Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

38. Whenever any desire of any enjoyment whatever, is carefully suppressed in one’s self by his own endeavour; it is called his self-exertion, which destroys one fourth of spiritual ignorance. 39. So it is the society of the holy, the study of Sástras and one’s own exertion, which tend to take away one’s sins, and it is done by each of these singly or all of these conjointly, either by degrees or at once and at the same time. 40. Whatever there remains either as something or nothing at all, upon the total extinction of ignorance, the same is said to be the transcendent and nameless or unspeakable something or nothing (owing to its being beyond all conception). 41. This is verily the real Brahma, the undestroyed, infinite and eternal one; and which being but a manifestation of the unsubstantial will, is understood as an inexistent blank likewise. By knowing the measureless, immeasurable and unerring being, do you rely in your own nihility of nirvána, and be free from all fear and sorrow. (He who thinks himself as nothing, has no care or fear for anything).

ANECDOTE OF INDRA, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE ATOMIC WORLD. Argument:—The acts of Delusion, and Deception of senses, and Indra’s Vision of the World in an Atom. Bhusunda Said:—The universe which contains the totality of existence, and appears as a wide extended sphere; is not in need of any pre-existent place or time as recipients of its substance just as the etherial light (of the twilight), requires no prop or pillar in the heavens for its support. (The simultaneity of the seeming containers—time and space, and their apparent contents—the wide world and the broad light, disproves the priority of the receptacles with regard to their occupants, as it is commonly understood to be. So the verse:—Here there is no container or contained, nothing first or last; But all is one that fills and contains this all. Gloss). 2. The fabrication of this triple world (containing the celestial, terrestrial and infernal regions), is the mere thought or working of the mind; and all this is more quiet and calm, more minute and light, and much more translucent than the odor residing in the air.

3. The world is a wondrous phenomenon of the intellect, which though it is as minute as a particle of fragrance borne by the wind; appears yet as big as a mountain to the sensation of the outward organs of sense. (This is the effect of the deception of the senses). 4. Every one (animal being) views and thinks the world, in the same form and light as it presents unto him; just as the operations of the mind and visions in a dream, appear as they occur to their recipients and to no other besides. (The deceptive senses and dreams, depict objects in different aspects to different persons). 5. Here I will instance an old legend, of what happened to Indra—the lord of Gods, when he was confined in a minute particle in times of yore. 6. It came to pass once upon a time, that this world grew up as a small fig fruit on a branch of the Yuga tree, in the great arbour of a kalpa age. (The periods of a Yuga and kalpa are represented as a tree and forest by metaphor).

7. The mundane fruit was composed of the three compartments of the earth, sky and infernal regions, containing the gods and demigods of heaven, the hills and living creatures on earth, the marshy lands below, with troops of gnats and flies (fluttering about the fig tree of the world, and representing the diseases and dangers that hover over it). 8. It is a wondrous production of the intellect (which is its architect); and is as high as handsome full-blown buds with the juice of desire (i.e. it is full of all delights, that the heart can desire). It is odorous with all kinds of flavourous fragrances, that we can feel and tempting to the mind by the variety of its savours that are sweet to taste. (Does it allude to the forbidden fruit which was enticing to sight and sweet to taste, and meant the world itself that was to be avoided)? 9. This tree grew upon the Brahma tree (otherwise called the udumvara or fig tree), which was over hung by millions of creepers and orchids; egoism is the stalk of the fruit, which appeared beautiful to sight. 10. It is encompassed around with oceans, seas and arteries, and whose face-light is the principal door. It is salvating the starry heaven above and the moist earth below.

11. It is ripened at the end of the Kalpa age, when it becomes the food of black crows and cuckoos (messengers of darksome death); or if it falls below there is an end of it, by its absorption in the indifferent Brahma. 12. There lived at one time the lord of Gods—the great Indra in that fruit, just as a big mosquito resides in an empty pot in company with the small gnats as their great leader. 13. But this great lord was weakened in his strength and valour by his study of and the lectures of his preceptor on spiritualism; which made him a spiritualist, and seer in all past and future matters. 14. It happened once on a time, when the valiant god Náráyana and his heavenly host, had been reposing in their rest; and their leader Indra was so debilitated in his arms; that the demigods rose in open rebellion against God. 15. Then Indra rose with his flashing arms and fire, and fought with the fighting Asuras for a long time; but being at last defeated by the superior strength, he fled away in haste from the field.

16. He ran in all the ten directions, and was pursued by the enemy wherever he fled; he could get no place of rest, as a sinner has no resting place in the next world (but continues to rove about in never ending transmigrations of his soul). 17. Then as the enemy lost sight of him for a moment, he availed to himself of that opportunity; he compressed the thought of his big body in his mind, and became of a minute form on the out-side of himself. (It is the inner thought that moulds the outer body, according to the inner type). 18. He then entered into the womb of an atom, which was glittering amidst the expanse of solar rays; as a bee enters into the cup or seed vessel of a lotus bud, by means of the consciousness of his personal minuteness. 19. He had his instant rest in that state, and then his hope of final bliss in the next; by utter forgetfulness of the warfare, and attainment of the ultimate beatitude of the nirvána torpitude in the end. (All action is warfare, and cessation from it gives peace and rest).

20. He instantly conceived in his imagination, his royal palace in that lotus, and he sat upon his lotiform seat (padmásana) within it, as if he was resting on his own bed. 21. Then Indra otherwise called Hari, being seated in that mansion, saw an imaginary city in it, containing a grand edifice in the midst; with its walls studded with gems, pearls and corals. 22. Hari (the Indra) beheld from within the city, a large country extending about it, and containing many hills and villages, pasture grounds for kine, forests and human habitations. 23. Indra then felt the desire of enjoying that country, with all the lands and hills, the seas to their utmost boundaries, as he had formed in his imagination. 24. Shakra (Indra) afterwards conceived the desire, of possessing the three worlds to himself, together with all the earth and ocean, sky and the infernal regions, the heavens, planetary spheres above and the ranges of mountains below. 25. Thus did Indra remain there as the lord of gods, and in possession of all abundance for his enjoyments; and there was born to him afterwards, a son named Kunda of great strength and valour.

26. Then at the end of his life time, this Indra of unblemished reputation, forsook his mortal frame, and became extinct in his nirvána dissolution, as when a lamp is extinguished for want of oil. 27. Kunda reigned over the three worlds (of and like his father), and then having given birth to a boy he departed to his ultimate state of bliss, after expiration of the term of his life. 28. That son also reigned in his time (like the sire), and then departed at the end of his life time, to the holy state of supreme felicity, by leaving a son after him. 29. In this manner a thousand generations of the grandsons of the first Indra, have reigned and passed away in their time; and there is still a prince by name of Ansaka, reigning over the state of the lord of gods. 30. Thus the generations of the lord of immortals, still hold their sovereignty over the imaginary world of Indra; in that sacred particle of sunbeam in empty air, although that atomic particle is continually going to decay and waste in this long course of time (yet the imagination of its existence has laid a firm hold on the minds of their posterity for ever).

STORY OF INDRÁNÍ; AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE IDENTITY OF THE ACTS OF CREATION AND IMAGINATION. Argument:—Origin of Sakra race and of the World like the fibres of Lotus-stalks and its spiritual sense. Bhusunda continued:—There was one prince born of the race of that Indra; who had also become the lord of gods; He was endowed with prosperity and all good qualities, and devoted to divine knowledge. 2. This prince of Indra’s race, received his divine knowledge from the oral instruction of Vrihaspati (the preceptor of the gods). 3. He knowing the knowable-one, persisted in the course of knowledge as he was taught and being the sovereign lord of gods, he reigned over all the three worlds. 4. He fought against the demigods, and conquered all his foes; he made a hundred sacrifices, and got over the darkness of ignorance by his enlightened mind. 5. He remained long in meditation, having his mind fixed in his cerebral artery, resembling the thread of a tubular stalk of the lotus, and continued to reflect on hundreds of many others matters. (i.e. On the imaginary world and its kingdom and conquests together with many other things).

6. He had once the desire of knowing by the power of his understanding, how he could see the essence of Brahma in his meditation (or how he could have a sight of the nature of God, manifest before him. Gloss). 7. He sat in his solitary retirement, and saw in this silent meditation of his tranquil mind, the disappearance of the concatenation of causes all about and inside himself. 8. He beheld the omnipotent Brahma, as extended in and about all things; and presenting all times and places and existing as all in all, and pervading all things in all places. 9. His hands stretch to all sides, and his feet reach to the ends of the worlds; his face and eyes are on all sides, and his head pierces the spheres; his ears are set in all places, and he endures by encompassing all things every where. 10. He is devoid of all the organs of sense, and yet possest of the powers of all senses in himself; he is the support of all, and being destitute of qualities, is the source and receptacle of all quality. (The qualities of finite bodies are of a finite nature, but the infinite are infinite, eternal and immutable).

11. Unmoved and unmoving by himself, he is moving in and out of all things, as well as moveth them all both internally and externally (that is to say, He is the moving force of dull matter). He is unknowable owing to his minuteness, and appears to be at a distance, though he is so near us. 12. He is as the one sun and moon in the whole universe, and the same land in all the earth; He is the one universal ocean on the globe, and one Meru Mountain (of the sun’s path) all about. 13. He is the pith and gravity of all objects, and he is the one vacuum every where; he is the wide world and the great cosmos, that is common to all. 14. He is the liberated soul of all, and the primary intellect in every place; he is every object everywhere, and beside all things in all places. 15. He is in all pots and huts, in all trees and their coatings; he moves the carts and carriages, and enlivens alike all men and other animals likewise.

16. He is in all the various customs and manners of men, and in all the many modes of their thinking; he resides equally in the parts of an atom, as also in the stupendous frame of the triple world. 17. He resides as pungency in the heart of pepper, as vacuity in the sky; and in his intellectual soul the three worlds, whether they are real entities or mere unrealities. 18. Indra beheld the lord in this manner, and then being liberated from his animal state by the help of his pure understanding; he remained all along in the same state of his meditation as before. 19. The magnanimous god sees in his revery, all things united in his meditative mind; and beheld this creation in the same light as it appears to us (as a real entity). 20. He then wandered in his mind all over this creation, and believing himself as the lord of all he saw in it, became the very god Indra; and reigned over the three worlds and their manifold pageantries. 21. Know, O chief of the race of vidyádharas, that the same Indra who was descended of the family of Indras, has been still holding his reign as the lord of gods to this day.

22. He then perceived in his mind, by virtue of his former habit of thinking, the seed of his remembrance sprouting forth with the lotus stalk, wherein he thought to have lain before. 23. As I have related to you of the reign of the former Indra, in the bosom of an atom in the sunbeam; and of the residence of his last generation—the latter Indra, in the hollow fibre of the lotus stalk. 24. So have thousands of other Indras gone by, and are going on still in their fancied realm in the empty sky, in the same manner and mode as observed by their predecessors. 25. So runs the course of nature in ceaseless succession, like the current of a river running onward to the sea; and so do men whether acquainted or not with the divine knowledge, flow on as streams to the abyss of eternity (which is tatpada or state of the Deity). 26. Such is lengthening delusion of the world appearing as true; but vanishing to nothing at the appearance of the light of truth (which is the sight of God in everything). 27. From whatever cause, and in whatever place or time, and in whatever manner this delusion is seen to have sprung, it is made to disappear by knowledge of the same.

28. It is egoism alone, which produces the wonderful appearance of delusion; as the cloud in the sky causes the rain; it spreads itself as a mist, but disappears immediately at the sight of light. 29. He who has got rid of his belief of the looking and sight of the world (i.e. Of both the subjective and objective, as well as of his action and passion); and has attained the knowledge of self-reflecting soul; and who has placed his belief in one vacuous form of empty air; which is devoid of all properties and beyond all categories, is freed from all option and settled in the only One.

THE FINAL EXTINCTION OF THE VIDYÁDHARA. Argument.—Description of Egoism as the productive seed of the world, and its extinction as the cause of emancipation from it. Bhusunda resumed and said:—Wherever there is the thought of egoism of any one, the idea of the world will be found to be inherent in it; as it appeared to Indra within the bosom of the atomic particle. 2. The error of the world (the false conception of its reality), which covers the mind, as the green verdure of grass overspreads the face of the ground; has for its origin the idea of one’s egoism, which takes its root in the human soul. 3. This minute seed of egoism, being moistened with the water of desire, produces the arbor of the three worlds, on the height of Brahma in the great forest of vacuum. 4. The stars are the flowers of this tree, hang on high on the branches of the mountain craigs; the rivers resemble its veins and fibres, flowing with the juicy pith of their waters, and the objects of desire are the fruits of this tree. (The objects of desire are the enjoyments and fruition of life).

5. The revolving worlds, are the fluctuating waves of the water of egoism; and the profluent current of desire, continually supplies with varieties of exquisite symposiums, sweet to the taste of the intellect. (i.e. The pleasures of desire are sweet to the mind, and afford intellectual delight). 6. The sky is the boundless ocean full of etherial waters, and teeming with showering drops of star light in it; plenty and poverty are the two whirlpools in the ocean of the earth, and all our woes are the mountainous waves on its surface. (i.e. The heaven and earth are the two oceans above and below; the one shining with starry light, and the other gliding with waves of woe. So says the Bible:—And God made the firmament, to divide the waters above from the waters below. Genesis I). 7. The three worlds are presented as a picture of the ocean, with the upper lights as its froths and foams swimming upon it; the spheres are floating as bubbles upon it, and their belts are as the thick valves of their doors. 8. The surface of the earth is as a hard and solid rock, and the intellect moves as a black crow upon it; and the hurry and bustle of its people, are conformable with the incessant rotation of the globe.

9. The infirmities and errors, old age and death, are as billows gliding on the surface of the sea; and the rising and falling of bodies in it, are as the swelling and dissolving of bubbles in water. 10. Know the world to be a gust of the breath of your egoism, and know it also as a sweet scent proceeding from the lotus like flower of egoism. 11. Know the knowledge of your egoism and that of the objective world, are not two different things; but they are the one and same thing; as the wind and its breath, the water and its fluidity, and the fire and its heat. 12. The world is included under the sense of ego, and the ego is contained in the heart of the world; and these being productive of one another, are reciprocally the container and contained of each other. 13. He who effaces the seed of his egoism from his understanding, by means of his ignoring it altogether; has verily washed off the picture of the world from his mind, by the water of ignorance of it. 14. Know Vidyádhara, there is no such thing as is implied by ego; it is a causeless nothing as the horn of a hare.

15. There is no egoism in the all pervading and infinite Brahma, who is devoid of all desire; and therefore there being no cause nor ground of it, it is never anything in reality. 16. Whatever is nothing in reality, could not possibly have any cause in the beginning of creation; therefore egoism is a nihility, as the son of a barren woman is a nullity in nature. 17. The want of egoism on the one hand, proves the privation of the world also on the other; thus there remains the Intellect or the one mind alone, in which everything is extinct. 18. From the proof of the absence of ego and the world, the operations of the mind and the sight of visibles, all come to an end, and there remains nothing for thee to care for or fear. 19. Whatever is not is a naught altogether, and the rest are as calm and quiet as nil in existence; knowing this as certain be enlightened, and fall no more to the false error which has no root in nature.

20. Being purged from the stain of fancy, you become as purified and sanctified as the holy lord Siva for ever, and then the sky will seem to thee as a huge mountain, and the vast world will dwindle to an atom. (This is done by two powers of adhyáropa and vyapadesa or expansion or contraction in yoga).

EXTINCTION OF VIDYÁDHARA (CONTINUED). Argument:—Entrancement of the Vidyádhara at the end of the Discourse in favour of Non-egoism. Bhusunda continued:—As I was lecturing in this manner, the chief of the vidyádharas became dull in the consciousness (i.e. unconscious of himself), and fell into the trance of samádhi—anaesthesia. 2. And notwithstanding my repeated attempts, to awaken him from that state (of insensibility); he did not open his eyes to the sight lying before him, but was wholly absorbed in his nirvána-extinction. 3. He attained the supreme and ultimate state, and became enlightened in his soul (by what I had instructed him); and made no other further attempt to know what he sought. (The attempts to know God, besides sravana or attending to the lectures of the guru, are reflection, meditation etc.). 4. (Here Vasishtha said to Ráma:) It is therefore, Ráma, that I related this narrative to exemplify the effect of instruction in pure hearts, where it floats like a drop of oil on the surface of water (i.e. where it does not sink down nor is lost). 5. This instruction consists in forgetting the existence of the ego in the Supreme spirit, this is the best advice and there is no other like this; and this is calculated to give peace and comfort to your soul.

6. But when this advice falls in the soil of evil minds, it is choked up and lost in the end; as the purest pearl falls from the surface of a smooth mirror (or piece of glass). 7. But good advice sticks fast in the calm minds of the virtuous, and it enters into their reasoning souls; as the sunlight enters and shines in the sunstone. 8. Egoism is verily the seed of all worldly misery, as the seed of the thorny simul tree grows only prickles on earth; so is meity or the thought that this is mine, the out stretching branch of this tree. 9. First the seed ego, and then its branch of meity or mineness, produce the endless leaves of our desires; and their sense of selfishness, is productive of the burthensome fruits of our woe and misery. 10. Then the vidyádhara said; I understand, O chief of sages, that it is in this manner, that dull people also become long living in this world; and it is this true knowledge, which is the cause of the great longevity of yours and other sages. 11. Those who are pure in their hearts and minds, soon attain to their highest state of fearlessness, after they are once admonished with the knowledge of truth.

12. Vasishtha said:—The chief of the birds of air, spoke to me in this manner on the summit of the Sumeru Mountain; and then held his silence like the mute clouds on the top of Rishyasringa chain. (It is said that the clouds never roar when they rove over this hill). 13. Having taken leave of the sagely bird, I repaired to the abode of the Vidyádhara (in order to learn the truth of the story); and then returned to my place, which was graced by the assemblage of sages. 14. I have thus related to you, O Ráma, the narration of the veteran bird, and the sedateness which was attained by the Vidyádhara with little pain and knowledge. It is now the lapse of the long period of eleven great Yugas, since my said interview with Bhusunda—the veteran chief of the feathered tribe.

LECTURE ON THE ANNIHILATION OF EGOISM. Argument:—The Yoga or mode of consuming egoism by the fire of Non-egoism. Vasishtha said:—It is by means of the knowledge of one’s want of egoism, that the arbor of his desire, which is productive of the fruit of worldliness, and which is fraught with the taste of all kinds of sweet and bitterness; may be checked in its growth. 2. It is by one’s habit of thinking his unegoism, that he comes to view both gold and stone, as well as all sorts of rubbish in the same light; and by being calm and quiet at all events, has never any cause of sorrow at any thing whatsoever. 3. When the cannon-ball of egoism, is let to fly out from the gun of the mind by force of divine knowledge; we are at a loss to know, where the stone of egoism takes its flight. 4. The stone of egoism being flung from the balustrade of the body, by the gigantic force of spiritual knowledge; we know not where this ponderous egoism is driven and lost.

5. After the stone of egoism is flung away, by the great force of the knowledge of Brahma only; we cannot say where this engine of the body (with its boast of egoism in it), is lost forever. (Here are three comparisons of egoism, viz, 1 of a gunshot; 2 of a balustrade stone; 3 of a pebble in a sling). 6. The meaning of ego is frost in the heart of man, and melts away under the sunshine of unegoism; it then flies off in vapour, and then disappears into nothing we know not where. 7. The ego is the juice of the inner part of the body, and the unego is the solar heat without; the former is sucked up by the latter, and forsakes the dried body like a withered leaf, and then flies off where we know not. 8. The moisture of egoism, being sucked up from the leafy body of the living, flies by the process of its suction by the solar heat, to the unknown region of endless vacuum. 9. Whether a man sleeps in his bed or sits on the ground, whether he remains at home or roves on rocks, whether he wanders over the land or water, wherever he sits or sleeps or is awake or not:—

10. This formless egoism abides in it, either as gross matter or the subtile spirit, or in some state or other; which though it is afar from it, seems to be united with it. (The true ego of the far distant Divine spirit, seems to be incorporated with the material body). 11. Egoism is seated as the minute seed, in the heart of the fig tree of the body; where it sprouts forth and stretches its branches, composing the different parts of the world. (i.e. The seed of egoism develops itself in the form of the creation, which is a creature of its own). 12. Again the big tree of the body, is contained within the minute seed of egoism; which bursts out in the branches forming the several parts of the universe. 13. As the small seed is seen by every one, to contain within it a large tree, which develops itself into a hundred branches, bearing all their leaves, flowers and abundance of fruits; so doth the big body reside with the atomic seed of egoism, with all its endless parts of corporeal organs and mental faculties, which are discernible to the sight of the intelligent.

14. Egoism is not to be had in the body by reasoning, which points out the mind of everybody, to seek it in the sphere of the vacuous Intellect; the seed of egoism does not spring from the bosom of unreality, and the blunder of the reality of the world, is destroyed by the fire proceeding from the spirituality of the wise.

DESCRIPTION OF THE UNIVERSAL SPHERE. Argument:—How material world is framed by intellect, its formation and destruction, one by reminiscence and the other by forgetfulness. Vasishtha related:—There is never and nowhere an absolute death or total dissolution of the body together with the mind, soul and egoism; but it is the cessation of the inward imagery of the mind, that is called its quietus. 2. Look at these sights of the Meru and Mandara Mountains, which are born before thy presence; they are not carried to and fro to every body, but are reflected in the minds of all like the flying clouds of autumn in the water of a river. 3. These creations are placed over and above and below and under one another, like the coatings of a plantain tree; and they are either in contact with or detached from one another like clouds in the sky. 4. Ráma said:—Sir, I do not fully comprehend the sound sense of what you say by the words “Look at these flying sights” and therefore I beg to you to explain this clearly unto me.

5. Vasishtha replied:—Know Ráma, that the life contains the mind, and the mind is the container of the worlds within it; as there are various kinds of trees and their several parts, contained in the bosom of a small berry. (And this is meant by one thing being contained within another). 6. After a man is dead, his vital airs fly to and unite with the etherial air; as the liquid water of streams flows to and mixes with the main ocean. (This is by attraction of things of the same kind). 7. The winds of heaven then disperse on all sides, his vital airs together with the imaginary worlds of his life time, which subsisted in the particles of his vital breath. 8. I see the winds of heaven, bearing away the vital airs, together with their contents of the imaginary worlds; and filling the whole space of air with vital breath on all sides. 9. I see the Meru and Mandara Mountains, wafted with the imaginary worlds before me; and you also will observe the same, before the sight of your understanding. (The whole vacuum teeming with life).

10. The etherial airs are full with the vital airs of the dead, which contain the minute particles of mind in them; and these minds again contain the types of the worlds in them, just as the sesame seeds contain the oil in them. 11. As the etherial airs bear the vital airs, which are of the same kind with them (both being airy substances); so are the vital breaths accompanied with particles of the mind (which is equally an airy substance also), these again bear the pictures of the worlds in them, as if they are ingrafted upon them. 12. The same vacuum contains the whole creation and the three worlds with the earth and ocean, all which are borne in it, as the different odors are borne by the winds. 13. All these are seen in the sight of the understanding, and not by the vision of the visual organs; they are the portraiture of our imagination, like the fairy lands we see in our dreams before us.

14. There are many other things, more subtile than the visible atmosphere, and which owing to their existence in our desire or fancy only, are not borne upon the wings of the winds as the former ones. (Though it is said in ordinary speech, that our desires and fancies are borne by our internal humour of váyu or wind). 15. But there are some certain truths, which are derived from the intellect, and are called intellectual principles, which have the power to cause our pleasure and pain, and lead us to heaven or hell: (Such as virtue and vice). (These are the immutable principles of right and wrong, abiding in and proceeding from the intellect). 16. Again our desires are as the shadows of cities, floating on the stream of life; and though the current of life is continually gliding away, yet the shadowy desires whether successful or not, ever remain the same. (Lit. are never carried away by the current). 17. The vital breath carries its burden of the world, along with its course to the stillness of endless vacuity; as the breezes bear away the fragrance of flowers, to the dreary desert where they are lost for ever.

18. Though the mind is ever fickle, changeable and forgetful in its nature; yet it never loses the false idea of the world which is inherent in it, as a pot removed to any place and placed in any state, never gets rid of its inner vacuity. (The idea of the world is carried by reminiscence, in every state and stage of the changeful mind). 19. So when the fallacy of the false world has taken possession of the deluded mind, it is alike impossible either to realize or set it at naught, like the form of the formless Brahma. 20. Or if this world is a revolving body, carried about by the force of the winds; yet we have no knowledge of its motion, as when sitting quiet in a boat, though carried afar to the distance of miles by the tide and winds. 21. As men sitting in a boat, have no knowledge of the force which carries the boat forward; so we earthly beings have no idea of the power that is attached to it in its rotatory motion. 22. As a wide extending city, is represented in miniature in a painting at the foot of a column; so is this world contained in the bosom of the minute atom of the mind.

23. A thing however little or insignificant, is taken to be too much and of great importance, by the low and mean; as a handful of paddy is of great value to the little mouse than gems, and a particle of mud to the contemptible frog, than the pearls under the water. (So a particle of the mind is enough for the whole world). 24. Again a trifle is taken as too much, by those who are ignorant of its insignificance; as the learned in the error of their judgement, mistake this visionary world as preparatory to their future happiness or misery. (The world being nothing in reality, cannot lead to anything, to real good or evil). 25. The inward belief of something as real good, and of another as positive evil, is a mistake common to the majority of mankind, and to which the learned also are liable, in their conduct in this world. (The wise man is indifferent to every thing, and neither likes nor takes the one, nor hates or rejects the other). 26. As the intelligent and embodied soul, is conscious of every part of the body in which it is confined; so the enlightened living soul—jíva, beholds all the three worlds displayed within itself (as in the God Virát).

27. The unborn and ever lasting God, who is of the form of conscious soul, extending over the infinity of space, has all these worlds, as parts of his all pervading vacuous body. 28. The intelligent and ever living soul (of God) sees the uncreated worlds deeply impressed in itself; as a rod of iron (were it endowed with intelligence), would see the future knives and needles in itself. 29. As a clod of earth, whether endowed with intelligence or not knows the seed which is hidden in it, and which it grows to vegetation afterwards; so doth the ever living soul know the world which is contained in it. 30. As the sensitive or insensitive seed, knows the germ, plant and tree, which it contains within its bosom; so doth the spirit of God, perceive the great arbor of the world conceived in its profoundest womb. 31. As the man having his sight, sees the image of something reflected in a mirror, which the blind man does not; so the wise man sees the world in Brahma, which the ignorant does not perceive (but think the world as distinct from him).

32. The world is nothing except the union of the four categories of time, space, action and substance; and egoism being no way distinct from the predicates of the world, subsists in God who contains the whole in Himself. (God is not predicable by any particular predicate; but is the congeries of all the predicates taken collectively in his nature). 33. Whatever lesson is inculcated to any body by means of a parable, i.e. whatever thing is signified to some one by a comparison, know that the simile relates to some particular property of the compared object and not in all respects. (So the similitude of iron rod given to god in the sruti and this book, regards only its material causality, and not its insensibility with the sensible spirit of God). 34. Whatever is seen to be moving or unmoving here in this world; is the vivarta or expanded body of the living soul, without any alteration in its atomic minuteness. (Nature is the body, and God the soul. Pope). 35. Leaving the intelligence aside (which is wanting in created objects); and taking the force only (which actuates all nature); we find no difference of this physical force from the giver of the force.

36. Again whatever alteration, is produced in the motion or option of anything or person, at any time or place or in any manner; is all the act of that Divine Intellect. 37. It is the intellect which infuses in the mind the power of its option, volition, imagination and the like; because none of these can spring as a sprout in the mind, which is without intelligence and without an intelligent cause of it. 38. Whatever desires and fancies, rise in the minds of the unenlightened; are not of the nature of the positive will or decree of the Divine Mind, owing to the endless variety and mutuality of human wishes. 39. The desires rising in the minds of the enlightened, are as they were no desires and never had their rise; because— 40. All thoughts and desires being groundless, they are as false as the idle wishes of boys; for who has ever obtained the objects of his dream? (or that he has beheld in his dream)?

41. Sankalpa with its triple sense of thought, desire and imagination, is impressed by the intellect on the living soul (which is the image of God) from its past reminiscence; and though we have a notion of this ideal soul, yet it is as untrue and unsubstantial as a shadow; but not so the original Intellect, which is both real and substantial. 42. He who is freed from the error of taking the unreal world for real, becomes as free as the god Siva himself; and having got rid of the corporeal body, becomes manifest in his spiritual form. 43. The imagination of the ignorant, whirls about the worlds, as the wind hurls the flying cotton in the air; but they appear to be as unmoved as stones to the wise, who are not led away by their imagination. 44. So there are multitudes of worlds, amidst many other things in the vast womb of vacuum which nobody can count; some of which are united with one another in groups, and others that have no connection with another.

45. The supreme intellect being all in all, manifests itself in endless forms and actions, filling the vast space of infinity, some of which are as transient as rain drops or bubbles in air and water, which quickly burst out and disappear; and others appearing as the great cities (of gods &c.), situated in the heart of the Infinite one. 46. Some of these are as durable as rocks, and others are continually breaking and wearing out; some appearing as bright as with their open eyes, and others as dark as with their closed eyelids; some of these are luminous to sight and others obscured under impenetrable darkness; thus the bosom of the intellect resembling the vast expanse of the ocean, is rolling on with the waves of creation to all eternity. 47. Some though set apart are continually tending towards another; as the waters of distant rivers are running to mix with those of seas and ocean; and as the luminous bodies of heaven, appearing together to brighten its sphere.

DESCRIPTION OF THE FORM OF VIRÁT OR THE ALL COMPREHENDING DEITY. Argument:—The Essence of the Living soul, and of the undivided and Individual bodies; and Distinction of things with regard to their distinct natures and actions. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, regarding the nature of the living soul, and the manner of its assuming its different forms; and tell me also its original form, and those which it takes at different times and places. 2. Vasishtha replied:—The infinite intelligence of God, which fills all space and vacuum; takes of its own will a subtile and minute form, which is intelligible under the name of Intellect; and it is this which is expressed by the term living soul—jíva or zoa. 3. Its original form is neither that of a minute atom, nor a bulky mass; not an empty vacuity, nor anything having its solidity. It is the pure intellect with consciousness of itself, it is omnipresent and is called the living soul. (It is neither the empty space, nor anything contained therein). 4. It is the minutest of the minute, and the hugest of the huge; it is nothing at all, and yet the all, which the learned designate as the living soul. (The preceding one is a negative proposition, and this an affirmative one).

5. Know it as identic with the nature, property and quality, of any object whatever that exists any where; It is the light and soul of all existence, and selfsame with all, by its engrossing the knowledge of everything in itself. (Because nothing is existent in reality but in its idea, and the soul having all ideas in itself, is identic with all of them). 6. Whatever this soul thinks in any manner, of anything at any place or time, it immediately becomes the same by its notion thereof. (i.e. Being full with the idea of a thing, it is said to be identified with the same). (The collective soul becomes all whatever it thinks or wills, as the soul of God; but the individual soul thinks as it becomes at any place or time—as the soul of man or any particular being. Gloss). 7. The soul possesses the power of thinking, as the air has its force in the winds; but its thoughts are directed by the knowledge of things (that it derives by means of the senses); and not by the guidance of anyone, as the appearance of ghosts to boys.

8. As the existent air appears to be inexistent, without the motion of the wind; so the living soul desisting from its function of thinking, is said to be extinct in the Supreme Deity. 9. The living soul is misled to think of its individuality as the ego, by the density or dullness of its intellect; and supposes itself to be confined within a limited space of place and time, and with limited powers of action and understanding. (Thus the infinite soul mistakes itself for a finite being, by the dulness of its understanding). 10. Being thus circumscribed by time and space, and endowed with substance and properties of action &c., it assumes to itself an unreal form or body, with the belief of its being or sober reality. (Thus the incorporeal soul, is incorporated in a corporeal frame). 11. It then thinks itself to be enclosed in an ideal atom; as one sees himself in his dream to be involved in his unreal death.

12. And as one finds in its mind his features and the members of his body, to another form in his dream; so the soul forgets her intellectual entity in her state of ignorance, and becomes of the same nature and form, as she constantly thinks upon. (It forgets its pure spiritual form, and becomes a dull material body of some kind). 13. Thinking itself to be thus transformed to a gross and material form, as that of Virát the macrocosm (who combines the whole material universe in himself); it views itself as bright and spotted, as the disk of the moon with the black spot upon it. 14. It then finds in its person resembling the lunar disk, the sudden union of the five senses of perception, appearing in him of themselves. 15. These five senses are then found to have the five organs of sensation for their inlets, by which the soul perceives the sensation of their respective objects.

16. Then the Purusha or first male power known as Virát, manifests himself in five other forms said to be the members of his person; and these are the sun, the sides, water, air, and the land, which are the objects of five senses said before. He then becomes of endless forms according to the infinity of objects of his knowledge: (i.e. the thoughts in this mind). He is thus manifested in his objective forms, but is quite unknown to us in his subjective or causal form, which is unchangeable and undecaying. 17. He sprang up at first from the supreme being, as its mental energy or the mind; and was manifest in the form of the calm and clear firmament, with the splendour of eternal delight. 18. He was not of the five elemental forms, but was the soul of the five elements, he is called the Virát Purusha—the macrocosm of the world, and the supreme lord of all. (He was the collective body of all individual ones). 19. He rises spontaneously of himself, and then subsides in himself; he expands his own essence all over the universe, and at last contracts the whole in himself.

20. He rose in a moment with his power of volition, and with all his desires in himself; he rises of his own will at first, and after lasting long in himself, dissolves again in himself. 21. He is the selfsame one with the mind of God, and he is the great body of the material world; and his body is called the puryashtaka or container of the eight elementary principles, as also the átiváhika or of the spiritual form. 22. He is as the subtile and gross air, manifest as the sky, but invisible as the subtile ether; he is both within and as well as without everything, and is yet nothing in himself. 23. His body consists of eight members, viz—the five senses, the mind, the living principle and egoism, together with the different states of their being and not being, i.e., of their visible and invisible form (such as outward and inward organs of perception &c.). 24. He (in the form of Brahmá), sang at first the four vedas with his four mouths; he determined the significations of words, and it was he who established the rules of conduct, which are in vogue to this time.

25. The high and boundless heaven, is the crown of his head; and the lower earth is the footstool of his feet; the unbounded sky is his capacious belly, and the whole universe is the temple over his body. 26. The multitudes of worlds all about, are the members of his body on all sides; the waters of seas are the blood of the scars upon his body; the mountains are his muscles, and the rivers and streams are the veins and arteries of his body. 27. The seas are his blood vessels, and the islands are the ligatures round his persons; his arms are the sides of the sky, and the stars are the hairs on his body. 28. The forty-nine winds are its vital airs, the orb of the sun is its eye-ball, while its heat is the fiery bile inside its belly. 29. The lunar orb is the sheath of his life, and its cooling beams are the humid humours of his body; his mind is the receptacle of his desires, and the pith of his soul is the ambrosia of his immortality.

30. He is the root of the tree of the body, and the seed of the forest of actions; he is the source of all existence, and he is as the cooling moonlight diffusing delight to all beings by the heating beams of that balmy planet oshadhísa. 31. The orb of the moon, is said in the sruti as the lord of life, the cause of the body and thoughts and actions of all living beings (by growing the vegetable food for their subsistance and sustenance of their lives). 32. It is from this moon like Virát, that contains all vitality in himself, that all other living beings in the universe take their rise; hence the moon is the container of life, mind, action and the sweet ambrosia of all living beings. 33. It is the will or desire of Virát, that produced the gods Brahmá, Vishnu and Siva from himself; and all the celestial deities and demons, are the miraculous creation of his mind. 34. It is the wonderful nature of the intelligent Intellect, that whatever it thinks upon in its form of an infinitesimal atom, the same appears immediately before it in its gigantic form and size.

35. Know Ráma, the whole universe to be seat of the soul of Virát (i.e. the whole universe to be teeming with life), and the five elements to compose the five component parts of his body. (Whose body is all nature and whose soul is God). 36. Virát that shines as the collective or universal soul of the world, in the bright orb of the moon, diffuses light and life to all individuals by spreading the moonbeams which produces the vegetable food for the supportance and sustenance of living beings. 37. The vegetable substances, which supply the animal bodies with their sustenance; and thereby produce the life of living beings; produce also the mind which becomes the cause of the actions and future births of persons by its efforts towards the same. 38. In this manner a thousand viráts and hundreds of Mahákalpa periods have passed away; and, there many such still existing and yet to appear, with varieties of customs and manners of peoples in different ages and climes.

39. The first and best and supremely blest Virát—the male Deity, resides in this manner of our conception of him, and indistinct in his essence from the state of transcendent divinity; with his huge body extending beyond the limits of space and time. (This Virát or Brahmá is the Demiurgus of platonic philosophy).

LECTURE ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE LIVING SOUL. Argument:—Extinction of individual souls in the universal, by their abandonment of desires. Vasishtha continued:—This primary Purusha or the Male agent—Virát, is a volitive principle; and whatever he wills to do at anytime, the same appears instantly before him in its material form of the five elements. 2. It is this will, O Ráma! that the sages say to have become the world; because by its being intent upon producing the same, it became expanded in the same form. (The will of the Deity is the deed itself). 3. Virát is the cause of all things in the world, which came to be produced in the same form as their material cause. (Because the product is alike its producing cause, being a fac-simile of the same). 4 As the great Virát is collectively the aggregate of all souls, so is he distributed likewise into the individual soul of every body. (Hence every soul knowing itself to be a particle of the Divine, cannot think itself as otherwise).

5. The same Virát is manifest in the meanest insect as also in the highest Rudra, in a small atom as in the huge hill, and expands itself as the seed vessel to a very large tree (all which are mistaken as parts of the illusive world). 6. The great Virát is himself the soul of every individual, from the creeping insect to the mighty Rudra of air; and his infinite soul extends even to atoms, that are sensible and not insensible of themselves. 7. In proportion as Virát expands and extends his soul to infinity, so he fills the bodies of even the atomic animalcules with particles of his own essence. 8. There is nothing as great or small in reality in the world, but everything appears to be in proportion as it is filled and expanded by the Divine spirit. 9. The mind is derived from the moon, again the moon has sprung from the mind; so doth life spring from life and the fluid water flows from the congealed snow and ice and vice versa. (So there is nothing as greater or less or as the source and its outlet).

10. Life is but a drop of the seminal fluid, distilled as a particle by the amorous union of parents. (This life being transmitted from generation to generation, there is no one greater or less than another). 11. This life then reflects in itself, and derives the properties of the soul, and likens it in the fulness of its perfections. (Hence the soul and life are identified to one and the same principle by many). 12. The living soul has then the consciousness of itself, and of its existence as one pure and independent soul; but there is no cause whatever, as to how it comes to think itself a material being composed of the five elements. 13. It is through opposition of nature that leads one into error, but in fact nature ever remains the same; as wrong interpretation of language imbues bad ideas whereas character remains the same. 14. The living soul is conscious of its selfexistence, by its knowledge of living by itself; it is the instinct of the perception of things by the mind, and not merely as the breath of life or external air, which is devoid of consciousness.

15. But being beset by the frost of ignorance, and confined to the objects of sense, the living soul is blinded of its consciousness and is converted to the breathing soul or vital life, and so loses the sight of its proper course. 16. Being thus deluded by the illusion of the world, the soul sees the duality instead of its unity, and being converted to the breathing of vital life, it is lost to the sight of the soul which is hidden under it. 17. We remain confined to this world of ignorance, as long we enjoy the idea of ego; but as soon as we give up the idea of ego, we become a free man. 18. Therefore O Ráma! When you will be able to know that there is no salvation and confinement in this world, as well as no sat and asat, then and there you will be a true free man.

WHAT CONSTITUTES TRUE KNOWLEDGE. Argument:—Amateurs of learning of two kinds, the real and the affected or Description of the two kinds of the lovers of knowledge, viz, the real and the Fictitious. Vasishtha continued:—The wise man must always conduct himself wisely, and not with mere show or affectation of wisdom; because the ignorant even are preferable to the affected and pretended lovers of learning. (According to the maxim which says that, if the show of anything be good for anything, surely the Reality must be better). 2. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, what is meant by true wisdom, and by the show or affectation of it; and what is the good or bad result of either. (i.e. What kind of men they are, their signs and their respective ends). 3. Vasishtha replied:—He who reads the sástras, and practices his learning as a practitioner for earning his livelihood, without endeavouring to investigate into the principles of his knowledge, is called a friend to learning. 4. Whose learning is seen to be employed in busy life only, without showing its true effect in the improvement of the understanding; such learning being but an art or means of getting a livelihood, its possessor is called a fellow of learning; (and no doctor in it).

5. He who is satisfied with his food and dress only, as the best gain of his learning; is known as an amateur and novice in the art of explaining the sástra (or as mere teachers and pedagogues). 6. He who persists in the performance of his righteous and ceremonial acts, as ordained by law (Srouta sástra) with an object of fruition, is termed a probationer in learning, and is near about to be crowned with knowledge. 7. The knowledge of the soul (spiritual knowledge), is reckoned as the true knowledge; all other knowledge is merely a semblance of it, being void of the essential knowledge (necessary for mankind). 8. Those who without receiving the spiritual knowledge, are content with bits of their secular learning; all their labour is in vain in this world, and they are styled as mere noviciates in learning. 9. Ráma, you must not rest here with your heart’s content, unless you can rest in the peace of your mind, with your full knowledge of the knowable one; you must not remain like a novice in learning, in order to enjoy the fruitions of this deleterious world. (Here all pleasure is palpable pain).

10. Let men work honestly on earth to earn their bread, and let them take their food for sustenance of their lives; let them live for the inquiry after truth, and let them learn that truth, which is calculated to prevent their return to this miserable world.

THE YOGA CONDUCIVE TO HAPPINESS OR THE WAY TO HAPPINESS. Argument:—The signs and characters of wise men and of their wisdom; together with a disquisition into the nature of the world, soul and the Supreme spirit or Brahma. Vasishtha resumed:—The man who by his knowledge of the knowable one, hath placed his reliance in him; who hath set his mind to its pristine purity, by purging it from its worldly propensities, and has no faith in the merit of acts; is one who is called the truly wise. (This chapter is in answer to Ráma’s question about who is a wise man &c.). 2. The learned who knowing all kinds of learning, and being employed in acts, yet observe their indifference in every thing, are called to be truly wise. (It is wisdom to act, and not expect). 3. He whose heart is observed by the wise, to retain its coldness in all his acts and efforts; and whose mind is unaffectedly calm and quiet at all times; is said to be the truly wise man. 4. The sense of one’s liberation from the doom of birth and death, is the true meaning of the word knowledge; or else the art of procuring simple food and raiment, is the practice of artificers only.

5. He is styled a wise man, who having fallen in the current of his transactions, remains without any desire or expectation, and continues with as vacant a heart as the empty air. 6. The accidents of life come to pass, without any direct cause and to no purpose; and what was neither present nor expected, comes to take place of its own accord. (All accidents are caused by an unknown and unforeseen fate or chance). 7. The appearance or disappearance of an event or accident proceeds from causes quite unknown to us, and these afterwards become causes of the effects produced by them. 8. Who can tell what is the cause of the absence of horn in hares, and the appearance of water in the mirage, which cannot be found out or seen at the sight of those objects. 9. Those who explore in the causality of the want of horns in hares, may well expect to embrace the necks of the sons and grandsons of a barren woman. 10. The cause of the appearance of the unreal phenomena of the world to our sight, is no other than our want of right sight (i.e. our ignorance), which presents these phantoms to our view; and which disappear at a glance of our acute vision (of reason).

11. The living (or human) soul appears as the Supreme spirit, when it is viewed upon by the sight of our blended intellect; but no sooner does the light of Divine intellect dawn in our minds, than the living or animal soul dwindles into nothing. 12. The insensible and unconscious Supreme soul, becomes awakened to the state of the living soul; just as the potential mango of winter, becomes the positive mango fruit in the genial spring. 13. The intellect being awakened, becomes the living soul; which in its long course of its living, becomes worn out with age and toil, and passes into many births in many kinds of beings (animal, vegetable as well as insensible objects). 14. Wise men that are possessed of their intellectual sight, look internally within themselves in the recesses of their hearts and minds; without looking at the lookables without, or thinking of anything or many efforts whatever; but move on with the even course of their destiny, as the water flows on its course to the ocean of eternity. 15. They who have come to the light of their transcendent vision, fix their sight to brighter views beyond the sphere of visibles; and discern the invisible exposed to their view.

16. They who have come to the vision of transcendent light (the glory of God), have their slow and silent motion like that of a hidden water course; owing to their heedlessness of everything in this world. 17. They who are regardless of the visibles and thoughtless of the affairs of the world, are like those that disentangled from their snares; and they are truly wise, who meddle with their business as freely, as the free airs of heaven gently play with and move the leaves of trees. 18. They who have come to sight of the transcendent light, athwart the dizzy scenes of mortal life; are not constrained to the course of this world, as seafarers are not to be pent up in shallow and narrow pools and streams. (Sailors are glad to be in the wide ocean, than to ply in the waters of inland creeks). 19. They that are slaves of their desire (of enjoyment in this and next life), are bound to the thraldom of works ordained by law and sruti; and thus pass their lives in utter ignorance of truth. (Hence knowledge and practice are opposed to one another, the one being a state of bondage for some frail good and gain, and the other of freedom and lasting bliss).

20. The bodily senses fall upon carnal pleasures, as vultures pounce upon putrid carrion; curb and retract them therefore with diligence, and fix thy mind to meditate on the state of Brahma and the soul. 21. Know that Brahma is not without the creation, as no gold is without its form and reflection; but keep yourself clear from thoughts of creation and reflexion, and confine your mind to the meditation of Brahma, which is replete with perfect bliss. 22. Know the nature of Brahma to be as inscrutable, as the face of the universe is indiscernible, in the darkness of the chaotic state at the end of a Yuga age; when there was no appearance of anything, nor distinction of conduct and manners. (See Manu’s institutes I. 2). 23. And the elements of production existing in the consciousness of divine nature, were in their quiescent agitation in the divine spirit; as the movements of flimsy vapours amidst the darkness of an immovable and wide spreading cloud. (So are the fickle thoughts of the firm mind, and the moving engines of the fixed machine).

24. And as the particles of water are in motion, in a still pond and in the standing pool; so are the changing thoughts of the changeless soul, and so the motions of the element bodies in unchanging essence and nature of God. 25. As the universal and undivided sky and space, take the names of the different sides of heaven (without having any name or side of its own); so the undivided and partless Brahma, being one and same with the creation, is understood as distinct and different from it. 26. The world contains the egoism, as the ego contains the world in it; they contain the one within the other, as the coats of the plantain tree contain and are contained under one another. 27. The living soul or jíva being possessed of its egoism, sees its internal world (which lies in its egoism), through the pores of the organs of sense, as lying without it; in the same manner, as the mountains look upon the lakes issuing out of its caverns, as if they outward things altogether. (So the mental and internal world appears as a visibly external phenomenon).

28. So when the living soul sees itself by mistake, to any thing in the world (i.e. in the light of an object); it is the same as one takes a ball or bar of gold, for an ornament which was or is to be made of it. (So the soul residing in any body at anytime, is not that body itself but the indwelling power thereof). 29. Hence they that are acquainted with the soul, and are liberated in their life time (or become jívanmukta); never think themselves to be born or living or dying at any time (though they are thought and looked upon as such by others. The soul being eternal and unchangeable). 30. Those that are awakened to the sight of the soul, are employed in the actions of life without looking at them; (without taking heed of them in their hearts); just as a house-holder discharges his domestic duties, while his mind is fixed at the milk pot in the cowstall. 31. As the God Virát is situated with his moon like appearance, in the heart of the universal frame, so does the living soul reside in the heart of every individual body like a little or large dew drop, according to the smallness or bigness of the corporeal body.

32. This false and frail body believed to be a solid reality, on account of its tripartite figure; and is mistaken for the ego and soul, owing to the intelligence that is displayed and dwells in it. 33. The living soul is confined like a silkworm, in the cell of its own making Karma-Kosha, by acts of its past life, and resides with its egoism in the seed of its parents, as the floral fragrance dwells in the honey cups of flowers. 34. The egoism residing in the seminal seed, spreads its intelligence throughout the body from head to foot; as the moon-beams are scattered throughout the circumference of the whole universe. 35. The soul stretches out the fluid of its intelligence, through the openings of its organs of sense; and this being carried to a sides through the medium of air, extends all over the three worlds, as the vapour and smoke fill and cover the face of the sky. 36. The body is full of sensibility, both in its inner as well as outer parts; but it is in the viscera of the heart, where our desires (vásaná) and egoism (abhimána) are deeply seated.

37. The living soul is composed of its desires only, and consists of and subsists under its hearty wishes alone, the same soon come out of themselves from within the heart, and appear on the outside in the outward conduct of the person. (Whatever is in the heart, the same appears also in action). 38. The error of egoism is never to be suppressed, by any other means whatsoever; save by one’s unmindfulness (nis-chitta) of himself, and fulness of divine presence (Brahmai karasya) in his calm and quiet soul. 39. Though dwelling on your present thoughts, yet you must rely in your reflection of the vacuous Brahma; by suppression of your egoism by degrees and your self-controul betimes. 40. They who have known the soul, manage themselves here without fostering their earthly thoughts anymore; and remain as silent images of wood, without looking at or thinking of any thing at all. 41. He who has less of earthly thoughts in him, is said to be liberated in the world; and though living in it, he is as clear and free in his mind as the open air (no earthly affections, tie down his rising soul).

42. The egoism which is bred in the pith, grows into intelligence extending from head to foot; and circulates throughout the whole body, as the sun beams pervade all over the sphere of heaven. 43. It becomes the sight of the eyes, the taste of the tongue and hearing in the ears; then the five senses being fastened to the desires in the heart, plunge the ego into the sea of sensuality. 44. Thus the omnipresent intellect, becomes the mind after losing its purity; and is employed with one or other of the senses, as the common moisture of the earth, grows the sprout in the vernal season. 45. He who thinks on the various objects of the senses, without knowing their unreality and the reality of the only one; and does not endeavour for his liberation here, has no end of his troubles in life. (Because sensible objects, afford no intellectual or spiritual happiness). 46. That man reigns as an emperor, who is content with any kind of food and raiment; and with any sort of bedstead at any place. (And is not confined to any particular mode of life).

47. Who with all his desires of the heart, is indifferent to all the outward objects of desire; who with his vacant mind is full with his soul, and being as empty vacuum is filled with the breath of life. 48. Who whether he is sitting or sleeping, or going anywhere or remaining unmoved, continues as quiet as in his sleeping state; and though stirred by any one, he is not awakened from his slumber of nirvána, in which his mind and its thoughts, are all drowned and have become extinct. (This is the state of the sixth stage of Yoga meditation). 49. Consciousness though common to all, resides yet in each breast, like fragrance in flowers and flavour in fruits. 50. It is self-consciousness only, that makes an individual person, and its extinction is said to form the wide world all about; but being confined to the soul or one’s self, it vanishes the sight of the world from view. (i.e. The subjective consciousness is the soul or self, and its objectivity makes the world; and this is the abstract of this doctrine). 51. Be unconscious of the objects on earth; and remain insensible of all your prosperity and affluence: make your heart as hard as impenetrable as stone, if you will be happy forever.

52. O righteous Ráma! convert the feeling of your heart to unfeelingness, and make your body and mind as insensible as the hardest stone (upala or opal). 53. Of all the positive and negative acts, of the wise and unwise sets of men, there is nothing that makes such a marked difference between them, as those proceeding from the desire of the one, and those from want of the desire of the other. 54. The result of the desired actions of the unwise, is their stretching out of the world before them; while that of the acts done without desire by the wise, serves to put an end to the world before them. (The acts of desire produce repeated births in the world, while the other puts an end to the future transmigrations of the soul). 55. All visibles are destructible, and those that are destroyed come to be renewed to life; but that which is neither destroyed nor resuscitated, is thyself—thy very soul. 56. The knowledge of existence (of the world), is without its foundation; and though it is thought to be existent, it is not found to be so in reality; it is as the water in the mirage, which does not grow the germ of the world.

57. The right knowledge of things, removes the thought of egoism from the mind; and though it may be thought of in the mind, yet it takes no deep root in the heart, as the burnt seed or grain does not sprout forth in the ground. 58. The man that does his duties or not, but remains passionless and thoughtless and free from frailty; has his rest in the soul, and his nirvána is always attendant upon him. 59. Those who are saintly calm and quiet by the controul of their mind, and by suppression of the bonds (appetites) for enjoyments; but not having weakened (governed) their natures, have in their hearts a mine of evils. 60. The wise soul is full of light like the cloudless sky, and is distinguished from others by its brightness; but the same soul which is alike in all, appears as dim as the evening twilight in the ignorant. 61. As a man seated in this place, sees the light of heaven (heavenly bodies), as coming to him from a great distance, and filling the intermediate space; so the light of the Supreme soul fills and reaches to all.

62. The infinite and invisible intellect, which is as wondrous as the clear vacuum of the sky; conceives and displays this wonderful world, within the infinitude of its own vacuity. 63. The world appears to the learned and unerring, and those who have got rid of the error of the world, and rest in their everlasting tranquility, as a consumed and extinguished lamp; while it seems to all common people, to be placed in the air, by the will of God and for the enjoyment of all. (The two opposite views of the world with the learned and ignorant).

STORY OF A PIOUS BRÁHMANA AND HIS NIRVÁNA EXTINCTION. Argument:—Account of Vasishtha’s meeting a hermit named Manki in a desert land; and their mutual conversation with regard to self-resignation and liberation. Vasishtha said:—(I have delivered to you my lectures) on dispassionateness, inappetence and resignation of worldly desires; rise therefore and go beyond the material world after the example of one Manki (as related herein—below). 2. There lived once on a time before a Bráhmana named Manki, who was applauded for his devotion and steadfastness to holy vows. 3. It happened at one time, that I was coming down from the vault of heaven, upon an invitation from your grandfather Aja on some particular occasion. 4. As I then came to wander on the surface of the earth, in order to reach at the realm of your grandsire; I happened to meet before me a vast desert, with the burning sunshine over it. 5. It was a dreary waste without its boundary on any side, filled with burning sands and obscured by grey and flying dust over it; and marked by a few scattered hamlets here and there.

6. The extended waste appeared as the boundless and spotless immensity of Brahma, by its unrestricted vacuity, howling winds, burning heat and light, its seeming water in the sand, and untrodden ground resting in peace. 7. It seemed as delusive as the appearance of avidyá or illusion itself; by the deceptive waters of mirage upon the sand, by its dulness and empty space and the mist overhanging on all sides of it. 8. As I was wandering along this hollow and sandy wilderness, I saw a wayfarer sauntering before me and muttering to himself in the travail of his wearisome journey. 9. The Traveller said:—O the powerful sun! That afflicts me with his blazing beams, as much as the company of evil-minded men is for our annoyance. 10. The sunbeams seem to pour down fire on earth, and melt down the pith and marrow of my body and bones; as they have been drying up the leaves and igniting the forest trees (for a conflagration). 11. Therefore it behoves me to repair to yonder hamlet, to allay the weariness of my journey, and recover my strength and spirits for travelling onward. (So it is said:—the shady bower invites the dry, and drives out the cooled).

12. So saying, he was about to proceed towards the village, which was an habitation of the low caste Kirátas. (The kerrhoids of Ptolemy, and the present Kerántes of the Himalayas). When I interrupted him by saying:— 13. Vasishtha said:—I hail thee, O thou passenger of the sandy desert, and may all be well with thee, that art my fellow traveller on the way, and art so good looking and passionless:— 14. O traveller of the lower earth! who have long lived in the habitations of men, and have not found your rest, how is it now that you expect to have it, in this solitary abode of this mean people? 15. You can have no rest at the abode of the vile people in yonder village, which is mostly peopled by the Pamara villains; thirst is not appeased, but increased by a beverage of briny water. (So it is said:—The unquenchable appetite of the greedy, is never quenched by nourishment, but it nourishes it the more, as the fuel and butter serve to kindle and feed the fire).

16. These huts and hamlets shelter the cowardly cow-herds (Pallava Gopas) under them, and them that are afraid to walk in the paths of men, as the timid deer are averse to rove beyond their own track. (So these solitary swains are as the savage beasts of the forests). 17. They have no stir or agitation of reason, nor any flash of understanding or mental faculties in them; they are not afraid of or averse to base actions, but remain and move on as stone-mills and wheels:— 18. Their manliness consists in the emotions of their passions and affections, and in exhibitions of the signs of their cupidity and aversion, and they delight mostly in actions, that appear pleasant at the time being or present moment. (They are occupied with the present only, being forgetful of the past and careless of the future). 19. As there is no appearance of a body of rainy clouds, over the dry and parched lands of the desert, so there is no shadow of pure and cooling knowledge ever stretched out on the minds of these people. (i.e. They have never come under the benign influence of civilization).

20. Rather dwell in a dark cave as a snake, or remain as a blind worm in the bosom of a stone; or limp about as a lame stag in the barren desert, than mix in company of these village people. 21. These rude rustics resemble the potions of poison, that are mixed with honey; they are sweet to taste for a moment, but prove deadly at last. (Such are the robbers of deserts and woods). 22. Again these villainous villagers are as rude as the rough winds, which are blowing with gusts of dust amidst the shattered huts, built with grassy turfs and tufts of the dried leaves of trees. (The word trina means straw also or a straw built hut). 23. Being thus spoken unto by me, the traveller felt himself as glad, as if he was bathed in ambrosial showers. 24. The passenger said:—Who art thou sir, with thy magnanimous soul, that seemest to me to be full and perfect in thyself, and full of Divine spirit in thy soul. Thou lookest at the hustle of the bustle of the world, as a passer is unconcerned with the commotion of the villages beside his way.

25. Hast thou sir, drunk the ambrosial draught of the gods, that gave thee thy Divine knowledge? and art infused with the spirit of the sovran Virát, that is quite apart from the plenum it fills, and is quite full with its entire voidness (stretches through all, and unmixed with any). 26. I see thy soul to be as void and yet as full as his, and as still and yet as moving as the Divine spirit; it is all and not all what exists, and something yet nothing itself. 27. It is quiet and comely, shining and yet unseen; it is inert and yet full of force and energy, it is inactive with all its activity and action; and such soul is thine. (These antithetic attributes of the Divine soul, are applied objectively to that of Vasishtha in the second person, as they are subjectively put to one’s ownself in the first person in many other places. Thus in the Bhagavad Gítá where Krishna assumes to himself the title of Brahma and says “Resort to Me alone” so says the Sufi Mansur “I am the true one” so says Hastamulaka in his celebrated rhapsody. “I am that eternal that is conceived by every one.”)

28. Though now journeying on earth, you seem to range far above the skies; you are supportless, though supported on a sound basis (of the body or Brahma). (i.e. The spirit and mind range freely every where, though they appear to be confined within the limits of the body, or to proceed from and rest in the eternal essence of Brahma). 29. Thou art not stretched over the objects, and yet no object subsists without thee; thy pure mind like the beauteous orb of the moon, is full of the nectarous beams of immortality. (The moon is called the lord of medicinal plants, having the virtues of conferring life and health to the body). 30. Thou shinest as the full-moon, without any of her digits or blackish spots in thee; thou art cooling as the moon-beams, and full of ambrosial juice as the disk of that watery planet. 31. I see the existence and non-existence of the world, depend upon thy will, and thy intellect contains in it the revolving world, as the germ of a tree contains within it the would be fruit. 32. Know me sir, as a Bráhmana sprung from the sage Sandilya’s race; my name is Manki, and am bent on visiting places of pilgrimage.

33. I have made very long journeys, and seen many holy places in my peregrinations all about; and have now after long bent my course to revisit my native home. (The toils being over, the traveller returns home, and there to die. Goldsmith). 34. But my mind is so sick of and averse to the world, that I hesitate to return to my home, after having seen the lives of men passing away as flashes of lightening from this world. 35. Deign now sir, to give me a true account of yourself, as the minds of holymen are as deep and clear as limpid lakes. 36. When great men like yourself show their kindness, to one as mean as myself at the first sight of him, his heart is sure to glow with love and gratitude to them, as the lotus buds are blown (by the premature gleams of the rising sun), and are led to be hopeful of their favour towards him. 37. Hence I hope sir, that you will kindly remove the error, which is bred in me by my ignorance of the delusions of this tempting world. (Lit. I believe you are able to do so &c.).

38. Vasishtha replied:—Know me, O wise man, to be Vasishtha—the sage and saint, and an inhabitant of the etherial region; and am bound to this way, on some errand of the sagely king (Aja by name). 39. I tell you sir, not to be disheartened at your ignorance, as you have already come to the path of wisdom, and very nearly got over the ocean of the world, and arrived at the coast of transcendental knowledge. 40. I see you have come to the possession of the invaluable treasure, of your indifference to worldly matters; for this kind of speech and sentiments, and the sedateness of disposition which you have displayed, can never proceed from a worldling, and bespeak your high-mindedness. 41. Know that as a precious stone is polished, by gentle abrasion of its rubbish; so the mind comes to its reasoning, by the rubbing off of the dross of its prejudice. 42. Tell me what you desire to know, and how you want to abandon the world; it is in my opinion done by practice of what one is taught by his preceptor, or by interrogatories of what he does not know or understand.

43. It is said that whoso has a mind, to go across the doom of future birth or transmigration of his soul, should be possessed of good and pure desires in his mind, and an understanding inclined to reasoning under the direction of his spiritual guide. Such a person is verily entitled to attain to the state, which is free from future sorrow and misery.

INDIFFERENCE OR INSOUCIANCE OF MANKI TO WORLDLINESS. Argument:—Manki’s relation of the miseries of his life and of this world, together with the evils attendant on Human body and its senses and understanding. Vasishtha said:—Being thus accosted by me, Manki fell at my feet (in salutation); and then shedding the tears of joy from both his eyes, spoke to me on our way, with due respect (to my rank). 2. Manki said:—O venerable sir, I have been long travelling in all the ten sides of the earth; but I have never met a holy man like yourself, who could remove the doubts arising in my mind. 3. Sir, I have gained today the knowledge which is the chief good of the body of a Bráhmana, whose sacred person is more venerable and far more superior in birth and dignity, than the bodies of all other beings in heaven and on earth; but sir am sorry at heart, at seeing the evils of this nether world. 4. Repeated births and deaths, and the continued rotations of pleasure and pain, are all to be accounted as painful, on account of their terminating in pain. (Pain is pain, and pleasure too ends in pain).

5. And because pleasure leads to greater pain (at its want), it is better, O sage, to continue in one’s pain (which becomes a pleasure by long habit). The sequence of fleeting pleasure being but lasting pain, it is to be accounted as such even as long as it lasts. 6. O friend! all pleasures are as painful to me, as my pains have become pleasurable at this advanced age of mine; when my teeth and the hairs of my body, are falling off with the decay and wearing out of my internal parts also. 7. My mind is continually aspiring to higher stations in life, and is not persevering in its holy course; and the germ of my salvation, is choked by the thorns and thistles of my evil and worldly desires. 8. My mind is situated amidst its passions and affections, within the covert of my body, as the banian tree stands amidst its falling leaves in the interior of a rustic village; and the desires are flying like hungry vultures all over its body, in search of their abominable sustenance.

9. My wicked and crooked thoughts are as the brambles of creeping and thorny plants, and my life is a weary and dreary maze, as a dark and dismal night (where and when we are blind-folded to descry our right way). 10. The world with all its people, being parched and dried up like withered plants, without the moisture of true knowledge, and decaying day by day with incessant cares, is fast advancing towards its dissolution, without being destroyed all at once. 11. All our present acts are drowned in those of our past lives, and like withered trees bear no flower or fruit in our present life; and actions done with desire, terminate with the gain of their transitory objects. (Therefore no action nor meritorious deeds of religion, can ever tend to our salvation. (Which is had by our faith alone)). 12. Our lives are wasted in our attachment to family and dependants, and never employed to lead our souls across the ocean of the world; the desire of earthly enjoyments are decaying day by day, and a dreadful eternity awaits before us.

13. Our prosperity and possessions, whether they are more or less, are as noxious to our souls, as the thorny and poisonous plants growing in the hollow caves of earth; again they are attended with thoughts and cares causing fever heat in the soul, and emaciating the body. 14. Fortune makes the brave and fortunate people, fall sometimes in the hands of foes; as the man ardent with the desire of gems in his mind, is tempted to catch the gemming serpents, lying in dark caves (and lose his life in attempting to seize the treasure). 15. I being entirely inclined or given up to the objects of sense, am abandoned by the wise (who hate to touch the vile); and my mind which is polluted by worldly desires, and is all hollow within, is shunned by them as a dead sea with its troubled and turbid waters. 16. My mind is turning also about false vanities, as the rheumatic pains all about the body. 17. And I am also even with my innumerable deaths hunting after desired vacuity for sorrow, though my mind is purged from the dross of ignorance by reading sástra and associating good men; as the moon and stars which with its power of removing darkness, stand good in vacuity.

18. There is no end of the dark night of my ignorance, when the gloomy spectre of my egoism is playing its part; and I have not the knowledge, which like a lion may destroy the furious elephant of my ignorance, and burn down as fire the straws of my actions. 19. The dark night of my earthly desire or cupidity is not yet over, and the sun of my disgust of the world is not risen as yet; I still believe the unreal as real, and mind is roving about as an elephant. 20. My senses have been continually tempting me, and I know not what will be the end of these temptations, which prevent even the wise people, from observing precepts of the sástras. 21. This want of sight or disregard of the sástras, leads to our blindness by kindling our desires, and by blinding our understanding;— 22. Therefore tell me sir, what am I to do in this difficulty, and what is that may conduce to my chief good, that I am asking thee to relate.

23. It is said that, the mist of our ignorance flies like the clouds, at the sight of wise men and purification of our desires; now sir, verify the truth of this saying of wise men, by your enlightening my understanding, and giving peace to my mind.

VASISHTHA’S ADMONITION TO MANKI. Argument:—The avarana sakti or all-enfolding power of God is called ignorance, his vikshepa sakti or delusive power is the cause of error, and the combination of both cause the world. Vasishtha said:—Consciousness (of the objects of perception), their reflection, the desire of having them and their imagination, are the four roots of evil in this world; and though these words are meaningless, yet considerable sense is attached to them (as categories of some schools of false philosophy); as the four sources of knowledge. 2. Know that knowledge (of externals) is their reflexion also, which is the seat (or root) of all evils; and all our calamities proceed therefrom, as thickly as vegetation springs out of the vernal juice (or breath of spring). 3. Men garbed in the robes of their desires, walk in the dreary paths of this world, with very many varieties of their actions (both temporal and ritual), as there are circles drawn under a circle (i.e. one circle of duty enclosing many others under it). 4. But these aberrations and wanderings over the earth, are at an end to the wise together with their desires; as the moisture of the ground, is dried up and diminishes at the end of the vernal season.

5. Our various desires, are the growers of the very many thorny plants and brambles in the world; as the vernal moisture is the cause of growing the thick clumps of kadalí or plantain trees. 6. The world appears as a dark maze to the mind, that is cloyed in the serum of its lickerish appetites; as the ground is shaded under the bushy trees, by the sap supplied by the vernal season. 7. There is nothing in existence except the clear and vacuous intellect, as there is nothing in the boundless sky, beside the hollow vacuity of the air. (This is another passage of the vacuistic theory of Vasishtha). 8. There is no intelligent soul beside this one, and all else is the everlasting reflexion of this one alone; This it is which is styled ignorance and error, and the world also. 9. He is seen without being seen, and is lost upon being seen (that is, the Lord is seen in the spirit and not by the visual sight). On looking to it an unreal or evil spirit appears to sight instead of the true and holy spirit, like ghosts and goblins appearing before children. (Whoever wishes to the spirit of God, sees the spirit of the devil only).

10. It is by rejecting all visible sights, the understanding views the one essence of all, and all things dwindle into it, as all the rivers on earth, run and fall into one universal ocean. (The one invisible unity is the essence of multiplicity). 11. As an earthen ware cannot be without its earth; so all intelligent beings, are never devoid of their intelligence or the intellect. (This couplet corroborates the eighth verse, where it is said that, there is nothing except the intellect). 12. Whatever is known by the understanding, is said to be our knowledge; but the understanding has no knowledge of the unknowable, nor want of understanding can have any knowledge, owing to their opposite natures. (Because understanding and knowledge are of the same nature, but understanding and unknowable are contraries, and want of understanding and the knowable are sub-contraries). (The plain meaning is that the understanding knows the knowable and not the unknowable; while want of understanding knows neither the one nor the other). 13. As there is the same relation of knowledge between the looker, his seeing and sight (i.e. the subject, act, and object of seeing); so it is omniscience of Brahma which is the only essence. (Sáraikarasyam), all else is as null as an aerial flower (Kha-pushpa) which never exists.

14. Things of the same kind bear an affinity to one another, and readily unite in one (as water with water &c.); so the world being alike to its notion, and all notions being alike to the eternal ideas in the mind of God, the world and the divine mind, are certainly the same thing and no other. 15. If there be no knowledge or notion of wood and stone in us, then they would be the same as the non-existent things of which we have no notion:—(such as the horns of a hare or a flower in the air). 16. When the outward and visible features of things, are so exactly similar to the notions and knowledge of them that we have in our minds; therefore they appear to be no other than our notions or knowledge of them. (Because things agreeing in all respects with one another, must be the same and very thing). 17. All visible appearances in the universe, are only the outstretched reflexions of our inner ideas; their fluctuation is as that of the winds, as their motion is as that of the waters in the ocean.

18. All things are mixed up with the omnipresent spirit, as a log of wood is covered over by lac-dye; both of which appear to be mixed together to the unthinking, but both are taken for the one and same thing by the thinking part of mankind; (who believe the spirit to exhibit itself in all shapes Ápna jathaika bhuvana). 19. The idea of reciprocity is unity, and the knowledge of mutuality is union also; such as the interchange of water and milk, and so the correlation of vision and visibles; and not as the union of the wood and lac-dye with one another. (This means unity to consist in the interchangeableness and interdependence of two things as of the spirit and matter, and not as sticking the lac-dye upon wood, but as fire inhering in every particle of the wood, as it is expressed in the afore cited sruti):— 20. The knowledge of one’s egoism is his bondage, and that of his unegoism is his emancipation from it; thus one’s imprisonment in and enfranchisement from the confines of his body and the world; being both under his subjection, why is it that he should be slack to sit himself at freedom from his perpetual thraldom?

21. Like our sight of two moons in the sky, and our belief of water in the mirage, we believe in the reality of our egoism, which is altogether an unreality. (Lit. We think it present without its presence). 22. The disbelief in one’s self or his egoism, removes his meity (mámatá) or selfishness also; and it being possible to everyone to get rid of them, how is it that he should be ignorant of it? 23. Why do you maintain your egoism only, to be confined in the cell of your body, like a plum drowned in a cup of water, or like the air confined in a pot? your relation to God is to be no other but like himself and to be one with him, is to have the reciprocal knowledge of yourself in the likeness of God (i.e. to be like the image of God in perfection). 24. It is said that the want of reciprocal knowledge, makes the union of two things into one (i.e. the entire commingling of two things together makes them one); but this is wrong in both ways, because neither doth any dull material thing or any spiritual substance, lose its own form (however mixed up with one or the other).

25. Neither is force converted into inertness (i.e. the spirit never becomes matter), from the indestructibility of their nature, and whenever the spiritual is seen or considered as the material, it becomes a duality, and there is no unity in this view of the two. (Hence there is no union or entire assimilation either of the spirituals or materials). 26. Thus men being under the influence of their desires, and beset by their vanities of various kinds (altogether) are going on downward still, as a stone torn from the head of a cliff, falls from precipice to precipice headlong to the ground. 27. Men are as straws carried here and there by the current of their desire, and whirled about in its eddy; they are overtaken by and overwhelmed in an endless series of difficulties which <are> impossible for me to enumerate. (The Sanskrit na párjate is the Bengali párájáyaná). 28. Men being cast like a ball flung from the palm of fate, are hurried onward by their ardent desires till they are hurled headlong into the depth of hell; where being worried and worn out with hell torments, they take other forms and shapes after lapses of long periods (to undergo fresh toils and troubles on earth).

MANKI’S ATTAINMENT OF FINAL EXTINCTION OR NIRVÁNA. Argument:—The vanity of Human wishes, and the Tranquility of Rational and spiritual speculation. Vasishtha said:—Thus the living soul, being let fall in the mazy path of his world, is encompassed by calamities and accidents as countless as the animalcules, which are generated in the rainy season. 2. All these accidents though unconnected with one another, follow yet so fast and closely upon each other, as the detached stone lying scattered and close together in the rocky desert, and linked in a lengthening chain of thought in the mind of man. 3. The mind blinded of its reason, becomes a wilderness overgrown with the arbour of its calamities, and yet appearing to be smiling as a vernal grove before men, by its feigned merriment and good humour. (Mirth and sorrow are both of them the effects of unreasonableness). 4. O how pitiable are all those beings! Who being bound to their subjection to hope, are subjected to divers states of pain and pleasure, in their repeated births in various forms on earth.

5. Alas for those strange and abnormal desires, which subject the minds of men, to the triple error of taking the non-existent to be actually present before them. (The triple error (Triputi bhrama) consists in the belief of the visibles, their vision and the viewer of them, that is, in the subject, act and objects of sight, which are all viewed as unreal in the light of vedánta). 6. Those who have known the truth, are delighted in themselves, they are immortal in their mortal life, and are diffusers of pure light all about them. What then is the difference between the sapient sage who is coldhearted in all respects, and the cooling moon (who cools and enlivens and enlightens the world with her ambrosial beams?). 7. And what is the difference between a whimsical boy and a covetous fool, who covets anything whatever at hand without any consideration of the past and future (good or evil which attends upon it). 8. What is the difference between the greedy fool and voracious fish or whale, that devour the alluring bait of pleasure or pain; and will not give up the line until they are sure to give up their lives for the same. (All seeming pleasure is real pain, and bane of both the body and soul of men).

9. All our earthly possessions whether of our bodies or lives, our wives, friends and properties, are as frail as a brittle plate made of sand, which no sooner it is dried and tried than it spurts and breaks to pieces. 10. O my soul! Thou mayst forever wander, in hundred of bodies of various forms in repeated births; and pass from the heaven of Brahmá to the empyrean of Brahma; yet thou canst never have thy tranquility, unless thou attainest the even insouciance of thy mind. (The stoic impassivity is the highest felicity). 11. The ties and bondage of the world, are dispersed by mature introspection into the nature of things; as the uneven ruggedness of the road, does not retard the course of the wayfarer walking with his open eyes. 12. The negligent soul becomes a prey to concupiscence and unruly passions, as the heedless passenger is caught in the clutches of demons; but the well-guarded spirit is free from their fright. 13. As the opening of the eyes, presents the visibles to sight; so doth the waking consciousness introduce the ego and phenomenal world into the mind. (i.e. Consciousness is the cause of both the subjective and objective).

14. And as the shutting of the eyelids, shuts out the view of the visible objects from sight; so, O destroyer of enemies, the closing of consciousness, puts out the appearance of all sights and thoughts from your eyes and mind (and this unmindfulness of everything besides, prepares the soul for the sight of the most high). 15. The sense of the existence of the external world, together with that of one’s ego or self-existence, is all unreal and inane, it is consciousness alone that shows everything in itself and by the fluctuation of its erroneous; as the motion of winds displays the variegated clouds in the empty air. (It is the imaginative faculty of the mind, that creates and presents these phantoms before it). 16. It is the divine consciousness only, which exhibits the unreal phenomenals as real in itself, without creating anything apart or separate from its own essence; in the same manner as earth or any metal produces a pot or a jar out of itself, and which is no wise distinct or separate from its substance.

17. As the sky is only a vacuity, and the wind is a mere fluctuation of air; and as the waves are composed of nothing but water; so the world is no other than a phenomenon of consciousness: (because we have no knowledge of it without our consciousness of it). 18. The world subsists undivided in the bas-relief of consciousness, and without a separate existence of its own apart or disjoined in any part, from its substance or substratum of the conscious soul, which is as calm and clear as the empty air, and the world resembles the shadow of a mountain in the bosom of water, or a surge or wave rising on the surface of the sea. 19. There rises a calm coolness in the souls of wise and inexcitable sages, when the shining worlds appear as the cooling moon beams falling on the internal mirror of their minds. 20. How is it and by what means and in what manner, is this invisible supreme light, produced in the calm and quiet and all pervading auspicious soul, amidst the empty expanse of the universe. (Here is a double question of the production of uncreated light in creation and of the manifestation of divine and spiritual light in the quiet soul).

21. That essence which is expressed by the term Brahma, forms the essential nature and form of everything besides; and the same is permeated throughout all nature, except where it is obstructed by some preventive cause or other,—bádhá. 22. Anything which presents a hindrance to this, and whatever is preventive of the pervasion of divine essence, is a nullity in nature like a sky flower—ákása pushpa, which is nothing at all in nubibus. 23. The wise man sits quietly like a stone, without the action of even his inner and mental faculties; because the lord is without the reflection or sensation of anything, and without birth or decay at anytime. (Here the mind and its workings, are explained as vikalpaná or changing thoughts, which are wanting in the eternal mind). 24. He who remains insensible and unconscious of every thing, like the empty state of the open sky; arrives by his constant practice to his state of sound sleep or hypnotism without the disturbance of dreams.

25. But how is it to be known that the world is the mere thought or will of the Divine mind? Whereto it is said: It is the creative power of Brahma (called Brahmá or Hiranyagarbha—the demiurgus), thought of forming the wondrous world in his mind (as it were he pictured it in himself), without the aid of any tool or instrument or means or ground for its construction; hence (it is plain), the world is merely ideal and nothing real, nor is there any cause or creator of it whatsoever. 26. As the lord stretches out the world in his thought, he or it instantly becomes the same; and as the lord is without any visible form, so this seeming world has no visible nor material form whatever; nor is there any framer of what is simply ideal. 27. So all men are happy or unhappy, as they think themselves to be one or the other in their minds; they all abide in the same universal soul, which is common to all; and yet believe themselves every one of his own kind in his mind.

28. Therefore it is as vain to view anything, or any intellectual being, in the light of an earthly substance, as it is false to take the visionary hills of one’s dream, in the light of their being real rocks situated on earth. 29. By assigning egoism to one’s self, he becomes subject to error and change; but the want of egoism, places the soul to its invariable identity and tranquility. (i.e. The sense of one’s personality, subjects him to change and misery). 30. As the meaning of the word bracelet, is nothing different from the gold (of which it is made); so the sense of thy false egoism, is no other than that of the tranquil soul. (The soul, self, and ego are all the one and same thing). 31. The anaesthetic sage, that is cold-blooded and sober minded as a silent muni, is no voluntary actor of any act, although he may be physically employed in his active duties; and the quiet saint carries with him an empty and careless mind, although it may be full of learning and wisdom. (Lit. the knower of God is as quiet, as the calm vacuum of heaven).

32. The wise man manages himself as a mechanical figure or puppet, never moving of its own motion but moving as it is moved, and having no impulse of his desire within him, he sits as quiet as a doll without its mobility. 33. The wise man that knows the soul, is as quiet as a babe sleeping in a swinging cradle, and which is moved without moving itself; or he moves the members of his body like a baby, without having any cause for his doing so. 34. The soul that is intent on the thought of the one (Supreme) only, and is as calm and quiet as the infinite spirit of God; becomes unconscious of itself and all other things, together with all its objects of desire, and expectations of its good and bliss. 35. He that is not the viewer himself, nor has the view before him, and is exempt from the triple condition (triputi bhába) of the subjective, objective and action; can have no object in his view; which is concentrated in the vision of the invisible one.