Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

17. It is perfumed with the fragrance of flowers flying in the air, and is the uterine brother of all sounds which proceed from the womb of vacuum (which is the common source of wind and sound). It runs in the blood and humours, within the veins and arteries of bodies; and is the mover of the limbs of persons. 18. It dwells within the hearts of human bodies as their life, and is the soul and sole cause of all their vital functions. It is ever on its wing, and being ubiquitous throughout the world, it is acquainted with the secrets of all the works of Brahmá. 19. It is the plunderer of the rich treasure of odours, and the supporter of etherial cities; it is the destroyer of heat and darkness as the moon, and this air is the milky ocean, that produces the fair and cooling moon. 20. It forms the islands (by undulation of waves and collection of sands); and is the preserver of the machine of animal bodies, by means of its conducting the vital airs. 21. It is ever present before us, and yet invisible in itself, like an imaginary palace; or as oil in the pods of palm trees, or fetters on the legs of infuriate elephants.

22. It blows away in a moment, all the mountains at the end of the world; it marks the waves with their curls, and collects the sands of rivers (to large beaches and coasts). 23. It is false in appearance, as water in a cloud of smoke, or a whirlpool in it; it is as invisible as the streams above the firmament, and the lotuses growing in the lakes of the blue etherial sky. 24. It is covered with bits of rotten grass, in its form of the gusts of wind; it opens the lotus blossoms by its gentle breeze, and showers down the rains in its form of sounding blasts. 25. Its body is as a wind instrument at home, and as an elephant in the forest of the sky; it is a friend to the dust of the earth, and a wooer of flowers in woods and gardens. 26. It is ever busy in its several acts, of congealing and drying, of upholding and moving, and of cooling the body and carrying the perfumes; and is incessantly employed in these six fold functions to the end of the world.

27. It is as fleet as light, and adroit in extracting juices as the absorbent heat; and is ever employed in the acts of contraction and distension of the limbs of bodies, at the will of every body. 28. It passes unobstructed through the avenues, of every part of the city of the body; and by its circulation in the heart, and distribution of the bile and chyle through blood vessels, it preserves the functions of life. 29. It is expert in repairing the losses, of the great citadel of the living body; by removing its excrements and replacing its gastric juices (i.e. the six humours of the body), and the formation of its blood and fat, and the flesh, bones, and skin. 30. I looked through every particle of the body, by means of the circulating air; as I viewed every part of the universe by means of the circumambient air; and it is by means of my vital airs, that I conduct this body of mine. 31. The winds bear innumerable particles on their back, as if they were so many worlds in the air, while in fact there is nothing borne by them, when there is naught but an utter negative vacuity every where.

32. I viewed all bodies including those of the gods, as those of Hari and Brahmá, and the Gandharvas and Vidyádharas; and I saw the bright sun and moon, of fire and Indra and others. 33. I saw the seas and oceans, the islands and mountains, stretching as far as the visible horizon; I beheld also the other worlds, and the natures and actions of their inhabitants. 34. I saw the heaven and earth and the infernal regions also, and marked their peoples and their lives and deaths likewise. 35. So I beheld various kinds of beings, composed of the five elements; and traversed in the form of air, throughout all parts of the universe, as a bee enters the foliage of a lotus flower. 36. In my aerial form, I passed through the bodies of all corporeal beings, which are composed of earth, water, air and fire; I sucked the juice of all animal bodies, and drank the moisture of trees drawn by their roots. 37. I passed over all cold and solid bodies, and the liquid paste of sandal wood; I rested in the cool lunar disk, and lulled myself on beds of snows and ice.

38. I have tasted the sweets of all season fruits and flowers in the arbours of every part of this earth; I have drunk my fill in the flower-cups of spring; and left the lees and leavings for the beverage of bees. 39. Then I rolled on the high and soft beds of clouds, which are spread out in the wide fields of the firmament; and I slept on soft and downy wings of clouds, as in a place bedded by heaps of butter. 40. I reposed on the petals of flowers, and on the green leaves of trees; and rested on the soft bodies of heavenly nymphs, without any concupiscence on my part. 41. I played with the blossoms of lilies and lotuses, in their beds and bushes; and I joined with the cackling geese and swans in their pleasure lakes. 42. I moved with the course of streams, and with the rippling waters of lakes and rills; and I bore the orb of the earth on my back, and carried about me all her mountains, as hairs upon my body. 43. The wide extending hills and mountains, the lengthening rills falling from them, together with all the seas and oceans, are all as pictures represented in the mirror of my body.

44. All the terrestrials and celestials, that live and move at large upon my body; appear to be moving and flying about me as lice and flies. 45. It is by my favor, that the sun receives the various colours with which he shines; and which he diffuses to the leaves of trees, in the sundry hues of red and black, of white, yellow and green. 46. The earth is situated with the seven seas, surrounding the seven great islands (continents); as so many wristlets are encircled about the wrists of men. 47. I was delighted at the sight of the celestial nymphs, also, as I see with gladness myself within. 48. The earth with its rivers of pure water and its solid hills and rocks, were as the veins and blood, and flesh and bones of my body. 49. I beheld innumerable elephantine clouds, and countless suns and moons in the starry frame on the sky; as I see the flights of gnats and flies in the vacuum of my mind. 50. In my minute form of the intellect, I held, O Ráma, the earth with its footstools of the nether regions upon my head (because the vacuous intellect is capable of containing and upholding all things).

51. I remained in my sole vacuous and spiritual state, in all places and things at all times, and as the free agent of myself; and yet without my connection with any thing whatsoever. 52. In this state of my spirituality, I had the knowledge of both the intellectual and material worlds; and of all finite and infinite, visible and invisible and formal as well as formless things. 53. I beheld in my own spirit, a thousand worlds and mountains and seas; and they appeared as carved statues and engravings in the vacuous tablet of my mind. 54. I bore in my spiritual body, many occult and visible worlds; and they showed themselves as clearly to my inmost soul, as if they were the reflexions of real objects in a mirror. 55. So I perceived the four elemental bodies of earth and air, and of fire and water, in my vacuous soul; in same manner as we see the delusive objects of our dream in the vacuity of our intellect. 56. I saw also in that state of my hypnotism, innumerable worlds rising before me in each particle of matter; as it appeared to fly before me in the hollow space of vacuum.

57. I beheld a world in every atom, which was flying in empty air; just as we see the many creations of our dreams, and the many creatures in those dreams. 58. I myself have become the orb of the earth, and the clusters of islands (as their pervading spirit (adhyásikátma); though my spirit never comes in contact with anything at all). 59. With my earthly body, I suck the rain water and the waters of the seas; in order to supply the moisture of the moisture of trees, on account of their producing the juicy fruits, for the food of living beings. 60. At the time of my coming to pure understanding, and the clair-voyance of my intellectual sight; I find the millions of worlds and all worldly things, disappearing from my view and all uniting in One sole unity. 61. This is a miracle of the intellect, and it strikes with wonder in ourselves; that the miracles of the inner mind, manifest themselves as external sights before our eyes. (i.e. The subjective appearing as the objective). 62. I felt it painful to think of the existence of nothing any where; but I found out the truth, that there is nothing in reality except one spiritual substance, which displays all these wonders in itself.

63. There is but One universal soul, which is the ever undecaying cause of all; and produces and lives through out the whole. (This is called the visva rúpa hypostasis of God, as it is expressed by the poet “These as they change, are but the varied God,” and the world is full of Him). And as my soul was awakened to knowledge, I saw this whole in the soul of Brahma. 64. Being awakened to the knowledge of the universal soul, as the all and every where, ubiquitous and all supporting; I became insensible of all objects, and was myself lost in the all subjective unity. 65. It is in the vacuous convexity of the pure divine spirit, that the continuous creations appear to rise in the intellect; but it is the extinction of these, which extinguishes the burning flame (of worldliness) in the mind, and exterminates the knowledge of all these ideal particulars, into that of One infinite and ever existent entity.

THE ADVENT AND PSALMODY OF A SIDDHA IN THE AERIAL ABODE OF VASISHTHA. Argument:—The appearance of the spirit of a siddha in the aerial cell of Vasishtha, and his heavenly canticle. Vasishtha continued:—As my mind was turned from the sight of phenomenals, and employed in the meditation of the only One; I found myself to be suddenly transported to my holy cell in the air. 2. There I lost the sight of my own body, and knew not where I was seated; when all of a sudden the sacred person of a siddha or aerial saint, appeared in view, and to be seated before me. 3. He sat in his mood of deep meditation, and was entranced in his thought of the supreme spirit; his appearance was as bright as the sun, and his person was as shining as the flaming fire. 4. He sat quiet and steadily in his posture of padmásana between his two knees and heels; and remained absorbed in meditation, having no motion of his body, nor any thought of anything in his mind. 5. His body was besmeared with ashes, and his head was borne erect upon his shoulders; he sat quiet and quite at ease, with his bright countenance and in sedate posture.

6. The palms of both his hands were lifted up, and were set open below his navel; and their brightness caused his lotiform heart to be as full-blown, as the sun-beam expands the lotuses in lakes. 7. His eyelids were closed, and his eyesight was as weak, as to view all the visibles in one light of whiteness, and they seemed to be as sleepy, as the closing petals of the lotus of the close of the day. 8. His mind was as calm in all its closets (i.e. thoughts), as the sides of the horizon in their stillness; and his soul was as unperturbed, as the serene sky freed from a tempest (calm after storm). 9. I who did not see my own person, could yet plainly perceive that of the saint thus placed before me; and then I reflected in my mind, with the perspicacity of my discernment. 10. I find this great and perfect siddha or saint in this solitary part of the firmament; and I believe him to be as absorbed in his meditation, as I am at my ease in this lonely spot.

11. It is very likely that this saint, being earnest in his desire of deep meditation, and finding this retired cell of mine most favourable to it, has called here of his own accord. 12. He thought I had cast off my mortal coil, and could not perceive by his deep attention that I had returned to it; so he threw away my dead body as he thought it, and made his residence in that cell of mine. 13. Seeing thus the loss of my body here, I thought of repairing to my own abode (in the constellation of Pleiades सप्तर्षि मण्डलं) and as I was attempting to proceed thereto, I resigned my attachment to my lone cell (which was now held by another). 14. This cell was dilapidated also in time, and there remained an empty void only in lieu of it; and the saint that had taken my place therein, lost his stay also for want of the cell, and fell downward in his meditative mood. 15. Thus that lonely cell was lost to me, together with the loss of my fond desire for it, just as a visionary and imaginary city vanishes with the dream and desire, which presented it to our view.

16. The meditative saint then fell down from it, as the rain falls down from the cloud; and as a spot of cloud is blown away to the winds in empty air, like the disc of the moon traversing in the sky. 17. He felt as a heavenly spirit falls to earth, after fruition of the reward of his meritorious acts; and as a tree falls headlong being uprooted from the ground, so he fell down upon the earth. 18. So when wish for stability of our dwelling, with the continuance of our lives; we see on a sudden the termination of both, as it happened to the falling Siddha. 19. Seeing the falling Siddha, I felt a kind concern for him; and in the flight of my mind, came down from heaven in my spiritual form, to that spot on earth where he had fallen. 20. He fell on the wings of the current air, which conveyed him whirling as in a whirlwind, beyond the limits of the seven continents and their seven fold oceans, to a place known as the land of gold and the paradise of the gods.

21. He fell from the sky in his very posture of padmásana as he had been sitting there before; and sat with his head and upper part of the body erect, owing to the ascension or upward motion of the prána and apána breaths that were inhaled by him. (The rising breath like the rope of a pitcher, keeps the body from sinking downward). 22. Though hurled from such height, and carried to such distance; yet he did not wake from the torpor of his samádhi—meditation, (to which he sat fixed and intent); but fell down insensible as a stone, and as lightly as a bale of cotton. 23. I was then much concerned for his sake, and from my great anxiety to waken him; I roared aloud like a cloud from my place in the sky, and showered a flood of rain-water also upon him. 24. I went on darting hail stones, and flashing as lightnings in order to waken him; and I succeeded to bring him to sense, as the clouds rouse the peacock in the rainy season. 25. His body flushed and his eyes opened, as a blooming blossom and full blown flowers; and the drizzling rains enlivened his soul, as the driving rain, gives the lotuses of lakes to bloom.

26. Finding him awake, and seated in my presence, I cast my complacent look upon him; and asked him very politely, about the prosperity of his spiritual concerns. 27. I said, tell me, O great sage, who you are, and where is your abode, and what to do; and how is it that you are so insensible of your state, notwithstanding your fall from so great a distance. (It is a pity that men are so insensible of the fall of their heavenly souls to this miserable earth). 28. Being addressed by me in this manner, he looked steadfastly upon me, and then remembering his visit at mine, he replied to me in a voice, as sweet as that of the chátaka—swallow to the sonorous clouds. 29. The sagely siddha said:—You sir, shall have to wait awhile until I can recollect myself and my former state; and then I will relate to you the latter incidents of my life. 30. So saying he fell to the recollection of his past incidents, and then having got them in his remembrance, he related the particulars to me without any reserve, and as if they were the occurrence of his present day.

31. He then spoke to me in a voice, as soft and cooling as the sandal paste and moonbeams; and the words were as blameless and well spoken, as they were pleased to my ears and ravishing of my soul. 32. The siddha said:—I now come to know you sir, and greet you with reverence; and beg you to pardon my intrusion upon you, as it is the nature of the good to forgive the faults of others. (Because to err is human, to forgive divine). 33. Know me, O sage, to have long enjoyed (in one of my former births), the sweets of the garden of paradise in the form of butterfly; as a bee sucks the honey of lotus-flowers in the lake. 34. I fluttered over a running stream, and found it swelling with sounding waves at pleasure; and then seeing it whirling with its horrid whirlpools, I began to reflect with sorrow in my mind (in the following manner). 35. Such is the sight of the troubles in this ocean of the world, which overwhelms me quite in sorrow and grief; and I have become like a parching and plaintive swallow, that wails aloud at a draught of rain water.

36. I find my chief delight to consist in intelligence, and perceive no pleasure in worldly enjoyments, therefore I must rely only in my intellectual speculations, and abide without any anxiety, in the unclouded sphere of my spiritual felicity. 37. I see there is no real pleasure here, but what is derived from our sensations of the sensible objects (of figure, sound, taste, touch and smell); I find no lasting delight in these, that I should depend on them. 38. All this is either the vacuity of the intellect, or representations of the intellect itself; when then should I be deluded with these false appearances, as a madman or one of a deluded mind is apt to do. 39. The sensibles are causes of our insensibility as poison, and women are deluders of men and provokers of their passions; all sweets are but gall, and all pleasures are only a sort of pleasing pain. 40. And this body which is subject to sickness and decay, with its mind as fickle as a shrimp fish, is hourly watched upon by inexorable death, as the old crane lurks after the skimming fish for his prey.

41. The frail body being subject to instant extinction, likens a bubble of water in the ocean of eternity; it resembles also the flame of lamp, which is put out in a moment, while it burns vividly before us. 42. What is the life any more than a stream of water, running between its two shores of birth and death; flowing on with the currents of passing joys and griefs, swelling with the waves of incidents, and whirling with the whirlpools of dangers and difficulties? 43. It is muddied with the pleasures of youth, and blanched with the hoary froths of old age; and emits but casually a few bursting bubbles of glee and gladness, which are afloat for and flitting in a moment. 44. It runs with the rapid torrent of custom, sounding with the hoarse noise of current opinions; it is overcast by the roaring clouds of envy and anger, and overflows the earth in its liquid form (of evanescent bodies). 45. The word stream of life, is as pleasing to hear and pleasant to the ear, as the term stream of water is soothing to the soul; but its waters are ever boiling with heat of tritápa, and abounding with whirlpools of illusion and avarice, that carry us up and down for ever more.

46. The course of the world is as that of the waters of a river, which bears away the present things on its back, and brings with its current, what was unforeseen and unexpected before. It is thus full with these events. 47. All that was present before us, is lost to and borne away from us, and it is in vain to repine at their loss; and whatever was never thought of before, come to pass upon us, but what reliance can there be in any one of them. 48. All the rivers on earth, have their waters continually passing away, and filling them by turns from their sources; but life which the water of the river of the body, being once gone, is never supplied to it from any source. 49. The vicissitudes of fortune, are incessantly turning like a potter’s wheel, over the destinies of people, and are entailing some person or other every moment, in this ocean of the world. 50. A thousand thieves and enemies of our estate, are constantly wandering about to rob us of our properties, and nothing avails whether we sleep or wake to ward them off.

51. The particles of our lives, are wasting and falling off every moment; and yet it is a wonder that, nobody is aware of the loss of the days of his life, as long as he has but a little while to live. 52. The present day is reckoned as ours, but it is as soon passed as the past ones; and thus ignorant of the flight of days, nobody knows the loss of the duration of his life, until he comes to meet with his death. 53. We have lived long to eat and drink, and to move about from place to place, and to rove in foreign lands and woods; we have felt and seen all sorts of weal and woe; say what more is there that we can expect to have for our share. 54. Having wellknown the pain and pleasure of grief and joy, and experienced their changes and the reverses of fortune, I am fully imprest with the idea of the transitoriness of all things, and therefore kept afar from seeking any thing. 55. I have enjoyed all enjoyments, and seen their transitoriness every where; and yet I found no satisfaction with or distaste to anything, nor felt my cool inappetency for them any where.

56. I wandered on the tops of high hills, and roved in the airy regions on the summits of the Meru mountains; I travelled to the cities of many a ruler of men, but met with nothing of any real good to me any where. 57. I saw the same woody trees, the same kind of earthly cities, and the same sort of fleshy animal bodies every where; I found them all frail and transitory, and full of pain and misery as never to be liked. 58. I saw no riches nor friends, no relatives nor enjoyments of life, were able to preserve any one from the clutches of death. 59. Man passes away as soon, as the rain-water glides down the mountain glades; and is carried away by the hand of death as quickly, as a heap of hollow ashes is blown away by the wind. 60. No enjoyment is desirable to me, nor has the gaudiness of prosperity any charm for me; when I find my life to be as transient, as the transitory glance from the side long look of an amorous woman.

61. How and where and whose help shall we seek, when O sage; we see a hundred evils and imminent death hanging every day over our heads. (i.e. Naught can save us from death and distress). 62. Our lives are as frail as falling leaves, upon the withered woods of our bodies; and the moisture which they used to derive from them, is soon dried up and exhausted at the end. 63. I passed my life in vain desires and expectations, and derived nothing therefrom, that is of any intrinsic good or profit to me. 64. My delusion is at last removed from me, and I see it useless to bear the burthen of my body here any longer; I find it better to place no reliance in it, than bemean ourselves by our dependence to it. 65. All prosperity is but adversity, owing to its transitory and illusive nature; therefore the wise accounting it as such, place no reliance on the vanities of this world. 66. Men are sometimes led by the directions of the sástras, and at other by their prohibitions also; as the movables are carried up and by the rising and falling waters (i.e. running in right or wrong directions).

67. The poisonous air of worldliness, contaminates the sweet odour of reason in the mind of man; and makes it noxious to the person, as the canker in the bosom of the bud, corrodes the future flowers. 68. The vanities of the world, are as usually taken for realities, as all other unrealities in nature are commonly taken for actualities. (The world is unreal, and all seeming realities are unreal also). 69. Men are moving about with their bodies upon earth, with as much haste as the rivers are running to the seas; thus the great mass of mankind here, are seen to be in pursuit of the sensible objects of their desire. 70. The desires of our hearts run to their objects, with as much speed as the arrow’s fly from the archer’s bow; but they never return to their seat in the heart or bow string, as our ungrateful friends that forsake us in our adversity. 71. Our friends are our enemies, as the blasts of wind that blow us away with their breath; all our relations are our bonds and fetters, and our riches are but causes of our poverty.

72. Our pleasures are (causes of) our pains, and prosperity the source of adversity; all enjoyments are sufferings (as leading to maladies), and all fondness tends at last to distaste and dislike. 73. All prosperity and adversity, tend only to our temporary joy and misery; and our life is but a prologue or prelude to our extinction or quietus (nirvána). All these are the display of our unavoidable delusion. 74. As time glides along on any man, shewing him the various sights of joy and misery; the poor creature lives only to see the loss of his friends, and to repine at his hapless and helpless longevity. 75. The enjoyment of pleasures, is as playing with the fangs of a deadly serpent; they kill you no sooner you touch them, and they disappear from your sight, whenever you look after them. 76. The life is spent without any attempt, to attain that perfect state, which is obtained without any pain or toil; while it is employed every day in hardships of acquiring the perishable trifling pleasures. 77. Men who are bound to their desire of carnal enjoyment, are exposed to shame and the contumely of the rich every moment; and are as wild elephants, tied with strong fetters at their feet.

78. Our fortunes and favourites, are not only as frail and fickle, as the transitory waves and bubbles; but they are as pernicious as the fangs of a snake; and who is there so silly enough, as to take his rest under the shadow of the hood of enraged serpent. 79. Granting the objects of desire to be pleasing, and the gifts of prosperity to be very charming; still what are they and this life also any more, than the fickle glances of a mistress’ eyes. 80. Those who enjoy the pleasures of the present time with so much zest; must come to feel them quite insipid at the end, and fall into the hell-pit at last. 81. I take no delight in riches, which are worshipped by the vulgar only; which are ever subject to disputes, earned with labour, kept with great care, and are yet as unstable as the winged winds in air. 82. Fortune which is so favorable for a while, turns to misfortune in a trice; she is very charming to her possessor, but is as fickle in her nature, as the fleeting flash of lightning.

83. Riches like flatterers, are very flattering at first and as long as they last; but they are as fleeting as those deceitful cheats, who mock at us upon their loss. 84. The blessings of health, wealth and youth, are as evanescent as the fleeting shadow of autumnal clouds; and the enjoyments of sensual pleasures, are pernicious at the end. 85. Say who has remained the same even among the great, to the end of his journey in this world, the lives of men are as fleeting, as the trickling dew drops at the end of the leaves of trees. 86. Our bodies are decaying in time, and our hairs are turning grey with age, and the teeth are falling off; thus all things are worn out in the world, except our desires, which know no decrease or decay. 87. The carnal enjoyments like wild beasts, come to decay in the forest of the body; but the poison plant of our desire which grows in it, is ever on its increase. 88. Our boyhood passes as quickly as our infancy, and our youth passes as soon as our boyish days; and here there is an equal transience, to be seen in both the comparison and the object compared with.

89. Life melts away as quickly, as the water oozes out of the hold of our palms; and like the current of a river, it never returns to its receptacle. 90. The body also passes away as hurriedly, as a hurricane sweeps in the air; and it vanishes even before our sight of it, like a wave or cloud, or as fast as the flame of a lamp. 91. I have found unpleasantness in what I thought to be very pleasant, and found the unsteadiness of what I believed to be steady; I have known the unreality of what I took to be real, and hence have I become distrustful and disgustful of the world. 92. The ease and rest that attend on the soul, upon the cool indifference of the mind; are never to be obtained in any enjoyment, that the upper or nether worlds, can ever afford to any body. 93. I find the pleasurable objects of my senses, are still alluring me to their trap, as a fruit and flower entices the foolish bee to fall upon them. 94. Now after the lapse of a long time, I am quite released from my selfish egoism; and my mind has become indifferent to the desire of future rewards and heavenly felicity.

95. I have long found my rest in my solitary bliss of vacuity, and have come here as thyself, and met with this etherial cell. (The aerial cell is a creation of the saint’s imagination). 96. I came to learn afterwards that this cell belonged to thee; but I never thought that thou shalt ever return to it. 97. I saw there a lifeless body, and thought it to be the frame of a siddha or holy saint, who having quitted his mortal coil, has become extinct in his nirvána. 98. This sir, is my narrative as I have related to you; and am seated here as I am, and you can do unto me as you may like. 99. Until a siddha sees all things in his mind, and considers them well in his clear judgment, he is incapable of seeing the past, present and future in his clairvoyance, even though he be as perfect as the nature of the lotus-born Brahmá himself.

DESCRIPTION OF A PISÁCHA, AND THE UNITY OF THE WORLD WITH BRAHMA. Argument:—Advent of Vasishtha and the saint to the region of Siddha and description of the people thereof. Vasishtha continued:—Now as we were at a spot of great extent (beyond the limit of the terraqueous); and as bright as the golden sphere of heaven, I spoke to the Siddha by way of friendship. 2. I said, it is true sir, what you said, that it is the want of due attention, which prevents our comprehensive knowledge of the present, past and future; but it is a defect not only of yours and mine, but of the minds of all mankind in general. 3. I say so from my right knowledge of the defects and fallibility of human nature, or else sir, you would not have to fall from your aerial seat. But pardon me, I am equally fallible also. 4. Rise therefore from this place, and let us repair to aerial abode of the Siddhas, where we were seated before; because one’s own seat is the most genial to man, and self-perfection is the best of all perfections.

5. So saying they both got up, and rose as high as the stars of heaven; and both directed their course in the same way, as an aeronaut, or a stone flung into the air. 6. We then took leave of each other with mutual salutations; and each went to the respective place which was desirable to either of us. 7. I have now related to you fully the whole of this story, whereby you may know, O Ráma, the wonderful occurrences that betide us in this everchangeful world. 8. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, how and with what form of body, thou didst rove about the regions of the Siddhas, when thy mortal frame was reduced to dust. 9. Vasishtha replied:—Ah! I remember it, and will tell you the particulars, how I wandered throughout these worldly abodes, until I arrived at the city of the Loka-pála deities, and joined with the hosts of Siddhas, traversing in the regions of midway sky. 10. I travelled in the regions of Indra or open firmament, without being seen by any body there; because I was then passing in my spiritual body, eversince I had lost my material frame-work.

11. I had then become, O Ráma, of an aerial form, in which there was neither a receptacle nor recipient, beside the nature of vacuous and intellectual soul. 12. I was then neither the subject or object of perception of persons like yourself, who dwell on sensible objects alone; nor did I make any reckoning of the distance of space or succession of time. (The spiritual yogi has no cognizance of gross material things, nor of the divisions of space and time, which are objects of sensation only). 13. The soul is busy with the thinking principle of the mind, apart from all material objects composed of earth &c.; and is as the meditative mind or ideal man, that meddles with no material substance. 14. It is not pressed nor confined by material things, but is always busy with its cognitions; and it deals with beings in the same manner, as men in sleep do with the objects of their dream (and others with their air-built cities).

15. Know Ráma, this doctrine of intellection by the simile of dreaming, to be quite irrefutable, although it is confuted by others (i.e. the Nyáya philosophers who deny the mental conceptions without previous perceptions); but they are not to be regarded as right. (Since the Veda says, the spirit of God created all from his mind, and not from its past perceptions). 16. As the sleeping man thinks himself to be walking and acting in his dream, without such actions of his being perceived by others (in the same room); so methought I walked before and beheld the aerials without their seeing me. 17. I beheld all other terrestrial bodies lying manifest before me, but nobody could observe me that was hid from their sight in my spiritual form. 18. Ráma asked:—Sir, if you were invisible to the Gods, owing to your bodiless or vacuous form; how then could you be seen by the Siddha in the Kanaka land, or see others without having eyes of your own?

19. Vasishtha replied:—We spiritual beings view all things by means of our inner knowledge of them; as other people behold the things they are desirous to see, and naught what they had not any desire for. (This desire is said to be satya-sankalpa, or a firm prepossession of any idea in the mind). 20. All men though possest of pure souls, do yet forget their spiritual nature, by their being too deeply engaged in worldly affairs and unspiritual matters. 21. As I had then wished that this person the Siddha, could have a sight of me; so it was according to the wish of mine, that I was observed by him; because every man obtains what he earnestly desires. 22. Men being slack in their purposes, become unsuccessful in their desires; but this person being staunch to his purpose, and never swerving from his pursuit, succeeded in gaining his desired object. 23. But when two persons are engaged in the same pursuit, or one of them is opposed to the views of the other; the attempt of the more arduous is crowned with success, and that of the weaker meets with its failure.

24. Then I travelled through aerial regions of the Lokapála regents of the sky, and passing by the celestial city of the Siddhas in my spiritual body; I beheld these people with manners quite different from my former habits. 25. I then began to observe their strange manners in the etherial space, and being unseen myself by any one there, I saw distinctly every body there, and their mode of life and dealings with amazement. 26. I called them aloud, but they neither heard nor gave heed to my voice; and they appeared to me as empty phantoms as the images of our dreams and visions. 27. I tried to lay hold on some of them, but noone could be grasped by my hands; and they evaded my touch, as the ideal images of the human mind. 28. Thus Ráma, I remained as a demoniac pisácha, in the abode of the holy Gods; and thought myself to be transformed to a pisácha spirit in the open air. 29. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, what kind of beings are pisáchas in this world, and what are their natures and forms, and what are their states and occupations also.

30. Vasishtha replied:—I will tell you, Ráma, what sort of beings the pisáchas are in this world; because it is unmannerly on the part of a preacher, not to answer to the interlocutory queries of the audience (though it be a digress from subject). 31. The Pisáchas are a sort of aerial beings, with subtile bodies of theirs (as we see the empty forms of persons in our dreams); they have their hands and feet and other members of the body as thine, and see all things as thou dost. 32. They sometimes assume the form of a shadow to terrify people, and at others enter into their minds in an aerial form, in order to mislead them to error and wicked purposes. (They like devils waylay unwary men, and tempt them to evil). 33. They kill persons, eat their marrow, and suck up the blood of weak bodied people; they lay a siege about the mind, and destroy the vitals and viscera and the strength and lives of men. 34. Some of them are of aerial forms, and some of the form of frost, others as visionary men, as seen in our dreams with airy forms of their bodies. (And they are at liberty to take upon themselves whatever forms they please).

35. Some of them are of the forms of clouds, and others of the nature of winds, some bear illusory bodies, but all of them are possessed of the mind and understanding. 36. They are not of tangible forms to be laid hold by us, or to lay hold on any one else; they are mere empty airy bodies, yet conscious of their own existence. 37. They are susceptible of feeling the pain and pleasure, occasioned by heat and cold; but they are incapable of the actions of eating, drinking, holding and supporting anything with their spiritual bodies. 38. They are possessed of desire, envy, fear, anger and avarice, and are liable to delusion and illusion also; and are capable of subjection by means of the spell of mantras, charm of drugs and of other rites and practices. 39. It is likewise possible for one at some time or other, to see and secure some one of them by means of incantations, captivating exorcisms and amulets and spirit in chanting invocations. 40. They are all the progeny of the fallen gods, and therefore some of them bear the forms of gods also; while some are of human forms, and others are as serpents and snakes in their appearance.

41. Some are likened to the forms of dogs and jackals, and some are found to inhabit in villages and woods; and there are many that reside in rivers, mud and mire and hell pits. 42. I have thus told you, all about the forms and residences and doings of pisáchas; hear me now relate to you concerning the origin and birth of these beings. 43. Know that there exists forever, an omnipotent power of its own nature; which is the unintelligible Intelligence itself, and known as Brahma the great. 44. Know this as the living soul, which being condensed becomes ego, and it is the condensation of egoism which makes the mind. 45. This divine Mind is styled Brahmá, which the vacuous form of the divine will; which is unsubstantial origin of this unreal world, which is as formless as the hollow mind. 46. So the mind exists as Brahma, whose form is that of the formless vacuum; it is the form of a person seen in our dream, which is an entity without its reality or formal body. 47. It was devoid of any earthly material or elemental form, and existed in an immaterial and spiritual form only; for how is it possible for the volitive principle, to have a material body subsisting in empty air?

48. Ráma, as you see the aerial city of your imagination in your mind, so doth the mind of Brahmá imagine itself as the Virinchi (vir incipience) or creator of the world. 49. Whatever one sees in his imagination, he considers it as true for the time; and whatever is the nature and capacity of any being, he knows all others to be of the same sort with himself? 50. Whatever the vacuous soul sees in its empty sphere, the same it knows as true, as the spirit of Brahma and the mind of Brahmá, exhibit this ideal world for reality. 51. Thus the contemplation of the present pageant of the world, as ever existent of itself at all times; strengthens the belief of its reality, as that protracted and romantic dream. 52. So the long meditation of Brahma, in his spiritual form of the creative power; presented to him the notions of multitudes of worlds, and varieties of creations, of which he became the creator. (So the original thought occurring in the mind of any one, confers on him the title of the originator of the same. So says Manu: “Brahmá after long meditation, produced the world from his intellect”).

53. The ideal then being perfected grew compact, and took a tangible form; which was afterwards called the world, with all the many varieties of which it is composed. 54. This Brahmá—the creative mind, was self-same with Brahma the supreme soul; and these two are ever identic with the uncreated soul and body of the universe. 55. These two (i.e. the great Brahma and Brahmá or the Divine spirit and mind), are always one and the same being, as the sky and its vacuity; and they ever abide together in unity, as the wind and its vacillation. 56. The Divine spirit views the phenomenal world, as a phantom and nothing real; just as you see the unreality of a figure of your imagination as real and substantial. 57. This Brahma then displayed himself (under the name of Virát), in the form of a material body, consisting of the quintuple elements of earth, water &c., as the five solid and liquid parts of his person. (This is the Hindu Trinity, composed of the soul, mind and material frame, as Pope the poet has expressed it in the words: “Whose body nature is, and God the souls”).

58. As this triple nature of the Deity, is no more than the variation of his will, so it represented itself as the one or other, in its thought only, and not in reality (the substance being but a conception of the mind). 59. Brahmá himself is vacuous intellect, and his will consists in the vacuity of the same; therefore the production and destruction of the world, resemble the rise and fall of figures in the dreaming state of the human mind. 60. As the divine mind of Brahmá is a reality, so its parts or contents are real also; and its acts or productions of the sun, moon and stars, as well as their rays—the Marichis are real also. 61. Thus the existence of the world and all its contents, is called the dominion of the mind; which is only an unsupported vacuum, like the vacuity of the supportless sky on high. 62. As a city seen in dream is inane, and a hill formed in imagination a mere void; so both Brahma and his world are as the transparent firmament, and having no shape or substance of them.

63. So the world is, but a reflexion of the divine intellect; it is ever existent and undecaying, and the belief of the beginning, middle and end of creation, is as false, as the sight of the ends and midspot of skies. 64. Say Ráma, whether you find any gross substance, to grow in the inane space of the mind of yours or mine or any other person; and if you find no such thing there, how can you suppose it to exist in the inanity of the Divine Intellect, and in the vacuity of the universe? 65. Then tell me why and whence the feelings and passions, such as anger and affection, hate and fear, take their rise; all which are of no good to any body, but rather pernicious to many. 66. In truth I tell thee that these are not created things, and yet they seem to rise and fall of themselves, like our wrong notions of the production and destruction of the world. These are but eternal ideas, and coeternal with the eternal mind of God. 67. The vast extent of infinite void, is full with the translucent water of Divine Intellect; but this being soiled by our imaginary conceits, produces the dirt of false realities.

68. The boundless space of the Divine Intellect, is replete with the vacuous spirit of God; which being the primary productive seed of all, hath produced these multitudes of worlds, scattered about and rolling as stones in the air. 69. There is really no field nor any seed, which is sown there in reality; nor is there any thing which is ever grown or produced therein, but whatever there is, is existent for ever the same; (and the rest is but fiction). 70. Now among the scattered seeds of souls, there were some that grew mature, and put forth in the forms of gods; and those that were of a bright appearance, became as intelligences and saints. 71. Those that were half mature, became as human beings and Nága races; and such as were put forth themselves in the forms of insects, worms and vegetables. 72. Those seeds which are bloated and choked, and become fruitless at the end; these produce the wicked Pisáchas, which are bodiless bodies of empty and aerial forms.

73. It is not that Virinchi (vir incipiens) or Brahmá, made them so of his own accord or will; but they became so according to the desire which they fostered in themselves in their prior existence (which caused their transformations or metamorphoses in the latter ones). (Because the lord is impartial, and makes <not> one more or less than another). 74. All existent beings are as inane, as the inanity of the Intellect in which they exist; and they have all their spiritual bodies, which are quite apart from the material forms in which you behold them. 75. It is by your long habit, that you have contracted the knowledge of their materiality; as it has become habitual with us to think ourselves as waking in our dreaming state. 76. It is in the same manner that all living bodies, are accustomed to think of their corporeality; and to live content with their frail and base earthly forms, as the Pisáchas are habituated to pass gladly in their ugly forms. 77. Some men look upon others and know them, as the village people know and deal with their fellow villagers as with themselves; but they resemble the people abiding together as seen in a dream.

78. Again some meet with many men, as in a city constructed in dream (or imagination); but are quite unacquainted with one another, owing to their distant abodes and different nationalities. (So are we unacquainted with the Pisácha race, in this crowded city of the world). 79. In this manner, there are many races of object beings of whom we are utterly ignorant; and such are the Pisáchas, Kumbhandas, Pretas, Yakshas and others. 80. As the waters upon earth, are collected in lowlands only; so do the Pisáchas and goblins dwell in dark places alone. 81. Should a dark Pisácha dwell at bright midday light, upon a sunny shore or open space; it darkens that spot with the gloominess of its appearance. 82. The sun even is not able, to dispel that darkness, nor can any one find out the place, where the dark demon makes his abode; on account of its delusiveness to evade human sight. 83. As the orbs of the sun and moon, and the furnace of burning fire, appear bright before our eyes; so on the contrary the abode of the Pisáchas, is ever obscured by impenetrable darkness, which no light can pierce.

84. The Pisáchas are naturally of a wonderful nature, that vanish like sparks of fire in daylight; and become enkindled in the dark. (The Pisáchas bear analogy to the sons of darkness or fallen angels in the black Tartarian regions). 85. Now Ráma, I have fully related to you about the origin and nature of the Pisácha race in the course of this dis-course; and then as I had become as one of them, in the regions of the regents of the celestials.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PERSON OF VASISHTHA. Argument:—The conduct of men that are firm in the resolution and the behaviour of Vasishtha in the etherial regions. Vasishtha continued:—I then having my inane intellectual body, which was quite free from the composition of the five elements; roved about in the air in the manner of a pisácha ghost (seeing all and seen by none). 2. I was not perceived by the sun and moon, nor by the gods Hari, Hara, Indra and others; and was quite invisible to the siddhas, gandharvas, Kinnaras and Apsaras of heaven. 3. I was astonished to think as any honest person, who is a stranger at the house of another; why the residents of the place did not perceive me, though I advanced towards them and called them to me. 4. I then thought in myself that, as these etherial beings are seekers of truth like ourselves; it is right they should observe me among them in their etherial abode. 5. They then began to look upon me standing before them, and felt astonished at my unthought appearance, as the spectators are startled at the sudden sight of a juggler’s trick or some magic show.

6. Then I managed myself as I ought in the house of the gods, I sat quiet in their presence, and addressed and accosted them without any fear. 7. Those who beheld me standing at the compound at first, and were unacquainted with the particulars (of my sagely character), thought me a mere earthly being, and known as Vasishtha by name. 8. When I was in sun light by the celestials in heaven, they took me for the enlightened Vasishtha, who is well known in the world. 9. As I was seen afloat in the air by the aerial siddhas, they called me by the name of the aerial Vasishtha. 10. And as I was observed by the holy sages to rise from amidst the waters of the deep; they called me the watery Vasishtha, from my birth in the water. 11. Hence forth I came to be renowned under different appellations, by all these sets of beings; some calling me the earthly Vasishtha, and others naming me the luminous, the aerial and so forth according to their own kind. 12. Then in course of time, my spiritual body assumed a material form, which sprang from within me and of my own will.

13. That spiritual body and this material form of mine, were equally aerial and invisible; because it was in my intellectual mind only, that I perceived the one as well as the other. 14. Thus is my soul the pure intellect, appearing sometimes as vacuum, and at others shining as the clear sky; it is transcendent spirit and without any form, and takes this form for your admonition. (The incorporeal soul enters into the corporeal body for its dealing with others). 15. The liberated living soul is as free as vacuous spirit of Brahma, although it may deal with others in its corporeal body; so also the liberated bodiless soul, remains as free as the great Brahma himself. 16. As for myself I could not attain to Brahmahood, though I practiced the rules for obtaining my liberation; and being unable to attain a better state, I have become the sage Vasishtha as you see before you. 17. Yet I look upon this world in the same light of immateriality, as the sage sees the figure of person in his dream, when it appears to him to have a material form, though it is a formless non-entity in reality.

18. In this manner do the self born god Brahmá and others, and the whole creation at large, present themselves as visions to my view, without their having any entity in reality. 19. Here I am the self same vacuous and aerial Vasishtha, and appearing as a visionary shape before you, I am though habituated to believe myself over grown, as you are accustomed to think of the density of the world. 20. All these are but vacuous essences of the self-born Brahmá, and as that deity is no other than the Divine Mind, so is this world no more than a production of that Mind. 21. The appearance of myself, thyself and others, together with that of the whole world, proceeding from our ignorance; is like the apparitions of empty ghosts before deluded boys, and appearing as solid realities to your sight. 22. Being aware of this truth, it is possible for you to grow wise in course of time; and then this delusion of yours is sure to disappear, as our worldly bonds are cut off with the relinquishment of our desires and affections. 23. Our knowledge of the density and intensity of the world, is dissipated by true wisdom; in the same manner as our desire of a dream of gem, is dispelled upon our waking.

24. The sight of the phenomenals vanishes at once from our view, as we arrive to the knowledge of noumenal in time; as our desire of deriving water from a river in the mirage, subsides in our knowledge of the falsity of the view. 25. The perusal of this work of the great Rámáyana, is sure to produce the knowledge of self-liberation in its reader, even during his life time in this world. 26. The man whose mind is addicted to worldly desires, and who thinks its vanities as his real good, leads a life to misery only like those of insects and worms, and is unfit to be born as a human being, notwithstanding all his knowledge of this world and all his holy devotion. 27. The liberated man while he lives, deems the enjoyments of his life, to be no enjoyment at all; but the ignorant person values his temporary enjoyments only, in lieu of his everlasting felicity. 28. By perusal of this Mahárámáyana, there arises in the mind a coldness, resembling a frost falling on spiritual knowledge.

29. Liberation is the cold indifference of the mind, and our confinement consists in the passionateness of our minds and hearts; yet the human race is quite averse to the former, and sedulously employed in the acquisition of their temporal welfare only in their foolishness, and to the astonishment of the wise. 30. Here all men are subject to their sense, and addicted to the increase of wealth and family (lit.—wives), to the injury of one another; yet it is possible for them to be happy and wise, if they will but ponder well into the true sense of spiritual sástras. 31. Válmíki says:—After the sage had said these words, the assembly broke with the setting sun and mutual salutations, to perform their evening devotion. They made their ablutions as the sun sank down into the deep, and again repaired to the court with the rising sun at the end of the night.

ESTABLISHMENT OF IMMORTALITY. Argument:—Proof of the Erroneous conception of the World, and the Truth of the Intellectual and Immortal soul. Vasishtha resumed:—O intelligent Ráma! I have now related to you at length the narrative of the stone, which shows you plainly how all these created things, are situated in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect. 2. And that there exists nothing whatever, at any time or place or in the air; except the One undivided intellect of God, which is situated in itself, as the salt and water are mixed up together (or as One is self same with the other). 3. Know Brahma as the Intellect itself, which presents many sight shows of itself in the dream, which are inseparable from itself. (The manifestation of the unchangeable nature of the Divine Mind as the creation, is no more than its vivarta-rúpa or expansion of itself, as that of our minds in the various imageries seen in the state of our dreaming). 4. God being the universal spirit, and the creation full of particularities, it is not incongruous to the nature of the universal and immutable soul, to contain the endless varieties of particulars in the infinite vacuity of the Divine Intellect, without any variation in itself. (The universal and infinite God, contains the particular and finite world in itself).

5. There is no self born creative power (as Brahmá), nor its creation of the world; which is but a production of the dreaming intellect, and is situated in our consciousness, as the sights of dreams are imprinted in the memory. 6. As the city seen in your dream, is situated intellectually in yourself; so the entire universe is situated in the Divine Intellect, ever since its creation to its annihilation (or as the world without its end). 7. As there is no difference between gold and the gold mountain of Meru, and between the dreamed city and the mind; so there is no difference whatever, between the intellect and its creation. (Both being of the same kind). 8. There is the intellect only which exists, and not the world of its creations; as the mind is existent without the gold mountain of its dream. 9. As the mind shows itself, in the form of the formless mountain in its dream; so the formless Brahma, manifests itself as the formal world, which is nothing in reality. 10. The Intellect is all this vacuum, which is increate, unbounded and endless; and which is neither produced nor destroyed in thousands of the great makákalpa ages. (i.e. It is both eternal as well as infinite).

11. This intellectual vacuum is the living soul and lord of all, it is the undecaying ego and embraces all the three worlds in itself (as the air comprises all existence in it). 12. The living body becomes a lifeless carcass, without this aeriform intellect; it is neither broken nor burnt with the fragile and burning body, nor is there any place to intercept the vacuous intellect there from. 13. Therefore there is nothing that dies, and naught that ever comes to being; the intellect being the only being in existence, the world is but a manifestation or disclosure of itself to the mind. 14. The intellect alone is the embodied and living soul, and should it ever be supposed to die; then the son would be thought to die also by the death of the father, because the one is but a reproduction of the other. (The text says, the soul of the father is reborn in the son, and if the former should die, the latter must die also). 15. Again the death of one living soul, would entail the wholesale death of all living creatures; and then the earth (nay even the whole world), would be void of all its population. (Because the one universal soul is the soul of all and every individual being).

16. Therefore, O Ráma, the sole intellectual soul of nobody, has ever died any where upto this time; nor was there ever any country devoid of a living soul in it. (The world is full of life proceeding from the eternal life of God). 17. Knowing hence that I am one with the eternal soul, and the body and its senses are nothing mine own; I know not how I or any one else, can ever die away at any time. 18. He who knows himself to be the purely intellectual soul, and yet ignores it and thinks in himself to be dying as a mortal being; is verily the destroyer of his soul, and casts himself into a sea of troubles and misery. 19. If I am the intellectual soul, undecaying and everlasting, and as transparent as the open air; say then what is life or death to me, and what means my happiness or misery in any state. 20. Being the vacuous and intelligent soul, I have no concern with my body; and any one who being conscious of it, forgets to believe himself as such, is verily a destroyer of his soul.

21. The foolish man who has lost his consciousness, of being the purely vacuous soul; is deemed a living dead body by the wise (who know the One universal soul to constitute the whole). 22. The knowledge that I am the intelligent soul, and the bodily senses are not essential to me; is what leads me to attain to the state of pure spirituality, which neither death nor misery can deprive me of. 23. He who remains firm, with his reliance in the pure intellectual soul; is never assailed by calamities, but remains <immune> to woes, as a block of stone to a flight of arrows. 24. Those who forget their spiritual nature, and rely their trust in the body; resemble those foolish people, who forsake the gold to lay hold on ashes. 25. The belief that I am the body, its strength and its perceptions, falsifies my faith in these and destroys my reliance in the spirit; but my trust in the spirit, confirms my faith in that by removing my belief in these. 26. The belief that I am the pure vacuous intellect, and quite free from birth and death; is sure to dispel all the illusions of feelings and passions and affections afar from me.

27. Those who slight the sight of the vacuous intellect, and view their bodies in the light of the spirit, deserve the name of corporeal beasts, and are receptacles of bodily appetites and passions only. 28. He who knows himself to be infrangible and uninflammable, and as the solid and impregnable stone in his intellect, and not in his unreal body; cares <not> a fig for his death (which destroys the unsubstantial body, but has no power over his indestructible soul). 29. O the delusion! that over spreads the sight of clear-sighted sages; who fear for their total annihilation at the loss of their bodies (which are but component and superficial parts of themselves). 30. When we are firmly settled in our belief, of the indestructible nature of our vacuous intellect; we are led to regard the fire and thunder of the last day of destruction, in the light of a shower of flowers over our heads. 31. That I am the imperishable intellect itself, and naught that is of a perishable nature; therefore the wailing of a man and his friends at the point of death, appears as a ridiculous farce to the wise.

32. That I am my inner intelligence, and not the outer body or its sensation, is a belief which serves as an antidote, against the poison of all griefs and sorrows. 33. That I am the vacuous intelligence, and can never have my quietus or annihilation; and that the world is full of intelligence, is a sober truth which can never admit any doubt or controversy (Lit.—which you can never doubt). 34. Should you suppose yourselves, as any other thing beside the intelligence; then tell me, ye fools, why do you talk of the soul in vain, and what do you mean by the same. 35. Should the intelligent soul be liable to death, then it is dead with the dying people every day; tell me then how ye live and not already dead, with the departed souls of others? 36. Therefore the intelligent soul, doth neither die nor come to life at any time; it is a false notion of the mind only to think itself to be living and dying, though it never dies (being immortal in its nature). 37. As the intellect thinks in itself, it beholds the same within itself; so it goes on thinking in its habitual mode, and is never destroyed of itself (or) without being ever destroyed in its essence.

38. It sees the world in itself, and is likewise conscious of its freedom; it knows all what is pleasurable or painful, without changing itself from its unalterable nature at any time or place. 39. By the knowledge of its embodiment, it is liable to delusions; but by knowledge of its true nature, it becomes acquainted with its own freedom. 40. There is nothing whatever, that rises or sets (i.e. is produced or destroyed) at any time or place; but every thing is contained in the sole and self-existent intellect, and is displayed in its clear and vacuous sphere. 41. There is nothing, that is either real or unreal in the world; but every thing is taken in the same light, as it is displayed unto one by the intellect. 42. Whatever the intelligent soul thinks in itself in this world, it retains the ideas of the same in the mind. Every thing is judged by one’s consciousness of it, as the same thing is thought as poison by one, what is believed to be nectar by another.

ON THE RARITY AND RETIREDNESS OF RELIGIOUS RECLUSES. Argument:—The truth of catholicity, carnality of Worldly people, and the retirement and Resignation of the godly. Vasishtha continued:—The world which is but a vision of the supreme soul, and situated in the vacuity of the Divine mind, appears in our consciousness, as the ectype of Brahma himself. 2. The delusion of the visionary world, being too palpable to our view, has kept the supreme spirit quite out of our sight; as the spirit of the wine is kept hid in the liquor, though it can never be lost. 3. The unreal phenomenal being discarded as delusion, and the real noumenal being incomprehensible; and the absence of any positive subsistence of existence, has necessitated our belief in the endless void and vacuity. 4. That the embodied Intellect, called the purusha or soul, is the supreme cause (in the Sánkhya system); and the world proceeds from the unknown principle, known as the pradhána or its principal source. The truth of this view of the creation, rests wholly on the opinion of the philosopher (Kapila).

5. That the visible world is the form of the all pervasive spirit of God, is the thesis of the Vedántists; and this opinion of theirs regarding the formal world and its plasmic principle, depends solely on the conception of these philosophers. 6. That the world is a conglomeration of particles, is the position of the positive and atomic philosophers of the Nyáya system; and all these doctrines are relied upon and maintained, by the best belief of every party. 7. Both the present and future worlds are as they are seen and thought to be, is the tenet of some; while the spiritualist looks upon it neither in the light of an entity nor non entity either. 8. Others acknowledge the outer world only, and nothing besides which is beyond their eye sight; and these Chárváka atheists, do not avouch even for the intelligent soul, which is within their bodies. 9. There are others, who seeing the incessant changes and fluctuations of things with the flight of time, attribute omnipotence to it, and have become timists, with a persuasion of the evanescence of the world.

10. The belief of the barbarians, regarding the resurrection of the soul from the grave, which is built on the analogy of the sparrow flying away from under its covering lid; has gained a firm ground in the minds of men in these countries, and is never doubted by any. 11. The tolerant sage looks alike and takes in equal light all apparent differences; since they know that all these varieties in the world, are but manifestations of the One all pervading and invariable soul. 12. As it is the nature of the world, to go on in its course; so it is natural with the wise, to entertain these various opinions regarding the same. The truth however is quite mysterious, and hard to be found by inquiry; but it is certain that there is an all creative power, that is guided by intelligence and design in all its works. 13. That there is one creator of all, is the truth arrived at by all godly men and truthful minds; whoso is certain of this truth, is sure to arrive at it without any obstruction.

14. That this world exists and the future one also, is the firm belief of the faithful; and that their sacred ablutions and oblations to that end and never go for nothing; such assurance on their part, is sure to lead them to the success of their object. 15. An infinite vacuity is reality, is the conclusion arrived at by the Buddhist; but there is nothing to be gained by this inquiry, nor any good to be derived from a void nullity. 16. It is the Divine Intelligence which is sought by all, as they seek an inestimable gem or the Kalpa tree of life; and this fills our inward soul, with the fulness of the Divine spirit. 17. The Lord is neither vacuity nor non-vacuity, nor a nonentity either as it is maintained by others; He is omnipotent, and this omnipotence does not abide in Him, nor is it without Him, but is the selfsame Himself. 18. Therefore let every one rely in his own belief, until he arrives to the true and spiritual knowledge of God. By doing so he will obtain the reward of his faith, and therefore he must refrain from his fickleness (of forsaking his own faith).

19. Therefore consult with the learned, and judge with them about the right course; and then accept and follow what is best and correct, and reject all what proves to be otherwise. 20. A man becomes wise by knowledge of sástras, as also by practicing the conduct of the good; as also by associating with the wise and good, wherever such persons may be found upon inquiry. 21. He who serves and attends upon the preachers of sacred sástras, and on practicers of good and moral conduct; is also deemed a wise man, and his company also is to be resorted to by the wise. 22. All living beings, are naturally impelled towards whatever tends to their real good; as it is the nature of water to seek its own level. Therefore men should choose the company of the good for their best good. 23. Men are carried away as straws, by the waves in the eventful ocean of the world; and their days are passing away as insensibly (rapidly), as the dew drops are falling off from the blades of grass.

24. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me Sir, who are those far seeing persons, who sensing at first this world to be full of weeds and thorns, come at last by their right judgment, to rest in the state of ineffable felicity. (i.e. Who are they that are resigned to God after their troublesome journey in the thorny paths of the world). 25. Vasishtha replied:—It is the wording of the sruti, that there some such persons among all classes of beings, whose presence sheds a lustre, as bright as that of the broad and shining day light. (These are gods, men). 26. Beside them there are others, who are quite ignorant of truth, and are tossed about and whirled up and down like straws, by the whirling waters of the dangerous eddies of ignorance, in the dark and dismal ocean of this world. 27. These are drowned in their enjoyments, and lost to the bliss of their souls; and are ever burning in the flames of worldly cares; such are some among the gods, who are burning on high, like as the mountain trees are inflamed by the wild fire. 28. The proud demigods were vanquished by their inimical gods, and were cast down into the abyss by Náráyana; as big elephants into the pit, with the ichor of their giddiness.

29. The Gandharva songsters (that are skilled in music only), show no sign of right reason in them; but being giddy with the wine of melody, they fall into the hands of death, as the silly stags are caught in the snare (by their fondness for the sweet sound of the hunter’s horn). 30. The Vidyádharas are mad with their knowledge (of arts, of sciences); and do not hold in esteem the esoteric and grand science of divinity for their salvation. 31. The yakshas who are impregnable themselves, are ever apt to injure all others on earth; and they exercise their noxious powers, chiefly upon the helpless infants, old men and weak and infirm persons. 32. There are again the gigantic and elephant like Rákshasas, who have been repeatedly destroyed by Hari, and will be utterly extirpated by you, as a herd of sheep by a powerful lion. 33. The Pisácha cannibals are always in quest of human prey, and devour their bodies as the burning fire consumes the oblations. They are therefore in utter darkness of spiritual knowledge. 34. The Nága race that dwell underneath the ground, resemble the stalks of lotuses drowned under the water, or as the roots of trees buried under the earth (and therefore they are quite insensible of truth).

35. The Asura race dwelling in subterranean cells, are as worms and insects, grovelling in dark under the ground, and are utterly ignorant of any knowledge or discrimination. 36. And what must we say of foolish mankind, who like the poor ants, are moving busily by night and day, in search of a morsel (lit.—particle) of bread (and have not a whit of understanding in them). 37. All living bodies are running up and down for ever, in their vain expectations; and the days and nights are insensibly gliding over them, as upon drunken men (unconscious of themselves). 38. The knowledge of pure truth, never enters into the mind of men; as the dust flying over the surface of water never sink in its depth. 39. The holy vows of men are blown away, by the blasts of their pride and vanity; as the husks of rice are blown off, by the wind of the threshing mill. 40. Other people that are without true knowledge, are like the yoginís and Pamaras—pariahs, are addicted to the carnalities of their eating and drinking; and to roll in stink and stench and mud and mire.

41. Among the gods, only Yama, the sun and moon, Indra and Rudras, and Varuna and Váyu, are said to live liberated for ever; and so are Brahmá, Hari and Vrihaspati and Sukra, (the preceptors of the gods and demigods). 42. Among the patriarchs Daxa, Kasyapa and others, are said to be living liberated; and among the seven sages, Nárada, Sanaka and goddess born Kumara are liberated for ever. 43. Among the Danava demons, there were some that had their emancipation also; and these were Hiranyaksha, Vali, Prahlada and Sambara, together with Maya, Vritra, Andha, Namuchi, Kesi, Mura and others. (Some of whom were foes and others as friends of the god). 44. Among Rákshasas Vibhisana, Prahasta and Indrajit are held as liberated; and so are Sesha, Taxaka, Karkota and some others among the Nágas or serpent race. 45. The liberated are entitled to dwell in the abodes of Brahma and Vishnu, and in the heaven of Indra; and there are some the manes of the Pitris, siddhas and Sáddhyas, that are reckoned as liberated also. 46. Among the human race also, there are some that are liberated in their life time; as the few princes, saints and Bráhmanas, whose names are preserved to us in the sacred records.

47. There are living beings in multitudes, on all sides of us in this earth, but there are very few among them that are enlightened with true knowledge in them; there are unnumbered trees and forests growing all around us, and bearing their fruits and flowers and foliage to no end; but there is scarcely a kalpatree to be found among them (which may yield to us the fruit that we ardently desire).

PRAISE OF GOOD SOCIETY, OR ASSOCIATION WITH THE GOOD AND WISE. Argument:—Character of the truly Wise man, his best test, and company. Vasishtha continued:—Those among the judicious and wise, that are indifferent to and unconcerned with the world, and resigned to the divinity, and resting in his state of supreme felicity; have all their desires and delusions abated, and their enemies lessened in this world. 2. He is neither gladdened nor irritated at any thing, nor engages in any matter, nor employs himself in the accumulation of earthly effects. He does not annoy any body, nor is he annoyed by any one. 3. He does not bother his head about theism or atheism, nor torment his body with religious austerities; he is agreeable and sweet in his demeanour, and is pleasing and genteel in his conversation. 4. His company gladdens the hearts of all, as the moonlight delights the minds of men; he is circumspect in all affairs, and the best judge in all matters. 5. He is without any anxiety in his conduct, and is polite and friendly to all; he manages patiently all his outward business, but is quite cool in his inward mind.

6. He is learned in the sástras, and takes a delight in their exposition; he knows all people and both past and present; and knows also what is good and bad for any, and is content with whatever comes to pass on him. 7. The wise act according to the established usage of good people, and refrain from what is opposed to it; they gladden all men with their free admonitions, as the zephyr regales them with the gratuitous odours of flowers; and they afford a ready reception and board to the needy. 8. They treat with respect the needy that repair to their doors; just as the blooming lotus entertains the bee, that resorts to the same; and they attract the heart of people, by their endeavours, to save them from their sins. 9. They are as cold as any cooling thing, or like the clouds in the rainy season; and as sedate as rocks, and capable of removing the calamities of people, by their meritorious acts. 10. They have the power to prevent the impending dangers of men, as the mountains keep the earth from falling at the earth-quake; they support the failing spirit of men in their calamitous circumstances, and congratulate with them in their prosperity.

11. Their countenances are as comely as the fair face of the moon, and they are as well wishers of men, as their loving consorts; their fame fills the world as flowers of spring in order to produce the fruits of general good. 12. Holy men are as the vernal season, and their voice as the notes of kokilas, delighting all mankind; and their minds are as profound oceans, undisturbed by the turbulent waves and eddies of passions and thoughts of other people. 13. They pacify the troubled minds of others, by their wise counsels, as the cold weather calms the turbulent waters and seas, and puts to rest their boisterous waves. 14. They resemble the robust rocks on the sea-shore, withstanding the force of the dashing surges of worldly troubles and afflictions; which overwhelm and bewilder the minds of mankind. 15. These saintly men are resorted to by good people only, at the times of their utmost danger and distress; and these and the like are the signs, whereby these good hearted people, are distinguished from others. 16. Let the weary traveller rely for his rest in his Maker alone, in his tiresome journey through this world; which resembles the rough sea, filled with huge whales and dragons.

17. There is no other means for getting over this hazardous ocean, without the company of the good, which like a stout vessel safely bears him across. There is no reasoning required to prove it so, but it must be so. 18. Therefore do not remain as a dull sloth in the den, to brood over your sorrows in vain; but repair to the wise man who possesses any one of these virtues for your redress, by leaving all other concerns. 19. Mind not his fault but respect his merit, and learn to scan the good and bad qualities of men from thy youth with all diligence. 20. First of all and by all means improve your understanding, by the company of the good and careful study of the sástras; and serve all good people without minding their faults. 21. Shun the society of men (whether friends or relatives), who are conspicuous for some great and incorrigible crime; otherwise it will change the sweet composure of your mind, to bitterness and disquiet. (So in Raghuvansa:—The society of wicked friend, is to be cut off as an ulcerous limb). 22. This I know from my observation, of the righteous turning to unrighteousness; this is the greatest of all evils (and must be feared), when the honest turn to be dishonest.

23. This change and falling off of good men, from their moral rectitude, have been seen in many places and at different times; wherefore it is necessary to choose the company of the good only, for one’s safety in this and salvation in the next world. 24. Therefore no one should live afar from the society of the good and great; who are ever to be regarded with respect and esteem; because the company of the good though slightly courted, is sure to purify the newcomer with the flying fragrance of their virtues.

A DISCOURSE ON ESOTERIC OR SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. Argument:—The share of the Brute creation in the enjoyments of life, and its varieties in various grades of Beings. Ráma rejoined:—Verily we (rational beings), have a great many means, for relieving our pains. Such as our reason, the precepts of the sástras, the advices of our friends and the society of the wise and good; beside the applications of mantras and medicines, the giving of charities, performances of religious austerities, going to pilgrimages and resorting to holy places (all which have the efficacy of removing our calamities and rendering us happy). 2. But tell me what is the state of the brute creation such as of the worms and insects, birds and flies, and the other creeping, crawling and bending animals; whether they are not alike susceptible with ourselves of pain and pleasure, and what means they have to remedy their pains and evils. 3. Vasishtha replied:—All creatures whether animals or vegetables, are destined to partake of the particular enjoyments, which are allotted to their respective shares; and are ever tending towards that end.

4. All living beings from the noble and great to the mean and minute, have their appetites and desires like ourselves; but the difference consists in their lesser or greater proportion in us and themselves. (i.e. Mankind is actuated in a lesser degree by their passions and appetites than their violence in the brute tribes). 5. As the great Virát-like big bodies, are actuated by their passions and feelings, so also the little vályakhilyas or puny tribes of insects, are fed by their self love to pursue their own ends. 6. Behold the supportless fowls of the firmament, flying and falling in the air, are quite content with roving in empty vacuity, without seeking a place for their rest. 7. Look at the incessant endeavours of the little emmet, in search of its food and hoarding its store like ourselves, for the future provision of our families, and never resting content for a moment. 8. There the little mollusks, as minute as atoms of dust, and yet as quick in quest of its food, as when the swift eagle is in pursuit of its prey, in the etherial sphere.

9. As the world passes with us in the thoughts of ourselves, our egoism and meity of this and that; so it goes on with every creature, in its selfish thoughts and cares for its own kind. (Self-love is the prime mover of all living bodies, towards their own good). 10. The lives of filthy worms are spent like ours, in their toil and anxious care for food and provisions, at all places and times of their duration in the world. 11. The vegetable creation is some what more awakened, in their state of existence, than mineral productions, which continue as dead and dormant for ever. But the worms and insects, are as awakened from their dormancy as men, in order to remain restless for ever. 12. Their lives are as miserable as ours, upon this earth of sin and pain, and their death is as desirable as ours, in order to set us free from misery after a short-lived pain. 13. As a man sold and transported to a foreign country, sees all things with wonder that are not his own; so it is with the brute animals, to see all strange things in this earth.

14. All animals find every thing on earth, to be either as painful or pleasant to them, as they are to us also; but they have not the ability like us, to distinguish what is good for them from whatever is noxious to them. 15. Brute animals are dragged by their bridles and nose-strings, as men who are sold as slaves to labour in distant lands, have to bear with all sorts of pains and privation, without being able to communicate or complain of them to any body. 16. The trees and plants and their germs, are liable to similar pains and troubles like us, when our thin-skinned bodies are annoyed by inclement weather, or assailed by gnats and bugs, during the time of our sleep (i.e. The vegetable tribe is equally sensible of pain as the animal in their sleeping state). 17. And as we mortals on earth, have our knowledge of things—padártha-vedana, and the sagacity of forsaking a famine stricken place for our welfare else where; so it is with the bending brutes and birds, to emigrate from lands of scarcity to those of plenty. (i.e. Brutes are alike discerning as men).

18. The delightsome is equally delectable to all, and the God Indra as well as a worm, are alike inclined towards what is pleasurable to them; and this tendency to pleasure proceeds from their own option of choice. This freedom of choice is not denied to any but is irresistible in all, and he who knows his free will (or self agency), is altogether free and liberated. (The text uses two words viz., Vikshepa or projection of the soul (or inclination), as actuated by Vikalpa or one’s free choice of anything. This passage establishes the doctrine of free choice and self agency of all living beings, against the common belief in an imperious fatality). 19. The pleasure and pain, arising from the passions and feelings, and from enjoyments in life; and torments of diseases and death, are alike to all living beings. 20. Except the knowledge of things, and that of past and future events, as also of the arts of life; all the various kinds of animals, are possest of all other animal faculties and propensities like those of mankind.

21. The drowsy vegetable kingdom, and the dormant mountain and other insensible natures; are fully sensible in themselves, of a vacuous intellectual power whereon they subsist. (They are as the inactive but meditative yogis, who with their external insensibility, are internally conscious of the Divine spirit). 22. But there are some that deny the sensibility of an intellectual spirit, in the dormant and fixed bodies of arbours and mountains; and allow the consciousness of the vacuous intellect, but in a very slight degree, in moving animals and in the majority of living and ignorant part of mankind. 23. The solid state of mountains and the sleepy nature of the vegetable creation, being devoid of the knowledge of a dualism (other than their own natures) have no sense of the existence of the world, except that of a non-entity or mere vacuity. 24. The knowledge of the entity of the world, is accompanied with utter ignorance of its nature or agnosticism; for when we know not ourselves or the subjective, how is it possible for us to know the objective world.

25. The world is situated as ever, in its state of dumb torpidity, like a dull block of wood or stone; it is without its beginning and end, and without an aperture in it, and is as the dreaming wakefulness of a sleeping man. 26. The world exists in the same state, as it did before its creation; and it will continue to go on for ever even as now; because eternity is always the same both before and after. 27. It is neither the subjective nor objective, nor the plenum nor vacuum; nor is it a mute substance nor any thing whatever. 28. Remain thou as thou art, and let me remain as I am; and being exempt from pleasure or pain in our state of vacuity, we find nothing existent nor non-existent herein. 29. Say why you forsake your state of absolute nothingness, and what you get in your visionary city of this world; it is all calm and quiet without, as your vacuous Intellect is serene and clear within you. 30. It is the want of right knowledge, that causes our error of the world; but no sooner do we come to detect this false knowledge of ours, than this error flies away from us.

31. The world being known as a dream, and having no reality in it, it is as vain to place any reliance therein, as to place one’s affections <on> the son of a barren woman, or confide in such a one. 32. When the dream of the world is known to be a mere dream or false, even at the time of dreaming it in sleep; what faith or confidence can be relied on it, on one’s coming to know its nothingness upon his waking. 33. What is known in the waking state, could not be otherwise in that of sleep; whatever is known in the later hour of coming to its knowledge, the same must have been its previous state also. (i.e. The world is nothing, both in the states of its knowledge as well as ignorance). 34. There are the three times of present, past and future, and our knowledge of these, proceeds from our ignorance of endless duration; which is the only real tranquil and universal substratum of all (and this is the attribute of the ever unchanging One).

35. As the breaking of breakers, by the dashing of waves against one another, does no harm to the waters of the sea; so the molestation or destruction of one body by another, does no injury to the inward soul, which is ever impregnable and also indestructible. 36. It is the vacuous Intellect within us, that gives rise to the erroneous conception of our bodies; wherefore the loss of the body or its false conception, does not affect our intellect and ourselves neither. 37. The waking soul sees the world, situated in the vacuity of Intellect, as it were in its sleep; and this of creation in the mind being devoid of materiality, is very like a dream; (which proceeds from reminiscence only). 38. The ideas (dhi) of material things, are produced in the beginning of creation, from their previous impressions left in the intellect; and the world being but a dream or work of imagination; it is an error of the brain to take it for a reality. 39. The traces of prior dreams and reminiscences (of previous birth), being preserved in the memory or mind; the same things appear and reappear in it (in later births), and represent their aerial shapes as substantial figures (as some pictures appear true to life).

40. This error has taken possession of the mind, in the same manner as the untrue is taken for truth: while the transcendent and clear truth of the omniform soul is rejected as untrue. 41. In reality there is the Divine Intellect only, that has existed for ever; and this being the most certain truth that Brahma is all in all, the doctrine of reminiscence and oblivion goes to nothing. 42. It is sheer ignorance, which is devoid of this spiritual knowledge, and views things in their physical light only; and in this lies the true knowledge, which breaks open the door of ignorance. (i.e. Spiritualism alone, dispels the gloom of materialism). 43. There remains nothing at last, after expulsion of the error of materiality; except the pure spirit of God, who is both the viewer and the view, or the subjective and objective in himself. 44. As the reflexion of anything falling on a mirror, shows the figure of that thing within itself; so the world shines of itself in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect, and with the reflection of anything else, being ever cast upon it.

45. As the reflexion of a thing, exhibits itself in its bosom, though nobody was to look at it; so the world is shown in the Divine Intellect, though the same is invisible to every one. 46. Whatever is found as true, both by reason and proof, the same must be the certain truth; all else is mere semblance of it; and not being actual can never be true. 47. And though the knowledge of the material world, is proved to be false and untrue, yet it is found to mislead us, as the act of somnambulation does in our sleep and dreaming state. 48. It is the lustre of the Divine Luminary, that casts its reflexion into the Intellect, and emblazons the intellectual sphere supremely bright. Tell me therefore what are we and this pageant of the world, any more than a réchauffé or a print of that archetype.

49. If there is a resuscitation of ourselves after our demise, then what is it that is lost to us; and should there be no regeneration of us after death, then there is a perfect tranquility of our souls, by our utter extinction, and emancipation from the pains of life and death. Or if we have our liberation by the light of philosophy, then there nothing here, that lends to our woe in any state whatsoever. 50. The ignorant man alone knows the state of the ignorant, wherein the wise are quite ignorant; as the fishes alone know the perilous state of the stag, that is fallen amidst the waves and eddies of the sea. 51. It is the open sphere of the Divine Intellect only, that represents the divers images of I, thou, he and this and that in its hollow space; as a tree shows the sundry forms of its leaves, fruits, flowers &c., in its all producing body or stem.

REFUTATION OF ATHEISM. Argument:—Refutation of the Atheistical doctrine of the materiality of the soul. Ráma rejoined:—Please to tell me, sir, what are your arguments, for allaying the miseries of this world, against the position (paksha) of others who maintain in that:— 2. A living being is happy so long, as the dread of death (either of himself or others) is out of his view; and that there is no reappearance (revivification) of the dead, that is already reduced to ashes. (Hence there is no happiness either for the living or dead (according to them)). 3. Vasishtha replied:—Whatever is the certain belief of any body, he finds the same in his consciousness; and that he feels and conceives accordingly, is a truth that is well known to all mankind (that every one thinks according to his belief). 4. As the firmament is firm, quiet and ubiquitous, so also is the ubiquity of the Intellect (i.e. the vacuous intellect is also allpervading), and are considered to form a duality by the ignorant dualist, while the sapient take them as the one and same thing, from the impossibility of conceiving the co-existence of two things from eternity.

5. It is wrong to suppose the existence of a chaos before creation began, for that would be assigning another (chaotic) cause to the creation when has proceeded from Brahma, who is without a cause and is diffused in his creation. 6. He who does not acknowledge the purport of the Vedas, (that all things are produced from Brahma), and the final great dissolution (when all things are dissolved in and return to him); are known as men without a revelation and religion, and are considered as dead by us (i.e. spiritually dead). 7. Those whose minds are settled in the undisputed belief of the sástras, that all these is Brahmá or the varied god himself; are persons with whom we have to hold no discussion or argument. 8. As our consciousness is ever awake in our minds, and without any intermission; so Brahma that constitutes our consciousness, is ever wakeful in us, whether the body lasts or not. 9. If our perceptions are to produce our consciousness, then must man be very miserable indeed; because the sense of a feeling, other <than> that of the ever felicitous state of the soul, is what actually makes us so.

10. Knowing the universe as the splendours of the intellectual vacuum (i.e. in the sphere of the vacuous intellect); you cannot suppose the knowledge of anything, or the feeling of any pleasure or pain, ever to attach or stick to an empty nothing. (i.e. to the vacuous spirit). 11. Hence men who are quite certain and conscious, of the entirety and pure unity of the soul, can never find the feelings of sorrow or grief, to rise in or overwhelm it in any way than the dust of earth rising to the sky, and filling its sphere with foulness. (This passage rests on text of the sruti which says: there is no sorrow or pain to any body who sees the pure unity only). 12. Whether the consciousness of unity, be true or not in all men; yet the common notion of it even in the minds of boys, cannot be discarded as untrue. (i.e. All men may differ in their conceptions respecting the nature of the Divine soul, but they all agree in the notion of one prime cause of all. See kusumanjali).

13. The body is not the soul nor the living spirit, nor any other thing of which we have any conception; It is the consciousness which is every thing, and the world is as it conceives it to be. (There is nothing beyond our consciousness of it). 14. Whether it is true or not, yet we have the conception of our bodies by means of this; and it gives us conceptions of all things in earth, water and heaven, independent of their material forms, as we see the aerial forms of things in our dreams. (i.e. We are conscious only of the abstract notions of things, and of their substantial properties). 15. Whether our consciousness is a real entity or not, yet it is this power which is called the conscious soul; and whatever is the conviction of this power, the same is received as positive truth by all. 16. The authority of all the sástras, rests upon the proof of consciousness; and the truth which is generally arrived at by all, must be acknowledged as quite certain in my opinion also. 17. Therefore the consciousness of atheists, which is vitiated by their misunderstanding, being purified afterwards by right reasoning, becomes productive of good results likewise (i.e. of producing the fruit of their liberation also).

18. But a perverted conscience or vitiated understanding, is never reproved by any means; either by performance of pious acts at any time or place, or by study of vedas, or by pursuit of other things. 19. Errors of the understanding (avidyá) recur to the reprobate as often as they corrected from time to time; say therefore what other means can there be, to preserve our consciousness from fallacy. 20. Self-consciousness is the soul of man, and in proportion to its firmness or weakness, the happiness or misery of man, increases or decreases accordingly. (i.e. The strong minded are always prosperous). 21. If there is a consciousness in men, and such men also who are conscious of the Divine essence in them, and those who are resorted to by the pious, for their liberation from the bonds of the world; then this world would appear as a dead and dumb block of stone, and a dark and dreary desert. 22. The knowledge of nature or gross materialism, which rises in the mind of man, for want of his knowledge of the consciousness of himself, is like the dark ignorance in which one is involved in his sleep.

23. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me Sir, how is that atheist who denies the end of the ten sides of heaven, and disbelieves the destruction of the world; who believe only in what is existent, and have no thought of inexistence (either prior to the creation or after its dissolution). 24. Who does not perceive the perfect wisdom, which is displayed throughout the universe; but sees only whatever is visible, without knowing their destruction (frailty). (The atheists consider the world as eternal). 25. Tell me Sir, what are their arguments, about allaying the evils of the world; and remove my doubts about it, for increase of my knowledge in this important truth. 26. Vasishtha replied:—I have already given my reply to your query regarding the infidels (that they are not to be spoken to); hear me now to give the reply with regard to your second question touching the salvation of the soul. 27. O best of men Ráma! you have spoken in this sense, that the human soul (purusha) is constituted of the intelligence alone (as you think it to be and which is but a flash of the Divine Intellect, and the measure of the objects of consciousness).

28. This intelligence (or intelligent soul) is indestructible, and is not destroyed with the destruction of the body, but is joined with the Divine Intelligence without fail. Or if the body be indestructible (owing to its resurrection after death), then there is no cause of sorrow at its temporary loss. 29. The intelligence is said to be divided into various parts, in the souls of men and different members of their bodies; if so it be, then the intelligence is destroyed with the destruction of individual souls and bodily members also. (Therefore the supremely intelligent soul is beyond these). 30. The self-conscious soul that is liberated in the living state, has no more to return to earth after death; but the consciousness which is not purified by divine knowledge, cannot be exempted from its transmigration to this world. 31. Those again that deny the existence of consciousness, such souls are doomed to the gross ignorance of stones (i.e. to become stony block heads) for this disbelief of theirs. 32. As the knowledge of sensible objects, keeps the mind in utter darkness; so the death of such persons is calculated as their final bliss, because they have <no> more to feel the sensibles nor view the visible world any more (although they are deprived of their spiritual bliss).

33. Men of pure understandings; who have lost the sense of their corporeality, are never to be reborn on earth any more; but those of dull understandings, become as gross corporeal bodies and are involved in impenetrable darkness (i.e. the gloom of ignorance according to the dictum of the sruti). 34. Those intellectual philosophers (vijnána-vádis), who view the world as an aerial city in his dream; to them the world presents its aspect as a phantom and no other. (The world is a day dream, and its sight a delusion. In haman ke didam khab bud). 35. There are some that maintain the stability, and others asserting the frailty of the world and every thing; but what do they gain by these opinions, since the knowledge of either, neither augments the amount of human happiness, nor lessens any quantity of mortal misery (i.e. the misery of mortals). 36. The stability or unstability, of the greatest or least of things, makes no difference in any of them whatever; they are all alike the radiating rays of the intellect, though they appear as extended bodies to the ignorant.

37. Those who assign unlimitedness to the essence of consciousness, and of limitation to that of insensibility; and maintain the permanence of the one and the transience of the other, talk mere nonsense like the babbling of boys. 38. They are the best and most venerable of men, who know the body to be the product of and encompassed by the intellect. And they are the meanest among mankind, who believe the intellect as the produce and offspring of the body; (and these are Kanada and Nyáya philosophers of gross materialism, who believe intelligence as a resultant of the material body). 39. The intellect (personified as Hiranyagarbha or Brahmá the Divine spirit), is distributed into the souls of all living beings; and the infinite space of vacuity, is as a net work or curtain, which all animal lives, flying within its ample expanse like bodies of gnats and flies, and rising up and sinking below or moving all about, as the shoals of fishes in the interminable ocean. (The Divine Intellect or spirit, is the collection of all specialities). 40. As this universal soul, thinks of creating the various species; so it conceives them within itself, as the seeds conceive the future plants in themselves, and the same are developed afterward.

41. Whatever lives or living beings, it thinks of or conceives in itself; the same spring forth quickly from it, and this truth is known even to boys (from the repeated texts importing the Lord as the fountain of all). 42. As the vapours fly in the air, and as the waters roll in the ocean; and as they form curls and waves of various kinds, so the lives of living beings, are continually floating in the vacuum of the Divine Intellect. 43. As the vacuity of the Intellect, presents the sight of a city to a man in his dream; so the world presents its variegated aspects since its first creation, to the sight of the day dreaming man. 44. There were no co-ordinate causes of material bodies (as earth, water &c.), at the first formation of the world; but it rose spontaneously of itself as the empty sights appearing in our dream. 45. As in a city seen in dream, its houses and their apartments, come to appear gradually to sight; so the dream becomes enlarged and expanded and divided by degrees to our vision.

46. All this creation is but the empty void of the intellect, (or as pictures drawn in empty air); there is no duality or variety in it, but is one even plane of the intellect, like the open sky, without any spot or place attached to it. 47. The moon-light of the Intellect, diffuses its coolness on all sides, and gladdens the souls of all beings; it scatters the beams of intellection all around, and casts its reflexions in the image of the world. 48. The world as it is now visible to us, lies for ever in the mind of God in the same vacuous state, as it was before its creation; and as it is to be reduced to nothing upon its final destruction. It is the twinkling, or the opening and closing of the intellectual eye, that this empty shadow of the world, appears and disappears amidst the universal vacuum of the Divine Mind. 49. Whoever views this world in any light, it appears to him in the same manner (as some thinking it a solid plenum, and others as an empty vacuum). And as it depends upon the Intellect alone, it is exhibited in various forms according to the caprice of its observers.

50. The minds of the intelligent, are as pure as the clear sphere of the summer sky; and the pure hearted and holy people, think themselves as nothing else, beside their intellects or as intellectual beings only. 51. These pious and holy people, are free from ignorance and the faults of society; they share the gifts of fortune, as it falls to them by the common lot of mankind; and they continue in the conduct of their worldly affairs, like some working machine (acting externally and without taking any thing to mind).

A SERMON ON SPIRITUALITY. Argument:—That self-consciousness is same with the pure soul, whose presence is preventive of the causes of all human woes and fears. (Here consciousness is synonymous with conscientiousness). Vasishtha continued:—Thus it is the Intellect only which is the soul of the body also, and which is situated every where in the manner as said before; and there is nothing which is so self-evident as the Intellect (or self-consciousness). 2. This is the clear expanse of the sky and, it is the medium of the vision of the viewer and visibles; it composes and encompasses the whole world, and therefore there is nothing to be had or lost without it. 3. The doctrinaires of the atheistic school of Brihaspati, that disbelieve the future state because of their ignorance of it; are believers of the present from their knowledge hereof. Thus knowledge or consciousness being the basis of their belief, we bear no favour nor disfavour to their doctrine. (We neither favor nor hate). 4. The world being but a name for the dream, which is produced in the vacuum of our hidden knowledge; say what cause is there for the debate of disputants, in their one sided view of the question.

5. Our consciousness knows well in itself, what is good or bad, and therefore acceptable or not. The pure soul is manifest in the clear vacuity of air, where there is neither this nor that view of it, exhibited to anyone. 6. The conscious soul is immortal, O Ráma, and is not of the form of a rock or tree or any animal; consciousness is a mere vacuum, and all being and not being (i.e. our birth and deaths are as the waves and curling waters, in its ocean of eternity). 7. We are all floating in the vacuum of consciousness, both I and thou and he as well as any other; and none of us is ever liable to die, because consciousness is never susceptible of death. 8. Consciousness has nothing to be conscious but of itself only; and therefore, O big eyed Ráma, where can you get a duality, except the single subjectivity of the Intellect? (To Make the Intellect both as subjective as well as objective, is something like the supposition of its riding on itself).