Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

36. Our view or regard of the world, is our strict bondage, and disregard of it, is our perfect freedom; he who rests therefore in his disregard of (or indifference to) whatever is expressed by words, has nothing to look after or desire. 37. Say, what is it that is ever worth our looking after, or worthy of our regard; when these material bodies of ours, are as evanescent as our dreams, and our self-existence is a mere delusion. (There is nothing therefore worthy of our inquiry beside the divine intellect. Gloss). 38. Therefore the wise man rests only in his knowledge of the true one, by subjection of all his efforts and desires, and quelling all his curiosity; and being devoid of all knowledge, save that of the knowable one. 39. Hearing all this, Manki was released from his great error; as a Snake gets loose from its slough by which it has been fast bound. 40. He retired from there to a mountain, on which he remained in his deep meditation for a century of years; and discharged the duties that occurred to him of their own accord, without his retaining any desire of any (or expectation of fruition).

41. He resides there still, unmoved and insensible as a stone, quite callous in all his senses and feelings, and wakeful with his internal sensibility by the light of his yoga contemplation. 42. Now Ráma, enjoy your peace of mind, by relying in your habit of reasoning and discrimination; do not deprave your understanding, under the fits of your passion; nor let your mind turn to its levity like a fleeting cloud, in the unrainy season of autumn.

SERMON ON THE SUPERIOR SORT OF YOGA MEDITATION. Argument:—Mistake of the action of the Intellect in the action of the mind, as the cause of the phenomenal world; and the removal of this error of the mind, as the cause of the intellectual peace and rest in its real state. Vasishtha continued:—Be dead to your sensibility, and retain the tranquility of your soul, by conforming with whatsoever thou gettest or is meted out to thy lot; or else the fair (order of nature and ordinance of God), will appear as foul, as a pure crystal shows itself as black in the shade. 2. All and every thing being contained in the only one, all extended soul, we can not conceive how the conception of variety or multiplicity can rise from the unity. (To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. Pope). 3. The category of the intellect is entirely of a vacuous nature, and having neither its beginning nor end; and is neither produced nor destroyed, with the production and destruction of the body. (And though it is diffused all over the body and its various powers and senses, yet there is variation of its own essence. Gloss).

4. All insensible and material bodies, are moved by the miraculous power of the intellect or mind; which being unmoved of itself gives motion to bodies, as the still waters of the sea gives rise to the waves. (Here the intellect is explained as the mind in the gloss). 5. As it is an error to suppose a sheet of cloth in a cloud, so the supposition of egoism in the body, is altogether erroneous: (since one’s personality consists in the soul and not in the person). 6. Do not rely in the unreal body, which is of this world, and grows to perish in it; but depend on the real essence of the endless spirit, for thy everlasting happiness (in both worlds). 7. The vacuous intellect, is the essential property of the immortal soul; this is the transcendent reality in nature, and may this super-excellent entity be thy essence likewise. 8. If you are certain of this truth, you become as glorious as that essence also; because the deep meditator loses himself in the meditated object, in his intense meditation of the same. (This assimilation of the triputi or triple condition of the thinker and his act and object of thought in one, is the meaning and main end of the yoga meditation of union).

9. The triple condition of the viewer, view and act of viewing, are the three properties of the one and same intellect; and there is nothing which is any other than (or not the same with) the knowledge thereof, as there is no thought unlike the act of its thinking. (This shows the agreement of the cause, its causation and effect). 10. The soul is ever calm and clear and uniform in its nature, it does not rise and fall like the tides by the lunar influence, nor is it soiled like the sea waters by tempestuous winds. (The soul is ever unruffled at any event). 11. As a passenger in a boat beholds the rocks and trees on the bank to be in motion, and as one thinks a shell or conch to be composed of silver; so the mind mistakes the body for reality, (which in truth is an unreal appearance). 12. As the sight of the material dismisses the view of the intellectual, so doth intellectuality discard the belief of the material; and so the knowledge of the living soul being resolved in the supreme soul, there remains nothing at last, except the unity of the all pervading spirit.

13. The knowledge that all this (world), is quite calm and quiet (in its nature); and the whole is an evolution of the divine spirit, takes away the belief in everything else, which is naught but the product of error and illusion. 14. As there is no forest in the sky, nor moisture in the sands; and as there is no fire in the disk of the moon, so there is no material body in the sight of the mind. (Mentally considered, there is no matter). 15. Ráma fear not for this world—the mere creation of thy error, and without its real existence whatsoever, know this transcendent truth, O thou best amongst the inquirers of truth, that this world is a nullity and void. 16. Your mistake of the existence of the visible world, and the disbelief which you fostered with regard to the entity of the invisible soul, must have been removed this day by my preaching, say now what other cause there may be of your bondage in this world. 17. As a plate, water-pot and any other earthenware, is no more than the earth (of which it is made); so the outer world is no other than the inner thought of the mind, and it wears away under the power of reasoning.

18. Whether exposed to danger and difficulty, or placed in prosperity or adversity, or betided by affluence or penury; you must preserve, O Ráma, your even disposition amidst the consciousness (or knowledge) of your joy and grief; be gladly free from the knowledge of your egoism, and remain as you are sedate by your nature, and without your subjection in any state. 19. Remain Ráma, as thou art, like the moon in the sphere of thy race, with thy full knowledge of everything in nature; avoid thy joy and grief at every occurrence, and give up thy desire and disgust for anything in the world. Do so or as you may choose for yourself.

DEMONSTRATED CONCLUSION OF THE DOUBTFUL TRUTH. Argument:—Act, actor and action are one the same, the word Daiva and its explanation; oscillation of intellect is the cause of creation. Ráma said:—Please sir, explain to me moreover regarding the acts of men, which become the causes of their repeated births, as seeds are sources of the germs of future trees; and those to which the word daiva or divian is applied, imply the Divine dispensation, destiny or fate. 2. Vasishtha replied:—The meaning of daiva or destiny, is as that of a potter in producing the pottery; it is the act of intelligence (samvid), and not of blind chance, nor of human effort or manliness. 3. How is it possible for any action to be done by manly exertion only, without some effort of the understanding directing human energy to action; it is this intelligent power that makes the world and all what it contains. 4. The prosperity of the world depends on the understanding, exerting itself with a desire to bring about some certain end; and it ceases with the course of the course of the world, upon the exertion of the understanding to no purpose.

5. The insouciance or want of desire in the mind, is called its negative act, and the mind that merely moves on without engaging in any pursuit, is as a current stream without its undulation. (So mere living is no life without its action). 6. There is no difference between a thinking and unthinking soul, unless the mind of one is actuated by its imagination, to the invention of some manly art or work. 7. As there is no essential duality or difference in the water and its waves, and between desire and its result; so there is no distinction betwixt the intellect and its function, nor is there any difference in the actions from the person of their agent. 8. Know Ráma, the action as the agent, and the actor the same with his action; both these are quite alike as the ice and coldness. (i.e. Man is known by his act, and the actions bespoke the man). 9. As the frost is cold and coldness the same with frost, so the deed is the same as its doer, and the doer is alike the deed done by him. (Every one is accountable for his deed, and the deed recurs to the doer of it).

10. The vibration of the Intellect (i.e. the divine will), is the same as destiny which is also the agent of action; these are synonymous terms expressing the same thing, and destiny, deed and other words have no distinct meaning. 11. The oscillation of the intellect is the cause of creation, as the seed is the source of the germ of a tree; want of this vibration is productive of nothing, wherefore intellectual activity contains in it the germinating seed of the whole world. (i.e. The action of the mind causes all things, and its inaction is the cause of total suspense). 12. The divine mind contains in its infinite expanse all the ample space of time and place; and is of its own nature sometimes in its fluctuation, and at others at a stand still like the vast ocean on earth. 13. The causeless and uncausing seed of the intellect, being moved by desire, becomes cause of the minutiae of material bones, as the seed becomes productive of its germs and sprouts.

14. All vegetable productions as the grass and all sorts of plants and creepers, vegetate from within their particular seeds as their origin; and these seed originate from the pulsation of the divine mind, which is increate and without any for it. (The pulsation of the divine mind is its creative will, which is the seed or source of creation). 15. There is no difference between the seed and its sprout, as there is no distinction of the heat from fire; and as you find the identity of the seed and its sprout, so must you know the identity of man with his acts. (i.e. Actions make the man, and the man does his actions like himself). 16. The divine Intellect exerts its power in the bosom of the earth, and grows the sprouts of the unmoving vegetable creation as from its seed; and these become great or small, straight or crooked as the waves of the sea as it would have them to be. 17. What other power is there beside that of the intellect, to grow the sturdy oaks and arbors from the soft clay and humid moisture, which compose the bosom of the earth?

18. It is this Intellect that fills the seeds of living beings with the vital fluid, as the sappy juice abiding in the inside of plants, gives growth to the flowers and fruits on the outside. 19. If this all inhering intellect, were not almighty also at the same time, say then what other power is there, that could produce the mighty gods and demigods in air, and the huge mountains on earth. 20. The divine mind contains in it the seeds of all moving and unmoving beings, which have their being from the movement of this intellectual power, and from no other source whatever. 21. As there is no difference in the alternate production of the seed and the germ or fruit from one another, so there is no difference in the commutual causation of man and his acts and the vice versa. In this manner also there is no shade of difference, betwixt the swelling waves and the sinking waters of the sea. (Man is but a bubble of its own blowing in the vast ocean of Eternity). 22. Fie to that silly and beastly being, who does not believe in the reciprocality of man and his action or of the agent and the act, by the law of mutatis mutandis inculcated in the vedas.

23. The prurience that is inherent in one’s consciousness, is the embryonic seed of his resuscitation to life; in the manner of the germination of plants: it is therefore meet to render this seed abortive by frying it in the fire of inappetency. 24. The doing of a thing with listlessness, and the performance of an act whether good or bad without taking it to the mind, is what is called lukewarmness by the learned. 25. Or it is exemption from desire, that is said to loosen a man from all connection; therefore try by all means in your power, to create in your mind a total unconcern for every one, and indifference to all things whatsoever. 26. In whatever manner you think it possible for you to rid of your lickerish desires, whether by means of your theoretical or practical yoga (the rája and hatha yogas), or by means of your manly exertion; you must root every desire from your heart, in order to secure your best welfare and perfect felicity. 27. But then you must endeavour to the utmost of your manly power, to suppress some portion of your egoism, in order to prevent the rise of selfish passions and desires within your health.

28. There is no other course of fording the unfordable expanse of the world, save by the exercise of our manly virtues; nor is there any other way of extinguishing our ardent desires, except by the extinction of egoism. 29. It is the inherent consciousness of the ever existent soul, which is both the prime seed as well as the first germ of the world; the same is the source both of action as also of its cause and effect of the person of man. It is that which is designated as destiny and the weal and woe of all. 30. In the beginning there was no other seed nor its sprout, nor even any man nor his action; nor was there any such thing as destiny or doom or any other prime cause, but all that existed was the Supreme intellect which is all in all. 31. There is neither any seed nor its germ in reality, nor is there any action or its active agent de facto; but there only one Supreme intellect in absolute and positive existence, and it is under the auspices of this hallowed name, that you see O sage! all these gods and demigods, and all men and women, are performing their respective parts as actors on the stage of the world.

32. Knowing this certain truth, and thinking thyself as the imperishable one, be freed from thy thoughts of the agent and action; give up all thy desires and false imagination, and live to reflect with thy body of self-consciousness alone. (Consider thyself as an intellectual being, and not the dull corporeal body). 33. Remain fearless, O Ráma, and be more graceful with the calm composure of thy mind. Allay all thy desires and lay aside thy fears with them. Rely on thy clear intellect and continue to do thy endless acts (by guidance of the same). Be full in thyself with the Supreme soul, and thus thou shalt have the fulness of thy desires fulfilled in thee.

SERMON ON HOLY MEDITATION. Argument:—Necessity of discharging our social duties, as they occur unto us at any time: and that of conducting our contemplation in solitude. Vasishtha continued to say:—Remain always to look inwardly in thyself, by being freed from the feelings of passion and desire, continue in the performance of thy actions every where, but reflect always upon the quiet and spotless intellect within thyself. 2. The mind which is as clear as the open sky, and is full of knowledge and settled in the divine intellect; which is ever even and graceful and replete with joy, is said to be highly favoured of heaven and expanded by Brahma. 3. Whether be taken by pain and grief, or exposed to dangers and difficulties, or attended by pleasure or prosperity, in a greater or less degree. 4. In whatever place and in whatsoever state thou art placed, bear with thy afflictions with an unsorrowful heart; and whether thou weepest or criest, or becomest a play of opposite circumstances, be joyous in both for both are meant for thy good. 5. You are delighted in the company of your consorts, and feel joyous at the approach of festivity and prosperity; and it is because you are tempted like ignorant people, by your fond desire of pleasure.

6. Fools that are allured by their greediness of gain, meet with their fate in hazardous exploits and warfare; and it is fit that they should burn with the fire of their desire, like straws consumed in a conflagration. 7. Earn money by honest means and with the circumspection of a crane, in whatever chance presents itself before thee; and do not run in pursuit of gain, like the ignorant rabble. 8. O thou destroyer of thy foes, drive away by force all thy desires as the greatest enemies, and as winds of heaven drive afar the rainless and empty clouds of the sky. 9. Be tolerant, O Ráma, towards the ignorant people, that are led away by their desires and deserve thy pity; be reverent of highminded men, and delighted in thyself by observing the taciturnity of thy speech, and without being misled by thy desires like the ignorant mob. 10. Congratulate with joy and sympathise with sorrow, (whether of thyself or others); pity the sorrows of the poor, and be valiant among the brave. 11. Turn your eyes into your heart, and be always joyous by communing with yourself (or soul); and then whatever you do with a liberal mind, you are not to answer for the same as its agent.

12. By remaining fixed in the meditation of your soul, and by having your eyes always turned within yourself; you shall be invulnerable even at the stroke of a thunderbolt (darted by the hand of Indra). So saith the sruti:—The Gods have no power to hurt the holy. Tasya hana deváscha ná bhútya ishate. 13. He is said to be master of himself, who is freed from the delusion of desire, and lives retired in the cave of his consciousness; who is attached to his own soul and acts at his own will, and has his delight in his very self. (Because says the sruti—Whoso goes out of himself, loses his very self). 14. No weapon can wound the self-possest man, nor fire can chafe his soul; no moisture can damp the spirit, nor the hot winds can dry it up. (No elemental influence can prevail on the spiritual soul). 15. Lay hold on the firm pillar of your soul, which is unborn or increate, undecaying and immortal; adhere steadfastly to thy soul, as one clings to the prop or column of his house.

16. The world is an arbor, and all things in it are as the flowers of this tree; our knowledge of all things, is as the fragrance of these flowers; but our self-consciousness is the essence of them all; therefore look internally to this inward essence before you mind the externals. 17. All outward affairs, are brought about by their inward reflection in the mind; but it is as hard to bring about a desire into being, as to raise a stone to life. 18. Get rid of your bodily exertions and lull your mind to sleep; be doing all your duties, as a tortoise with its contracted limbs. (i.e. Act with indifference, and without being moved). 19. Manage thine affairs with a half-sleeping and half awakened mind (like a waking sleeper); and do thy outward functions (without the exertion of your mental faculties). 20. As babes are possessed of their innate knowledge, and dumb creatures are endowed with their instinct, without the feeling of any desire rising in them; so they live and act with their minds unattached to anything, and as vacant as the empty air.

21. Remain untroubled and free from care, with entirely sleepy and comatose mind within thyself; a mind devoid of all its functions and quite absorbed in itself, and slightly acting on the members of the body. 22. You may continue to discharge or dispense with your duties altogether, by impairing your mind with knowledge, and resting quietly in your pure consciousness, after it is purged from the stain of appetence. 23. Go on managing your outward affairs in your waking state, as if your faculties were dormant in sleep; and never hanker to have anything, nor let go aught that presents itself to thee. 24. If you are dormant when waking, by your inattention to all about you; so are you awake when sleeping by your trance in the bosom of the Supreme soul; and when you are in the condition of the union of the two, you attain to the state of perfect consummation. 25. Thus by your gradual practice of this habit of insouciance, you reach to that state of unity, which has neither its beginning nor end, and which is beyond all other things.

26. The world is certainly neither a unity nor duality (but is composed of a plurality in its totality, or the one in many A han Bahushaym), leaving therefore the inquiry into its endless varieties, resort to your Supreme bliss, with a mind as clear as the translucent sphere of empty air. 27. Ráma rejoined:—If it be so, O great sage! (That there is no ego or tu as you say), then tell me, why are we conscious of ourselves, and how are you sitting here under the name of the sage Vasishtha. 28. Valmíki said:—Being thus interrogated by Ráma, Vasishtha the best of speakers, remained silent for a moment, pondering on the answer he should make. 29. This silence of his created some anxiety in the royal audience, and Ráma too being perplexed in his mind, repeated his question to the sage and said:— 30. Why sir, are you silent like myself? I see there is no such argument in the world, which sages like yourself are unable to solve and expound:— 31. Vasishtha replied:—It is not owing to my inability to speak, nor want of argument on my part that made me hold my tongue; but it is the wide scope of your question that withheld me from giving its answer. (Or from answering to it).

32. Ráma! There are two kinds of querists, namely, the ignorant inquisitor and the intelligent investigator; and so there are two modes of argumentation also for them respectively: the simple mode for simpletons, and the rational form for intelligent and reasonable men. 33. You had been so long, Ráma, ignorant of superior knowledge, and fit to be taught in ordinary equivocal language. 34. But now you have become a connoisseur of superior truth, and found your rest in the state of supreme felicity; and are no longer to benefit by the ambiguous language of common speech. 35. Whenever a good speaker wishes to deliver an eloquent speech, whether it be a long or short one, or relate to some abstruse or spiritual subject (he must satisfy himself first). 36. The ego being the counterpart or privation of all representation, is inexpressible by representative sounds and words; and being beyond the predicaments of number and other categories, is not predicable by any of them or other fiction of fancy. It is the totality of all, as light is composed of innumerable particles of ray.

37. It is not right, O Ráma, that one who has known the truth (the gnostic), should give an imperfect or defective answer to a question (proposed to him). But what can he do, when no language is perfect or free from defect, as you know it well. 38. It is right, O Ráma, that I who know the truth, should declare it as it is to my pupils; and the knower of abstract truth is known to remain as mute as a block of wood, and the soundness of whose mind is hard to sound. (So says the Persian mystic:—He who has known the unknowable, has become unknown to himself and others). 39. It is want of self-cogitation that causes one to speak, (i.e. unsoundness of thought sounds in high sounding words); but they hold their silence who know the Supreme excellence; and this is the best answer that is given thy inquiry into this truth. 40. Every man, O Ráma, speaks of himself as he is (or thinks himself to be); but I am only my conscious self, which is unspeakable in its nature, and appertains to the unbespeakable one.

41. How can that thing admit the application of a definite term to give it expression, which is inexpressible by words (and beyond our conception); I cannot therefore express the inexpressible by words. I have already said, all are but fictitious signs: (representative of our certain ideas). 42. Ráma rejoined:—You sir, that disregard every thing that is expressed by words, and regard these as imperfect and defective symbols of their originals; must tell me now, what you mean by your “privation of representation” and what you are yourself. 43. Vasishtha replied:—It being so (that there no determinate person expressed by the word egoism); hear me to tell you now, O Ráma, that art the best among the enquirers of truth, what thou art and what am I in truth, and what is world in reality. 44. This Ego, my boy, is the empty intellect and imperishable in its nature; it is neither conceivable nor knowable, and is beyond all imagination. 45. I am the clear air of the intellect, and so art thou the empty sky also; the whole world is an entire vacuity, and there is nothing else except an everlasting and infinite vacuum (beom) every where.

46. The soul is identic with pure knowledge, it is free from sensational knowledge, and beyond the conscious knowledge of others. I cannot call it anything otherwise than the self or soul. 47. Yet it is the fashion of disputants in order to maintain their own ground, or for the salvation of their pupils to multiply the egoism of the one soul, and to distribute it into a thousand branches. 48. When a living soul remains calm and quiet notwithstanding the management of its worldly affairs; and is as motionless as a living carcass, it is said to have attained its perfect state. 49. This state of perfection consists in refraining from external exercise and devotion, and persistence in continual meditation; feeling no sensation of pain or pleasure, and being unconscious of one’s self-existence, and the co-existence of all others besides. 50. Freedom from egoism and the consciousness of all other existence, brings on the idea of a total inexistence and emptiness, which is altogether beyond thought and meditation. (For none can think of a nothing). All attempt to grasp a nullity, is as vain as a blind man’s desire to see a picture.

51. The posture of sitting unmoved as a stone, at the shocks and turn backs (or drakes and ducks) of fortune; is verily the state of nirvána or deathless coma of a sensible being. (The figures of saints are as unmoved as statues). 52. This state of saintly anaesthesia is not marked by others, nor perceived by the saint himself; because the knowing sage shuns the society of men in disgust, and is enlightened with his spiritual knowledge within himself. 53. In this state of spiritual light, the sage loses sight of his egoism and tuism and all others and beholds the only one unity, in which he is extinct and absorbed in pure and unsullied felicity. 54. It is the intellection of the intellect, that is said to be conversant with the intelligibles (or the operation of the subjective soul on the objective); this is the cause of the creation of the world, which is the cause of our bondage and continual woes (in our repeated births and deaths). 55. It is said to be the dormancy or insensibility of intellection, when it is not employed about the intelligible objects; it is then called the supremely calm and quiet state of liberation (both for thought and action); and is free from decay.

56. The soul being in its state of peaceful tranquility, its ideas of space and time fly from it like clouds in autumn; and then it has no thought of anything else for want of its power of thinking. 57. When the sight of the soul is turned inwards (antar mukha) as in sleep, it sees the world of its desires rising before its consciousness in their aerial forms; but O ye princes, the sight of the soul being directed to the outside (bahir mukha), as in its waking state, it views the inward objects of his desire, presented before its sight in the gross forms of the outer world. (This passage shows the contrariety of the spiritual philosophy to the material; the former maintaining the material world to be a shadow of the ideal, and the latter asserting the intellectual as a representation of the visible world). 58. The mind, understanding and the other faculties, depend upon the consciousness of the soul, and are of the same nature as the intellect; but being considered in their intimate relation with external objects bahir-mukhatá, they are represented as grossly material. (In the doctrines of materialist—the sánkhya and others).

59. The self-same intellect being spread over our consciousness, of all internal and external feelings and perceptions; it is in vain to differentiate this one and undivided power, by the several names (of spiritual, mental, and bodily faculties). 60. There is nothing which is set apart, from the percipience of the conscious intellect; which is as pure and all-pervading as the empty vacuum, and which is said by the learned to be undefinable by words. (So says the sruti:—No speech can approach to it). 61. Being seen very acutely, the world appears as hazy in the divine essence, as it were something between a reality and unreality; and so dost thou appear to sight, as something real and unreal at the sametime. (All things appear as evanescent shadows in the clear mirror of the Divine Mind). 62. So am I the empty air, if can be free from desire; and so also art thou the pure intellect, if thou canst but restrain thy desires.

63. He who is certain of this truth (that he is the intellect), knows himself in reality; but whoso thinks himself as somebody under a certain appellation, is far from knowing the truth. Again anyone remaining in his unreal body, but relying in his intellectuality, is sure to have his tranquility and salvation. (So the sruti:—Anyone awakened to truth is sure to be saved, whether he is a God, rishi or sage, or a vile man). 64. Man’s exercise of the intellectual faculty, ameliorates the love of union with the original intellect by removing the ignorance; as heat of the fire mixes with the primitive heat, when wind ceases to blow. 65. Living beings who are converted to the state of patient trees and stones, by insouciance or insensibility of themselves, are said to have attained their liberation which is free from disturbance, and to be situated in their state of undecayableness. 66. A man having obtained his wisdom by means of his knowledge, is said to have become a muní or sage, but growing an ignoramus owing to his ignorance, he becomes a brute creature, or degraded even lower to some vegetable life.

67. The knowledge that “I am Brahma” (because I am a man) and this other is the world (because it is inanimate) is a gross error proceeding from gross ignorance; but all untruth flies away before investigation, as darkness vanishes before the advance of light. 68. He is wise who with the perception and actions of his outward organs, is simply devoid of his inward desires; who does not think or feel about anything in his mind, and remains quite calm and composed in his outward appearance. 69. The samádhi-trance of a wise man, is as his sound sleep uninfested by a dream; and wherein the visibles are all buried within himself, and when he sees naught but his self or soul. 70. As the blueness of the sky is a false conception of the brain, so the appearance of the world is a fallacy of the silent soul; they are no more than mists of error, that obscure the clear and vacuous sphere of the soul. 71. He is the true sage who though surrounded by the objects of wish, is still undesirous of any; and knows them all as mere unrealities and false vanities.

72. Know, O intelligent Ráma, that all objects of desire in this world, are as marvellous as those seen in our imagination, dream and in the magic of jugglers; such also are all the objects of our vision, on which you can place no trust nor reliance. 73. Know also, there is no pain or pleasure, nor any act of merit or demerit (i.e. any moral virtue and vice); nor anything which anybody, owing to the impossibility of there being any agent or patient (i.e. any active or passive agent). 74. The whole (universe) is a vacuum and without any support at all; it appears as a secondary moon in the sky or a city in one’s dream or imagination, none of which has its reality in nature. 75. Abide only by the rules of the community, or observe strictly thy mute taciturnity; and by remaining as a block of wood or stone, be absolved in the Supreme. 76. The tranquility and intellectuality of the Supreme deity, do not admit of any diversity in his nature; and his incorporeality does not admit of the attribution, of a body or any of its parts unto him.

77. There can be no nature whatever, whereof we have any conception, that can be attributed to the pure spirit (which is free from all stain and foulness); and this Divine spirit being inherent in all bodies, there can be no body for its nature ever imputed to him. 78. The existence of consciousness in the uncreated spirit, or in other words, the existence of a self-conscious eternal Intellect, cannot be denied of God; according to sophistry of Atheists; for though our knowledge of recipient and received (i.e. of the container and contained) is very imperfect, yet there is some one at the bottom that is ever perfect. 79. O Ráma! do you rely in that increate and indestructible Supreme being, which is ever the same and pure, irrefutable and adored by the wise and good; it is the irrefutable (i.e. demonstrable) verity, on which you should quietly depend for your liberation. And though you may eat and drink and play about like all others, yet you must know that all this is nothing.

SERMON ON SPIRITUALITY. Argument:—Removal of the Error of plurality arising from the conviction of Egoism, and inoculation of spiritual knowledge for Reunion of the soul with the Divine Spirit. Vasishtha continued:—Egoism is the greatest ignorance, and an insuperable barrier in the way of our ultimate extinction; and yet are foolish people seen to pursue fondly after their final felicity with their egoistic efforts, which is no better than the attempt of madman. 2. Egoism is the sure indicator of the ignorance of unwise people, and no cool-headed and knowing man is ever known in his egoship or the persuasion of his self-agency. (But this an article of the Christian creed). 3. The wise and knowing man, whether he is embodied or liberated state, renounces the dross of his egotism, and relies in the utter extinction or nullity of himself, which is as pure and clear as the empty vacuity of heaven, and free from trouble and anxiety (which await on self-knowledge and selfish activities in general).

4. The autumnal sky is serene and clear, and so are the waters of the calm and unperturbed sea; the disk of the full-moon is fair and bright, but none of these is so cool and calm and full of light, as the face of the wise and knowing sage, (shining with the radiance of truth and holy light). 5. The features of the sage and wise, are ever as sedate and steady, even in the midst of business and trifles; as the figures of warriors in battle array in a painting, even when engaged in the bustle of warfare and fury of fight. 6. All worldly thoughts and desires are nothing to the anaesthetic spirit of the self-extinct sage (in his nirvána); they are as imperceptible as the slender lines in a painting, and as lean as the rippling curls on the surface of the sea, which are not distinct and disjoined from its waters. 7. As the rolling waves of the sea, are no other than its heaving water, so the visible phenomena in the world, are no other than the spirit of Brahma disporting in itself.

8. Hence the soul that is undisturbed by the wave like perturbations, and is calm and quiet both in the inside and outside of it as the still ocean, and which is raised above temporal matters in its holy devotion, is said to be freed from all worldliness. 9. The ego rises of itself as an uncreated thing, and in the form of consciousness in the all comprehensive intellect of God, just as the waves rise and fall in the waters of the deep, and have no difference in their nature. 10. As the rising smoke exhibits in the sky, the various forms of forts, warcars and elephants; and as none of them, is any other than the self-same smoke; so are all these phenomena and notions, noway different from the nature of their Divine origin (but mere evolutions or vivartarúpas of the same). 11. By considering the fallacy of your consciousness (of the ego), you will, O ye my royal hearers, get rid of your error; and then you will exult in your knowledge of truth, and be victorious (over yourself). Do not despair, for ye are wise enough to know the truth.

12. As the growing sprout conceives in it, the would be tree with all its future flowers and fruits; so the ignorant man conceives in his vacant mind, the false ideas of himself—his soul, his ego and of everything else according to its fancy. 13. The conceptions of the mind are as false as the sight of things, such as the sight of a rod in a rising flame, (and that of a circle in the twirling of a lighted torch). And though the presiding soul is always true, yet these thoughts of the mind are as untrue as its fancy of fairies in the orb of the moon. 14. Now my royal hearers, do you continue to enjoy your peace, by considering at your pleasure, about the rise, end and continuance of the world; and remain from disease in all places and times. 15. Conduct yourselves with calmness, in whatever turns to be favourable or unfavourable to you; for unless you deport yourselves as dead bodies, you cannot perceive the felicity of your final extinction—nirvána or hebetude. (Be as a dead man, in order to taste the bliss of your spiritual deadness).

16. He who lives long in this world, by giving up his egoism and egoistic desires from his mind; and renounces the animality of his life to live and lead an intellectual life, attains verily the state of Supreme felicity. 17. Living the animal life (for the gratification of carnal appetites), leads only to the bearing of woes and misery; and men thus bound by the chain of their animal desires, are as big boats, burdened with loads of their ballast and cargo. 18. They are never blest with liberation, who are strangers to reasoning and addicted to the gross thoughts of ignorance; for how is it possible to obtain in this life, what is attainable only by the deceased in the next world. (This means the disembodied liberation—Videha mukti, which is to be had after one’s death). 19. Whatever a man fancies in this life, and desires to have in the next, (as his hopes of heavenly rewards); he dies with the same and finds them in his future life; but where there is no such fancy, desire or hope, that is truly the state of everlasting bliss.

20. Therefore be fearless with the thought of there being no such thing, as yourself or any one else (that you may believe as a real entity); by knowing this truth, you will find this poisonous world, turn to a paradise to you. (Think of nothing, and you will have no fear for anything). 21. Examine your whole material body, as composed of your outer frame and the inner mind; and say in what part you find your egoism to be situated; if no where, then own the truth of your having no ego any where. 22. Seeing all and every part of it up to the seat of your egoism, and finding it to be seated no where; you see only an open space (which is identic with the soul), and whereof no part is ever lost or destroyed. 23. In this (attainment of liberation) you are required to do no more, than to exert your manliness in relinquishing your enjoyments, cultivating your reasoning powers, and governing yourself by subduing the members of your body and mind. Therefore, ye ignorant men, that are desirous of your liberation, delay no longer to practice the government of yourselves (by shunning everything that relates not to yourselves).

24. The learned explain liberation to consist in the meditation of God, without any desire of the heart or duplicity in the mind; and this they say is not possible to do, without the assistance of spiritual knowledge. But the world being full of error, it is requisite to derive this knowledge from spiritual works moksha sástras, or else it is very likely to be entrapped in the very many snares, which are for ever set all about this earth. 25. Knowing full well the unreality of the world, and the uncertainty of one’s self and body, and of his friends, family and wealth and possessions; whoso is distrustful of them and identifies himself with his intelligence and pure vacuity, verily finds his liberation in this, and in no other state whatsoever.

SERMON ON THE MEANS OF ATTAINING THE Nirvána EXTINCTION. Argument:—Refutation on the falsity of imagination, and the ideal creation of the world; establishing the true God, who is all in all, and who remains ever the same. Vasishtha said:—He who has devoted his whole soul to the contemplation of the Intellect, and feels the same stirring within himself, and knows in his mind the vanity and unreality of all worldly things, (is the person whose soul is said to be extinct in the deity). 2. By habituating himself to this sort of meditation, and seeing the outward objects in his perceptive soul, he views the external world, as an appearance presenting before him in his dream. 3. All this is verily the form of the Intellect, represented in a different garb. The intellect is rarer than the pure air, but collects and condenses itself as the solid world, and recognizes itself as such; wherefore the world is no other than the consolidated intellect, and there is nothing beside this anywhere. 4. It has no dissolution or decay, nor it has its birth or death; it is neither vacuity nor solidity, it is neither extension nor tenuity, but it is all and the Supreme one and nothing in particular.

5. Nothing is lost by the loss of egoism, and of this world also; the loss of an unreality is no loss at all, as the loss of anything in our dream, is attended with loss of nothing. 6. Nothing is lost at the loss of an imaginary city, which is altogether a falsity; so nothing is destroyed by the destruction of our egoism and this unreal world. 7. Whence is our perception of the world, but from a nullity; and if it is granted as such, then there is nothing that can be predicated of it, any more than that of a flower growing in the air (which is a nullity). 8. The conclusion arrived at last after mature thought in respect to this is, that you must remain as you are and as firm as a rock in the state in which you are placed, and in the conduct appertaining to your own station in life.

9. The world is the creation of thy fancy as thou wishest it to be, and there are the peculiar duties attached to thy station in all thy wonderings through life; but all these cease at once at the moment (of your divine meditation), and this is the conclusion arrived at (by the joint verdict of the sástras). (Every one cuts his own course in life, which ceases no sooner he thinks of its nihility. So it is said:—do thy duties till thy death but the thought of thy living in death, puts a stop to thy course all at once. Sanchintya mrituyncha tamugra dantang, sarvey projutná shithilá vabanti). 10. All this is inevitable and unavoidable in life, and is avoided only by divine meditation; in which case the whole creation vanishes into nothing, and there is no more any trace of it left behind. (i.e. In a future life or transmigration). 11. The unholy souls that view the creation, appearing before them like the dreams of sleeping men; are called sleeping souls, which behold the world rising before them, like the waving waters in a mirage.

12. Those who consider the unreality (of the world) as a reality, we know not what to speak of them, than with regard to the offspring of barren women. (i.e. the impossibility of the existence of either of them). 13. The souls of those that have known the true God, are as full as the ocean with heavenly delight; because they do not look upon the visible objects, nor do the visible ever fall under sight or notice. 14. They remain as calm as the still air, and as sedate as the unshaking flame of a lamp; and they continue to be quite at ease both <as> they are employed or unemployed in action. 15. As a minute atom makes a mountain, so the atomic heart becomes full when it is employed in business; and yet the cold-heartedness of the wise seer, continues the same as ever before. (i.e. The mind of the wise man, is not ruffled by the bustle of business). 16. The wish makes the man, though it is not seen by anyone; it is the cause of the world (worldly affairs), though it is not perceived by any body. (The wish being master to the thought—the master of action).

17. What is done by oversight or in ignorance, is undone or foiled by sight or knowledge of it; as for instance the thefts and other wicked acts, which are carried on in the darkness, disappear from sight before the blaze of daylight. 18. All beings composed of the fleshy body and the five elemental substances, are altogether unreal as the gross productions of error only; and so are the understanding, mind, egoism and other mental faculties, of the same nature and not otherwise. 19. Leaving aside both the elemental and mental parts and properties of your body, you attain to the purely intellectual state of your soul, which is called to be your liberation. 20. Attachment to the intellect and adherence to the intellectual thoughts, being once secured there will be end to the view of visibles, and there will be no more any appearance of fancy in the mind, nor any desire or craving rising in the heart. 21. But who has fallen into the error of taking the visibles for true, his sight of the unreal prevents his coming to the view of the true reality; and he finds at the end, that the visible world is but a mirage, and is never faithful to any body at any place.

22. So he finds the falsity of the world, whose soul has risen to its enlightenment within himself; but who ever happens to have the remembrance of the world in him, he comes to fall to the error of its reality again. 23. Therefore avoid your reliance in all worldly objects, and rely only on one who is simply as mere vacuum; and mind that is good you not to remember the world any more, and that your forgetfulness of it altogether is best for you. 24. In your forgetfulness of the world you will find nothing to be seen or enjoyed in it, and nothing of its entity or nullity whatsoever; it is as well as it is all quiet and still as the calm and unruffled ocean for ever. 25. The whole visible world is Brahma himself, and as such, the ocean of it is to be understood as a positive reality; it is a bubble in His eternity, which is all quiet and calm after immersion of bubbles and waves. 26. Meek and tolerant men, are seen to be sedate and dispassionate in their worldly transaction; and to be resigned to the Supreme spirit in their souls. (Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven).

27. Or the saint whose soul is extinct in his god, has only his meekness remaining in him; and being devoid of all desire, he is unfit for all worldly concerns. (It is hard to attend equally to one’s secular and spiritual concerns). 28. As long as one is not perfect in the extinction of his soul in the deity, he may be employed in the practice of his secular duties, by being devoid of passions, animosity and fear of any one. (This is enjoined for a devotee, till he reaches the seventh stage of his devotion). 29. The saint being freed from his passions and feelings of anger and fear and other affections, and getting the tranquility of nirvána extinction in his mind, becomes as frigid as snow and remains as a block of stone forever. 30. As the pericarp contains the seed of the future flower in it, so the saint has all his thoughts and desires quite concealed in his inmost soul, and never gives any vent to them on the outside.

31. The mind wanders on the outside by thinking about the outer world, and so is it confined within itself by its meditation on the inner soul; such is the contemplation of the Supreme being, either as he is thought of or seen in spirit in the inner soul, or viewed himself to be displayed in his works of creation in the outer world. (The spiritual and natural adoration of God). 32. The outer world is no other than an external representation of the delusive dream, which is in the inside of ourselves; there is not the slightest difference between them, as there is none in the same milk, contained in two different pots only. 33. The motion or inertness and the fickleness or steadiness of the one or other of them, are no more than the effects of our lengthened delusion; and the state of one being the container of the other, makes no difference in them, as there is none between the containing ocean and the waves it contains. 34. The dreams that we see in sleep, are no other than operations of the mind, though they are supposed in our ignorance to be quite apart from ourselves.

35. He that remains in the manner of the Supreme soul, quite calm and tranquil and free from all fancy and desires, becomes (extinct in) the very soul, by thinking himself as such; but he never becomes so unless he thinks himself to be as so; (Hence the formula of daily meditation soham, “I am he”, Átman bramatvena sambhavan). 36. The divine state is that of the perfect stillness of the soul (as in sound sleep), when there is not even a dream stirring in the mind; but what that state is or is not, is incomprehensible in the mind, and inexpressible in words. (It is, because we know it in our consciousness and it is not, because we know it not by the predicaments of space and time, and those of the container, contained, or any other category whatsoever). 37. Yet is this state made intelligible to us by instructions of our preceptors, and by means of the entire removal of our error as well as by our intense meditation of it; else there is no body to tell us what it really is. (The sástras tell us, what it is not; by their dogmas neti neti and tanna tanna; but never say a word about its real nature as idamasti).

38. It is therefore proper for you to remain entirely extinct in the external one and tranquil as the Divine spirit by giving up all your fear and pride, your griefs and sorrows, and your covetousness and all errors besides. You must forsake with these the dullness of your heart and mind, as also of your body and all its members, together with the sense of your egoism and the distinctions of things from the one perfect unity. (Knowing that “all are but parts of the one undivided whole”).

Argument:—Liberation depends on self-exertion; and upon good company, study of good books, and the habit of reasoning. Vasishtha continued:—Soon as intellection commences to act, it is immediately attended by egoism—the cause of the erroneous conception of the world; and this introduces a train of unrealities, as the stirring of air causes the blowing of winds. (It means to say that being misguided by avidyá or ignorance, we are liable to fall into all sorts of error). 2. But when intellection is directed by vidyá or reason, its fallacy of the reality of the world, does not affect us in any manner, if we but reflect it as a display of Brahma himself, (that he is all in all); but we are liable to great error, by thinking the phenomenal world as distinct from Him. 3. As the opening of the eyes receives the sight of external appearance, the opening of intellection doth in like manner receive the erroneous notion of the reality of the phenomenal world. 4. What appears on the outside, being quite distinct from the nature of the inner intellect, cannot be a reality as the other; and therefore this unreal show is no more, than the dancing of a barren woman’s boy before one’s eyes. (Which is nothing).

5. The intellect is perceived by its conception of the notions of things, but when we consider the fallacy of its conceptions, and its notion of the unreal as real, it appears to us as a delusion like the appearance of a ghost to boys. 6. Our egoism also is for our misery, from the knowledge that “I am such a one;” but by ignoring (or the want of) this knowledge of myself, that I am not this or that, loosens me from my bondage to it. Therefore I say, that our bondage and liberation, are both dependant on our own option. (But as the innate consciousness of the self or ego is impossible to ignore, yet it is possible to every body, to ignore his being any particular person whatsoever). 7. Therefore the meditation which is accompanied with self-extinction and forgetfulness of one’s self, and the remaining of the moving and quick in the manner of the quiet and dead, is the calm tranquility of holy saints, which ever the same, unaltered and without decay. 8. Therefore, ye wise men, do not trouble yourself as the unwise with the discrimination of unity and duality, and the propriety or impropriety of speech, all which is wholly useless and painful frivolity.

9. The covetous man with his thickening desires, meets with a train of ideal troubles, gathering as thickly about him, as the thronging dreams assailing his head at night. These proceeding from his fondness of outward and visible objects, and from the fond desires inwardly cherished within his heart, grow as thickly upon him as the creation of his wild fancy. 10. But the meek man of moderate desire, remains dormant in his waking state (as a waking sleeper); and does not feel the pain or fear the pangs of his real evils, by being freed from his hankering after temporary objects. 11. Hence the desire being moderated and brought under proper bounds, bears resemblance even to our freedom from its bonds; as we get rid of our once intense thought of something, by our neglect of it in course of time and changing events. 12. The entire curtailment of desires, is sure to be attended with liberation; as the total disappearance of frost and clouds from the sky, leaves the empty vacuum to view. 13. The means of abating our desires, is the knowledge of ego as Brahma himself (and particular person or soul); and this knowledge leads to one’s liberation, as study of science and association with the wise, serve to convert ignorant men to sapience and knowledge.

14. In my belief there is no other ego but the one Supreme ego, and this belief is enough to bring men to the right understanding of themselves, and make their living souls quite calm and tranquil, and dead to the sense of their personality and self-existence. 15. The world appears as a duality or something distinct from the unity of God, just as the motion of the wind seems to be something else beside the wind itself, or the breathing as another thing than the breath; but this fallacy of dualism will disappear upon reflection of “how I or any thing else could be something of itself” (and unless it proceeded from the One everlasting unity). 16. That I am nothing is what is meant by extinction, and why then remain ignorant (of this simple truth); go, associate with the wise and argue with them, and you will so come to learn it (i.e. this truth). 17. It is in the company of those who are acquainted with truth, that you loosen the bonds of your worldly errors; just as darkness is dispelled by light, and the night recedes from before the advancing of the day.

18. Make it the duty of your whole life, to argue with the learned, concerning such like topics, as “what am I,” and what are these visible objects; what is life and what this living soul, and how and whence they come into existence. 19. The world is seen to be full of animal life, and I find my egoism is lost in it; the truth of all this is learnt in a moment in the society of the learned, therefore betake thyself to the company of those luminaries of truth. 20. Resort one by one to all those that are wiser than thee in the knowledge of truth, and by investigation into their different doctrines, the spectre of your controversy (i.e. error), will disappear for ever. (Because the maxim says, “as many heads so many minds, and as many mouths so many verdicts”, therefore examine them all and glean the truth). 21. As the spectre of controversy rises before the learned, in the manner of an apparition appearing before boys; so the error of egoism rises before them, in their attempt to maintain their respective arguments.

22. Let therefore the diligent inquirer after truth, attend separately to the teaching of every professor of particular doctrines; and then taking them together, let him consider in his own mind, the purport of their several preachings. 23. Let him weigh well in his own mind, the meanings of their several sayings, for the sharpening of his own reasoning, and accept the doctrine which is free from the flights of imagination and all earthly views. 24. Having sharpened your understanding by associating with the wise, do you cut short the growth of the plant of your ignorance by degrees, and by little and little (lit.—bit by bit). 25. I tell you to do so, because I know it is possible to you to do so; we tell you boys, accordingly as we have well known anything, and never speak what is improper or impracticable to you. 26. As the gathering or dispersion of the clouds in the sky, and the rising and sinking of the breakers in the sea, is no gain or loss to either, so the attainment or bereavement of any good whatever, is of no concern to the unconcerned sage or saint.

27. All this is as false as the appearance of water in the mirage, while our reliance in the everlasting and all pervading One, is as firm, secure and certain (as our supportance on a solid rock). By reasoning rightly in yourself, you will discover your egoism to be nowhere; how and whence then do you beget this false phantom of your imagination.

SERMON ON THE TRUE SENSE OF TRUTH. Argument:—Causes of erroneous conceptions and false Imagination, our hankering for the future world and its remedy. Vasishtha continued:—Ráma, if a man will not gain his wisdom by his own exertion, by his own reasoning and by the development of his understanding in the company of good men, then there is no other way to it. 2. If one will try to remove his mis-apprehensions and the false creations of his imagination, by the prescribed remedies of the sástras, he will succeed to change and rectify them himself, as they remove or remedy one poison by means of a counter poison. 3. All fancies and desires are checked by unfancying them, and this unfancifulness or undesirousness is the cause of liberation, by relinquishment of worldly enjoyment, which is the first step to it. (So says the sruti:—Renunciation of enjoyments, is the leader to liberation). 4. First consider well the meanings of words, both in your mind and utterance of them; and all the habitual and growing misconceptions will slowly cease and subside of themselves. 5. There is no greater error or ignorance in one’s self, except the sense of his egoism; and this error having subsided by one’s disregard of its accepted sense, it is not far from him to arrive at his liberation.

6. If you have the least reliance in your body and egoism, you surely lose the infinite joy of your unbounded soul; but by forsaking the feeling of your egoism or personality, you are freed from the bondage of your fondness for anything of this world, and become perfected in divine knowledge and blissfulness. 7. It is from want of understanding, that all these unrealities appear as real to the ignorant; but we venerate and bow down to the sage, who remains unmoved as a stone at all this. 8. Who from want of his sense of external objects, remains as cold as a stone, and being reclined in the Supreme spirit by the meditation of the Divine Mind in his own mind; sees but an empty void both within and all around himself. (This is called perfect liberation of the soul). 9. Whether there be or not be all these visibles, they tend alike to our misery; it is our thoughtlessness of them alone that conduces to our happiness, wherefore it is better to remain insensible of them, by shutting our senses against them. (Our happiness or misery does not depend on the presence or absence of things, but upon our disregard of or concern for them).

10. There are two very serious diseases waiting on mankind, in their cares for this as well as those of the next world; and both of these are attended with intolerable pains to the patients of both their temporal as well as spiritual maladies. 11. In this world the intelligent are seen to try all their best medicines in vain, to remove their inveterate diseases of hunger and thirst, by means of their remedies of food and drink, during the whole period of their lives; but there is no remedy whatever for to heal their spiritual maladies of sin and vile, and avert their inevitable fate of death and rebirths in endless succession. 12. The best sort of men are trying to heal their spiritual maladies, and avert their future fate, by means of the ambrosial medicines of dispassionateness, keeping good company and improvement of their understanding. 13. Those who are careful to cure their spiritual complaint, become successful to get their riddance, by means of their desire of getting better, and by virtue of the best medicine of abstinence and refraining from evil. (Gloss. apathya tyága &c.).

14. Whoever does not heal even now his deadly disease of sin, which is his leader to hell fire on future; let him say what remedy is left for him to try, after he has gone to the next world, where there is no balsam to heal the sickly soul. 15. Try all earthly medicines to preserve your life, from being wasted away by earthly diseases; and keep your souls entire for the next world, by the healing balm of spiritual knowledge in this life. 16. This life is but a breath, alikens a tremulous dew drop, hanging at the end of a shaking leaf, and ready to fall down; but your future life is long, and enduring under all its variations, therefore heal it for the everlasting futurity. 17. By carefully attending to the treatment of spiritual diseases at present, you will not only be hale and holy in your soul in the next world, but evade all the diseases of this life, which will fly off afar from you. 18. Know thy conscious soul as an animalcule, which evolves itself into the form of this vast world; just as an atom contains a huge mountain in it, which evolves from its bosom in time.

19. As the evolution of your consciousness, presents to your view the forms that you have in your mind (i.e. ideals); so doth the phenomenon of the world appear in the womb of vacuum, and is no more real than a false phantasy. 20. Notwithstanding the repeated deluge and destruction of the visible earth, there is no change nor end of the false phantom of our mind, where its figure is neither destroyed nor resuscitated, owing to its being a phantasy only and no reality whatever. (It is possible to destroy the form of a, but not its idea in the mind). 21. Should you like to lift up your soul, from the muddy pit of earthly pleasures and desires, wherein it drowned forever; you must put forth your manly virtues, as the only means to this end, and without which there is no other. 22. The man of ungoverned mind and soul, is a dull-headed fool, and fallen in the miry pit of carnal desires; he becomes the receptacle of all kinds of danger and difficulty, as the bed of the sea is the reservoir of all the waters falling to it.

23. As boyhood is the first stage of the life of a man, and introduces the other ages for perfection of human nature; so the first step to one’s self-extinction, is the renunciation of his carnal enjoyments, conducing to the subjection of passions. 24. The stream of the life of a wise man, is ever flowing onward with the undulations of events, without overflowing its banks or breaking its bounds; and resembles a river drawn in a picture, which is flowing without the current of its waters. 25. The course of the lives of ignorant people, runs with tremendous noise, like the precipitate current of rivers; it rolls onward with dangerous whirlpools, and flows on with its rising and setting billows (till it mixes with the sea of eternity). 26. Continuous creations and course of events, are transpiring with the succession of our thoughts; and appearing before us like the illusive train of our dreams, and the false appearance of two moons in the sky, and the delusion of mirage and apparitions rising to the sight of children.

27. So the incessant waves raised by the undulating waters of our consciousness, appears as the endless chain of created objects, rising in reality to our view; but being taken into mature consideration, they will appear to be as false and unreal, as they seem true and real to our erroneous apprehension of them. 28. It is said that are worlds and the cities of Gandharvas and Siddhas, contained in the concavity of the firmament, and it is supposed also that, the cavity of the sky is a reservoir of waters; but all these are but creations of the mind, and there no such things in reality. 29. The worlds are as bubbles of water, in the ocean of the conscious mind; they are only the productions of the fanciful mind, and no such things, as they are thought to be; and the idea of ego, is but forms of our varying thoughts. 30. The expansion of consciousness is the course of unfolding the world, and the closing of it conceals the phenomenals from view; therefore these appearances are neither in the inside nor outside of us; and they are neither realities, nor altogether unreal also (but effects of the opening and shutting of our minds only).

31. There is one thing alone of the form of the intellect, which is unborn and unknown (in its true nature), and is the undecaying (i.e. everlasting) lord of all; it is devoid of substance and property, and is called Brahma or immensity, and tranquil spirit, which is as quiet and calm as the infinite void, are rarer than even the empty atmosphere. 32. There is no cause whatever, which can be reasonably assigned to the agitation, consciousness and creations of the spirit of Brahma; which being above nature is said to have no nature at all. Its agitation is as that of the air; whose cause is beyond all conception. 33. Brahma has his thoughts rising in him, as waves in the ocean of himself, and as our consciousness of the dreams rising in our soul; and the nature of this creation is in reality, neither as that of his dream, or the wave produced from his essence. (It is hard to say, whether this is a thought of himself as a dream, or a part of him like a wave).

34. This much therefore can only be said of him that, there is only an unknowable unity, which is ever the same and never as quick as thought, nor even as dull as matter; it is not a reality or unreality, nor any thing this positive or negative. (In a word, it is nothing that conceivable by the human mind). 35. The Yogi that remains in this insouciant state of Brahma, and insensible of his own consciousness (i.e. who is inexcitable both in his body and mind), such a person is said to be the best of sages and saints. 36. Who becomes inactive and inert as a clod of earth, even while he is alive; who becomes unconscious of himself and the outer world, and thinks of nothing (except the Supreme soul); he is said as the best of sages and saints. 37. As we lose sight of wished for objects, by ceasing to wish for them (such as the sights of fairy lands &c.); so we get rid of our knowledge of ourselves and the world, by our ceasing to think about them (by confining our thoughts in God alone).

38. All things expressed, in words have certain causes assigned to them; but the cause of their nature remains inexplicable, (whence nature—swabháva is said to be avidyá or hidden ignorance). It is the cause of this prime nature (i.e. God), whose knowledge alone conduces to our liberations (from ignorance). 39. Nothing whatever has its particular nature of itself, unless it were implanted in it by the intelligence of God, as it were by infusion of the moisture of divine intelligence. 40. All our thoughts, are agitated by inspiration of the breath of the great intellect; know them therefore as proceeding from the vacuum of the entity of the supreme Brahma. 41. There is no difference whatever, in the different nature of the creator and creation; except it be as that of the air and its agitation, which are the one and same thing and of the same nature. The thought of their difference is as erroneous, as the sight of one’s death in his dream. 42. An error continues so long, as the blunder does not become evident by the light of reasoning; when the error being cleared of its falsity, flies to and vanishes into the light and truth of Brahma.

43. Error being the false representation of something, flies away before a critical insight into it; and all things being but productions of our error, like our conception of the horns of hare, they all vanish before the light of true knowledge, which leaves the entity of Brahma only at the end. 44. Therefore give up all your errors and delusions, and thereby get rid of the burden of your diseases and decay; and meditate only on the One, that has no beginning, middle, or end, is always clear and the same, and full of bliss and felicity, and assimilate yourself to the nature of the clear firmament: (which according to Vasishtha is the nature and form of God).

SERMON ON THE PRACTICE OF SPIRITUAL YOGA OR INTELLECTUAL MEDITATION. Argument:—Elucidation of the doctrine that, the best way of avoiding worldly affairs, is to refrain from mixing with them. Vasishtha continued:—The man who is lost in the pleasure or under the pains, which fall to his share in this life, is lost for ever for the future; but he who is not thus lost (by keeping his soul aloof from the vicissitudes of life), is pronounced to be imperishable by the verdict of the sástras. 2. He who has his desires always rising in his mind, is ever subject to the changes of his fortune; therefore it is proper to give up desire at first, in order to prevent the alternation of pain and pleasure. 3. The error that this is I and that the world, does not attach to immortal soul; which is tranquil and unsupported, quite dispassionate and undecaying in itself. 4. That this is I, that is Brahma, and the other is the world, are verbal distinctions that breed error in the mind; by attributing different appellations, to one uniform and invariable void that is ever calm and quiet (This is the eternal vacuum of Vasishtha, beside which there is nothing else in existence).

5. Here there is no ego nor world, nor the fictitious names of Brahma and others; the all pervading One being quite calm and all in all, there is no active or passive agent at all in this place (or vacuity). 6. The multiplicity of doctrines and the plurality of epithets, which are used to explain the true spirit and inexplicable One, are null and refutable, and among them the word ego in particular, is altogether false and futile. 7. The man absorbed in meditation does not see the visibles, as the thoughtless person has no perception of the ghost standing in his presence; and as one sleeping man does not perceive the dreams, occurring to another sleeping by his side, nor hear the loud roar of clouds, in the insensible state of his sound sleep. 8. In this manner the courses of the spirits are imperceptible to us, though they be continually moving all about us; because it is our nature to perceive what you know of, and never know anything, which is without or beyond our knowledge.

9. Knowledge also being as our soul, shows all things like itself (i.e. as we have their ideas or representations of them in our mind); therefore our knowledge of the ego and the world beside, is not separate from the soul and the Supreme soul also. 10. So our knowledge (idea or notion), manifests itself in the form of the world before us; in like manner as our dreams and desires (or imaginations), represent the same as true to us. These various manifestations of the inward soul, are no way different from it, as the waves and bubbles are no other than the water, whence they take their rise. 11. Notwithstanding the identity of the soul, and its manifestations of knowledge, notion, idea and others; they are considered as distinct things by ignorant thinkers, but the learned make no distinction whatever, between the manifestation and its manifesting principle. 12. As the integral soul becomes a component body, by its assuming to itself all its members and limbs; so the eternally undivided spirit of God, appears to be multiplied in all parts of the world, and various works of creation.

13. So the intellect contains numberless thoughts in itself, as a tray holds a great many golden cups in it; and whenever this intellect is awake, it sees innumerable worlds appearing before it. 14. It is Brahma himself that shines in his brightness, in the form of this fair creation; by being dissolved throughout the whole, in his liquified form of the Intellect, as the sea shows itself in the changing forms of its waves. 15. Whatever is thought of in the mind, the same (thought or idea) appears in the form of the world &c., and the formless thought takes a definite form; but what is not in the mind, never appears to view. 16. The word intellection and want of thought, are both applied to the Supreme Intellect, from its almighty power to assume either of them to itself; this sort of expression is for the instruction of others, or else there are no such states, appertaining to the ever intelligent soul in reality. 17. The world is neither a reality nor unreality, but exhibits itself as such by intellection of the intellect; but as it does not appear in absence of intellection, the same is inculcated in this lecture. (i.e. Never think of the world or anything at all, and it will vanish of itself withal).

18. Intellection and its absence, are as the agitation and stillness of the soul; and both of these being under your subjection, it is quite easy and never difficult for you to restrain yourself, by remaining as still as a piece of stone. 19. An appearance which has neither its essence or substance, and any assignable cause for its existence, is the very nature of this egoism of ours, which we know not whence it has appeared as an apparition before us. 20. It is very strange that this apparition of your ego, which has no entity in reality; should take such possession of your mind, as to make you insensible of yourself. 21. It is by accident that one happens to observe (or resolve) the ego, in the person of the impersonal Brahma; just as a man by deception of his eye sight, comes to descry an arbour in the sky. 22. If my ego and the world are really the same with Brahma, then how and whence is it that come to have their production and dissolution, and what is the cause of our joy or sorrow in either of these cases.

23. It is by the almighty power of God, that this world of thought (or the ideal world), comes to be visible to sight; but as the absence of thought of it, prevents its appearance into us; there be thoughtless of it in order to avoid its (repeated) sight (in repeated births). 24. It is by mere accident that the vacuous (empty) mind of Brahma, exhibits the ideal world in itself; just as any man dreams a fairy city, or sees the objects of his desire and fancy in his mind. How then is it possible to separate the contained from the containing mind? 25. The creation abides in the divine mind, in the same manner, as the waves appertain to the sea and statue inheres in the wood; and as the relation of pots and other things is with the earth, so do all things pertain to the nature of Brahma. 26. As all things appear in their formless (immaterial) state, in the unsubstantial and transparent vacuity of the mind; so doth the ego and this world also appear in the divine mind: (in the same manner as the shapeless clouds appear in the clear and empty sky, and exhibit afterwards their various shapes).

27. As the air by its natural inflation, breathes out in various sorts of breezes, so One whose nature is unknown, evolves himself in every form of the ego of each individual and of the world. (The breezes are said to be forty-nine in number. The nature of God is called avidyá—ignorance or what we know not). The meaning is that, as the formless and vacuous air produces all sorts of winds. So doth God who is nihsabháva without and beyond sabháva nature produce all natures. 28. As the formless smoke or vapour, presents the forms of elephants, horses, &c., in the empty clouds; so doth the unsubstantial spirit of God, represent the formless ego, tu and all things beside in itself. 29. The creation is a component part, of the unknown body of Brahma, as the leaves and branches are those of the tree; and it contains both its cause and effect of the other. 30. Knowing the impossibility of the existence of the world, beside the self ever existent soul; remain at peace and without trouble within thyself. Be free from attributes and errors, and remain as free and detached as the free, open and void space.

31. Know that neither you nor ourselves, nor the worlds nor the open air and space, are ever in existence; and that Brahma alone is ever existent, in his eternal tranquility, calmness and fulness. 32. Seeing the endless particulars in the universe, do thou remain free from all particularities as I, myself, thou, thyself &c., and think thyself in the sole and Supreme One, if thou shalt have thy liberation. 33. Know the knowledge of the particulars, is for thy bondage alone to them, and thy ignorance of them lends only to thy liberation (from all these trammels). Sit as thou art and doing thy business, in thy state of tranquility and total nescience of everything. 34. Let not the visibles attract thy sight, nor allow their thoughts engross thy mind; thus the world disappearing with thy thoughtlessness of it, say what else have you to think about. 35. The absence of the states of the visible and its looker i.e. of the subjective and objective, resembling the state of the waking sleeper, will make remain as void of thoughts, as the vault of the autumnal sky is devoid of clouds.

36. The Knowledge of the action of the divine Intellect, as distinct from the invariable of Brahma, is the cause of our making a distinction of the creation from its creator; just as our knowledge of the difference of the wind from air, causes us to think of their duality. It is therefore our want of this distinction, and the knowledge of the unity of Brahma, that leads us to our liberation. 37. The knowledge of the inflation of the divine spirit, is verily the cause of our knowledge of the world; whereas the absence of this knowledge, and want of our own intellection, is what is called our nirvána or utter extinction in God. 38. As the seed is conscious of the sprout growing out of it to be of its own kind, so the divine Intellect knows the world that is produced from it, to be self-same with itself. 39. As the seed becomes the plant from its conception of the same in itself, so the divine Intellect becomes the creation itself from its concept of the same.

40. As the thoughts are but the various modifications of the mind, so the creation is a modality of the divine Intellect; and in this case all kinds of seeds serve as instances, of having their products of the same nature. 41. The world is the changeless form of the unchanging essence of One, and know to be as unchangeable and undecaying as One, himself, who is without beginning and end. 42. The divine soul is replete with its innate will, whereby it produces and destroys the world out of and into itself; this form of unity and duality, is as the appearance and disappearance of an imaginary city. 43. As you have no distinct idea of the things, expressed by the words sky and vacuum; so must you know the words Brahma and creation to bear no distinction in the divine spirit. (Creation being but the breathing or inflation of the spirit and inseparable from it). 44. The great Intellect or omniscience, which is the sempiternal form of divine essence, has the knowledge of the ego coeternal with itself, which men by ignorance assume to themselves.

45. There is nothing that ever grows or perishes in the mundane form of Brahma, but everything rises and falls in it like the undulation of the sea, to rise and fall in all way and never to be lost in any way. 46. All things being of the form of Brahma, remain in the selfsame Brahma; as all spaces remain in the infinite space and all waves and billows rise and fall in the same sea. 47. Wherever you are placed and whenever you have time, attend but for a moment to the (subjective) nature of the soul in your consciousness (without minding any of the objects), and you will perceive the true ego. 48. The sages, O Ráma, have said of two states of our consciousness, namely its sensible and insensible states; now therefore be inclined to that which thou thinkest to be attended with thy best good, and never be forgetful of it. (i.e. Attach thyself to the subjective side of it, in disregard of the objective).

DESCRIPTION OF THE SUPREME BRAHMA. Argument:—The One undivided Brahma with and without his attributes and his real and unreal forms. Vasishtha continued:—The state of the soul is as placid, as that of the untroubled mind in the interval of one’s journey from one place to another, when it is free from the cares of both places (of trouble). 2. Be therefore quite unconcerned in your mind in all states of your life, whether when you sit or walk or hear or see anything, for the purpose of securing your unalterable composure. 3. Being thus devoid of your desires, and undistinguished in society, continue as steadfast as a rock, in the particular conduct of your station in life. 4. Being placed in this manner beyond the reach of ignorance, one is blest with the light of knowledge in his mind. 5. After disappearance of ignorance from the mind, there can be no trace of any thought left in it; nor can the mind think of anything, when tranquility has got her ascendency in it. 6. Brahma is verily one with the world, and the selfsame one appearing as many to our ignorance; which represents the plenitude of Brahma as a multitude, and his pure spirit as extended matter.

7. The plenum (of creation) appears as vacuum (of annihilation), and vacuity appearing as substantiality; brightness deemed by darkness, and what is obscure is brought to light. 8. The unchangeable is seen as changing and the steady appearing as moving; the real appears as unreal, and the unreality as reality; so that seeming as otherwise, and so the vice versa also. 9. The indivisible appears as divided, and energy appearing as inertia; the unthinkable seems as the object of thought, and the unparted whole seeming to shine in innumerable parts. 10. The unego appears as the very ego, and the imperishable One appearing as perishable; the unstained seem as tainted, and the unknowable known as the knowable all of the known world. 11. The luminous One appearing as deep darkness of chaos, and the oldest in time manifested as the new born creation; and the One minuter than an atom, bearing the boundless universe in its bosom. 12. He the soul of all, is yet unseen or dimly seen in all these his works; and though boundless and endless in Himself, he appears as bounded in the multitudinous works of his creation.

13. Being beyond illusion, He binds the world in delusion; and being ineffable light, he centres his brightness in the dazzling sun. Know then, O best of inquirers, that Brahma resembles the endless expanse of the vast ocean. 14. This immense treasure of the universe, so enormous in its bulk, appears yet as light as a feather, when put into balance with the immensity of Brahma; and the rays of his illusion, eluding the moon-beams in their transparency, are as invisible as the glare of the mirage. 15. Brahma is boundless and unfordable (as the ocean), and is situated in no time nor place nor in the sky, where he has set the forests of the clusters of the stars, and the huge mountains of the orbs of planets. 16. He is minutest of the minute (by his inhering in the bodies of the smallest minutiae); and the bulkiest of the bulky. He is the greatest among the great, and the chiefest of the chief. 17. He is neither the doer, deed nor instrument of doing anything; and neither is the cause of another, nor has he any cause for himself. (In Vedánta, all causality is denied of the all pervading Brahma). And being all empty within, Brahma is full in Himself.

18. The world which is the great casket of its contents, is as void as a vast desert; and notwithstanding its containing the countless massy and stony mountains in it, it is as ductile as the plastic ether and as subtile as the rarefied air. 19. All things however time worn appear anew every day; the light becomes dark by night, and darkness is changed to light again. 20. Things present become invisible to sight, and objects at a distance present themselves to view, the intellectual changes to the material, and the material vanishes to the superphysical (thought or spirit). 21. The ego becomes the non-ego, and the non-ego changes to the ego; one becomes the ego of another, and that other and the ego, become as something other and different than the ego. 22. The full ocean of the bosom of Brahma, gives rise to the innumerable waves of world; and these waves like worlds evolve from and dissolve into the ocean of Brahma’s breast, by their liquid like and plastic nature.

23. The vacuous body of Brahma bears a snow white brightness over all its parts, whence the whole creations is full of a light as fair as snow and frost. (Light is the first appearance or work of God, and envelopes the whole universe that was formed in and after it). 24. This God being beyond the space of all time and place, and without all forms, figures, and shapes whatever; stretches out in space and all times of day and night, the unreal figures in the world like the unstable waves of the sea. 25. In this light there shines the bright filament of the worlds, in the ample space of the sky; appearing as so many ancient arbours standing in a long and large forest, and bearing the five elements as their pentapetalous leaves. 26. The great God has spread out this light, as a clear mirror before his sight; in order as he wished to see the shadow of his own face, represented in the pellucid twilight (which proceeded at first from him). 27. The unbounded intellect of God, produced of its own free will the spacious firmament, wherein the lord planted the tree of his creation, which brought forth the luminous orbs as its fruits in different parts of it.

28. The lord created a great many varieties of things, both in the inside as well as outside of himself; which appear as internal thoughts in his intellect, and as all entities and non-entities in his outer or physical world. 29. In this manner, the divine mind exhibits the different forms of things, in itself and of its own will, as the tongue displays the varieties of speech within the cavity of the mouth. 30. It is the flowing of the fluid of divine will, which forms the worlds; and it is the conception of pleasant sensations in the mind, that causes these torrents and whirlpools in the ocean of the world. (i.e. The will is the cause of creation, and the feelings and passions are as whirlwinds and whirlpools in the mind). 31. It is from the divine mind that all things proceed, as the light issues from fire; as it is the lulling of the creative mind to rest, that the glow of all visible objects are extinguished and put out of sight. 32. All the worlds appertain to the divine intellect, as the property of whiteness adheres to the substance of snow; and all things proceeded from it, as the cooling moon-beams issue out of the lunar orb.

33. It is from flush of the hue of this bodiless intellect, that the picture of the world derives its variegated colouring; and it is this intellect alone which is to be known, as an infinite extension without its privation or variation at any time. 34. This stupendous Intellect, like the gigantic fig-tree (ficus religiosa) of the forest, stretches out its huge branches on the empty air of heaven, bearing the enormous bodies of orbs of worlds, like clusters of its fruits and flowers. 35. Again this colossal intellect appears as a huge mountain, firmly fixed in the air, and letting down many a gushing and running stream, flowing with numberless flowers, falling from the mountain trees. 36. In this spacious theatre of vacuum, the old actress of destiny, acts her part of the representation of worlds in their repeated rotations and succession. 37. In this stage the player boy—time is also seen to play his part, of producing and destroying by turns an infinity of worlds, in the continued course of Kalpa and Mahákalpa ages, and in the rotation of the parts of time.

38. This playful time remains firm in his post, notwithstanding the repeated entrances and exits of worlds in the theatre of the universe; just as a fixed mirror ever remains the same, though shadows and appearance in it, are continually shifting and gliding through it. 39. The Lord God is the causal seed of the worlds, whether existing at present or to come into existence in future; just in the same manner as the five elemental principles are causes of the present creation. (Here Brahma is represented, as in all other passages, as the material cause of the world). 40. The twinklings of his eye cause the appearance and disappearance of the world, with all its beauty and brightness; but the Supreme soul having no outward eye or its twinkling, is confined in his spirit only. (The physical actions which are attributed to God, are always taken in their figurative sense). 41. The very many great, and very great creations and dissolutions of worlds, and the incessant births and deaths of livings, which are continually going on in the course of the nature; are all the various forms of the One unvaried spirit, whose breath, like the inflation of air, produces and reduces all from and into itself. Know this and be quiet and still.

SERMON ON THE SEED OR SOURCE OF THE WORLD. Argument:—Description of Avarice as the great Bondage of life and harmlessness of the common blessing of life obtained without avarice. i.e. Prohibition of avariciousness and not of ordinary enjoyments. Vasishtha continued:—The false varieties of the world take us by surprise, as the eddies attract to them the passing vessels; but they are all found to be of the same nature, as the various waves of the sea. (As all the waves are but water, so all worldly appearances are mere enticing delusions). 2. The nature of the whole world, is as unknowably known to us; as that of the universal vacuum which rests in God alone, is imperceptibly perceptible to our eyes. (All we see of the sky, is but a blank which is nothing). 3. As I find nothing in the fancied cities of boys in the air, (which they think to abound with ghosts etc.); so doth this really ideal world, appear to be in real existence to boys alone. (But the wise know it as unreal). 4. The sight and thought of visible appearances, are as the visions and remembrances of objects in dream; and so is this world but an appearance to the sight, and a phantom and phantasy in the mind.

5. The phenomenal and the fancy, have no pith nor place except in the intellect; beside which there is nothing to be had save an unbounded vacuity only. Where then is the substantiality of the world? 6. The error of the world consists in the knower’s knowledge of it, and it is the ignorance (of the existence) of the world, that is free from this error; and the knowing or ignoring of it is dependant to thee, as the thinking or unthinking of a thing, is entirely in thy power. (Every one is master of his thoughts). 7. The vacuous intellect being of the form of the transcendent sky, is of the state of an extended space, to which it is impossible to impute any particular nature or quality whatsoever. (The gloss explains it by saying that, the intellect is neither any extended matter, nor entirely an empty vacuity, since it is the source of all intellectual powers and mental faculties).

8. The world also being of the form of the intellect (i.e. a formal representation of it); has no particular character or variable property assignable to it. It is seen to be existent, but having no particular feature of its own, it is not subject to any variation in its nature (i.e. Being a formless thing, it can have no vikára or change of form at all). 9. All this being a representation of the vacuous intellect, has no substantiality whatever in it; it is the substance and not the knowledge of a thing, that is subject to any change in its form, because knowledge appertains to the intellect, which is always unchangeable. 10. I see all quiet and calm, and the pure spirit of God; I am without the error of ego, tu &c., and see nothing about me, in the same manner as we can never see a forest growing in the air. 11. Know this my voice to be the empty air as my conscious thought, and know also these words of mine to proceed from my empty consciousness, which resides in the empty spirit likewise. (i.e. Sound proceeds from the empty spirit and not from the material body) (as some would have it).

12. That which they designate the transcendent essence, is the eternal and involuntary state of rest of the Divine soul, and not what it assumes to itself of its own volition (as that of the creative energy of Brahmá—the Demiurge). That state resembles that of a slab of stone, with the figures naturally marked upon, or as the pictures drawn in a plate or chart. 13. The silent man (muni or mouni) whose mind is calm and quiet in the management of his ordinary business, remains unmoved as a wooden statue, and without the disturbance of any desire or anxiety. 14. The living wise and listless man sees all along his life time, the world resembling a hollow reed, all empty within and without it, and having no pith or juice in the inside of it. (The wise well know the vanity of the world). 15. He who is not delighted with the outer world, reaps the pleasure of his inner meditations; but he who is indifferent to both in his mind, is said to have gone over the ocean of the world (and set free from all his cares).

16. Give out the words from your lungs, like a sounding reed from its hollow pipe; and clear your mind from its thoughts, by keeping your body intact from busy affairs, and employing no other member of it after them (except your tongue). 17. Touch the tangibles as they come to thee without thy desiring them; and remain in thy solitary cell without thy wishing for or minding about them, or grieving at their want. 18. You may relish the various flavours, which are offered to you; and take them to your mouth in the manner of a spoon without wishing for or taking a delight in their sweet taste. 19. You may see all sights, that appear before you; without your desiring for or delighting in them. 20. You can smell the sweet perfumes and flowers, that fall in your way without your seeking them, take the scents only to breathe them out, as the odoriferous winds scatter the flowers all around. 21. In this manner if you go on to enjoy the objects of sense with utter indifference to them, and neither longing after or indulging yourself in any; you shall in that case have nothing to disturb your peace and content at any time.

22. But whoso finds a zest for the poisonous pleasures of life, increasing in himself day by day; casts his body and mind to be consumed in their burning flame, and loses his endless felicity. 23. Want of desire in the heart, is said to constitute the obtuse insensibility of the soul, called samadhána by dispassionate sages; and there is no other better lesson to secure the peace of mind, than the precept of contentment (lit. absence of desire). 24. The increasing desire is as painful, as one’s habitation in hell fire; while the subsidence of desires in the mind, is as delightsome as his residence in heaven. 25. It is desire alone, which constitutes the feelings of the heart and mind; and it is this, which actuates mankind to the practice of their austerities and penances, according to the sástras. 26. Whenever a man allows his desire, to rise in any manner in his heart; even then he scatters a handful of the seeds of affliction, to sprout forth in the fair ground of his mind. (The more desire the more pain). 27. As much as the craving of one is lessened by the dictates of this reason, so much do the pain of his avaricious thoughts cease to molest them. (Nothing to desire nothing to fear).

28. The more doth a man cherish his fond desire in his mind, the more does it boil and rage and wave in his breast. 29. If you do not heal the malady of your desire, by the medicine of your own efforts; then I think you will never find a more powerful balsam to remedy this your inveterate disease. 30. Should you be unable to put a check to your desire altogether, you must still try to do it by degrees, as a passenger never fails to get his goal even by slow paces in time. 31. He who does not try to diminish his desires day by day, is reckoned as the meanest of men, and is destined to live in misery every day. 32. Our cupidity is the causal seed of the crop of our misery in this world; and this seed being fried in the fire of our best reason, will no more vegetate in the ground of our breast. 33. The world is the field of our desires and the baneful sources of misery only, it is the extinction of them which is called nirvána; therefore never be tempted by the delusion of desire for your utter destruction.

34. Of what avail are the dictates of the sástras, and the precepts of our preceptors; if we fail to understand that, our samádhi or final rest consists in the extinction of our temporary desires. 35. He who finds the difficulty of checking his desires in his mind, it is hopeless for him to derive any good from the instructions of his preceptors, or the teachings of the sástras whatever. 36. It is the poison of avarice which proves the bane of human life, as the native forests of stags prove destructive to them, by being infested by huntsmen. (Hearts infested by avarice, are as detrimental to men; as forests infested by hunters are baneful to stags). 37. If one would not deal frivolously, with the acquisition of his self-knowledge (spirituality); he may but learn to extenuate his cravings, and he will thereby be led insensibly, to the acquirement of his spiritual knowledge. 38. Extinction of wish is the extirpation of anguish, and this is the sense of the nirvána bliss; therefore try to curtail your desires, and thereby to cut off your bondage, which will not be difficult for you to do, if you will but try to do so.

39. The evils of death and decrepitude, and the weeds of continued woes, are the produce of secret seed of desire, which to be burnt betimes by the fires of equanimity and insouciance. 40. Wherever there is inappetency, the liberation from bondage is found to be even there also; therefore suppress always your rising desires, as you repress your fleeting breath (in the practice of ajapá or suppression of breathings). 41. Wherever there is appetence, even there is our bondage in this world; and all our acts of merit or demerit and all our distresses and diseases, are the invariable companions of our worldly wishes. 42. The dominant desire being deprived of its province, and the indifferent saint being freed from its bondage; it is made to weep and wail, as when a man is robbed by a robber. 43. As much as a man’s desire is decreased in his breast, so much so does his prosperity increase, leading him onward towards his liberation. 44. A foolish man that is ignorant of himself (i.e. of his soul and spirit), and fosters his fond desire for anything; is as if he were watering at the root of the poisonous arbour of this world, only to bring his death by its baneful fruits.

45. There is the tree of desire growing in the human heart and yielding the two seeds (fruits) of happiness and misery (i.e. of good and evil); but the latter being fanned by the breeze of sin, bursts out in a flame which burns down the other, and together with it its possessor also. (The evil desire supercedes the good one).

A LECTURE ON THE VISIBLES AND VISIBLE WORLD. Arguments:—Arguments to show that the world is no production of Divine will or volition, but a reproduction of Brahma himself. Vasishtha continued:—Hear me explain to you more fully, O Ráma! what I have already told you in brief, regarding the treatment of the malady of desire, which forms also an article of the practice of yoga asceticism. 2. Tell me if the will is anything, beside the soul in which it subsists; and if it is nothing apart from the soul, how do you wish to attribute an agency to it, other than that of the soul? 3. The divine intellect being a thing; more subtile in its nature than the rarity of open air, is consequently without any part, and indivisible into parts. It is of itself an integrant whole, and one with myself, thyself and the whole world itself. 4. This intellect is of the nature of vacuum, and the infinite vacuum itself; it is the knower and the known or the subjective and objective world likewise. What then is that other you call the will?

5. There is no relation of the container and contained, or of the subject or object between it and ourselves; nor do we know those saintly men, who know it as any object of their knowledge. 6. We are at a loss to determine the relation, of the subjectivity and objectivity of our (as when I say, I am conscious of myself, here “I am” is the subject of myself—the object). It is just as impossible to find out my egoism and meity, as it is to expect to see a potential black moon in the sky. (Here is a long note on the subjective and objective of my knowledge of myself). 7. Such is the case with all the triple conditions of the subject, object and predicate (as the beholder, beholden and beholding); which having no existence of their own in the nature of things, I know not how they may subsist elsewhere except in the essence of the very soul. 8. In the nature of things, all unrealities are referred to the reality of the soul, as our egoism and tuism, the subjective, objective &c.; and so all things liable to destruction are said to become extinct in the self-existent and everlasting soul.

9. In extinction there is no presence of anything, nor anything present is said to become extinct; the idea of the simultaneous presence and absence of a thing, is as absurd as the sight of light and darkness together in the same place at the same time. 10. Neither can these abide together, on account of the repugnance of their nature; nor can they both be extinct at the same, as we see the presence of the one and the absence of the other before our eyes. So there is no nirvána in the living, because the one is a state of rest, and the other of pain and misery. 11. The phenomenals are fallacies, and afford no real happiness; think them as unreal, and rely solely in the increate lord, by thy nirvána or extinction in him (through the medium of thy devout meditation). 12. The pearl-shell looks like a silver, which is not likely to be realized from it; it is of no use or value, why then do you deceive yourself, with such like baubles of the world?

13. Therefore their presence or possession is full of misery, as their want or absence is fraught with felicity; want being had with the knowledge of the term, proves a substantive good in thy thought nididhyásana of it. (Want importing the absence both of good and evil, is a certain blessing. It may mean also want (of riches) with the gain of knowledge, is a certain good in the province of thought). 14. Why then the vile do not come to perceive their bondage in riches? and why is it that they slight to layhold on the treasure of their eternal welfare, which is even now offered before them? 15. Knowing the causes, effects, and states of things, to be full of the presence of the One only; why do they fail to feel his immediate presence in their consciousness, which spreads alike through all? 16. Mistaken men like the stray deer, are seeking Brahma in the causes and states of things; not knowing that the all pervading spirit, spreads undivided and unspent throughout the whole vacuum of space (or throughout the infinite vacuity of space).