Yoga Vasistha (Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana)

34. Many things are growing unseen and unknown to each other, and never thought of together, such are the dreams of soldiers which are unseen by others. 35. There are endless varieties of creations, in the unbounded womb of vacuum, all of different natures and manners; and there are no two things of the same character and feature. 36. All men are of different sástras, faiths and persuasions from one another, and these are of endless varieties; they are as different in their habits and customs, as they are separated from each other in their habitations and localities. 37. So there are worlds above worlds, and the spheres of the spirits over one another; so there are a great many big elemental bodies, like the hills and mountains that come to our sight. 38. It will be impossible for understandings like yours, to comprehend the incoherent (unusual) things, which are spoken by men like ourselves (i.e. inspired sages, who talk of wonders beyond the common comprehension). 39. We must derive the atoms of spiritual light, which proceeds from the sphere of vacuum; as we feel the particles of mental light which issues from the orb of sun of our intellect. (Here the author speaks of the lights of the sun, intellect and spirit).

40. Some are born to remain just as they are, and become of no use to any one at all; and others become some what like themselves as the leaves of forest trees. 41. Some are equal to others, and many that are unlike to them; for sometime as alike to one another, and at others they differ in their shapes and nature (it is difficult to make out the meaning of these passages, not given in the gloss). 42. Hence there are various results of the great tree of spirituality, among which some are of the same kinds and others, of different sorts. 43. Some of these are of short duration, and others endure for longer periods; there are some of temporary existence, and others endure for ever. 44. Some have no determinate time (for want of the sun and moon), to regulate its course; and others are spontaneous in their growth and continuance. 45. The different regions of the sky, which lie in the concavity of boundless vacuum, are in existence from unknown periods of time, and in a state beyond the reach of our knowledge.

46. These regions of the sky, this sun and these seas and mountains, which are seen to rise by hundreds to our sights, are the wonderful display of our Intellect in the sky, like the chain of dreams in our sleep. 47. It is from our erroneous notions, and the false idea of a creative cause, that we take the unreal earth and all other appearances as they are really existent ones. 48. Like the appearance of water in the mirage, and the sight of two moons in the sky; do these unreal phenomena present themselves to our view, although they are altogether false. 49. It is the imaginative power of the Intellect, which create these images as clouds in the empty air; they are raised high by the wind of our desire, and roll about with our exertions and pursuits. 50. We see the gods, demigods and men, flying about like flies and gnats about a fig tree; and its luscious fruits are seen to hang about it, and shake with the winds of heaven. 51. It is only from the naturally creative imagination of the Intellect, likening the sportive disposition of boys, that the toys of fairy shapes are shown in the empty air.

52. The false impressions of I, thou, he and this, are as firmly affixed in the mind, as the clay dolls of boys are hardened in the sunlight and heat. 53. It is the playful and ever active destiny, that works all these changes in nature; as the genial vernal season, fructifies the forest with its moisture. 54. Those that are called the great causes of creation, are no causes of it; nor are those that are said to be created, created all, but all is a perfect void. They have sprung of themselves in the vacuity of the Intellect. 55. They all exist in their intellectual form, though they appear to be manifest as otherwise; the perceptibles are all imperceptible, and the existent is altogether inexistent. 56. The fourteen worlds, and the eleven kinds of created beings; are all the same in the inner intellect, as they appear to the outward sight. 57. The heaven and earth, and the infernal regions, and the whole host of our friends and foes, are all nullities in their true sense though they seem to be very busy in appearance.

58. All things are as inelastic fluid, as the fluidity of the sea waters; they are as fragile as the waves of the sea in their inside, though they appear as solid substances on the outside. 59. They are the reflexions of the supreme soul, as the day light is that of the sun; they all proceed from and melt away into the vacuous air as the gusts of winds. 60. The egoistic understanding, is the tree bearing the foliage of our thoughts. 61. The rituals and their rewards, which are prescribed in the vedas and puránas, are as the fanciful dreams occurring in light sleep; but they are buried into oblivion by them and are led up in the sound sleep like the dead. 62. The Intellect like a Gandharva architect, is in the act of building many fairy cities in the forest of intellectuality, and lighted with the light of its reason, blazing as the bright sun-beams. 63. In this manner, O Ráma, I beheld in my meditative revelry, many worlds to be created and scattered without any cause, as a blind man sees many false sights in the open air.

THE NETWORK OF WORLDS (CONTINUED). Argument:—Vasishtha sees the siren songstresses in his Reveries and then turns to his meditation of the world. Vasishtha continued:—Then I went on forward to find out the spot of the etherial sounds, and continued journeying onward in the vacuous region of my excogitation, without any interruption from any side. 2. I heard far beyond me the sound that came to my ears, resembling the jingling thrill of the Indian lute; it became more distinct as I appeared nearer to it, till I heard the metrical cadence of Arya measure in it. 3. As I glanced in my meditation at the site of the sound, I beheld a damsel on one side as fair as liquid gold, and brightening that part of the sky (by the blaze of her beauteous body). 4. She had necklaces pendant on her loose garments, and her eyelashes were tinged with lac-dye, and with loosened traces and fluttering locks of her hair, she appeared as the goddess of prosperity (sitting in the air). 5. Her limbs were as calm and handsome, as they were made of pure gold; and sitting on the way side with the near-blown bloom of her youth, she was as odorous as the goddess Flora, and handsome in every part of her body.

6. Her face was like the full moon, and was smiling as a cluster of flowers; her countenance was flushed with her youth, and her eyelids betokened her good fortune. 7. She was seated under the vault of heaven, with the brightness of her beauty blooming as the beams of the full moon; and decorated with ornaments of pearls, she walked gracefully towards me. 8. She recited with her sweet voice, the verses in the Arya metre by my side; and smiled as she recited them in a high tone of her voice, saying:— 9. I salute thee, O sage, she said, whose mind is freed from the evil propensities of those, that are deluded to fall into the currents of this world; and to whom you are a support, as a tree standing on its border. 10. Hearing this I looked upon that sonant charming face, and seeing the maiden with whom I had nothing to do, I disregarded her and went on forward. 11. I was then struck with wonder, on viewing the magic display of the mundane system, and was inclined to wander through the air, by slighting the company of the damsel.

12. With this intention in my mind, I left the etherial dame in the air; and assumed an aerial form in order to traverse the etherial regions, and scan the phantasmagoria of the world. 13. As I went on viewing the wondrous worlds, scattered about in the empty sky; I found them no better than empty dreams, or the fictions in works of imagination. 14. I neither saw nor ever heard of anything at any place, about those creations and creatures, that existed in those former kalpas and great kalpa ages of the world (nor the world destroying deluges of yore). 15. I did not see the furious pushkara and ávarta clouds (of the great deluge), nor the portentous and raging whirlwinds of old; I heard no thunder claps, that split the mighty mountains, and broke the worlds asunder. 16. The conflagration of diluvian fire, which cracked the edifices of Cuvera, and the burning rays of a dozen of solar orbs were to be seen no more. 17. The lofty abodes of the gods, which were hurled headlong on the ground, and the crackling noise of the falling mountains, were no more to be seen or heard.

18. The flame of the diluvian fire, which raged with tremendous roar all about, and boiled and burnt away the waters of the etherial oceans, were now no more. 19. There was no more that hideous rushing of waters, which over flooded the abodes of the gods, demigods and men; nor that swelling of the seven oceans, which filled the whole world, up to the face of the solar orb. 20. The peoples all lay dead and insensible of the universal deluge, like men laid up in dead sleep, and sung the battle affray in their sleep. 21. I beheld thousands of Brahmás, Rudras and Vishnus, disappearing in the different kalpa or diluvian ages of the world. 22. I then dived in my excogitation, into those dark and dreary depths of time, when there were no kalpa nor yuga ages, nor years and days and nights, nor the sun and moon, nor the creation and destruction of the world. 23. All these I beheld in my intellect, which is all in all, to which all things belong, and which is in every place; it is the intellect which engrosses every thing in itself, and shows itself in all forms.

24. Whatever, O Ráma, you say to be anything, know that thing to be the intellect only; and this thing being rarer than the subtile air, know it next to nothing. 25. Therefore it is this empty air, which exhibits every thing in it under the name of the world; and as the sound proceeding from the empty air, melts again into the air, so all things are aerial and the transcendent air only. 26. All these phenomena and their sight are simply erroneous, and appertain to the vacuous intellect alone; and are exhibited as foliage of the aerial tree (which I know is false and nothing). 27. The intellect and vacuum are identic and of the same nature with themselves, and this I came to understand from the entire absence of all my desires. 28. These worlds that are linked together in the chain of the universe, and lie within the limits of the ten sides of it, are but One Brahma only; and the infinite vacuity, with all its parts of space and time, and all forms of things and actions, are the substance and essence of Brahma only.

29. In this manner, I saw in manifold worlds that were manifested before me, many a great muni like myself; all sons of the great Brahmá, and named as Vasishthas, and men of great holiness and piety. 30. I saw many revolutions of the tretá age, with as many Rámas in them; I marked the rotation of many Satya and Dwápara periods (the golden and brazen ages) of the world, which I counted by hundreds and thousands. 31. From my common sense of concrete particulars, I saw this changing state of created things; but by the powers of my reflexion and generalization, I found them all to be but one Brahma, extended as the infinite vacuity from all eternity. 32. It is not to be supposed, that the world subsists in Brahma or He in this (as either the container or contained of the whole); but Brahma is the uncreated and endless all himself, and whatever bears a name or is thought of in our understanding. 33. He is like a block of silent stone, that bears no name or epithet; but is of the form of pure light, which is termed the world also.

34. This light shines within the sphere of the infinite intellect, which is beyond the limit of our finite intelligence; it manifests itself in the form of the world, which is as formless as the other, and is as unknown to us, as anything in our dreamless sleep. 35. Brahma is no other than himself, and all else is only his reflexion; His light is the light of the world, and shows us all things like the solar light. 36. It is by that light, that these thousands of worlds appear to view; and that we have the notion of heat in the lunar disk, and of cold in the solar orb(?) 37. We see some creatures that see in the dark, and do not see in the day light; such are the owls and bats (asses?), and so there are men of the same kind. 38. There are many here, that are lost by their goodness, while there are others, who thrive and ascend to heaven by their wickedness; some <that> come <to> life by drinking of poison, and many that die by the taste of nectar.

39. Whatever a thing appears to be by itself, or whatsoever is thought of it in the understanding of another, the same comes to occur and is presented to the lot of every one, be it good or evil. 40. The world is a hanging garden in the air, with all its orbs fixed as trees with their firm roots in it and yet rolling and revolving about, like the shaking leaves and tossing fruits of this arbour. 41. The sand like mustard seeds being crushed under stony oil mills, yield the fluid substance of oil; and the tender flower of lotus, grows out of the clefts of rocks. (So things of one nature produce another of a different kind). 42. The moving images that are carved out of stone or wood, are seen to be set in the company of goddesses; and to converse with them. (The gloss gives no explanation of this unintelligible passage). 43. The clouds of heaven are seen to shroud many things as their vests, and many trees are found to produce fruits of different kinds every year. 44. All terrestrial animals are seen to move upon the earth, in different and changing forms with different kinds of the members of their bodies and heads.

45. The lower worlds (regions) are filled with human beings, that are without the pale of the vedas and sástras; and live without any faith, religion, and lead their lives in the state of beasts. 46. Some places are peopled by heartless peoples, who are without the feelings of love and desire; and others who are not born of women, but appear to be strewn as stones on the ground. 47. There are some places, which are full of serpents that feed upon air only; and others where gems and stones are taken in an indifferent light; some again where the indigent are without avarice and pride. 48. There were some beings, who look on their individual souls, and not on those of others; and others who regard the universal soul, that resides alike in all. (i.e. In all the four kinds of living creatures). 49. As the hairs and nails and other members of a person, are parts of his same body, though they grow in different parts of it; so do all beings appertain to the One universal soul, which is to be looked upon in all.

50. The one infinite and boundless vacuum, seems as many skies about the different worlds which it encompasseth; and it is by the exertion of Divine energy, that these empty spaces are filled with worlds. 51. There are some who are entirely ignorant of the meaning of the word liberation (which is freedom from the knowledge of everything beside Brahma); and move about as wooden machines without any sense in them. 52. Some creatures have no knowledge of astronomical calculation, and are ignorant of the course of time; while there are others quite deaf and dumb, and conduct themselves by signs and motions of their bodies. 53. Some are devoid of the sense of sight of their eyes, and the light of the sun and moon, are all in vain to them. 54. Some have no life in them, and others have no sense of smelling the sweet odours; some are quite mute and cannot utter any sound, while others are deprived of the sense of their hearing. 55. There are some who are entirely dumb, and without the power of speech; and some again that having no power of touch or feeling, are as insensible blocks or stones.

56. Some have their sense (of conception) only, without possessing the organs of sense; and others that manage themselves as foul Pisáchas or goblins, and are therefore inadmissible in human society. 57. There are some made of one material only (as solid earth), and others have no solidity in them (as air &c.); some are composed of the watery substance, and others are full of fiery matter in them. 58. Some are full of air, and some there are of all forms (i.e. capable to do anything). All these are of vacuous forms, and are shown in the vacuity of the understanding. (This is an effect of a yoga called prakámya siddhi or the power of seeing every thing in the mind or imagination). 59. So the surface of the earth, and air and water, teem with living beings, and the frogs live in the cell of stones, and the insects dwell in the womb of the earth. 60. There are living beings living in vast bodies of water, as in lands, forests and mountains; and so there are living creatures skimming in the other elements and air, as the finny tribes move about and swim in the air.

61. There are living things also, peopling the element of fire, and moving in fiery places, where there is no water to be had; and there they are flying and flitting about as sparks and particles of fire. 62. The regions of air are also filled with other kinds of living beings; and these have airy bodies like the bilious flatulency which runs all over the body. 63. Even the region of vacuum is full of animal life; and these have vacuous bodies, moving in their particular forms. 64. Whatever animals are shut up in the infernal caves, or skip aloft in the upper skies; and those that remain, and rove about all sides of the air; these and all those which inhabit and move about the many worlds in the womb of the great vacuum, were seen by me in the vacuity of my Intellect.

ON THE IDENTITY OF THE WORLD WITH INFINITE VACUITY. Argument:—Want of Divine knowledge, produces the knowledge of the reality of the unreal world; but the knowledge of God, proves the nothingness of the World at all times. Vasishtha continued:—It is from the face of the firmament of Divine Intellect, that the atmosphere of our understandings, catch the reflexion of this universe; just as the waters of the deep, receive the images of the clouds in the upper sky. It is this Intellect which gives us life, and guides our minds. 2. These living souls and minds of ours, are of the form of the clear sky; and these countless worlds, are productions of empty vacuity. 3. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, that after all kinds of beings were entirely liberated, from the bonds of their bodies and their souls also, at the universal annihilation of things; what is it that comes to be created again, and whence it gets it undone also. 4. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me tell you, how at the great destruction or deluge, all things together with the earth, water, air, fire and the sky, and the spheres of heaven vanish away, and are liberated from their respective forms; and how this universe comes to appear again to our imagination.

5. There remains alone the undefinable spirit of God after this, which is styled the great Brahma and Supreme Intellect by the sages; and this world remains in the heart of that being, from which it altogether inseparable and indifferent. 6. He is the Lord, and all this is contained in the nature of this heart, which passeth under the name of the world, it is by his pleasure that he exhibits to us the notion that we have of the world, which is not his real form. 7. Considering this well, we find nothing either as created or destroyed by him; but as we know the supreme cause of all to be imperishable by his nature, so do we know his heart to be indestructible also; and the great kalpa ages are only parts of Himself (as the divisions of time are only parts of eternity). 8. It is only our circumscribed knowledge, that shows us the differences and dualities of things; but these upon examination are not to be found and vanish into nothing. 9. Therefore there is nothing of anything, that is ever destroyed to nothing, nor is there anything which is ever produced from Brahma; who is unborn and invisible, and rests always in his tranquility.

10. He remains as the pure essence of intellect, in atoms of a thousand part of the particles of simple vacuity. 11. This world is verily the body of that great Intellect, how then can this mundane body (corpus mundi) come to be destroyed, without destruction of the other also (which is indestructible of its nature)? 12. As the intellect awakes in our hearts, even in our sleep and dream; so the world is present in our minds at all times, and presents unto us its airy or ideal form ever since its first creation. 13. The creation is a component part of the vacuous intellect and its rising and setting being but the airy and ideal operations of the intellect, there is no part of it that is ever created or destroyed of it at any time. 14. This spiritual substance of the intellect, is never susceptible of being burnt or broken or torn at anytime; it is not soiled or dried or weakened at all nor is it knowable or capable to be seen by them that are ignorant of it. 15. It becomes, whatever it has in its heart; and as it never perishes, so the notion of the world and all things which inhere in its heart (mind), is neither begotten nor destroyed in any wise.

16. It subsides and revives only, by cause of its forgetfulness and remembrance only at different times, and rising and setting of the notion, gives rise to the ideas of the creation and destruction of the world. 17. Whatever notion you have of the world, you become the same yourself; think it perishable, and you perish also with it; but know it as imperishable, and you become unperishing also. 18. Know then the creation and great destruction of the world, to be but recurrences of its notion and oblivion, and the two phases of the intellect only. 19. How can the production or destruction of anything, take place in the vacuity of the airy intellect; and how can any condition or change be attributed to the formless intellect at all? 20. The great kalpa ages and all periods of time, and parts of creation, are mere attributes of the intellect and the intellect but a predicate of Brahma, they all merge into the great Brahma alone. 21. The intellect is a formless and purely transparent substance, and the phenomenals are subject to its will alone; and it is according to the will or wish that one has in his heart (or mind), that he sees the object appear before him, like the fairy lands of imagination.

22. As the body of a tree is composed of its several parts, of the roots, trunk, branches, leaves, flowers, fruits and other things. 23. So the solid substance of the divine spirit, which is more translucent than the clear firmament, and which nothing can be predicated in reality, has the creation and great destructions &c. as the several conditions of its own essence. 24. So the various states of pleasure and pain, of happiness and misery, of birth, life and death, and of form and want of form, are but the different states of the same spirit. 25. And as the whole body of this spirit, is imperishable and unchangeable in its nature, so are all the states and conditions of its being also. 26. There is no difference in the nature and essence of the whole and its part, except that the one is more palpable to sight by its greater bulk than the other. 27. As our consciousness, is the root of existence of a tree; so is our consciousness the root of our belief in the existence of God. 28. This consciousness shows us the varieties of things, as something in one place and another else where; it shows us the creation as a great trunk, and all the worlds as so many trees.

29. It shows some where the great continents, as the branches of these trees and their contents of hills &c., as their twigs and leaves; some where it shows the sunshine as its flowers, and darkness as the black bark of these trees. 30. Some where it shows the concavity of the sky as the hollow of the tree, and elsewhere the dissolution of creation as a vast desolation; it shows in one place the synod of gods as cluster of flowers, and other beings in another as bushes and brambles and cuticles of trees. 31. So are all these situated in the formless and vacuous consciousness, which is the great Brahma itself, and no other than the same nature with Brahma (in its clearness and transparency). 32. There was a past world, here is the present one, and in another a would be creation in futuro; are all but notions of our minds, and known to us by our consciousness of them, which is as unchangeable in its nature as Brahma himself.

33. Thus the supreme and self conscious soul of Brahma, being as transparent as clear firmament, there is no colour or cloud (or the changeful shadows of creation and destruction), which are attributed to it (by way of simile), with the shades of light and darkness in the orb of the moon. 34. How can there be the taint of anything in the transcendent, and transparent firmament, and can the imputation of the first, midst and last, and of far and near attach to infinity and eternity. 35. Want of a comprehensive and abstract knowledge, is the cause of attributing such and other qualities to the divine nature; and it is removed by right knowledge of the most perfect One. (These two are distinguished by the terms, the knowledge of the parágatmá and pralayátma?). 36. Ignorance known as such, by cognoscence of truth, is removed by itself; as a lamp is extinguished by the air which kindles the light (i.e. The knowledge of ignorance drives away ignorance). 37. As it is certain that the knowledge of one’s ignorance, is the cause of its removal; so the knowledge of the unlimited Brahma, makes him to be known as all in all.

38. Thus Ráma, have I expounded to you the meaning of liberation, consult it attentively with your conscience, and you will undoubtedly attain to it (in a short time). 39. This net work of worlds, is uncreated and without its beginning; yet it is apparent to sight by means of the spirit of Brahma, manifest in that form. Whoso contemplates with the eye of his reason, the eight qualities of the lord, becomes full with the divine spirit, although he is as mean as a straw in his living soul.

THE UNITY OF THE INTELLECT WITH THE INTELLECTUAL WORLD. Argument:—Establishment of the theory of vacuum, as Composing the Intellect and all existence contained in its vacuity. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, whether you were sitting in one place, or wandering about in the skies, when you said all these with your vacuous and intellectual body. 2. Vasishtha replied:—I was then fraught with the infinite soul, which fills and encompasses the whole space of vacuum; and being in this state of ubiquity, say how could I have my transition from or fixed. 3. I was neither seated in any one place, nor was I moving about any where; I therefore was present every where, in the empty air with my airy spirit, and beheld everything in my self or soul. (This is said of the omnipresent soul). 4. As I see with my eyes, all the members of my body, as composing one body of mine from my head to foot, so I saw the whole universe in myself with my intellectual eyes.

5. Though my purely vacuous and intellectual soul, is formless and without any part or member as my body; yet the worlds formed its parts (by their being contained in it), and neither by the soul’s diffusion in them, nor by their being of the same nature and essence in their substance. 6. As an instance of this is your false vision of the world in your dream, of which you retain a real conception, though it is no other than an airy nothing or empty vacuity. 7. As a tree perceives in itself the growth of the leaves, fruits and flowers from its body; so I beheld all these rising in myself. 8. I saw all these in me, as the profound sea views the various marine animals in its bosom, as also the endless waves and whirlpools, and foam and froth, continually floating over its breast. 9. In short as all embodied beings, are conscious of the constituent members of their own bodies; I had the consciousness of all existence in my all knowing soul. 10. Ráma, I still retain the concepts of whatever I saw on land and water, and in the hills and dales, as they are embodied with my body; and I yet behold the whole creation, as if it were imprest in my mind.

11. I see the worlds exposed before me, to be lying within and without myself, as they lay in the inside and outside of the house; and my soul is full with all these worlds, which are unified with my understanding. 12. As the water knows (retains) its fluidity, and the frost possesses its coldness; and as the air has its ventilation, so the enlightened mind knows and scans the whole world within itself. 13. Whoever has a reasoning soul in him, and has attained a clear understanding; is possessed of the same soul as mine, which I know to be of the same kind. 14. After the understanding is perfected, by absence of knowledge of the subject and object, there is nothing that appears otherwise unto him, than the self same intelligent soul, which abides alike in all. 15. And as a man seated on a high hill, sees with his clear-sightedness, all objects to the distance of many furlongs; so from my elevation of yoga meditation, saw with my clair-voyance, all things situated far and near and within and without me. 16. As the earth perceives the minerals, metals and all things lying in its bowels; so I saw everything as identical with and no other than myself. (Anányat—non alter).

17. Ráma rejoined:—Be this as it may, but tell me, O Brahman, what became of that bright eyed (lit. aureate-eyed) dame, that had been reciting the árya verses. 18. Vasishtha replied:—That aerial damsel of aeriform body, that recited in the árya metre; advanced courteously towards me, and sat herself beside me in the air. 19. But she being as aeriform as myself, could not be seen by me in her form of the spirit. (Do not the spirits see each other?). 20. I was of the aeriform spirit, and she also had an airlike body; and worlds appeared as empty air, in my airy meditation in aerial seat (of the sky where I was seated). 21. Ráma rejoined:—The body is the seat of the organs of sense and action of breathing, how then could the bodiless spirit utter the sounds of the articulate words which composed the verse? 22. How is it possible for a bodiless spirit, either to see a sight or think of anything (without the eye & mind). Explain to me these inexplicable truths, of the facts you have related.

23. Vasishtha replied:—The seeing of sights, the thinking of thoughts, and the uttering of sounds; are all productions of empty air, as they occur in our airy dreams (i.e. they are all caused by air). (The air being the receptacle of the light of things, the vehicle of sound, and framer of fancy). 24. The sight of a thing and the thought of any thing, depend on the aerial intellect, as they do in our aerial dream; and these are impressed in the hollowness of the intellect, both in the waking as well as dreaming states. 25. Not only is that sight, but whatever is the object of any of our senses, and the whole world itself, is the clear and open sky (and the idea of their substantiality, is altogether erroneous). 26. The transcendent first principle, is of the form of the unknowable intellect; which exhibits itself in the constitution of the universe, which is verily its very nature. (Hence called the mundane God or the god of nature; or as the poet says: Whose body nature is, and God the soul).

27. What proof have you of the existence of the body and its senses? Matter is mere illusion, and as it is with other body, so it is with ours also. (The sruti says: see the formless one under all forms &c.). 28. This is as that One, and that is as this. (i.e. The world appears to be as the intellect shows it &c.). But the unreal (matter) is taken for the real (spirit); and the real is understood as an unreality. 29. As the uses that are made of the earth, its paths and houses in a dream, prove to be false and made in empty air upon waking; so the applications made of the words my, thy, his &c., made in our waking, are all buried in oblivion in the state of our sound sleep (when we have lost the consciousness of our personality). 30. All our struggles, efforts and actions in life time, are as false and void as empty air; and resemble the bustle, commotion and fighting of men in dream, which vanish into nothing in their waking.

31. If you ask whence comes this phenomenon of dreaming, and whence proceed all its different shapes and varieties? To this nothing further can be said regarding its origin, than that it is the reproduction or remembrance of the impressions (preserved in the mind). 32. In answer to the question, why and how does a dream appear to us it may only be said that, there is no other cause of its appearance to you, than that of the appearance of this world unto you (i.e. as you see this before you, so you see the other also). 33. We have the dreaming man, presented to us in the person of Virát from the very beginning of creation; and this being is situated in open air with its aeriform body, in the shape of the dreamer and dream mixed up together. 34. The word dream that I have used and adduced to you, as an instance to explain the nature of the phenomenal world; is to be understood as it is neither a reality nor an unreality either, but the only Brahma himself. 35. Now Ráma, that lovely lady who became my loving companion, was accosted by me in the form in which I beheld her in my consciousness.

36. I conversed with her ideal figure, and in my clairvoyant state, just as men seen in a dream, talked with one another (or as spirits commune and communicate with themselves). 37. Our conference together, was of that spiritual kind, as it was held between men in a dream; so was our conversation as airy, as our persons and spirits; and so Ráma, must you know the whole worldly affair, is but an airy and fairy play. 38. So the world is a dream, and the dream a phantasm of air; they are the same void with but different names; the phantom of the waking day time, being called the world, and of sleeping night time a dream. 39. This scene of the world, is the dream of the soul; or it is the empty air or nothing; it is the clear understanding of God or his own essence that is so displayed. 40. The nightly dream needs a dreamer, and a living person also in order to see the same, such as I, thou, he or any body else; but not so the day dream of the world, which is displayed in the vacuity of the clear intellect itself.

41. As the viewer of the world is the clear vacuum of the intellect, so its view also is as clear as its viewer; the world being of the manner of a dream, it is as subtile as the rare atmosphere. 42. When the empty dream of the world appears of itself, in the vacuous and formless intellect within the hollow of the mind (or heart) and has no substantiality in it; how then is it said to be a material substance, when it is perceived in the same manner by the immaterial intellect? 43. When the visionary world, appearing in a dream of corporeal beings as ourselves, proves to be but empty void and vacuity; how do you take it for a material substance, when it is contained in its immaterial form, in the incorporeal spirit and intellect of God, and why not call it an empty air, when it resides in the manner of a dream in the Divine Intellect? 44. The Lord sees this uncreated world, appearing before him as in a dream. 45. The Lord Brahmá (in the form of the Hiranya-Garbha), has framed this creation in air, with the soft clay of his vacuous intellect; and all these bodies with numerous cavities in them, appear as created and uncreated in the same time.

46. There is no causality, nor the created worlds nor their occupants; know there is nothing and nothing at all, and knowing this likewise and as mute as stone; and go on doing your duties to the last, and care not whether your body may last long or be lost to you.

UNITY OF THE UNIVERSE WITH THE UNIVERSAL SOUL. Argument:—The multifarious worlds of ignorant people, are viewed as one with the Supreme Spirit by the Wise. Ráma rejoined:—O sage, how could you hold your conference with the incorporeal maid, and how could she utter the letters of the alphabet, without her organs of speech? 2. Vasishtha replied:—The incorporeal or vacuous bodies, have of course no power or capability of pronouncing the articulate letters of the alphabet; just as dead bodies incapable of speech. 3. And should there even be an articulate sound, yet there can be no intelligible sense in it; and must <be> unintelligible to others; just as a dream though perceived by the dreamer, is unknown to the sleepers in the same bed and side by side. 4. Therefore, there is nothing real in a dream; it is really an unreality and the ideal imagery of the Intellect in empty air, and concomitant with sleep of its own nature. (i.e. Sleep and dream are twins by their nature). 5. The clear sky of the intellect, is darkened by its imageries (ideas), like the disk of the moon by its blackness, and as the body (face) of the sky by its clouds; but these are as false as the song of a stone, and the sound of a dead body.

6. The dreams and images (ideas), which appear in the sphere of the intellect, are no other than appearances of itself; as the visible sky is nothing else, than the invisible vacuum itself. 7. Like the appearance of dreams in a sleep, doth this world appear before us in our waking state; so the invisible vacuum appears as the visible (sky to our eye). So the form of the dame was a shape of the intellect (i.e. that is a creature of imagination only. Gloss). 8. It is the very clever intellect in us, which exhibits all these varieties of exquisite shapes in itself; and shows this world to be as real and permanent as itself (though in truth, they are as unreal and fleeting dreams). 9. Ráma rejoined:—Sir, if these be but dreams, how is it they appear to us in our waking state; and if they are unreal, why is it that they seem as solid realities unto us? 10. Vasishtha replied:—Hear how the visionary dreams, appear as substantial worlds; though they are no other than dreams, and never real, and in no way solid or substantial.

11. The seeds of our notions are playing at random as dust, in the spacious sky of the intellect; some of them are of the same kind and others dissimilar to one another, and productive of like and unlike results. 12. Some of these are contained one under the other, like the cuticles of plantain trees; and there are many others that have no connection with another, and are quite insensible and unknown to others. 13. They do not see each other, nor know anything of one another; but as inert seeds they moulder and moisten in the same heap. (It means the ideas that haunt us in our sleep and waking). 14. These notions being as void and blank as vacuum, are not as shadows in the visible sky; nor are they known to one another, and though they are of sensible shapes, yet they are as ignorant of themselves, as it were under the influence of sleep. 15. Those that sleep in their ignorance, find the world appearing to them in the shape of a dream, by the daytime and act according as they think themselves to be. So the Asura demigods being situated in their dreaming (or visionary world), think themselves to be fighting with and worsted by the Gods.

16. They could not be liberated owing to their ignorance nor were they reduced to the insensibility of stones; but remained dull and inactive in the visionary world of their dream. 17. Men laid up in the sleep of their ignorance, and seeing the dream of the world before them; act according to their custom, and observe how one man is killed by another (i.e. the mutual enmity of mankind). 18. There are other intelligent spirits, which being fast bound to their desires, are never awakened nor liberated from their ignorance; but continue to dwell on the visionary world, which they see in their day dream. 19. The Rákshasas also, that lie asleep in the visionary world of their dream, are placed in the same state as they were used to be by the gods (i.e. the unemancipated souls of all beings, dream of their former state). 20. Say then, O Ráma, what became of those Rákshasas, who were thus slain by Gods; they could neither obtain their liberation owing to their ignorance, nor could they be transformed to stones with their intelligent souls.

21. Thus this earth with its seas and mountains and peoples, that are seen to be situated in it; are thought to be as substantial as we think of ourselves by our prior notions of them. (This is the doctrine of Plato’s reminiscence, that the sight of the present existence, is but a representation of our remembrance of the past). 22. Our imagination of the existence of the world, is as that of other beings regarding it; and they think of our existence in this world in the same light, as we think of theirs. 23. To them our waking state appears as a dream, and they think us to be dreaming men, as we also think them to be; and as those worlds are viewed as visionary by us, so is this of ours but one of them also. 24. As other people have the notion of their existence from their reminiscence alone, so have we of ourselves and theirs also, from the ubiquious nature or omnipresence of the intellectual soul. 25. As those dreaming men think of their reality, so do others think of themselves likewise; and so art thou as real as any one of them.

26. As thou beholdest the cities and citizens to be situated in thy dream, so do they continue to remain there in the same manner to this day; because God is omnipresent everywhere and at all times. 27. It is by your waking from the sleep of ignorance, and coming to the light of reason; that these objects of your dream will be shorn of their substantiality, and appear in their spiritual light as manifestation of God himself. 28. He is all and in all, and every where at all times; so as He is nothing and nowhere, nor is He the sky nor is ever anything that destroyed. (Or produced). 29. He abides in the endless sky, and is eternal without beginning and end; He abides in the endless worlds, and in the infinity of souls and minds. 30. He lives throughout the air and in every part of it, and in all orbs and systems of worlds; He resides in the bosom of every body, in every island and mountain and hill. 31. He extends all over the extent of districts, cities and villages; He dwells in every house, and in every living body. He extends over years and ages and all parts of time.

32. In him live all living beings, and those that are dead and gone, and have not obtained their liberation; and all the detached worlds are attached to him to no end and for ever. 33. Each world has its people, and all peoples have their minds. Again each mind has a world in it, and every world has its people also. 34. Thus the visibles having neither beginning nor end, are all but erroneous conceptions of the mind; they are no other than Brahma to the knower of God, who sees no reality in aught besides. 35. There is but one only intellect, which pervades this earth below and the heaven above; which extends over the land and water, and lies in woods and stones, and fills the whole and endless universe. Thus wherever there is anything, in any part of this boundless world; they all inspire the idea of the divinity in the divine, while they are looked upon as sensible objects by the ungodly.

SPORT OF THE HEAVENLY NYMPHS. Argument:—Full account of the nymph, since her birth to her Beatification. Vasishtha continued:—The graceful nymph with lotus like eyes, and her side long glances darting as a string of málati flowers, was then gently looked upon by me, and accosted with tenderness. 2. Who art thou sweet nymph, I said, that art as fair as the farina of the lotus floret, and comest to my company; say, whose and what thou art, where is thy abode and wither thou goest, and what thou desirest of me. 3. The nymph replied:—It is meet, O muni, that you greet me thus; that repair to you with a grieving heart, and will lay my case confidently before you for your kind advice to me. 4. There is in a corner of the cell of the great vault of vacuity, that this worldly dwelling of yours is situated. 5. This dwelling house of the world has three apartments in it, namely the earth, heaven, and the infernal regions; wherein the great architect (Brahmá) hath placed a dame by name of fancy, as a mistress of this dwelling.

6. Here is the sombre surface of the earth, appearing as the store-house of the world; and beset with numerous islands surrounded by oceans and seas. (The earth is said to be the mother and supporter of all worlds). 7. The earth stretches on all sides, with many islands in the midst of its seas and with many a mine of gold underneath, and extending to ten thousand yojans in its length. 8. It is bright and visible itself, and is as fair as the vault of heaven; it supplies us with all the objects of our desire, and vies with the starry heaven by the lustre of its gems. 9. It is the pleasure and promenading ground of gods, siddha spirits and apsara nymphs; it abounds with all objects of desire, and fraught with all things of our enjoyment. 10. It has at its two ends the two polar mountains, called the lokáloka ranges (for having one side of them always brightened by the sunlight, and the other ever darkened by the sunly night). The two polar circles resembling the two belts at both extremities of the earth.

11. One side of the polar mountains, is ever covered by darkness, like the minds of ignorant people; and the other side shines with eternal light, like the enlightened souls of the wise. 12. One side of these is as delightsome, as society with the good and wise; while the opposite side is as dark and dolesome, as company with the ignorant and vile. 13. On one side all things were as clear as the minds of intelligent men, and on the other, there was as impervious a gloom as it hangs over the minds of unlettered Bráhmanas. 14. On one part there was neither the sunshine nor the moon light to be had; and as one side presented the habitable world before it, so the other showed the vast void and waste beyond the limits of nature. 15. One side of these teemed with the cities of gods, and the other with those of demons; and as the one side lifted its lofty summits on high, so the other bent below towards the infernal regions. 16. Some where the vultures were hovering over the craters and at others the lands appeared charming to sight; while the mountain peaks appeared to touch the celestial city of Brahmá on high. (The city of Brahma loka, is situated in the highest heaven).

17. Some where there appears a dismal and dreary desert forest, with loud blasts of death hovering over them; and at others there are flower gardens and groves, with the nymphs of heaven, sitting and singing in them. 18. In one part of it there is the deep infernal cave, containing the horrible Kumbhanda demons in it; and in another are the beautiful nandana gardens with the hermitages of holy saints in them. 19. On one part there overhang the eternal clouds, roaring loudly like furious elephants, while raining clouds are showering on the other. There are deep and dark caverns <on> one part, and thick forest arbours on another. 20. The labouring woodmen are felling the trees of wood-lands, inhabited by evil spirits on one side or the hardy woodmen are driving away the devils on one side, by felling the woods of their haunts in the wood-lands; while the other is full of inhabited tracts, and men more polished in their manners, than the celestials of heaven. 21. Some places are laid desolate by their inhabitants, by the driving and whirling winds; and others secure from every harm, are flourishing in their productions (of animals and vegetables).

22. Some where are great and desolate deserts, dreary wastes dreadful with their howling winds; and in some places there are purling lakes of lotuses with rows of sounding cranes gracing their borders. 23. In some places, is heard the gurgling of waters, and the growlings of clouds in others; and in others are the gay and merry Apsaras, turned giddy with their swinging. 24. On one side the landscape is beset by horrible demons, and is shunned by all other beings; and on the other, the happy spirits of Siddhas, Vidyádharas and others, are seen to be sitting and singing by the side of cooling streams. 25. Somewhere the pouring clouds, caused the ever flowing rivers to encroach upon the lands; and there were the light and flimsy clouds also, flying as sheets of cloths, and driven by gusts of winds here and there. 26. There are the lotus bushes on one side, with swarms of humming bees, fluttering about their leafy faces; and there are seen the rubicund teeth of celestial damsels, blushing with the tincture of betel leaves on the other.

27. In one place is seen the pleasant concourse of people, pursuing their several callings under the shining sun; and in another the assemblage of hideous demons, dancing in their demoniac revelry in the darkness of night. 28. Somewhere the land is laid waste of its people, by havocs and portents befalling on them; and else where the country is smiling with its rising cities, under blessing of a good government. 29. Sometimes a dreary waste distracts, and at others a beautiful population attracts the sight; sometimes deep and dark caverns occur to view, and at others the dreadful abyss appears to sight. 30. Some spot is full of fruitful trees and luxuriant verdure, and another a dreary desert devoid of waters and living beings; some where you see bodies of big elephants, and at others groups of great and greedy lions. 31. Some places are devoid of animals, and others peopled by ferocious Rákshasas; some places are filled with the thorny karanja thickets, and others are full of lofty palma forests.

32. Somewhere are lakes as large and clear as the expanse of heaven, and at others there are vast barren deserts as void as the empty air. Somewhere there are tracts of continually driving sands, and there are goodly groves of trees at others, flourishing in all the seasons of the year. 33. This mountain has many a peak on its top, as high as ordinary hills and mounts elsewhere; and the kalpa clouds are perpetually settled upon them, blazing with the radiance of gems by the hues of heaven. 34. There are forests growing on the milk white and sunny stones of this mountain, and serving as abodes of foresters; and always resorted to by the breed of lions and monkeys. 35. There is a peak on the north of this mountain, with a grotto towards the east of it; and this cavern affords me a sequestered habitation, in its hard and stony bosom. 36. There I am confined, O sage, in that stony prison-house; and there methinks I have passed a series of yuga ages (of which there is no reckoning).

37. Not I alone, but my husband also is confined in the same cave with myself; and we are doomed to remain imprisoned therein, like bees closed up at night fall, within the cup of a closing lotus-flower. 38. Thus have I with my husband, continued to abide in the stony dungeon, for the very long period of very many years. 39. It is owing to our own fault, that we do not obtain our release even at the present time; but continue to remain there in the state of prisoners as ever and for ever. 40. But sir, it is not only ourselves that are confined in this stony prison-house; but all our family, friends and dependants, are enthralled in the same stronghold and to no end. 41. The ancient personage (purusha) of my twice-born husband, is there confined in his dungeon (of the body); and though he has remained there for many an age, yet he has never removed from his single seat. 42. He is employed in his studentship and studies (Brahmacharya), since his boyhood, attends to the hearing and reciting of the vedas; and is steadfast in his observances without swerving or deviation.

43. But I am not so, O sage, but doomed to perpetual distress; because I am unable, O sage, to pass a moment without his company. 44. Hear now, O sage, how I became his wife, and how there grew an unfeigned affection between us. 45. When that husband of mine had been still a boy, and acquired a little knowledge by remaining in his own house. 46. He thought in himself, saying, “Ah, I am a srotriya or vedic Bráhmana, and can it be possible for me to have a suitable partner for myself.” 47. He then produced me out of himself, in this beauteous figure of mine; in the manner that the lightsome moon causes the moonlight to issue out of his body. (In Sanskrit the moon is masculine, and the moonlight feminine; whence they are called nishápati and jyotsna). (So in Arabic qmar the moon is masculine, and shams the sun is feminine). 48. Being thus produced from the mind (of my husband), I remained as a mental consort of his; and grew up in time as the blossoms in spring, and as beautiful as the mandara plant in bloom.

49. My body became as bright, as the face of the sky by its nature; and all my features glittered like the stars in heaven. My countenance was as fair as the face of the full moon, and became attractive of all heart towards it. 50. My breasts were swollen as the buds of flower, and as luscious as a juicy fruit; and my arms and the palms of my hands, resembled two tender creepers with their rubicund leaflets. 51. I became the delight and captor of the hearts of living beings, and the side long glances of my all stretched antelope eyes, infatuated all minds with the maddening passion of love. 52. I was prone to the blandishments and dalliance of love, and prompt in quips and cranks and wreathed smiles, and glancings; I was fond of singing and music, and was insatiate in my joviality. 53. I was addicted to the enjoyment of all felicity, both in prosperity and adversity, both of which are alike friendly to me. I was never tempted by the delusive temptations of the one, nor ever frightened by the threatening persecution of the other.

54. I do not sustain the household of my Brahmanical lord alone, but I support, O sir, the mansions of the inhabitants of all the three worlds; because by my being a mental being, I have my access to all places far and near. 55. I am the legal wife of the Bráhmanas, and fit for the propagation and supportance of his offspring; as also for bearing the burden of this house of the triple. (Does it mean that this is capable of comprehending all what is contained in the three worlds?). 56. I am now grown a young woman, with my swollen up big breasts; and am as giddy paced with my youthful gaiety, as a cluster of flowers flouncing in the air. 57. My husband from his natural disposition of procrastination and studiousness, is employed in his austerities; and being in expectation of getting his liberation, is deferring to engage in his marriage with me to this day. 58. But I being advanced in my youth, and fond of youthful dalliance (have given him my mind); and do now burn in the flame of my passion for him, like the lotus flower in a fiery furnace.

59. Though I am always cooling myself, with the cooling breeze of brooks and lotus lakes; yet I burn incessantly in all my body, as the sacrificial embers are reduced to ashes in the sacred fire place. 60. I see the garden grounds covered (smiling), with the flowers falling in showers from the shady trees; but I burn as the land under the burning sands, of the unshaded and burning desert. 61. The soft gurgling of waters, and the gentle breeze of lakes, full with blooming lotuses and lilies; and the sweet sounds of cranes and water fowls, are all rough and harsh to me. 62. Though decked with flowery wreaths and garlands, and swinging upon my cradle of flowers; yet methinks I am lying down upon a bed of thorns. 63. Sleeping on beds, formed of the soft leaves of lotuses and plantain-leaves; I find them dried under the heat of my body, and powdered to ashes by the pressure of my person. 64. Whatever fair, lovely, charming and sweet and pleasant things, I come to see and feel, I am filled with sorrow at their sight, and my eyes are suffused in tears.

65. My eyes steam with tears, from the heat of my inward bosom; and they trickle upon and fall down my eyelids, like dew drops on lotus leaves. 66. Swinging with my playmates, on the pendant boughs of plantain trees, in our pleasure gardens; I think of the burning grief in my heart, and burst out in tears, by covering my face with my hands (for fear of being detected in my love). 67. I look at our bowers of cooling plantain leaves, and strewn over with snows all over the ground; but fearing them as bushes of thorny brambles, I fly from them far away. 68. I see the blooming lotus of the lake, and the fond crane fondling with its stalk like arm, and then begin to contemn my youthful bloom. 69. I weep at seeing whatever is handsome, and keep quiet at what is moderate; I delight in whatsoever beseems to be ugly, and I am happy in my utter insensibility of every thing. 70. I have seen the fair flowers of spring, and the hoary-frost of winter; and thought them all to be but heaps of the ashes of lovelorn dames, burnt down by the flame of love, and scattered by the relentless winds on all sides.

71. I have made me beds of the blue leaves of lotuses and other plants, and covered me with chaplets of snow white flowers; but found them to turn pale and dry by their contact with my body. So pity me, that my youthful days have all gone in vain.

LIFE AND CONDUCT OF THE ETHERIAL NYMPH. Argument:—How nymph has come to approach before Vasishtha, her statement of facts of her life. After the lapse of a long time, I found my passions subsiding, and I grew as callous to my susceptibilites, as the tender greens become juiceless and dry after the autumn is over. 2. Seeing my husband grown old, and shorn of all his susceptivity and vivaciousness; and sitting quietly in his steadfast devotion with an unwavering mind, I thought my life to be useless to me. 3. And methought that early widowhood, and even premature death, or rather a lingering disease or lasting misery, are preferable to a female’s living without a loving husband. 4. It is the boon of life, and the greatest good fortune of a woman, to have a young and loving husband, who is of good and pleasant humour, and pliant in his manners. 5. A woman is given for lost, who has not a sweet and lovely spouse; as the understanding is lost which is not fraught with learning. In vain is prosperity when she favours the wicked, and in vain is a woman that is lost to shame. (Because modesty is the best quality of women).

6. She is the best of women, who is obedient to her husband; and that is the best fortune, which falls in the hands of the virtuous and good. That understanding is praised which is clear and capacious; and that goodness is good, which has a fellow feeling and equal regard for all mankind. 7. Neither disease nor calamity, nor dangers nor difficulties, can disturb the minds, or afflict the hearts of a loving pair, (bound together by mutual affection). 8. The prospect of the blossoming garden of Eden, and the flowery paths of paradise, appear as desert lands to women, that have no husbands, or such as wicked and unmannerly in their behaviour. 9. A woman may forsake all her worldly possessions, as of little value to her; but she can never forsake her husband, even for any fault on his part. 10. You see, O chief of sages, all these miseries to which I am subjected these very many years of my puberty. 11. But all this fondness of mine, is gradually turning to indifference; and I am pining and fading away as fast, as the frost beaten lotus flower, is shrunken and shrivelled for want of its sap and juice.

12. Being now indifferent to the pleasure of my enjoyment of all things, I come to seek the felicity of my nirvána-extinction; and stand in need of your advice for my salvation. 13. Otherwise it is better for them to die away than live in this world, who are unsuccessful in desires and ever restless and perplexed in their minds; and such as are buffeting and borne by the waves of deadly troubles. 14. He my husband being desirous of obtaining his nirvána liberation, is now intent both by day and night upon the subduing of his mind by the light of his reason, as a prince is roused to conquer his foe in company with his princess. 15. Now sir, please to dispel both his as well as mine ignorance, by your reasonable advice, which may revive our remembrance of the soul (which may destroy our faith in the body). 16. Because my lord sitting solely upon the meditation of the soul, without the company or any thought about me; has created in me an indifference and distaste to all worldly things in toto.

17. I am now set free from the influence of worldly desires, and have girt myself fast with the amulet of aeronautic expedition, for journeying through the regions of air. (This amulet is called the khechari mudra). 18. I have acquired the power of locomotion amidst the air, by means of this amulet of mine; and it is by virtue of this power, that I am enabled to associate with the siddha spirits, and to converse with you. 19. Having girt myself with this charm, I have acquired such potency, that though remaining in my dwelling house on earth, which is the basis and centre of all the worlds, I can see all its past and future events (by means of my intuition and yoga meditation). 20. Having then beheld within my mind, all and everything relating to this world; I have come out to survey the outward world, and seen as far as the gigantic polar mountain (which has perpetual light and darkness on either side of it). 21. Before this, O sage, neither I nor my husband, had ever any desire of seeing anything beyond our own habitation. (i.e. Or the internal world contained within the world).

22. My husband being solely employed in meditating on the meanings (doctrines) of the vedas; has no desire whatever, to know anything relating the past or unpassed (i.e. the present and future) time. 23. It is for this reason (of unacquaintance with the world), that my lord has not been able to succeed to any station in life; and it is today only, that both of us are desirous to be blest with the best state of humanity (the knowledge of the Deity). 24. We therefore beseech you, O venerable sir, to grant our request, as it is never in the nature of noble persons to refuse the prayer of their suppliants. 25. I who have been wandering in the etherial regions, among hosts of the perfected spirits of siddhas; do not find any one except yourself, O honourable sir, who may put fire to the thick gloom of ignorance as a conflagration. 26. And as it is the nature of good people to do good to others, even without the knowledge of any cause of pity in their suppliants; so should you, O venerable sir, do to your suppliant one without refusing her suit.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INSIDE OF THE STONY MANSION OF THE WORLD. Argument:—The nymph’s Relation of the manner of her habitation in the womb of the solid stone. Vasishtha said:—I then seated as I was, in my imaginary seat in the sky, asked the lady who was also sitting like myself in the visionary air: saying:— 2. Tell me, O gentle lady, how could an embodied being as yourself, abide in the inside of a block of stone; how could you move about within that imporous substance, and what was the cause of your abode therein. 3. The Nymph replied:—Wonder not, O sage, at this kind of our habitation, which is as habitable to us, and inhabited by other creatures, as the open and spacious world which you inhabit. 4. There are the snakes and reptiles, living in and moving about the bowels of the earth; and there are huge rocks deeply rooted in the subterranean cell; the waters are running within the bosom of the ground, with as much freedom as the winds are flying all about the open air. 5. The oceans are flowing with the fulness of their waters, and the finny tribe moving slowly beneath and above their surface; and there are infinite numbers of living creatures, that are incessantly born and dying away in them.

6. It is in the cavity of the mundane stone, that the waters are gliding below, as the winds are flying above; here the celestials are moving and roving in the air, and the earth and the planetary bodies, revolving with their unmoving mountains and other immovables. 7. There are also the gods, demigods and human beings, moving in their respective circles, within the womb of this stone; and it is from the beginning of creation, that the waters of rivers are running as those of the oceans. 8. Again it is from the beginning of creation, that the sun has been darting his beams from above; and strewing them like lotuses on the lake like land, while the dark clouds of heaven are hovering over them like a swarm of black bees, fluttering upon those blooming blossoms. 9. The moon spreads her light like sandal paste on all sides, and effaces thereby the darkness, which overspreads the bosom of night, and covers the face of the evening star.

10. The sun light is the lamp of his light in heavenly mansion, and scatters its rays on all the ten sides of the skies, by means of their conductor of air. (It is believed that the circumambient air is the medium, through which the pencils of solar light pass in all directions). 11. The wheel of the starry frame, is continually revolving in the air by the will of God, like a threshing mill turning about its central axle by means of a string. 12. This rotatory circle of celestial bodies, about its axis of the pole, kills all things under its two valves of heaven and earth, as the wheel of fate grinds them to dust. (So says Kabir the saint of Julpa caste: “Every one is ground to dust, under the two disks of earth and sky, as under the jaws of death”). 13. The surface of the earth is full of hills and mountains, and the bosom of the sea is filled by rocks and islands; the upper sky contains the celestial abodes, and the demons occupy the lower regions below the ground.

14. The orbit of this earth, resembles the ear-ring of the goddess of the three worlds; and the verdant orb of this planet, is as the pendant gem of the ringlet, continually with the fluctuations of its people. 15. Here all creatures are impelled by their desires to their mental and bodily activities, as if moved to and fro by the flying winds, and are thus led to repeated births and deaths (from which they have no respite). 16. The silent sage sits in his sedate meditation, as the sky is unmoved with its capacity of containing all things within itself; but the earth is shaken and wasted by the dashing waves, and the fire is put down by its blazing flame, and every thing is moved about as monkey by the wind of its desires. 17. All the living beings abounding in the earth and water, and those flying in the air, as well as such as live in the hills and on trees; together with the gods and giants, are alike doomed to death and regeneration, as the ephemeral insects, worms and flies.

18. Time—the greatest slaughterer, destroys the gods, giants, gandharvas and all, with its many arms of ages and yugas, and of years, months, days and nights, as a herdsman kills his cattle, which he has reared up himself. (Time feeds upon what it has fed himself). 19. All these rise and fall in the eventful ocean of time, and having leapt and jumped and danced awhile, sink in the abyss of the fathomless whirl of death, from which none can rise again. 20. All sorts of beings living in the fourteen spheres of the world, are carried away as dust and ashes by the gust of death, to the hollow womb of air, where they disappear as empty clouds in the autumnal sky. 21. The high heaven which is ever clad in the clean and clear attire of the atmosphere, and wears the frame work of the stars as a cap or crown on its head, holds the two lights of the sun and moon in its either hand, and shows us the works of gods in the skies. (Heaven is the book of God, before thee set &c. Milton).

22. It remains unmoved for ever, and never changes its sides composed of the four quarters of heaven, notwithstanding vicissitudes of the sky, the rushing of the winds, the tremor of the earth, the roaring of the clouds and the intense heat of the sun (All which it bears as patiently as the fixed trees and stones on earth). 23. And all things continue in their destined course, whether they that are conscious or those which are unconscious of these changes in nature; such are the appearance of meteors and portents in the sky, the roaring of clouds, the eclipses of the planets, and the trembling of the earth below. 24. The submarine fire sucks up the over flowing waters, of the seven great basins or oceans on earth; in the same manner as the all-destroying time, devours the creatures in all the different worlds.

25. All things are continually going on in their course, in the manner of the continued motion of the (sadágati) of the current air: Namely; all earth born worms moving on and returning into the bowels of the earth; the birds of the air are moving in and flying on all sides of the sky; the fishes are swimming and skimming all about the waters, the beasts returning to their caverns in earth and the hills, and such is the case with the inhabitants of all the continents and islands lying in the womb of this world.

PRAISE OF CONTINUED PRACTICE OR THE FORCE OF HABIT. Argument:—The sage’s visit to the stony-mansion and the nymph’s relations of the force of habit. The Nymph continued:—If you, O sage, have any doubt in any part of my narration; then please to walk with me and see that mansion, and you will observe there many more wonders than what I have related. 2. Vasishtha said:—Upon this I said “well” and went on travelling with her in our aerial journey; as the fragrance of flowers flies with the winds, to aerial nothing in which they are both lost for ever. 3. As I passed far and afar, in the regions of air; I met with multitudes of etherial beings, and came to the sight of their celestial abodes. 4. Passing over the regions traversed by the celestials, in the upper and higher sphere of heaven; I arrived at blank and blanched sky, beyond the height and above the summit of the polar mountain.

5. I then passed amidst this etiolated vault and came out at last of it, as the fair moon appears under the white canopy of heaven; and beheld above me the bright belt of zodiac, containing the seven-fold golden spheres of the seven planets. Note. The Hindu astronomy does not reckon the earth as one of the moving planets. 6. As I was looking at that belt of the zodiac, I found it as a crystaline marble, and burning with fire. I could not discern any of the worlds that it encompassed (they being all put to shade by the zodiacal light). 7. I then asked my lovely companion, to tell me where were the created worlds, together with the gods and planetary bodies and stars, and the seven spheres of heaven. 8. Where were the oceans and the sky, with all its different sides (of the compass); where were the high and heavy bodies of clouds, the starry heaven, and the ascension and descension of the rolling planets. 9. Where are now, said I, the rows of the lofty mountain peaks, and the marks of the seas upon the earth; where are the circles and clusters of the islands, and where are the sunny shores and dry and parched grounds of deserts.

10. There is no reckoning of time here, nor any account of actions of men; nor is there any delusive appearance of a created world or anything whatever, in this endless and empty vacuum. 11. There is no name of the different races of beings, as the Gods, demigods, Vidyádharas, Gandharvas and other races of mankind; there is no mention of a sage or prince, or of aught that is good or evil, or of a heaven or hell, or day and night and their divisions into watches, hours &c. 12. There is no calculation of the divisions of time (in this extramundane space), nor any knowing of merit or demerit (in this uninhabited place); it is free from the hostility of the gods and demigods and the feelings of love and enmity (between man and man). 13. Whilst I had been prating in this manner in my amazement, that excellent lady who was my cicerone in this maze, spake to me and said, with her eyeballs rolling as a couple of fluttering black bees. 14. The Nymph said:—I neither see any thing here, in its former state; but find everything presenting a picturesque form in this crystal stone, as it does in its image appearing in a mirror.

15. I see the figures of all things in this, by reason of my preconceived ideas eternally engraven herein, while the want of your preconceptions of them, is the cause of your over sight or blindness of the same. 16. Moreover it is your habitual conversation, regarding the unity or duality of the sole entity; and forgetfulness of our pure spiritual and intellectual bodies, that you were blind to the sight of the reality, and I had a dim glimpse of it. 17. I have by my long habit of thinking, learnt to look upon this world in the light of an etherial plant (which is nothing); I never view it as you do to be a reality, but as a dim reflection of the ideal reality. 18. The world that appeared before so conspicuous to my sight, I find it now appearing as indistinct to me as a shadow of the same cast upon a glass. 19. It is owing to our prejudice in favour of the false doctrine of old, regarding the personality of the body; that we have missed the ease of our reliance in the spiritual body, and thus fallen in the deep darkness of delusion.

20. Whatever we are habituated to think in our internal minds, the same grows forth and takes a deep root in the heart, under the moistening influence of the intellectual soul; and mind becomes of the nature, as the force of early habit forms the youth. 21. There is nothing which is likely to be effected, either by the precepts of the best sástras, or the dictates of right reason, unless they are made effectual by constant application and practice of them. (Theoretical knowledge is useless without practice). 22. Your erroneous speech regarding the nihility of the world in this empty space, proceeded only from your constant habit of thinking the reality of the false world, which was about to mislead me also. Be now wise that you have overcome your previous prejudice, and known the present truth. 23. Know, O sage, that it is your habitual thinking of a thing as such, that makes it appear so to you; just as a mechanic master’s art is by his constant practice of the same under the direction of its professor.

24. The erroneous conceptions of this thing and that, and of the existence of the material world, and the reality of one’s egoism and personality; are all obviated by culture of spiritual knowledge, and by force of the constant habit of viewing all things in their spiritual light. 25. I am but a weak and young disciple to thee, and yet see the stony world too well, which thou with thy all knowingness dost not perceive; and this is because of my habit of thinking it otherwise than thou art practiced to do. 26. See the effect of practice, which makes a learned man of a dunce (by his habitude to study); and reduces a stone to dust (by continued pounding). Look at the force of the inert arrow, to hit at the distant mark (by impulsion of the practiced archer). 27. In this manner the gloom of our ignorance, and the malady of false knowledge, are both of them dispelled by right reasoning and deep thinking, both of which are the effect of habit. 28. It is habit that produces a zest, in the tests of particular articles of food, as some have a relish for what is sour and pungent, while there are others that luxuriate in what is sweet and savoury. (Tastes differ).

29. A stranger becomes friendly, by his continuance in one’s company; and so is a friend alienated, by his living in an alien and distant land. 30. Our spiritual body, which is perfectly pure, aerial and full of intelligence, is converted to and mistaken for the gross material body as soul, by our constantly thinking of our corporeality. 31. The impression of your being a material body, will fly away as a bird flies off in the air, no sooner you come to know yourself to be a spiritual and intellectual soul. But it is the habit of thinking yourself as such, that makes you really so. 32. All our meritorious acts are destroyed, by a slight act of demerit; and our prosperity flies away at the approach of adversity; but there is nothing which can remove our habit from us. (Habit being our second nature). 33. All difficult matters are facilitated by practice, and enemies are conciliated into friendship, and even poison is made as delectable as honey by virtue of habit. 34. He is reckoned as too mean and vile a person, who does not accustom himself to practice, whatever is good and proper for him; he never acquires his object, but becomes as useless as a barren woman in the family.

35. Whatever is desirable and good for one, is to be gained with assiduity all along one’s life time, just as one’s life, which is his greatest good in the world, is to be preserved with care, until the approach of death. 36. Whoso neglects to practice any act or art, which is conducive to his welfare, is prone to his ruin and to the torments of hell. 37. They who are inclined to the meditation of the spiritual soul, cross over easily over the billowy rivulet of this world, although they may be attached to it in their outward and bodily practices. (The knowledge of the immortal soul, is the healing balm of the turmoils of mortal life). 38. Practice is the light, that leads one in the path of his desired object; just as the light of the lamp shows the place, where the lost pot or cloth lies in the room. (So application to the esoteric, enlightens the mysterious truths of nature). 39. The arbour of assuetude fructifies in its time, as the kalpa tree yields all the fruits of our desire; and as the hoarded capital of the rich, is attended with great profit and interest.

40. Habitual inquiry into spiritual truth, serves as the sunlight to enlighten the nature of the soul (unto us); or it lies hid in our very body as any part of it in the darkness of the sunless night. (The inward soul is invisible to exoteric view). 41. All animal beings are in need of certain provisions, for the supportance of their lives; and all these they have to obtain by their continued search, and never without it. Therefore the force of habit prevails in all places as the powerful sunshine. 42. All the fourteen kinds of living beings, have to live by the habit of their respective activities; and it is impossible for any one to get its desired object, without its unfeigned activity. 43. It is the repetition of same action, which takes the name of habit, and which is called one’s personal effort or exertion; and it is not possible for any body to do anything without any effort. 44. Constant habit of action, joined with bodily and mental energy, is the only means of accomplishing anything and not otherwise.

45. There is nothing which is impossible to the power of habit, which is as powerful as the strong sun-beams which give growth to everything on earth. It is habitual energy only that gives prosperity and undauntedness to the brave, on earth and water and mountains, and in forests and deserts.

THE FALLACY OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE WORLD. Argument:—Exposition of the Erroneous conception of the Material World. The Nymph continued:—Now as it is the habit of long practice, combined with the understanding and cogitation of a subject, that makes one proficient in it; so these being applied to the meditation of the spiritual and pure soul, will cause the material world to vanish in the stone (we have been talking of). 2. Vasishtha said:—After the celestial nymph had spoken in this manner, I retired to the cavern of a rock, where I sat in my posture of Padmásana (or legs folded upon one another); and became engaged in my samádhi-devotion (or abstract and abstruse meditation). 3. Having given up all thoughts of corporeal bodies, and continued to think only of the intellectual soul, according to the holy dictate of the nymph as said before. 4. I then had the sight of an intellectual void in me, which present a clear and fair prospect before me, resembling the clearness of the vacuous vault of heaven in autumnal season. 5. It was at last by my intense application, to the meditation of the true One (or the God in spirit), that my erroneous view of the phenomenals, entirely subsided within me (or disappeared from my mind).

6. The intellectual sphere of my mind, was filled by a transcendent light; which knew no rising or setting, but was always shining with an uniform radiance. 7. As I was looking into and through the light, that shone in me, I could find neither the sky nor that great stone, which I sought to find. 8. I then found the clear and thick blaze of my spiritual light, to ravish my outward sight; as it had enrapt my inward vision. 9. As a man sees in his dream a huge stone in his house, so I beheld the vast vacuum as a crystaline globe, situate in the clear atmosphere of the intellect. (The stone is the mundane egg or sphere of the universe). 10. A dreaming man, may think himself as another person; but after he is awakened from his sleep, he comes to know himself. (So we dream ourselves as this and that, but upon waking to reason, we find ourselves as none of these, but the pure spirit). 11. Those who dream themselves headless beings in their sleep, and remain so in this world; they can be of no good or use to themselves, though they have a little knowledge afterwards.

12. The man that is drowned in utter ignorance, comes to his right understanding in course of time; and comes to know at the end, that there is no real entity, except the essence of God. 13. This when I beheld the solid and transparent light, which appeared as crystal stone lying in the vacuity of Brahma; I could observe no material thing as the earth and water, or aught whatever in connection with it. 14. The pure and spiritual form, in which all things were presented at their first creation; they bear the same forms still, in our ideas of them. 15. All these bodies of created beings, are but forms of Brahma; being considered in their primordial and spiritual and natural natures; and it is the mind which gives them the imaginary shapes of materiality, in its fabricated dominion of the visible world. 16. It is the spiritual form, which is the true essence of all things; and all that is visible to us or perceptible to the senses, is mere fabrication of the originally inventive mind.

17. The prime creation was in the abstract, or an abstract idea of it, and imperceptible to the senses (because the original prototype of the world, was co-eternal with the divine mind, and existent with it from before the formation of the perceptive senses of beings; but it was perceptible to the mind in the form of the noumenal, which was converted to the concrete and phenomenal by the ignorant). 18. The yogi like the knowing minds, sees all things in the abstract and in a general view; but the ignorant that are deprived of the power of abstraction and generalization, fall into the errors of concrete particulars and deceptive sensibles. 19. All sensation is but a temporary perception, and presents a wrong impression in the mind; know all sensible perceptions to be false and deluding, but their concepts in the mind of yogi are the true realities. (Falsity of perception and reality of noumena according to Berkeley). 20. O, the wonder of taking the sensibles for the invisible verities! when it is ascertained that the concepts, which are beyond the senses, are the true realities that come under our cognizance.

21. It is the subtile form (or idea) of a thing, that appears at first before the mind; which is afterwards represented in various false shapes before us; and this is true of all material things in the world. (As the general and abstract idea of heat, which is at first imprinted in the mind, is manifested unto us at last in the concrete and particular forms of the sun and fire and all other hot bodies). (This passage supports the doctrine of the eternity of general ideas innate in us, against Locke’s denial of inborn ideas). 22. Whatever there has not been before, has never been in being afterwards; as the variety of the jewelery of gold, is naught but gold itself; so the pristine subtile ideas, cannot have any gross material form. (All which is but shadow and fallacy). 23. O, the great ignorance of men! that takes the error for truth, and considers the falsehood as true; and there is no way for the living soul to discern the true and false, except by right reasoning. 24. The material body cannot be maintained by correct reason, but the immaterial essence of it is indestructible, both in this world as also in the next.

25. The error of materiality in the incorporeal or spiritual body, which is presided over by the intellect—chit; is as the fallacy of a vast sea, in the shining sands of a sandy desert. 26. The consciousness of materiality, which one has in his spiritual and intellectual form; is as his supposition of a human body in the peak of a mountain, when it is viewed by his naked eye sight. 27. The erroneous supposition of materiality, in the spiritual entity of our being; is as the error of our taking the shells on the sea shore for silver, the sunshines on sands for water, and another moon in the mist. 28. O the wondrous efficacy or error! that represents the unreal as real and the vice-versa; and O the great power of delusion! which springs from the unreasonableness of living beings. 29. The yogi finds the spiritual force and mental activity, to be the two immaterial causes of all action and motion, that actuate everything in both the physical and intellectual worlds. 30. Therefore the yogi relies in his internal perception only, by rejecting those of his external senses; while the common sort are seen to run giddy, with drinking the vapours of the mirage of senses.

31. That which is commonly called pleasure or pain, is but a fleeting feeling in the mind of men, and is of a short duration; it is that unfeigned and lasting peace of mind, which has neither its rise or fall, that is called true happiness (and is felt by yogis only). 32. Infer the hyper-sensible from the sensibles, and see the true source of thy sensations manifest in thy presence. (Know the Lord as the pattern of thy perceptions). 33. Reject the sight of this triple world (composed of the upper, lower and midway spheres), which thy perception presents to thy imagination; because there can be nothing more foolish than taking a delusion for truth. 34. All these bodies and beings bear only, their immaterial forms of mere ideas; and it is the goblin of delusion alone, that causes us to suppose their materiality. 35. Whatever is not produced or thought of in the mind, can not present its figure to our sight also; and that which is no reality of itself, cannot be the cause of any else. (Nothing comes from a nullity). 36. When the sensibles are null and unreal, what other thing is there that may be real; and how can anything be said as real, whose reality is by the unreal and delusive senses.

37. The sensibles being proved as unreal, there can be no reality in their perceptions and thoughts also; it is impossible for a spider to maintain its web before a storm, which blows away an elephant. 38. So likewise the ocular evidence being proved as false, there is no proof of there being any object of vision any where. There is but One invariable entity in all nature, whose solidity depends upon the consolidation of the divine intellect, as of the sea salt on the solidified sea water. 39. As a dreamer dreams of a high hill in his house, and in its ideal form, which is unknown to and unseen to others sleeping with him in the same house; so we thought two of that stone we have been talking of erewhile, and which is no other than the intellect. 40. It is this intellectual soul, which exhibits a great many ideal phenomena within itself, and all of which are as unsubstantial as empty air; such as:—this is a hill, and this is the sky; this is the world, and these are myself and thyself.

41. Men of enlightened souls only, can perceive these phenomena of the intellect in themselves and not the unenlightened soul; just as the hearer of a lecture understands its purport, and not one who dozes upon the reading of a sermon. 42. All these erroneous sights of the world, appear to be true to the unenlightened person; just as the unmoving trees and mountains, seem to be dancing to inebriated man. 43. The yogi beholds one irrepressible form of God (Siva) in all places, and manifest before him in the form of his intellect; but the ignorant are beguiled by their false guides, to place their reliance in the objects of senses, notwithstanding their frail nature.

ENTRANCE INTO THE COSMICAL STONE OF MUNDANE EGG. Argument:—Creative energy of God is the cause of reminiscence, and reminiscence is the cause of reproduction. Vasishtha added:—The world is without any figure or substance, though it presents the appearance of such; it is seen in the light of the pure and imperishable essence of God, by the keen sight of transcendental philosophy. 2. It is that quintessence which exhibits in itself the rare show of the cosmorama, and the figures of hills and rivers are seen in it as pictures in a panoroma, or as spectres appearing in the empty air. 3. The nymph then entered that cosmical block by the resistless efforts, and I also penetrated in it after her, with my curiosity (to know the contents thereof). 4. After that indefatiguable lady had made her way into the cosmos of Brahmá, she took her seat before a Bráhmana, and shone supremely bright in his presence. 5. She introduced me to him and said: This is my husband and supporter and with whom I have made my betrothal a long time in my mind. 6. He is now an old man, and I too have attained my old age; and as he has differed his marriage with me till now, I have become utterly indifferent about it at present.

7. He also has grown averse to his marriage at present, and is desirous of attaining to that supreme state, of which there is no view nor viewer, and which is yet no airy vacuity also. 8. The world is now approaching to its dissolution, and he has been sitting in his meditation, in as silent a mood as a stone and as immovable as a rock (in his yoga hypnotism). 9. Therefore do thou please, O lord of saints, to awaken both himself and me also, and enlighten and confirm us in the way of supreme felicity, until the end of this creation and the re-creation of a new one. 10. Having said so to me, she waked her husband and spoke to him saying; Here my lord, is the chief of saints, that has come today to our abode. 11. This sage is the progeny of Brahmá in another apartment of this worldly dome, and deserves to be honoured with the honors worthy of a guest, according to the proper rite of hospitality. 12. Arise and receive the great sage with offering of his honorarium, and the water (for washing his feet); because great persons are deserving of the greatest regards and respects, that one can offer unto them.

13. Being thus addressed by her, the holy devotee awoke from his hypnotism, and his consciousness rose in himself, as a whirlpool rises above the sea. 14. The courteous sage opened his eyes slowly, as flowers open their petals in the vernal season after the autumn is over. 15. His returning senses slowly displayed the power of his limbs, as the returning moisture of plants in spring, puts their new sprouts and branches to shoot forth anew. 16. Immediately there assembled about him the gods, and demigods, siddhas and Gandharvas also from all sides; just as the assemblage of swans and cranes, flock to the limpid lake, blooming with the full-blown lotuses in it. 17. He looked upon all that were standing before him, together with myself and the fair lady (that had brought me thither); and then in the sweet tone of the parnava hymn, he addressed me as the second Brahmá himself. 18. The Bráhmana said:—I welcome thee, O sage, to this place, that dost view the world as in a globe placed in the palm of thy hand; and resemblest the great ocean in the vast extents of thy knowledge. (Lit:—the ambrosial waters of knowledge).

19. You have come a great way, to this far distant place; and as you must have been tired with your long journey, please to sit yourself in this seat. 20. As he said these words, I saluted him saying, I hail thee my lord; and then sat on the jewelled seat, he pointed out to me. 21. And then he was lauded by the assembled gods, and holy spirits standing before him, and received their pújá presents and adorations, according to the rules and rites of courtesy. 22. Then as the praises and prayers of the assembled host, was all at an end in a moment; the venerable bráhmana was accosted and bespoken unto me in the following manner. 23. How is it, O venerable sir, that this nymph has recourse to me, and tells me to enlighten you both with true knowledge, when you are acquainted whatever is past, and all that is to take place in future. 24. You sir, are lord of all, and fully acquainted with all knowledge; what is it then that this silly woman wants to learn from me, and this is what I want to learn from you. 25. Why was she produced by you to become your spouse, and was never taken to spousal by your indifference towards her.

26. The Bráhmana replied:—Hear me saint to tell you, how it came to be so with us; because it is right and fit to acquaint everything in full to the wise and good. 27. There is an unborn and imperishable entity from all eternity, and I am but a spark of that ever sparkling and effulgent intellect. 28. I am of the form of empty air or vacuum, and situated for ever in the supreme spirit; and am called the self-born in all the worlds, that were to be created afterwards. 29. But in reality I am never born, nor do I ever see or do anything in reality; but remain as the vacuous intellect in the intellectual vacuity of the selfsame entity. 30. These our addresses to one another in the first and second persons (lit. as I, thou, mine, thine &c.), are no other than as the sounds of the waves of the same sea dashing against each other. 31. I who was of this nature (of a clear wave in the sea of eternity), became disturbed in time by feeling some desire rising in me, and seeing that maid amidst the blaze of my intellect.

32. I thought her as myself, though she appears as another person to you and others; and though she is manifest before you, yet lies as hidden in me as my veryself. 33. And I find myself as that imperishable entity, which abides in me as I abide in the supreme soul; I find my soul to be imperishable in its nature, and to be delighted in itself as if it were the lord of all. 34. Though I was thus absorbed in meditation, yet the reminiscence of my former state (as the creative energy of God or Brahmá); produced in me the desire of reproduction, and yonder is the incarnate divinity presiding over my will. 35. She is the presiding divinity over my will, that is standing here manifest before you; she is neither my wife nor have I betrothed her as such. 36. It is from the desire of her heart, that she deems herself the spouse of Brahmá; and it is for that reason that she has undergone troubles, before she got rid of her desires.

THE WORDS OF THE CREATOR OF WORLDS IN THE MUNDANE STONE. Argument:—Relation of the desire of the Divine of Divinity as the cause of her sorrow. The Bráhmana related:—Now as the world is approaching to its end, and I am going to take my rest in the formless void of the intellect (after dissolution of the material world); it is for this reason that this divinity of worldly desires, is drowned in deep sorrow. 2. And as I am about to forsake her forever, it is for this very reason, O sage, that she is so very sorry and sick at her heart. 3. Being myself of an aerial form, when I become one with the supreme spirit (after my leaving the mental sphere); then there takes place the great dissolution of the world with the end of all my desire. 4. Hence she with deep sorrow pursues my way, for who is there so senseless, that does not follow after the giver of her being. 5. Now the time is come for the termination of the Kaliyuga, and of the rotation of the four ages; and the dissolution of all living beings, Manus, Indras, and the Gods, is near at hand.

6. Today is the end of the kalpa and great kalpa age, and this day puts an end to my energy and will, and makes me mix with the eternal and infinite vacuity. 7. It is now that this personification of my desire, is about to breathe her last; just as the lake of lotuses being dried, the breath of lotus flowers also is lost in the air. 8. The quiet soul like the calm ocean, is always at a state of rest; unless it is agitated by its fickle desires, as the sea is troubled by its fluctuating waves. 9. The embodied being (which is confined in the prisonhouse of the human body), has naturally a desire to know the soul, and to <be> freed from its dungeon. 10. Thus this lady being fraught with spiritual knowledge, and long practiced in yoga meditation; has seen the world you inhabit, and the four different states of its inhabitants. (The gloss explains the four states to mean the four different pursuits of men expressed by Dharma, Artha, Káma, Moksha). 11. She traversing through the regions of air, has come to the sight of the aforesaid etherial stone above the polar mountain, which is our celestial abode and the pattern of your world.

12. Both that world of yours and this abode of ours, rest on a great mountain, which bears upon it many other worlds (invisible to the naked eye). 13. We also do not see them with our discriminating eye sight, of discerning them separately from one another; but we behold them all commingled in one, in our abstract view of yoga meditation (i.e. The sight of particulars is lost in their abstract meditation). 14. There are numberless worlds of creations, in earth, water and air and in everything under the sky, as if they are compressed or carved in the body of a huge block of stone. 15. What you call the world is a mere fallacy, and resembles your vision of a fairy city in dream; it is a false name applied to an object, existing nowhere beyond the intellect (and in the imagination of the mind). 16. They who have come to know the world, as no other than an airy vision of the mind, are verily called as wise men, and not liable to fall into error. 17. There others who by their application to and practice of yoga contemplation, come to attain their desired object, as this lady has succeeded to gain your company (for her edification).

18. Thus doth the illusory power of the intellect, display these material worlds before us; and thus doth the everlasting Divine omnipotence manifest itself (in all these various forms). 19. There is no action nor any creation, that is ever produced from anything or ever reduced to nothing; but all things and actions are the spontaneous growth of the intellect only; together with our ideas of space and time. 20. Know the ideas of time and space, of substance and action, as well as of the minds and its faculties, are the lasting figures and marks on the stone of the intellect, and are ever salient in it, without their setting or being shaded at anytime. 21. This intellect is the very stone (we have been talking of), and is either at rest or rolling on as roller or wheel; the worlds appertain to it as its appurtenances, and accompany it as motion doth the wind. 22. The soul being replete with its full knowledge of all things, is considered as the solid world itself; and though it is infinite in time and space, yet it is thought as limited, owing to its appearance in the form of the bounded and embodied mind.

23. The unbounded intellect appears as bounded, by its limited knowledge; and although it is formless, yet it appears in the form of the mind, representing the worlds in it. 24. As the mind views itself in the form of aerial city in its dream, so doth it find itself in the form of this stone, with the worlds marked upon it in the daytime. (The world like the dream, is a transformation or representation of the mind itself). 25. There is no rolling of the orbs in this world, nor the running of streams herein, there is no object subsisting in reality any where; but they are all mere representations of the mind in empty air. 26. As there are no kolpa and great kalpa ages in eternity, nor the substantiality of anything in the vacuity of our consciousness; and as there is no difference of the waves and bubbles from the waters of the sea (So there is no difference of the empty thoughts from the vacuous mind; whence they take their rise).

27. The worlds appearing to be in esse, or existent in the mind and before the eyes; are in reality utterly inexistent in the intellect, which spreads alike as the all pervading and empty vacuum every where. And as all empty space in every place is alike and same with the infinite vacuity; so the forms of things appearing to the limited understanding, are all lost in the unlimited intellect. 28. Now Vasishtha, go to your place in your own world; and have your peace and bliss in your own seat of samádhi-devotion. Consign your aerial worlds to empty air, while I myself to the supreme Brahma do repair.

DESCRIPTION OF FINAL DISSOLUTION. Argument:—Conduct of Kali age, and Termination of Brahmá’s Creation at the End. Vasishtha added:—So saying, Brahmá—the personified Brahman, sat in his posture of devotion—padmásana, and resumed his intense meditation of the samádhi meditation; and so did his celestial companions also. 2. He fixed his mind on the pause santa, which is placed at the end of half syllable m—the final letter of the holy mantra of omkara; and sat sedate with his steady attention (on the Divine), as an unmoved picture in painting. 3. His concupiscent consort-vásaná or desire, followed his example also; and sat reclined at the end of all her endless wishes, as an empty and formless vacuity. (The devotee must become a nullity, for his union with the unity). 4. When I saw them growing thin for want of their desires, I also reduced myself by means of my meditation, until I found myself as one with all pervading Intellect; in the form of endless vacuity (and perceived every thing that was going on everywhere). 5. I saw that as the desires of Brahmá were drying up in himself, so I found all nature to be fading away, with the contraction of the earth and ocean, together with the diminution of their hills and islands.