless Autumn does, over the spacious firmament to the delight of mankind, and by its diffusion of bounteous plenty on earth. 5. After the region of the intellect, is cleared of its darkness, the light of the supreme soul which is the object of meditation and our sole refuge, becomes visible in it. 6. The man that is always spiritual and insighted within himself, who is always delighted with his intellectual investigations, has his mind always free from sorrow and regret.

7. Though the spiritual man is engaged in worldly affairs, and is subject to passions and affections; yet he is unstained by them in his heart, as the lotus bud is unsullied by the water under which it is sub-merged. 8. The silent sage that is all-knowing, holy, and calm and quiet in himself, is never disturbed by his ungoverned mind; but remains as firm as the dauntless lion, against the rage of the unruly elephant. 9. The heart of the wise man is never affected by the mean pleasures of the world; but it stands as the lofty arbor of paradise, above the encircling bushes of thorny brambles and poisonous plants. 10. As the religious recluse who is disgusted with the world, has no care for his life, nor fear of death; so the man whose mind is fraught with full knowledge, is never elated nor depressed by his good or bad fortune. 11. The man that knows the erroneousness of the mind and the panorama of the world in the soul, is never soiled by the stain of sin, as the clear sky is nowhere daubed by any dirt or dust.

12. It is the knowledge of one’s ignorance, that is the best safe guard against his falling into greater ignorance, and it is the only remedy for his malady of ignorance, as the light of the lamp is the only remedial of nocturnal gloom. 13. The knowledge of our ignorance is the best healer of ignorance, as the knowledge of one’s dreaming removes his trust in the objects of his dream. (A dream known as a dream to the dreamer, can not lead him to delusion). 14. A wise man engaged in business, with his mind disengaged from it, and fixed on one object, is not obstructed by it in his view of spiritual light; as the eye-sight of fishes, is not hindered by the surrounding water. 15. As the light of intellectual day, appears over the horizon of the mind, the darkness of the night of ignorance is put to flight; and then the mind enjoys its supreme bliss of knowledge, as in the full blaze of day. 16. After the sleep of ignorance is over, the mind is awakened by its intelligence, to the bright beams of the rising sun of knowledge; and then the mind is ever awake to reason, which no dulness can overpower.

17. A man is said to live so long, as he sees the moon of his soul, and the moon beams of his intellect, shining in the sphere of his mind; and he is said to have lived only for those few days, that he has discharged his duties with joy. 18. A man passing over the pool of his ignorance, and betaking himself to the contemplation of his soul; enjoys a coolness within him, as the cooling moon enjoys by the cold nectarious juice contained in her orb. 19. There are our true friends, and those are the best sástras; and those days are well spent, which have passed with them (the sástras), in discourse on dispassionateness, and when we felt the rise of the intellect within us. 20. How lamentable is their case, who are born to perish like ferns in their native forests; and who are immerged in their sinfulness, by their neglect to look into their souls. 21. Our lives are interwoven with a hundred threads of hopes and fears, and we are as greedy as bulls of their fodder of straws. We are at last over taken by old age and decrepitude, and are carried away with sorrow and sighs.

22. The dullheaded are made to bear, like heavy laden bullocks, great loads of distress on their backs in their native soil. 23. They are bitten and disturbed by the gnats of their passions, and are made to plough the ground under the halter of their avarice; they are shut in the cribs of their masters, and are bound by the bonds of their kindred. 24. Thus we are harassed in the supportance of our wives and children, and weakened by age and infirmity, and like beasts of burden we have to wade in dirt and mire, and to be dragged to long journeys, and be broken under heavy loads, without halting a while under the toil and fatigue. 25. Bending under our heavy loads, we are tired with our long journeys across the deserts, where we are burnt under the burning sunbeams, without having a cool shade, to shelter our heads for a while. 26. We are big bodied like bulls with poor souls in us; we are oppressed at every limb, and labour under our destiny by being tied as the ringing bell, about the necks of bullocks; and the scourge of our sins lashing us on both sides.

27. We toil like bulls labouring under the poles of the carts which they draw along; and traverse through dreary deserts, without laying down our bodies to rest for a moment. 28. We are always prone to and plunged in our own evils, and move on like heavy laden bullocks with trolling and groaning all the way long. 29. Ráma! try your best to redeem by all means, this bullock of your living soul, from the pool of this world; and take the best measures, to restore it to its form of pristine purity. 30. The animal soul that is released from the ocean of this world, and becomes purified in its mind by the light of truth, is no more liable to roll in the mud, like some beasts after they are cleansed. 31. It is in the society of highminded men, that the living soul receives the instruction, for its salvation in this ocean of the world; just as a passenger easily gets a boat from the ferry-man to go across a river. 32. That country is a desert where there are not learned and good people, resembling the verdant trees of the land. The wise must not dwell in the land, where the trees yield neither fruits nor afford cooling shades.

33. Good men are as the flowering Champa trees of the land; their cooling words resemble the shady leaves of the tree, and their gentle smiles its blooming flowers. Let men therefore resort to the umbrage of such champaka bowers. 34. For want of such men, the world is a desert, burning under the darkening heat of ignorance, where no wise man should allow himself to rest in peace and quiet. 35. It is the self that is the true friend to one’s self, therefore support thyself upon thy self only; nor obscure the brightness of thy soul, under thy darkness of the bodily pride, to bury thy life in the slough of ignorance. 36. Let the learned ponder in themselves, “what is this body and how came it to existence, what is its origin and to what is it reduced?” Thus let the wise consider with diligence, the miseries to which this body is subject. 37. Neither riches nor friends, nor learning nor relatives, serve to redeem the drowning soul. It must be one’s own mind to buy its own redemption, by resigning itself to its source and cause. 38. The mind is the constant companion and true friend to the soul; and therefore it is by consultation with the mind, that one should seek to redeem himself.

39. It is by a constant habit of dispassionateness and self deliberation, that one can ford the ocean of this world, riding on the raft of true knowledge (or the knowledge of truth). 40. It is pitiable to see the inward torments of the evil minded, that neglect to release their souls from all worldly vexations. 41. Release the elephant of your living soul—jíva, from the fetters of its egoism, its bonds of avarice and the ebriety of its mind; and deliver it from the muddy pit of its birth place, and retire to your solitude. 42. It is by these means, O Ráma, that the soul has its salvation; therefore cast away your ignorance, and wipe off your egoism. 43. This is the best way that leaves the soul to its purity, that makes you disentangle your self from the snare of your mind, and disengage your soul from the trap of egoism. 44. It is by this means, that the lord of gods, the supreme soul is beheld by us; and the corporeal body is regarded as a clod of earth, or a block of wood, and not better than these.

45. The sunlight of the intellect comes to view, after dispersion of the cloud of egoism by which it is obscured; and it is after this that you attain the state of supreme felicity. 46. As the light of the day is seen, after withdrawal of the dark veil of night; so you come to see the light of the soul, after removal of the curtain of your egoism. 47. That felicitous state of the soul, which remains after dispersion of the darkness of egoism; the same is the state of divine fullness, and is to be adored with all diligence. 48. This state of the vast oceanlike and perfect fulness of soul, which no words can express nor any eye can behold, is beyond all comparison, and every colour of human attribution. 49. It is but a particle of the pure intellectual light, which gains its stability in the devout spirit, and is then comparable with naught beside the light of the Divinity, which shines before the internal sight of the holy. 50. Though it is beyond all comparison, yet it is beheld by us to be in the state of our sound sleep—susupta (hypnotism), it is the state of immensity, and is as extended as the vast extent of the firmament.

51. After extinction of egoism and the mental powers, and subsidence of all the feelings in oneself; there arises a transcendent ecstasy in the soul, which is styled the form of the divine or perfect joy and blissness (paripúrnamánandam). 52. This blissful is attainable only by yoga meditation, and in the hypnotism of sound sleep. It is not utterable by speech, O Ráma, but to be perceived only in the heart. 53. The totality of the Divinity is perceived only by the percipience of the mind, and by no categorial distinction of the divine essence; without this intuitive percipience, we can have no conception of the soul. 54. The knowledge of the soul, comprehends in itself the whole totality and infinity together; and resides in the invariable steadiness of the mind. It is by the shutting out the internal and external from the senses and the mind, that the lord of lords, the divine soul appears to our intelligence. 55. Hence follows the extinction of our desire of sensible objects, and hence we derive the light of our supreme felicity; that we have an even minded composure in all circumstances; which leads the souls of the magnanimous, to revert to that inscrutable identity (which has no convertibility in it).

STORY OF BHÁSA AND VILÁSA. Argument. Account the Lives and Actions of Bhása and Vilása or the Sahya pupils. Vasishtha continued:—As long as one does not come to perceive his soul, by breaking down his mind of his own accord; and so long, lotuseyed Ráma, one does not get rid of his egoism and meism (i.e., selfishness). 2. There is no end of his worldly misery, as there is no setting of the painted sun; and his adversity becomes as extended, as the vast ocean itself. 3. His misfortunes are as interminable, as the succession of the waves in the sea; and the appearance of the world is as gloomy to him, as the face of the sky, covered by the dark clouds of the rainy season. 4. Here will I recite an old story, containing a discourse between two friends Bhása and Vilása, in some region of the Sahya mountain. 5. Now this is a mountain mightier than the three worlds in his superior strength. In his height he surmounted the sky, and in his extent he got the better of the ground, and with his foot he reached the infernal region.

6. It was fraught with various flowers, and furnished with innumberable water falls; its precious stones were watched over by the Guhya mountaineers, and named as Sahya or moderate being situated in the temperate zone; yet it was intolerable as a tropic mountain (by the intense heat on its top). 7. Its girdle of sun-stones, seemed to studded with pearls, by the sloping beams of the sun falling upon them; and its base with its pavement of gold, looked as the gold island (of Lanká). 8. Here a hill was full of flowers, and there another filled with minerals; there were lakes with flowering water plants on one side, and gemming stones lying on another. 9. Here the cascades were hurling and gurgling in foaming froths, and there the old bamboos were blowing through their hollow pipes; on one side the winds were howling in the mountain caves, and on another the bees were buzzing on the clustering flowers. 10. The Apsaras were singing in concert on the mountain tops, and the wild beasts were growling in the forests; there the birds were chirping in the groves, and the clouds were roaring on the peaks of mountains, while the birds of the air crying and flying about the sky.

11. The vidyádharas rested in the mountain grottos, and the black bees were humming on the lotus beds; the border lands resounded with the chorus of Keratás, and the woodlands were resonant with the melodies of singing birds. 12. It appeared as the abode of the triple world, having the seats of the gods on its top, the residence of men at its foot, and the holes of snakes under its bottom. 13. There were the siddhas dwelling in its caverns, and precious metals lying hid in its bosom; its sandal woods were the resort of snakes, and its peaks were the haunts of lions. 14. It was crowned with wreaths of flowers hanging on high over its head; and its body was besmeared with the dust and pollen of flowers; it was fanned by the fragrant breeze of flowers, and was all flowery with the fallen flowers. 15. It was daubed with the grey dust of its metallic ores, and stood on its footstool of precious stones; it was often resorted to by heavenly damsels, frequenting its bowers to cull the Mandára flowers.

16. Its peaks were veiled by the blue mantle of clouds, and decorated with the gems hidden under them; they appeared as beauties beaming with the golden beams of the sun, and rising to meet their loving gods in heaven. 17. There was a table land on the northern edge of that mountain, which was overhung by trees loaded with bunches of fruits, and also a gemming lake, formed by the waters of cataracts falling from high. 18. The ground was strewn over with florets scattered by the waving stalks of amra trees; and its borders were decorated with the blossoming kolkara and punnaga plants, shining as cerulean lotuses about a lake. 19. The sun beams were shut out by the embowering alcoves of creepers, and the ground sparkled with its gems like the floor of heaven; the Jambu fruits distilled their juice like the cooling moon beams, and all these made this spot as delightful as the moon light sky. 20. It was as delightful as the heaven of Brahmá and the celestial seat of Siva; and here the sage Atri held his hermitage which blotted away the austerities of Siddhas. 21. In this hermitage there dwelt two hermits, both of whom were as wise and knowing as Vrihaspati and Sukra—the preceptors of gods and demigods.

22. They were both as of one flesh and soul, and brought forth in time two boys, like two buds of lotuses growing in the same bed, and having their bodies as pure as the limpid lake from which they sprang. 23. They were named Bhása and Vilása, who grew up in time like two orchids, upon the branching arms of their parents. 24. They had one soul and mind in two bodies, which were united to one another as those of two loving brothers, and intimate friends. They remained in mutual union like the oil and seeds of sesamum, and as the flower and its fragrance. 25. The fond parents were much more mutually attached in their hearts and minds, owing to their joint care and affection for their lads, and seemed as they were the one and same person in two different bodies. 26. The two boys of graceful forms, remained also pleased with one another in the same hermitage; and moved about as two bees, over the same bed of lotuses in the same lake. 27. They attained their youth after passing their boyhood and shone forth in a short time, as the two luminaries of the sun and moon rising together.

28. The aged parents then left their infirm bodies, and went to heaven like a pair of birds quitting their broken nest. (Nest is in sanskrit nidas, Lat. nidus. Plato compares the departing soul, to the flight of a bird from its nest.) 29. The demise of the parents made the youths as dejected as the drooping lotus in a dried-up channel; and the vigour of their bodies now gave way to their want of energy. 30. They discharged the funeral rites, and remained long in their mourning; under the sad accidents of life, which are unavertible even by the good and great. 31. After performance of the obsequies, they were so overpowered by their grief and sorrow, that they continued to wail over their memory with piteous cries and tears. They sat silent and inactive as pictures in a painting, with their melancholy countenances and hearts heavy with sobs and sighs.

THE TRANSITORINESS OF LIFE AND EVANESCENCE OF WORLD BY THINGS. Argument. Speech of Bhása, on the vain sorrows and griefs of unenlightened Minds. Vasishtha continued:—The two sorrowful hermits continued in the observance of their rigorous austerities, until their bodies where emaciated as two withered trees in the forest. 2. They passed their time with cool apathy in their minds in the solitary forest; and were as helpless as stray stags separated from each other, and wandering afar from their home and possessions. 3. They passed their days and nights, and months and years in this manner; until both of them were worn out by age, like two withered trees in a valley (having nobody to take notice of them). 4. Not attaining to true knowledge, their austerities served only to shatter their frames, and reduce their strength; till at last they happened to meet one another, and betook to their conversation in the following manner. 5. Vilása said:—O Bhása, that art the best fruit of the tree of my life, that hast thy seat in the recess of my heart, and art a sea of ambrosia to me, I welcome thee, O my best friend in this world.

6. Tell me my good friend, how and where you passed so long a time, after your separation from me; and whether your austerities have been successful to be rewarded with their fruit. 7. Tell me whether thy mind is freed from anxieties, and whether thou art in possession of thy self (i.e. self-possessed by knowledge of thy soul). Say, hast thou obtained the reward of thy learning, and hast thou after all, got thy peace and quiet. 8. Being thus addressed and asked by Vilása, whose mind was troubled amidst the vexations of this world; Bhása who had attained to consummate knowledge, replied to him as respectfully as a friend doth to his dearest friend. 9. Bhása replied:—O good friend! you are fortunately and happily met here this day; but how can we expect to have our peace and rest so long as we have to remain in this world of strife and vale of misery. 10. How can I have my rest so long, as the turbulent passions are not subdued in my breast; and until I can know the knowable (the unknown one that is only worth knowing); and till I can get across this sea of the world.

11. How can we have our quiet, as long as our desires and hopes and fears continue to infest in our minds; and until we can weed them out, like thorns and brambles of bushes, with the spade of our reason. 12. Until we can gain true knowledge, and have the evenness of our minds; and until we can have a full knowledge of things, we can have no rest in us. 13. Without the knowledge of the soul and acquisition of true knowledge, which is the greatest remedy against all diseases of the mind, it is impossible to escape from the pestilence of the world. 14. The poisonous plant of worldliness, sprouts forth in our childhood; it shoots out in its leaves in our youth, it flowers in our old age, and never fructifies before our death. (We live to long after the fruit best never to earn it). 15. The body decays as a withered tree, and our relatives flutter as bees over it; old age overtakes us with its blossoming grey hairs, and produces the fruit of death.

16. We have to reap the bitter fruits of our actions of bygone times, which are laid up in store, and fructify in their seasons; and thus years upon years glide upon us, in the same monotonous rotation of business, and the sad tenor of our minds. 17. This tall body of ours, rising as a thief on the ground, has all its inner cells and caves, filled with the thorns of our cravings; it is the abode of the serpentine train of our actions, emitting the poison of continuous woe in our repeated transmigrations in new bodies. 18. See how our days and nights are rolling on, in their circuit of continued misery and misfortune, which are misconstrued by men for transient joy and good fortune. 19. See how our lives are spent, in useless pursuits after objects of our vain wishes; and how we misspend our time with trifles, that are of no good to us. 20. The furious elephant of the ungoverned mind, breaks loose from its fetters of good sense; and then joining with the elephants of wild desire, ranges at large without rest or sleep.

21. The bawling tongue sets on screaming, as a vulture in the hollow of the tree of human body; and fosters itself by feeding on the gems of thought (chintámani), lying hidden in it. (The talkative fool is no thoughtful man). 22. The slackened limbs of the old and withered body, drop down like the dry leaves of trees; and there is nothing to prop up the drooping spirit, from its decay and decline day by day. 23. The brightness of the body flies away in old age, and the mind dejected at the disregard of every body, becomes as pale and withered, as the lotus flower fades away under the frost. 24. As the channel of the body dries up in old age, and the water of youth is drained out of it; so the swan of life flies away far from it, and there is nothing to retard its flight. 25. The old and time worn tree of the aged body, is overpowered by the force of the blasts of time; which blast its leaves and flowers (like human hopes) below, and then buries them all underneath the ground. (So says the Persian poet: Ai basá haus ke báz mandá, oai basá arzu ke khák shuda).

26. As the serpent of desire lies dormant in the heart, (for want of overtaking its prey in old age); it is content like the croaking frog, to hold its complaints in the mouth; and the mind like a monster, hides itself in the pool of dark despondence. 27. Our desires with their various wishes, are as the variegated flags of temples, furling and fluttering in all directions, till they are hurled down by the hurricane old age. 28. The world is a long linked chain, lying in the depth of eternity; wherein the rat of death is always busy in gnawing down the knot of life at the root. 29. The stream of life glides muddily on, with the foam and froth of cares and anxieties; there are the whirlpools of repeated transmigrations, and the waves of youthful levities, which are as boisterous as they are dangerous. 30. The stream of our actions on earth, flows on interminably, with the billows of our worldly duties, and the various arts of life, all leading to the abyss of perdition. 31. The current of our friends and relations, and the concourse of people, glide on incessantly to the deep and boundless ocean of eternity; from whose bourne no body ever returns to life.

32. The body is a valuable instrument, for the discharge of our worldly duties; but it is soon lost under the mud of this ocean of the world, and no body knows where it is buried in its repeated births. 33. The mind is bound to the wheel of its anxieties, and put to the rack for its misleads; it revolves all along as a straw, in the eddy of this ocean of the world. 34. The mind dances and floats, over the waves of the endless duties of life; it has not a moment’s respite from its thoughts, but continues to oscillate with the action of the body, and rise and fall according to the course of events. 35. The mind like a bewildered bird, flutters between its various thoughts, of what it has done, what it is doing and what it is about to do; and is thus caught in the trap of its own fancies for evermore.

36. The thoughts that this one is my friend, and the other one is my foe, are our greatest enemies in this world; and these tear my heart strings like the rough wind, that tears the tender lotus leaves and fibres. (It is wrong to take one for a friend or foe whom we do not know, and with whom we have no concern). 37. The mind is overwhelmed in the whirlpool of its cares; it is sometimes hurled down to the bottom, and at others floating upon and loosened from it like a living fish caught by angling hook. 38. The belief of the external body for the internal self, is the cause of all our woe herein; and so the taking of others as our own is equally for our misery. 39. All mankind placed between their weal and woe in life, are swept away to age and death; as the leaves of trees growing on high hills, are scattered by the high winds of heaven.

ABANDONMENT OF INTRINSIC RELATIONS. Argument. Refutation of the Intimate Relation of the Body and Soul. This relation is the Bondage and its abandonment the Release of the soul. Vasishtha continued:—Having thus accosted and welcomed each other, the two brothers applied themselves to the acquisition of divine knowledge; and gained thereby their liberation in the living state (of Jívan mukta). 2. I will now tell, O strong armed Ráma! that there is no salvation for the enslaved mind, without true knowledge of Divinity. 3. Know, O Ráma of polished understanding! that this world of endless woes, is as easily traversed by the intelligent, as the wide ocean is crossed over by the bird of Jove, though it is impossible for any other bird to do so. 4. The great soul is without and lies beyond the body: it is situated in its own intellect, and looks on the body from a distance, as a beholder beholds a concourse of people (without him). 5. The body being pulled down by decay and disease, does not affect us any more, than the coach being broken, there is no injury done to the rider.

6. The mind also when it is depressed and dejected, does not affect the understanding, as the moving waves which ruffle the surface of the sea, do not perturb the waters of the deep. 7. What relation do the swans bear to the waters of the lake, and what relativity is there between the pebbles and stones of the sea and its waters; so the blocks of wood borne by the current are no way related to the waters of the stream; and in the like manner no object of sense has any relation with the supreme soul. 8. Tell me, O fortunate Ráma! what correlation is there between a rock and the sea? The rock verily puts no obstruction to the internal current of the sea; so none of these worlds can stop the course of the Divine Mind (as there is nothing which can bind the subtle and immeasurable sky). 9. What relation do the lotuses bear upon the waters of a stream, than that of their being contained in the bosom of their containing waters: so are all solid bodies related as contents with the all containing Divine soul.

10. As the concussion of a log with a body of waters, is attended with the effusion of watery particles around; so the contact of the body and soul, is productive of the various affections of the mind. 11. As the contiguity of a bordering tree, produces its shadow in the waters below; so the proximity of all objects to the soul, reflects their images in the mind. 12. As the reflexions of things in a mirror or watery glass, and in the swelling waves of the sea, are neither real nor unreal; so the reflexions in the soul, are neither substantial nor unsubstantial, (but adscititious and extrinsic only). 13. As the breaking of a tree or rock by the howling winds, does not affect the wind at all; so the union or separation of the elemental substance, and component parts of a body, makes no alteration in the soul. 14. As the falling of a tree in the water, produces a vibratory sound in it; so the contact of the body and soul, produces a vibration in the intellectual organs (the recipients of all impressions).

15. But these impressions have no relation either with the pure and simple soul, nor with the gross body (neither of which is concerned with them). All these are but the delusions of our erroneous knowledge, at the absence of which we have the transparent intellect only. 16. As one has no notion of the manner of connection, between the wood and the water (which nourishes it); so no body has any knowledge, how the body is united with the soul. 17. As the world appears a reality to the non-intelligent, so it appears a substantial entity, to those who are ignorant of truth. 18. They that are devoid of their internal percipience of moisture in wood and stone, resemble the worldly minded materialist, having the knowledge of external objects only. 19. As those devoid of their intuitive knowledge, find no difference in the wood and water; so they believe the body and the soul to be the same thing, and do not know their irrelation and unconnection with one another. 20. As the relation of wood and water, is imperceptible to them that have no intellection; so are they unacquainted with the irrelation between the soul and body, owing to their want of intuition.

21. The soul is purely conscious of itself in all places, and without any objective knowledge of anything at all; nor is it liable to the erroneous knowledge of a duality also. 22. The bliss of the soul is converted to misery, by its false apprehension of unrealities; as when one comes in sight of an apparition, by his false imagination of a ghost. 23. Things quite irrelevant become relevant, by our internal conviction of their relevancy; as our sight and apprehension of thieves in our dreams, and the appearance of a demoniac spectre in a block of wood. 24. As the relation between the wood and water is altogether unreal; so the correlation between the soul and body, is wholly false and unsubstantial. 25. As the water is not troubled, without the falling of the tree into it; so the soul is not disturbed, without its thoughts of the body: and the soul freed from its connection with the body, is free from all the maladies and miseries, which the flesh is heir to. 26. The misconception of the body as the soul, makes the soul subject to all the imperfections and infirmities of the body; as the limpid water of the lake is soiled, by the leaves and twigs, that are seen to float upon it.

27. Absence of the intrinsic relation of external things with the internal soul, liberates it from all the casualties in the course of things; but the presence of extraneous associations, makes the internal soul as turbid water, by reason of the mess of the leaves and foul things and fruit and flowers, continually falling upon it. 28. The soul freed from its innate knowledge of the objective, is wholly absolved from misery; while the knowledge of its connection with the body, senses and the mind, is the mainspring of all its woes. 29. The internal connection of the externals, is the seed of all the evils of men in this world, and brings forth all the pain and sorrow and errors of mankind. 30. The man that is internally connected with the externals, sinks deep under the load of his connexions in the depth of this earth, but he who is aloof from his internal relations, floats above the surface of this sea, and rises aloft in air as an aerial being. 31. The mind with its internal bearings, is as an arbor with the hundred ramifications; but the mind with its wants of internal relations, is said to have faded and grown extinct.

32. The mind unattached to the world is as a pure crystal, without any shade of colour in it; but the mind that is attached to the world, is as a prismatic glass with all the colours of the rainbow. 33. The unattached and untinged mind is said to be set at liberty, though it is set at work in the world; but the mind which though it is attached to the world, is said to be unattached, if it is thoughtless of it, though it is practiced to austerities. 34. The mind attached to the world, is said to be bound to it; but that which is detached from it, is said to be set free from it. It is the internal attachment and detachment of the mind, that are the causes of its bondage and liberation. 35. The unworldly minded persons, are not tied down to the earth by their worldly actions; it remains aloof from all its actions, as a floating vessel remains aloft of the sweet and salt waters of the lake beneath it. (The spiritual man is above his bodily actions).

36. It is the tendency of the mind, that makes a man master of an action, which he has not actually done; as the delusion of the mind in dreaming, makes one feel the pleasure and pain of his pleasing and unpleasing dreams. (It is the mind and mental action, that differentiate the rational man from the body and bodily actions of an irrational beast, brute or bird). 37. The activity of the mind gives activity to the body also, as the action of the mind in dreaming, gives motion to the inert body of the sleeping man (as in somnambulism and the somniloquy). 38. Inactivity of the mind, causes the inaction of the body; and though it should act by its physical force, yet the insane mind is not sensible of the action (nor is an idiot or madman responsible for his deeds).

39. Man gets the retribution of his actions done with his mind; and not of those that pass beyond his knowledge. The inert body is never the cause of an action, nor the mind is ever joined with the living body, as an automaton or self-moving machine, or like a clock or watch, the spring of whose action lies in itself. But the body requires the action of the mind, to put that animal force into motion. 40. The mind unattending to an action of the body, is never considered as its agent (as it is never said to be the agent of breathing, which is a spontaneous action of the living body). No reward of any action ever accrues to one, that is not engaged in the doing of that action. 41. The man not intentionally employed in the sacrifice of a horse or slaughter of a Bráhman, neither reaps the good of the one, nor incurs the guilt of the other; and so the minds of distracted lovers are never aware of the results of their own deeds. (The killing of a Bráhman with the idea of his being an aggressor, does not amount to Bráhmicide; and so the acts of the lovelorn Indráhalyá and Vikramorvasi, are taken into no account).

42. One free from his intrinsic relation (or interest) with anything, is most agreeable to all by his elevated demeanour; and whether he acts and neglects his part, he remains indifferent and neutral to both. (It is the deliberate choice, and not the unheeded action that constitutes the deed). 43. No agency is attached to the man whose action is involuntary, and whose mind is released from its internal attachment to anything. It is the unconcerned indifference of the mind, that is attended with its composure; while its careful concern for anything whatsoever, is fraught with its vexation only. 44. Therefore, avoid your internal concern for anything, that thou knowest to be but externally related to thee; and release thyself from the mortification of the loss to all external relations. 45. The mind being cleared of the foulness of its internal relation with the externals, acquires the pellucidness of the cloudless firmament; and after clearance of all dirt and dross from within, the mind becomes one with the soul; like a bright gem shining with double effulgence with the lustre of a luminary, or like a blue streamlet, receiving the cerulean hue of the azure sky.

INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS. Argument. The Relativity of the body or mind, either externally or internally with any object, is the cause of its woe and misery. Ráma said:—Tell me, sir, what are those connexions which become the bondages of men, and how are they to be avoided; as also what is that congeniality that leads to their emancipation here. 2. Vasishtha answered:—The division of Unity into the duality of the body and soul (whose body nature is, and God the Soul); and the rejection of the latter part—the soul (under the idea of its being assimilated to body); produce the misbelief in the body only, and is called the association of bondage (i.e., binding the soul to the body, and subjecting it thereby to repeated transmigrations in various embodied forms, from which it can never fly away to its etherial element). 3. Again the consideration of the infinite soul as a finite being, and confined in the limited confines of the body (under the impression of its being seated in the heart, and becoming extinct with it) leads to the bondage of the soul (to sensual gratifications).

4. But the conviction “that this whole cosmos is the self-same soul, and therefore we have nothing to choose or reject in it beside the very soul”, is termed the unrelated condition of the mind, which is settled in the supreme-self only, and this state is known under the title of living liberation jívanmukti (which has its connexion with naught, but with one’s self only, which is the universal soul of all). 5. The unattached and self-liberated man thus speaks in himself that:—“Neither do I exist nor are these others in existence: let aught of good or evil, pleasure or pain befal unto me, but I am not to be changed in any condition of life.” 6. He is said to be the unattracted or undistracted and self-devoted (stoic); who neither fosters his desires, nor hankers after things, nor continues in his actions at all times of his life. 7. The self-devoted man, whose mind is not subject to the feelings of joy and sorrow, and is indifferent to worldly matters (whether good or bad), is verily said to be liberated in his lifetime.

8. He whose mind is not solicitous about the results of his actions, but takes them lightly as they come to pass upon him; such a man is said to be listless and lukewarm in his mind (that sets no worth on any worldly thing). 9. All our efforts impelled by various motives, are avoided by our indifference to those pursuits; and this unconcernedness about worldly matters, is productive of our greatest good (in this world and in the next). 10. It is by reason of our concern with many things, that we load innumerable distresses upon ourselves; and all worldly cares serve only to multiply the growing ills of life, like the branching thorny bushes in the caves. 11. It is the effect of worldly attachment, which drives silly men to labour under their heavy burdens; as the dastardly donkeys are dragged by their nose-strings, to trudge and drudge under their loads, in their long and lonesome journeys. (It is on the part of the earthly minded, to toil and moil in the earth, from whence they rose, and whither they must return).

12. It is one’s attachment to his home and country, that makes him stand like an immovable tree on the spot; and endure all the rigours of heat and cold, of winds and rains without shrinking (or thinking to change his place for a happier region). 13. See the reptiles confined in the caves of earth, with their weak bodies and tortuous movements; to be the instances of earthly attachment, and passing their time in pain and agony, and in a state of continual helplessness. 14. See the poor birds resting on the tops of trees, and whining their while with cries of their empty stomachs, and constant fear (of hunters), as instances of worldly attachment (which prevents them from flying away). 15. Observe the timorous fawn of the lawn, grazing on the tender blades of grass, and dreading the darts of the huntsman, to serve as another instance of earthly leaning. 16. The transformation of men to worms and insects in their repeated transmigrations; and the congregation of all these animals of all kinds in all places, are but instances of their earthly fondness (ever to abide in it, and bide all its miseries).

17. The multitudes of animal beings, that you see to rise and fall like the waves of the sea, are all the effects of their worldly attachment. 18. The selfmoving man becomes immovable, and turns to the state of fixed trees and plants; and thus grows and dies by turns, in consequence of his worldly propensities. 19. The grass, the shrubs and the creepers, which grow on earth from the moisture of the earth; are all products of the cause of their addictedness to the world. 20. These endless trains of beings, that are borne away in this running stream of the world, and are buffeting in their ever-increasing difficulties, are all the sports of their earthly inclinations. 21. Worldly affections are of two kinds—the praiseworthy and the fruitless ones; those of the wise and learned men, belong to the former kind; but the tendencies of the ignorant, are of the latter or unfruitful kind. 22. Any tendency to this world, which springs from the base bodily and mental affections, and does not proceed from or bears its relation with spiritual motives and purposes, are said to be quite fruitless (of any good result).

23. But that tendency, which has its origin in spiritual knowledge, and in true and right discrimination, and bears no relation to anything that is of this world, but leads to one’s future and spiritual welfare, is the truely laudable one (because the desire to rise higher tends to make one a higher being). 24. The god holding the emblems of the conch-shell, his discus and the club, had various inclinations of this better kind, whereby he became the support of the three worlds (the god Vishnu). 25. It is by means of this good tendency, that the glorious sun makes his daily course, in the unsupported path of heaven for ever more. 26. The god Brahmá, that now shines in his fiery form, had for a whole kalpa age, to foster his project of creation; and it was owing to this laudable purpose of his, that he became the creator of the world. (The world was not made in a day, but took many ages for its formation).

27. It was because of this kind of praiseworthy purpose, that the god Siva acquired his bipartite body of the androgyne, graced by the female form of Umá, linked with his as its other half. (In Siva-Isha; we have the androgynous form of Adam-Ish or man, and in Umá that of Eve or woman, linked together before their separation. God made woman out of man and from a rib of his on the left side). 28. The Siddhas and other heavenly and aerial beings, and the regents of the skies, that move in their spiritual spheres of intelligence, have all attained their high positions by means of their laudable tendencies. 29. They bear their bodies of heavenly growth (i.e. of a celestial nature); and have set themselves beyond the reach of disease, decay and death, by means of their praiseworthy inclinations. 30. The fruitless desire, expects to derive pleasure from unworthy objects, and causes the mind to pounce like a vulture on a bit of flesh (that will not fill its gizzard). 31. It is the force of habit, that makes the winds to blow in their wonted course, and causes the five elements to continue in their usual states, in support of the order of nature.

32. This Sansakti constitutes the constitution of the system of nature; which is composed of the heavens, earth and infernal regions; peopled by gods, men, demons &c., who are like gnats fluttering about the fruit of the mundane fig tree. 33. Here are seen numberless orders of beings; to be born and rise and fall and die away; like the ceaseless waves of the sea; rising for falling. 34. The results of worldly leanings rise and fall by turns, until they disappear all at once. They are as bitter as the drops of waterfalls are to taste. 35. It is mere worldliness, which makes these crowds of men devour one another like sharks and fishes; and they are so infatuated by their ignorance, that they have been flying about like stray leaves of trees in the air. 36. It is this which makes men rove about, like revolving stars in their courses in the sky; and flutter about as flights of gnats upon fig trees; or to lie low like the whirling waters of eddies underneath the ground.

37. Men are tossed as the play balls of boys, by the hands of fate and death; and are worn out like these toys, by their incessant rise and fall and rolling upon the ground; yet these worrying wanderings, do not abate the force of their habitual motion, as the repeated waste and wane of the ever-changing moon, makes no change in the blackish spot marked upon her disk. 38. The mind is hardened by seeing the miseries of the repeated revolutions of ages, resembling the rotations of fragments of wood in whirlpools; and yet the gods will not deign to heal the stiff boil of the mind, by any operation in their power. 39. Behold, O Ráma! this wonderful frame of the universe, to be the production of the desire of the divine Mind only. (i.e. The divine will of creation, is the cause of this world, as the human wish of seeing it, presents its view to his sight). 40. It is the pleasure of association, that presents this view of the triple world, in the empty sphere of the mind; for know the wondrous world to be a creation of the mind only, and nothing in reality. (The pleasure of association, means the pleasure of memory or reminiscence).

41. The avarice of worldly men eats up their bodies, as the flame of fire feeds upon dry fuel. (i.e. In order to feed the body, we become the food of our toils). 42. Yet the bodies of worldly minded men, are as countless as the sands of the sea; and these again are as unnumbered as the atoms of earth which nobody can count. 43. It may be possible to count the hoary foams of Gangá, and the pearly froths of sea waves; it is likewise possible to measure the height of mount Meru, from its foot to the top and its peaks; but not so to number the desires in the minds of worldly minded men. 44. These rows of inner apartments, which are built for the abode of the worldly minded, are as the lines of Kála Sutra and the spires of hell-fire. 45. Know these worldly men to be as dry fuel, heaped up to light the piles of hell-fire. 46. Know all things in this world, to be full of pain and misery; and are stored up not for enjoyment but torments of the worldly minded. 47. The minds of all worldly men are the receptacles of all woe and misery; as the great sea is the recess of the outpourings of all rivers.

48. The mind which is attached to the world, and the body which is bent down under its toilsome loads; are both of them the fields for the exercise of Ignorance, which elevates and depresses them by turns. 49. Want of attachment to worldly enjoyments, is productive of ease and prosperity; and it expands the capacity of the mind, as the rains increase the extent of rivers. 50. Inward attachment of the mind to worldly objects, is the burning flame of the outer body; but want of this internal attachment, is the healing balm of the whole frame. 51. Inward attachment burns the outward body, as the hidden poisonous plant infects the creepers, which recline on it for their support. 52. The mind which is unattached to everything in all places, is like the lofty sky aloof from all things; and by having no desire in it, it is always clear and bright, and enjoys its felicity for ever. 53. As the light of knowledge rises before the sight of the mind, the darkness of ignorance which veiled all objects, wastes away of itself and is put to flight. The man who is devoid of all sorts of worldly attachments, and lives in communion with his own mind, is truly liberated in his life.

FREEDOM FROM ATTACHMENT—THE ROAD TO TRANQUILLITY. Argument. Abstraction of the mind from the external, and its Application to Intellectual objects. Vasishtha continued:—Though remaining in all company, and doing all the duties of life; and although employed in all the acts; yet the wise man watches the movements of his mind. 2. It is not to be engaged in cares of this world, nor employed in thoughts or things relating to this life; It is not to be fixed in the sky above or the earth below; nor let to wander about over the objects on all sides. 3. It must not roam over the extensive field of outward enjoyments, nor dwell on the objects and actions of the senses. It must not look internally, nor be fixed to the breathing, the palate and crown of the head. (Which are certain modes of Yoga practice). 4. It must not be attached to the eye brows, the tip of the nose, the mouth or the pupil of the eye; nor should it look into the light or darkness, or into the cavity of the heart.

5. It must not think of its waking or dreaming states, nor those of its sound sleep or internal clearness of sight; nor should it take any colour as white, red, black or yellow for the object of its thought or sight. 6. It must not be fixed on any moving or unmoving substance, nor set in the beginning, middle or end of any object. It must not take a distant or adjacent object either before or inside itself. 7. It must not reflect on any tangible or audible object, nor on the states of felicity and insensibility. It must not think of the fleetness or fastness nor the measurement of time, by the measure and number of its thoughts. 8. Let it rest on the intellect only, with a slight intelligence of itself; and taste of no joy except that of its self-delight. 9. Being in this state of mind, and devoid of all attachment to any thing, the living man becomes as a dead body; when he is at liberty to pursue his worldly callings or not.

10. The living being that is attached to the thought of itself, is said to be doing and acting though it refrains from doing anything; and it is then as free from the consequence of acts, as the sky is free from the shade of the clouds that hang below it. 11. Or it may forsake its intelligential part (i.e. forget its intelligence), and become one with the mass of the Intellect itself. The living soul thus becomes calm and quiet in itself and shines with as serene a light, as a bright gem in the mine or quarry. 12. The soul being thus extinct in itself, is said to rise in the sphere of the Intellect; and the animal soul continuing in its acts with an unwilling mind, is not subjected to the results of the actions in its embodied state.

PERFECT BLISS OF LIVING LIBERATION. Argument. Living Liberation and its constituents or Jívan mukti. Vasishtha continued:—Men whose souls are expanded and contented with the delight of their habitual unattachment to worldliness; have set themselves above the reach of internal sorrow and fear, notwithstanding their engagement in worldly affairs. 2. And though overtaken by inward sorrow (owing to some temporal loss); yet their countenances are unchanged owing to the uninterrupted train of their meditation; and the fulness of their hearts with holy delight, is manifest in the moonlike lustre of their faces. 3. He whose mind is freed from the feverishness of the world, by his reliance in the intellect, and remaining apart from the objects of intellection; throws a lustre over his associates, as the clearing kata fruit, purifies the water wherein it is put. 4. The wiseman, though he may be moving about in busy affairs, is yet ever quiet in the abstraction of his soul from them. He may be assailed by outward sorrow, yet his inward soul shines as an image of the sun. 5. Men of great souls, who are awakened and enlightened by knowledge, and raised high above the rest of mankind, are wavering on their outside as a peacock’s feather (i.e., as a weather cock); but inwardly they are as firm as mountainous rocks.

6. The mind being subjected to the soul, is no more susceptible of the feelings of pain and pleasure, than as a piece of painted glass, to receive the shadow of any other colour, (or an opaque stone to reflect any colour). 7. The man of elevated mind, who has known the nature of superior and inferior souls (i.e., the divine and human spirits); is not affected by the sight of the visibles, any more than the lotus leaf, by the hue of its encompassing waters. 8. It is impossible to evade the impressions of the outer world, until and unless the mind is strengthened in itself. It becomes strong by its knowledge of the Supreme Spirit, removing the foulness of its fancied objects, and by meditation and enjoyment of the light of the soul, even when the mind is not in its meditative mood. 9. It is by means of Spiritual communion and internal rapture, that the mind loses its attachments; and it is only by knowledge of the soul and in no other way, that our worldly associations wear out of themselves.

10. The waking soul may deem itself to be in sound sleep, by its sleeping over (or insensibility of) the outer world; as it may likewise deem itself to be ever awake and never asleep, by its sight of the unfading light of the soul; and by preservation of its equanimity and equality in all circumstances, and its want of duality and differentiation of the objects of its love and hatred. 11. Being ripe in its practice of yoga meditation, it sees in itself the pure light of the sun; until at last it finds its own and the supreme soul, shining as the sun and moon in conjunction. 12. The mind losing its mental powers, and remaining vacant as in the case of distraction or dementedness; is said to be in its waking sleepiness, when its faculty in imagination is at an utter stop. 13. The man having attained to this state susupta hypnotism, may live to discharge the duties of his life; but he will not be liable to be dragged about by the rope of his weal or woe, to one side or the other.

14. Whatever actions are done by the waking man, in his hypnotic state in this world, they do not recur to him with their good or evil results, anymore than a dancing puppet, to have the sense of any pleasure or pain in it. (The want of egoism in a man as in a doll, is the cause of his impassivity in either state) (of waking or sleep). 15. The mind possesses the pains-giving power, of giving us the perception of our pain and pleasure, and the sense of our want and bitter sorrow; but when the mind is assimilated with the soul, how can it have the power of annoying us anymore? 16. The man in the hypnotic state of his mind, does his works as insensibly as he did them in his sleep; and by reason of no exertion on his part, for his doing them from his former and habitual practice. The living soul that is insensible of its actions, is said to rest in his state of living liberation.

17. Do you rely in this state of hypnotism, and either perform or refrain from your actions as you may like: for our actions are no more than what arise of our nature, and pass for the results of the deeds of our past lives, and are enacted by ordinances of eternal laws. 18. The wise man is neither pleased with the acts of charity or penury; he is delighted with his knowledge of the soul, and lives content with whatever may fall to his lot. 19. All that you do with your mind, by remaining as still as in your sleep, is reckoned as no doing of yours; and though doing nothing with your body, you are the doer thereof if you do it with your mind. Do therefore your acts with your body or mind as you may like. 20. As the baby lying in the cradle, moves its limbs to no other purpose than its mere pleasure; so Ráma, do your duties for pleasure’s sake (as a labour of love), and not for reward. 21. Whoever has his mind fixed in his intellect, and not in any object of intellection, and remains dormant in his waking state; is said to be master of his soul, and all he does is reckoned as no deed of his doing.

22. The wiseman (Gno or Gnostic), who obtains the state of hypnotism—Susupta, and has his mind free from desires; gets a calm coolness within himself, which is equal to the cooling moisture of the humid moon. 23. The man of great valour, remains coolly dormant in himself, and is as full as the orb of the moon in the fulness of her digits; and has the evenness of his mind, like the steadiness of a hill at all times and seasons. 24. The man of the sedate soul, is pliable in his outer conduct, though he is inflexible in his mind. He resembles a mountain, which waves its trees with the breeze, without shaking or being shook by it. 25. The hypnotism of the mind purifies the body of all its impurity; and it is the same whether such a person perishes sooner or later, or lasts forever as a rock. (Because its purity is its strong shield, against the power and torments of life and death). 26. This state of hypnotism, being acquired by constant practice of Yoga, gets its maturity and perfections in process of time; when it is called the turíya or fourth stage of the adept, by the learned in divine knowledge.

27. He becomes the most exalted gnostic, whose mind is cleared of all its impurity; and whose inward soul is full of joy, with its mental powers all quiet and at rest. 28. In this state, the gnostic is in full rapture, and quite giddy with inward delight. He looks upon the whole creation as an exhibition of play and pageantry. 29. After the man who has attained his fourth stage, when he is freed from sorrow and fear, and has passed beyond the errors and troubles of this world; he has no fear of falling from this state. 30. The man of sedate understanding, who has attained this holy state, laughs to scorn and spurn at the whirling orb of the earth; as one sitting on a high hill, derides at the objects lying below it. 31. After one has obtained his everlasting position, in this firmly fixed fourth state of blissfulness; he becomes joyless for want of a higher state of felicity to desire. 32. The yogi having past his fourth stage, reaches to a state of ineffable joy, which has no part nor degree in it, and is absolute liberation in itself.

33. The man of great soul, is released from the snare of the metempsychoses of his soul, and of his repeated birth and death, and is freed from the darkness of his pride and egoism; he is transformed to an essence of supreme ecstasy and pure flavour, and becomes as a mass of sea salt, amidst the waters of the deep.

A DISCOURSE ON THE BODY, MIND AND SOUL. Argument. Consideration of the Soul in its Various lights, and its Irrelation with the body. Vasishtha continued:—The consideration of the fourth stage, is attended with the knowledge of monoity or oneness of all; and this is the province of the living liberated man according to the dicta of the veda. (Consideration or parámarsha is defined as a logical antecedent or knowledge of a general principle, combined with the knowledge that the case in question is one to which it is applicable; as the smoke of the hill is attended by fire, is a logical antecedent. In plain words it means, that the Turíya yoga, presupposes the knowledge of unity or onliness of the one self-existent Kaivalya or monism). 2. Rising above this to the turyality or hyperquartan state, in which one sees nothing but an inane vacuity. This is the state of disembodied spirits, that are lost in infinity, and of whom the sástras can say nothing. (i.e. The embodied or living soul has knowledge of its personality, up to the fourth stage of its elevation; but the disembodied or departed soul, that is liberated after death, and becomes (Videha mukta), grows as impersonal as the undistinguishable vacuum).

3. This state of quiet rest, lies afar from the farthest object; and is attained by those who are liberated of their bodies; just as the aerial path is found only by aerial beings. (The spheres of spirits are unknown to embodied beings). 4. After a man has forgotten the existence of the world, for sometime in his state of sound sleep; he gains the fourth state of turíya, which is full of felicity and rapture. 5. The manner in which the spiritualists have come to know the superquartan state, should also be followed by you, O Ráma, in order to understand that unparalleled state of felicity which attends upon it. 6. Remain, O Ráma, in your state of hypnotism—Susupta, and continue in your course of worldly duties even in that state; so as your mind like the moon in painting may not be subject to its waning phases, nor be seized by any alarm (like the threatening eclipses of the moon). 7. Do not think that the waste or stability of your body, can affect the state of your intellect; because the body bears no relation with the mind, and is but an erroneous conception of the brain.

8. Although the body is nothing, yet it must not be destroyed by any means; because you gain nothing by destroying it, nor lose anything by its firmness; but remain in the continuance of your duties, and leave the body to go on in its own wonted course. 9. You have known the truth—that God presides over the world; you have understood the Divine nature in all its three-fold states; you have attained your true state of spirituality, and are freed from your worldly sorrows. 10. You have got rid of your liking and disliking what you desire or despise, and are graced with the cooling light of your reason; you have got out of the dark cloud of prejudice, and have become as graceful as the autumnal sky with the lustre of the full moon (of your intellect) shining over it. 11. Your mind has got its self-possession, and does not lower itself to meaner things; it has become as perfect as those, that are accomplished in their devotion (namely in the observance of yoga and its austerities), so that you would not deign to stoop to earth from that higher sphere.

12. This is the region of the pure and uniform intellect, having no bounds to it, nor are there the false landmarks of “I, and thou, this and that, mine and thine” and such like errors. 13. This Divine Intellect is attributed with the imaginary title of Átmá (atmos or self) for general use; or else there is no occasion of the distinction of names and forms, with that being who is quite distinct from all. 14. As the sea is a vast body of water, with its waves of the same element, and no way different from it; so is all this plenum composed of the pure soul, and this earth and water are no other than itself. 15. As you see nothing in the ocean, except the vast body of water; so you find nothing in the sphere of the universe, except the one universal soul. 16. Say O ye intelligent man, what is it to which you apply the terms yourself, itself and the like; what is it that you call yourself and to belong to you, and what is that other which is not yourself, nor belongs to you.

17. There being no duality beside the only soul, there can be no material body at all; nor is there any relation between this and that, than there is between the light of the sun and the gloom of night. 18. Supposing the existence of a duality, yet I will tell you, O Ráma, that the existence of material bodies, bears no relation with the spiritual soul. 19. As light and shade and darkness and sunshine, bear no relation to one another; so the embodied soul has no connection with the body (in which it is thought to reside). 20. As the two contraries—cold and hot can never combine together, so the body and soul can never join with one another. 21. As the two opposites can have no relation between them, so is it with the body and soul, the one being dull matter, and the other an intelligent principle. 22. The dictum of the connection of the body with the pure intellect of the soul is as improbable as the subsistence of a sea in a conflagration (i.e., the impossibility of the meeting of water and wild fire). 23. The sight of truth, removes every false appearance; as the knowledge of light in the sandy desert, displaces the mirage of the ocean in the sun-beams.

24. The intellectual soul is immortal and undecaying, and perfectly pure and shining by itself; while the body is perishable and impure, and cannot therefore be related with the spirit. 25. The body is moved by the vital breath, and is fattened by solid aliments; and cannot therefore be related with the self-moving soul, which is without its increase or decrease. 26. The duality of the body (or matter) being acknowledged, does not prove its relation with the soul; and the dualism of material bodies being disproved, the theory of its relativity, falls at once to the ground. 27. Knowing thus the essence of the soul, you must rely on its subjective in-being within yourself; and then you will be free both from your bondage and liberation, in all places and at all times. 28. Believe all nature to be quiet and full of its quiescent soul; and let this be your firm belief, in whatever you see within and without yourself. 29. The thoughts that I am happy or miserable, or wise or ignorant, proceed from our false (or comparative view of things); and you will always remain miserable, as long as you continue to believe in the substantiality of outward things.

30. As there lies the wide difference, between a rock and a heap of hay; and between a silk-pod and a stone; the same applies in the comparison of the pure soul and the gross body. 31. As light and darkness bear no relation nor comparison between themselves, such is the case also, O Ráma! between the body and soul, which are quite different from one another. 32. As we never hear of the union of cold and hot even in story, nor of the junction of light and darkness in any place; such is the want of union between the soul and body, which are never joined together. 33. All bodies are moved by the air, and the human body moves to and fro by its breath; it is sonant by means of its breath, and the machinery of its wind pipes. 34. The human body utters its articulate sounds, combined with the letters of the alphabet; and by means of its internal breathings. Its mechanism is the same as that of sounding bambu pipe. 35. So it is the internal air, which moves the pupils, the eyelids; it is the same air that gives motion to the limbs of the body; but it is the intellect which moves the soul, and gives movement to its consciousness.

36. The soul is present in all places, whether in heaven above or in the worlds beneath; and its image is seen in the mind as its mirror. 37. You will have some notion of the soul in your mind by thinking that it flies like a bird from the cage of its body, and wanders about at random, being led by its desires and fancies. 38. As the knowledge of the flower, is accompanied with that of its odour; so the knowledge of the soul is inseparable from that of the mind (which is as it were, the odour of the soul). 39. As the all pervading sky, is partly seen in a mirror; so the omnipresent soul, is partially seen in the mirror of the mind. 40. As water seeks the lowest level for its reservoir; so it is the mind, which the soul makes the receptacle of its knowledge. (i.e. The soul receives and deposits all its knowledge from and in the mind). 41. The knowledge of the reality or unreality of the world, which is reflected upon the internal organ of the mind; is all the working of the conscious soul, as light is the production of solar rays.

42. This internal organ (of the mind), is regarded as the actual cause of all (under the title of Hiranyagarbha); while the soul which is the prime cause of causes, is regarded as no cause at all, owing to its transcendent nature (and this called the supreme Brahma; (or the soul), that remains intact from all causality). 43. Men of great minds, have given the appellation of fallacy, misjudgement and ignorance to this internal or causal mind; which is the source of the creation of worlds. (But all of these, are mere fabrications of the imaginative mind). 44. It is error and want of full investigation; that make us mistake the mind for a distinct entity; it is the seed of all our ignorance, which casts us in darkness from the sunlight of reason. 45. It is by means of the true knowledge of the soul, Ráma! that the mind becomes a nihility, as the darkness becomes a zero before the light of the lamp. 46. It is ignorance (of true knowledge), that mistakes the mind for the cause of creation, and recognizes it under its various denominations; such as of jíva (zeus) or the living soul, the internal organ, the mind, the thinking principle and the thought (as they are stated in the Utpatti prakarana of this work).

47. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, why are so many different appellations, heaped upon the only one thing of the mind, and deliver me from the confusion, which is caused by them in my mind. 48. Vasishtha answered:—All these are but the various modes of the single substance of the soul, whose intellect displays these modalities; as the same substance of water, displays itself into the variety of its waves. 49. The soul is a fluctuating principle, which inheres in all its modifications; as the fluidity of water, is inherent in the undulatory waves of the sea. 50. The supreme soul is sometimes without its vibration, and remains stationary in all immovable things; as the water which presents its fluidity in the loose billows, shows also its inelasticity in the liquids which are at rest (as in water pots and bottles). 51. Hence the stones and other immovable substances, remain at rest with their inherent spirit; but men and all animated nature, are as the foaming froths of the distilled liquor of the universal soul. 52. The almighty power resides in all bodies, with the inertia of his spirit; which is known as the insensibility, dullness or ignorance of inert bodies.

53. The infinite soul being involved in that ignorance, takes the name of the living or animal soul; which is confined as an elephant, in the prison house of the delusion of this world. 54. It is called jíva or living from its animation, and also as the ego from its egoism; it is termed the understanding from its power of discernment, and as the mind from its will or volition. 55. It is called dull nature from its natural dullness, and also as body from its being embodied with many elementary principles; it is inert in its natural state, and sensible also from the essence of the soul imbrued in it. 56. The spiritual substance which lies between the inert and active principles, is called the mind; and it passes under various designations, according to its different faculties and functions. 57. This is the quiddity of the animating soul jíva, as given in the Brihadáranyaka and other upanishads; and there are many other definitions of it to be found, in the other works of Vedánta. 58. But the unvedántic paralogists, have invented many other words over and above these, to designate the animal soul; and have thereby misled the ignorant to false beliefs, tending to their bewilderment only.

59. Know thus, O long armed Ráma! this animating soul to be the cause of creation, and not the dull and dumb body, which has not the power of moving itself, without being moved by some spiritual force. 60. It happens many times, that the destruction (or ablation) of either the container or contained, causes the annihilation of both; so it is the case with the receptacle of the body and its content the soul, that the removal of the one leads to the dissolution of both. (But this means their decomposition and not their destruction, as neither of these is destroyed at once). 61. The moisture of a leaf when dried, is neither wasted nor lost in air; but subducted from it to reside in the rays of the all sucking sun. 62. So the body being wasted, there is no waste of the embodied soul; which is borne to live in banishment from its former abode, and reside in the region of empty air or in the reservoir of the universal spirit. 63. He who falls into the error of thinking himself as lost at the loss of his body, is like a baby, which is snatched away by a fairy from the breast of its mother.

64. He who is thought to have his utter extinction, is said to rise again (by the resurrection of his soul); it is the abeyance of the mind which is called utter extinction and liberation of the soul. 65. A person being dead, is said to be lost—nashta; but this is entirely false and untrue; as one who being long absent from his country returns to it again; so the dead man revisits the earth, in his repeated transmigrations. 66. Here men are borne away like straws and sticks by the current of death, to the vast ocean of eternity; and having disappeared as fruits from their nature, soil and season, appear in others and in other scenes. 67. Living beings bounden to their desires, are led from one body to another in endless succession; as monkeys quit the decayed trees of the forest, in search of others elsewhere. 68. They leave them again when they are worn out, and repair to others at distant times and climes. 69. Living beings are hourly seen to be moving about, and led away by their insatiate desires from place to place; as restless infants are rocked and carried by their cunning nurses.

70. Bound by the rope of desire, to the decayed trees of their infirm bodies, men are seen to drag their lives of labour, in search of their livings in this valley of misery. 71. Men though grown old and decrepit and loaded with misery, and though they are shattered in their bodies at the last stage of their life; are still dragged about by the inborn desires of their hearts, to be cast into hell pits (both while alive and after their death). 72. Válmíki said:—As the sage had said thus far, the sun sank down and bade the day to observe its evening rites. The assembly broke with mutual salutations, and all of them proceeded to their evening ablutions, until they met again after dispersion of the gloom of night, by the rising rays of the orient sun.

A LECTURE ON THE NATURE OF LIBERATION. Argument. The subjection of the material body to sorrow and misery. Vasishtha continued:—You are not born with the birth of your body, nor are you dead with its death. You are the immaculate spirit in your soul, and your body is nobody to you. 2. The analogy of the plum on a plate, and of vacuum in the pot, which is adduced to prove the loss of the one upon loss of the other, is a false paralogy; since neither the plum nor the vacuum is lost, by the breaking of the plate or pot. (So the soul is not lost at the dissolution of its containing body). 3. Whoever having a body, thinks that he will perish with his perishable frame, and is sorry for it; is verily blinded in his mind, and is to be pitied for his mental blindness. (So said the Grecian philosopher, “it is no wonder that the mortal should die, and the fragile would be broken”).

4. As there is no sympathy between the reins of a horse, and the riding chariot; so there is no relation between the organs of the body and the intellect. (This is in refutation of the argument, that the motion of a part affects the whole, as the shaking of the leaves and branches of a tree shaketh the trunk also; whereas the motion of body, makes no effect on the intellect). 5. As there is no mutual relationship, between the mud and clear water of a tank; so O Rághava! there is no correlation between the members of the body and the soul. 6. As the traveller retains no love nor sorrow for the path he has passed over, and the journey he has made already; so the soul bears no affection nor disaffection, towards the body with which it sojourned and which it has left behind. (Though some departed ghosts, are said to hover over their dead bodies). 7. As the imaginary ghost and fairy, strike fear and love in some persons; so the ideal world inspires pleasure and pain, in the mind of the idealist.

8. It is the assemblage of the five elementary bodies, that has framed all these different forms of beings in the world; as it is the same wood, whereof various images are carved and made. 9. As you see nothing but the woody substance in all timbers, so you find nothing except the assemblage of the five elements in all tangible bodies (all of which are subject to change and dissolution.) 10. Why therefore, O Ráma! should you rejoice or regret at anything, seeing that the quintuple elements are wont to have their own course, in joining and disjoining themselves, in the formation and dissolution of bodies? 11. Why should one be so fond of female forms, and the forms of all other beautiful things on earth? seeing that men run after them like flies, and then falling in fire only to consume themselves. (i.e. All goodly forms in the world, being for the delusion of men, we should avoid to look upon them). 12. Good features and goodly shapes and figures, are delightsome to the ignorant; but to the wise they present their real figures of the combination of the five elements and no more.

13. Two statues hewn from the same stone, and two figures carved of the self-same wood, bear no affection to one another, however they may be placed near to each other; so it is the case with the body and mind. (This sloka is also applied to the want of fraternal affection, between brothers born of the same parents). 14. As dolls made of clay and placed together in a basket, form no friendship by their long association with one another; so the understanding, the organs of sense, the soul and mind, though so closely united in the same body, bear no relation with one another. 15. The marble statues though so fair and closely kept in a mansion house, contract no acquaintance nor friendship with one another; so the organs of sense, the life, the soul and mind, though they are so sensible ones, and reside in the same body, have yet no alliance with one another. 16. As things growing apart from one another, come to be joined together for an instant by some accident, like the reeds and rushes borne by the waves of the sea; so are all beings, as men and their bodily senses and mind and the soul, brought to meet together for a time only, in order to be separated for ever.

17. As reeds and rushes are joined in heaps, and again separated from one another by the current of the river; so the course of time joins the elements, the mind and soul in gross bodies, for their separation only. 18. The soul in the form of the mind, unites the component parts of the body together; as the sea in the form of its eddies, rolls the reeds and rushes with its whirling waters up and down. 19. The soul being awakened to its knowledge of itself, relinquishes its knowledge of objects, and becomes purely subjective in itself; as the water by its own motion, throws away its dirt and becomes as pure as crystal. 20. The soul being released of its objective knowledge of the world, looks upon its own body, as celestial deities look upon this speck of earth below the region of air (i.e. without concern). 21. Seeing the elemental particles quite unconnected with the soul, it becomes disembodied as a pure spirit, and then shines forth in full brightness, like the blazing sun at mid-day.

22. It then comes to itself by itself, as it were without any check or bounds set to it; and being then set free from the giddiness of the objective, it sees itself subjectively in its own consciousness (as an immeasurable and boundless space). 23. It is the soul which agitates the world, rising of its own essence; as the agitation of the particles of water, raises the waves raging all over the wide extent of the sea. (The soul is the source and spring of the motion of all bodies). 24. Thus the dispassionate and sinless men of great understanding, who have obtained their self-liberation in this life, move about as freely, as the waves in the great ocean of the all-comprehending soul. 25. As the waves move freely in the sea, and pour the gems and pearls which they bear over distant shores; so the best of men rove everywhere free of all desire, but enriching mankind with the treasure of their knowledge. 26. As the sea is not soiled by the floating woods it carries from the shore, nor the face of the sky by the flying dust of the earth; so men of great minds and souls, are not perverted by their conduct with the world. (Or, worldly conduct).

27. Those that are masters of themselves, are not moved to love or hatred, in their behaviour with their comers or goers; or with those that are steady or fickle in their friendship, and with such as are vicious and ignorant. 28. Because they know, that whatever passes in the mind relating to worldly matters; are all its vagaries and reveries of thought, which are but airy nothing. 29. The knowledge of one’s self and of other things, belonging to the past, present and future times; and the relation of the visibles with the sense of vision, are all the workings of the mind. 30. The visibles depending upon sight only, may be false from the fallacy or deception of our vision; and our vision of them likening an apparition in darkness, it is in vain that we are glad or sorry at their sight or disappearance. 31. What is unreal is always unreal (and can never be a reality); and what is real is ever the same (and can never be an unreality); but that which is real and unreal at the same or different times, must be a false appearance, and not deserving our rejoicing or sorrowing at their presence or absence.

32. Refrain from a partial (i.e. superficial or onesided) view of things, and employ yourself to the full (or comprehensive) knowledge of objects; and know that the learned man of vast knowledge, never falls into the erroneous conceptions of things. 33. I have fully expounded the relation of the visibles and their vision, and shown the spiritual pleasure which is derivable from the contemplation, of the abstract relation subsisting between them. 34. The abstract meditation of things is said to be a divine attribute (or Platonism of the mind); and our consciousness of the relations of vision and visibles, afford the highest delight to the soul. 35. The consideration of the relation of the visibles and vision, affords the physical delight of knowing the material world to the ignorant; and it gives also the spiritual joy of liberation to the wise (by their contemplation of the vanity of all worldly things). 36. Hence the attachment of our mind to the visibles, is called its bondage; and its detachment from them, is said to be its freedom; the former is pleasant to the sensuous body, and the latter is delightsome to the conscious soul.

37. The mind having the notions of the relations of things before it, and freed from the thoughts of its loss and gain in this world, is said to enjoy its freedom. 38. Abstaining from the sight of the visibles, constitutes the hypnotic vision of the soul, which is enlarged and illumined by its inward vision within itself. 39. Release from the bondage of the visibles, and restraining the mind to its inward workings, constitute its turíya or fourth stage of perfection, which is also termed its liberation. 40. The knowledge of the relations of the visibles in the conscious soul, neither makes it stout or lean, nor more manifest nor obscure in its nature. 41. It is neither intelligent nor inert, nor a being nor not being; it is neither the ego nor nonego, nor an unit nor many in one. 42. It is not near nor even far from us, nor is it an entity nor non-entity either; it is neither within nor without our reach; it is in all yet not the all and nothing at all. न त्द्दूरे न तदन्तिके ।

43. It is none of the categories nor no category, nor is it the quintuple elements nor composed of any one of them; it is not the well known mind, which is reckoned as the sixth organ of sense. 44. That which is beyond all things, is nothing at all of this world; but it is something as it is known and seen in the hearts of the wise. 45. All the world is full of the soul, and there is nothing which is without and beyond it. It is in all that is solid or soft or liquid, and in all motions which proceed from it. 46. The soul is all in all things, which are composed of the five elements of earth, water, air, fire and vacuum; and there is nothing, O Ráma! that has its existence without the essence of the soul. 47. This single soul is diffused in all the worlds and throughout all the parts of space and time, there is no fragment of anything without the soul; therefore keep thy mind fixed in the universal soul, if thou wilt have a great soul in thee.

INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE OF THE SOUL. Argument. Two kinds of Ego, the one commendable and another Reprehensible Egoism; the abandonment of which is tantamount to Liberation. Vasishtha continued:—It is by reasoning in this manner, and renouncing the knowledge of duality, that the gnostic comes to know the nature of his soul; as the gods know the Divine nature which is the gem of their meditation—Chintámani. 2. Now hear about this surpassing sight, which is the soul or in-being of all visible beings; and by sight of which you will have the keen sightedness of the gods, to get into the sight of the Divinity. 3. Think yourself as the light of sun, and vacuum with all its ten sides and the upper and lower regions of space; and that your soul is the soul of gods and demigods, and the light of all luminous bodies. 4. Know yourself as darkness and the clouds, the earth and seas; and the air and fire and dust of the earth, and as the whole world, to be combined in thee.

5. That you are everywhere in all the three worlds together with the soul abiding in them; and that you are no other than the unity itself; nor is there any duality of any body, apart from the unity which pervades the whole. 6. Being certain of this truth, you will see the innumerable worlds situated in thy internal soul; and by this means you will escape from being subjected to, or overcome by the joys and sorrows of life. 7. Say, O lotus-eyed Ráma! how can you call one as connected with or separate from you, when you know the whole world together with yourself, to be contained in the all-containing universal soul. 8. Say, do the wise live beside that being, that they should give way to joy or grief, which are the two phases of the universal soul? (The unwise who think themselves other than the one, may be affected by such changes). 9. There are two kinds of egoisms growing out of the knowledge of truth, and both of these are good and pure in their natures, and productive of spirituality and liberation of men.