The Yoga Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki ( Volume -4) -34



















The
Yoga Vasishtha
Maharamayana
of Valmiki

The only complete English translation is
by Vihari Lala  Mitra (1891).







CHAPTER CCVIII.

SOLUTION OF THE GREAT QUESTION.

Argument:--Answer to the question of future rewards and punishment
of departed souls in another world.

Vasishtha continued:--Hear me now to tell you, why men
happen to meet with their (unexpected) good or fortune
at home; and in the same manner how rewards and retributions,
come to attend on departed souls from unforeseen causes in the
far distant (or next) world.
2. You know the whole world to be the volitional city (or
fabric) of Divine will, and appearing as phenomenal to our outward
sight, and as noumenal in the light of our inward insight
of it, and as Brahma himself in its spiritual light. (i. e. God
has so willed the world, as to be viewed in the triple light of
the physical, intellectual and spiritual also).
3. In this volitional city, everything appears in the same
light, as one would behold it in any of its different aspects.
4. As in your own house, you are master of the direction of
your offspring, and of the disposal of your things and affairs as [**add:
you]
please; so is the Lord the sole disposer and dispensator of all
things in this world of his will, as he likes of his own accord.
5. As in the desired dwelling of your liking, you find everything
to be as well disposed as you wish it to be; so doth he
direct and dispose all things in this world of his.
6. The disorder that there appears to take place in the
order of nature, is to be attributed to the Divine Will as the
sovran law of all.
7. The good or evil which waits on men, owing to the obedience
to or transgression of law; is both attributable to the
Divine Will; (which has originated the laws and ordained their
results).
8. It is the dispensation of the Divine will also, whereby all
living bodies have their perceptions of worldly things; just as
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they have the conception of the existence of the world, which
in reality has no entity of it.
9. It is by will of the divine intellect, that everything appears
to be existent before us; as it is the oscitation and occlusion
or the gaping and closing of the intellect, which causes the
appearance and disappearance of the world to our view.
10. The king said:--Tell me sir, if the world was the production
of the divine will, why was it not known to exist before
with the eternity of the Will divine, and why and when it come
to be manifested and known to others afterwards; tell me also,
whether the world is an unstable and vanishing appearance in
the air, or it has any fixity in the divine mind or stability in
nature.
11. Vasishtha replied:--Such is the nature of the vacuous
and volitional city of divine intellect; that it comes to being
and not being in succession, in the states of repeated waking
dreams of creation, and in the sleeping oblivion of its desolation.
12. Like the mud built house of playful boys, and the air
drawn castles of fanciful men, do the appearances of creation,
appear both as real and unreal in the divine intellect as well
as to our minds.
13. As you build and break your imaginary city in the air,
and make and unmake a fabric of your will elsewhere; whether
it be of your own or choice or for any other reason, so it is with
the Divine will, to construct and protract or retract or annul
any of its works ad libitum.
14. Thus are all beings, continually rising and falling, in
this vacuous city of the divine will; which is ever shining in
its nature, with the pure light of the divine mind. (God throws
his own light on the work of his will).
15. The whole plenum of the world is a vacuum, and full
with the dense intelligence of omniscience; therefore it is
this omniscient intelligence, which doth still whatever it thinks
upon and wills. (This passage shows that the Vedanta Brahma,
is not inactive or Nishkriya as many believe; but the living
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God, and sole agent of all things and director of all accidents
in this world).
16. Therefore it is not the hidden but self manifest God,
that does all things even at the distance of Millions[**millions] of miles,
and myriads of ages, as if they lay before him at the present
time.
17. So there is nothing in any country or in any world,
which is not known nor thought of by the sole and unhidden
soul of all. (The gloss applies it to every individual soul, which
is conscious of its merits and demerits everywhere).
18. As a brilliant gem reflects its light and shade within
itself, so doth the gem of the intellect reflects[**reflect] by its own light
the various vicissitudes of the world in itself. (i. e. The human
mind is sensible of its deserts).
19. Laws and prohibitions, which are necessary for the
preservation of people, are implanted in the human soul. (As
they are the eternal varieties of the divine mind), and accompany
it every where with their just rewards.[**move closing bracket hereto]
20. The soul never sets nor rises (i. e. It neither dies nor
revives, but supposes itself as such by its error only); It is
Brahma himself and his reflexion in others, and emanating
always from the divine soul[**,] its source and origin.
21. As from being the viewer, it supposes itself to be the
view, and thinks its imaginary world as a visible phenomenon;
(i. e. believes itself both as the subjective as well as objective);
so it thinks itself to be born, living and dying (by the like
error of its own).
22. When the soul of its own nature ceases to cast its reflexion,
or suppresses it within itself, and remains quietly in the
vacuous sphere of divine intellect, by assimilating itself with
the universal soul of Brahma, it is then said to be quietus of
quiet in death. (The word for death in the text is Sánta-Samita
or extinct, or instinct in the divine soul).
23. The emission and intromition[**intromission] of its reflexion, are as
natural to the ignorant and imperfect living soul of animal
beings; as oscillation and calm are congenital with air, (or as
respiration and inspiration with breath).
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24. Now as you see in the city of your imagination, the
growth, decay and death of people, at different times and
places;--
25. So it is the nature of this imaginary city of God, to
exhibit these changes every where, as in the cases of animals,
vegetables and all things in all the three worlds.
26. But God neither wills nor does everything himself, in this
creation of his will, but he acts by general laws and secondary
causes, as in the cricket play of boys, and growth of grass from
grass, and production of trees and their fruits &c[**&c.] from seeds.
27. It is the nature of the almighty intellect of God, to
bringforth[**bring forth] forth with[**forthwith] to being whatever it wills
to be and
appear; (The almighty thought, will or word, is variously said
to be the prime cause of all).
28. All things being originally of intellectual form, appear
afterwards in various forms, and with different natures; as the
almighty intellect invests them with.
29. Hence everything here, is verily of an intellectual form,,[**just one ,]
by their originating from the divine intellect; and as the intellect
includes all things in itself, it is omniform and shows
itself in any form it likes.
30. This very intellect is the omniscient and universal soul,
without having its beginning, middle or end; it is omnipotent
and something which is nothing, and an entity appearing as
non-entity; It appears such as it remains any where, and shows
itself as anything; it is the origin of all things and beings, and
the source of all vegetables and grass.
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CHAPTER CCIX.
ON THE CONSCIOUSNESS OR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE OF
EXTRANEOUS EXISTENCES.
Argument:--Reconciliation of the opposite results of virtuous and sinful
acts, on one and same person at the same time.
Vasishtha continued saying:--The life of a person is
dear and useful to him, as long as he lives and not afterwards;
but hear me tell you the good of a man's dying in some
holy place, with a wish for future reward in his next life.
2. God has ordained certain virtues and merits to certain
places, even from the beginning of his imaginary city of
this world, (as to all other things at their very beginning).
3. Whatever merit is assigned to any place, the same awaits
on the soul of the person, after its release from bondage, by his
performance of the acts of piety enjoined by the sástras.
4 Hence any great sin that is committed by any body anywhere,
is either partly or wholly effaced by the good act of the
person, according to comparative merit of the holy place, or the
degree of absolution in the mind of the penitent sinner.
5. In any case of the insignificance of the sin, with regard
to the greater sacerdotalness[**?] of the place; there the sinner is
quite absolved from his guilt, and attains the object of his wish
(in his future life).
6. But in case of the equality of the merits of penitence,
with the holiness of the place; the penitent man receives two
bodies in his next life, that is both a physical body and spiritual
soul.
7. Such is the effect of the primeval guilt and merit of
mankind, that they are endowed with double bodies, consisting
of their physical frames and spiritual souls: (the one maculate
and the other immaculate) and such the divine soul even from
before.
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8. The principle is called Brahma in its sense of the whole,
and as Brahmá-[**--]the totality of the living soul jíva; and also
as aham or the ego, meaning any living soul in particular; and
as he remains in any manner of the whole or part, so he manifests
himself in his semblance of the world.
9. The reflexion of purity acquired in some holy place, appears
to the penitent soul in the same manner; as it appears in its
contrary light to the guilty soul, which is not so absolved from
its sin in any holy place. (These different reflexions, present
the appearance of heavenly bliss to the soul of one, and that of
hell torments to the other, as in their visions of paradise and
styx[**Styx] in dream).
10. The one sees the visions of his own death, and the weeping
of his living relatives; and deems himself as a departed
ghost to the next world, all alone and without a single soul beside
him.
11. He sees also the deaths of his friends there, and thinks
also that he hears the wailings of their relations at that place; he
sees the chimeras of all these in his phrensy[**phrenzy], as a man of
deranged
humours sees the spectres of bugbears in his delirium.
12. So it happens with great souls also, to see the sights
both of good grace and affright[**?--P2: ok/SOED], according to the
measure of
their merit or guilt in this life; and thus thousands of hopeful
and hideous shapes, flout[**float] about in the imaginations of men,
owing to the purity and depravity of their natures.
13. The friends of the dying man, lying insensible as a
dead body; weep and wail over his corpse, and then take him
to the funeral ground for his cremation.
14. But the guiltless man being accompanied by his self-conscious
and righteous soul;[** semi-colon redundant] sees the approach of his
decrepitude
and death, with firmness and without any feeling of sorrow
(as if he had no decay nor death).
15. With his present body he sees himself to be a living
being; and with his invisible part or inward soul, he sees his
conquest over death by the merit of his holy pilgrimage, (and
immortality of his soul in the future world).
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16. The guiltless man is in fear of his death for a moment
only, but is conscious of the indestructibility of his inward soul,
as a man clad in mail, is dauntless of the shafts of his unarmoured
antagonist. (The pure soul is invulnerable by the shafts of
death).
17. In this manner the relatives of the deceased, find his
pure soul, to obtain its immortality after his death; and that
life and death are indifferent to the virtuous and purified
person.
18. The sights of all the three worlds, are equally fallacious
both in their tangible and intangible forms; as the vision of
one object in a dream, is as false as another in their visionary
nature. (The gloss says that, one error succeeds another, in
the same way as one lye[**lie] is followed by another).
19. We have clear conceptions of the fallacies, arising in
our minds, both in our dreams and imagination; but the fallacies
of our waking dreams by broad daylight, are more obvious
and never less conspicuous to our apprehension than
either of them: (the latter being more general and lasting
than the former ones).
20. The king said;[**:]--But tell me sir, how virtue and vice,
both of which are bodiless things, (as being the abstract qualities
of our actions), assume to themselves the bodily forms of
living beings, in the course of the transmigration of our souls.
(Virtuous souls being blessed with human bodies, while vicious
spirits are doomed to suffer in various brutish forms).
21. Vasishtha replied:--There is nothing impossible to the
creative power of Brahma, to be produced in the imaginary
fabric of this world of his mind; nor is it impracticable to the
substantive divine will to give substantial forms to understand
things. (The substantive will is called satyasankalpa which
brings the inexistent to real existence).
22. There is nothing which is unimaginable, and cannot be
produced by the mind of Bnahma[**Brahma]; as it is with us to have no
idea of anything and nothing in being, of which we have no
imagination in our finite minds. (Brahma has given forms to
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all the imaginary ideas of his mind, which we cannot do to our
formless and abstract idea of any).
23. A visionary city in the dream and an imaginary castle
of fancy, do both present the like ideal form to the mind; and
yet both of them are composed of a train of ideas, which appear
as real objects for the time being. (So the ideal seems as
real for a time).
24. All the numerous thoughts, which lie as a dead and
dormant mass, in the states of our deep and sound sleep; appear
to us in endless forms in the vision of our dream and waking
our imagination and leave their traces in the memory.
25. Who is there that has not had the notion, of the aerial
castles of his dream and imagination; and found them not to
be composed of our concepts only, in the airy world of our
vacuous consciousness.
26. Therefore what thing is there, that is not capable of
being produced in this aerial world, which is the production of
the airy imagination of the vacuous intellect; and what thing
also which is substantially produced therefrom. (The creatures
of the mind, have mental forms only).[** bracket to end after mind, and
the sentence to be completed.--P2: suggestion instead: delete 'which']
27. Therefore it is this fallacy only, which appears in the
form of the visible universe; where there is nothing in real existence
or inexistence; but all things appear to be in esse[**space added] and
nonesse[**space added], in the Nabhas and in the Nubibus of the divine
mind.
28. Anything that is perceived in any manner, the same is
thought as a manifestation of its Áker[** ?] in the same manner;
and the enlightened seekers of truth, find no impropriety in
their belief as such. (These as they change, are the varied
God. Thomson's seasons[**"The Seasons"]).
29. Hence when a man is taught by the tenets of his religion,
to hope for the enjoyment of flowery banks (lit[**.]-[**--]hills), and
streams flowing with nectar in paradise (lit[**.]-[**--]heaven); it is very
probable that he will meet with the same things, in his future
life in the next world. (So the Moslem is taught to expect the
gratification of all his carnal desires in heaven, as the promised
rewards of his holy Koran. The Hindus likewise have bodily
delights to expect in their different heavens).
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30. Hence the acts that are done in this world by any body,
are attended with their like rewards unto him in the next; and
there is no inconsistency in this belief, though it appear[**appears] so to
the
unbeliever (The adage-[**--]as you sow, so shall you reap, holds
equally true in every religion with regard to future retribution,
as in every case here below).
31. Should there be anything, which may be said to be permanent
in this world, it must be over[**ever] present in the view of its
viewer; let then any man say upon this criterion, which he
does not lose the sight of all other things before his eye sight,
except the ideas of things in his mind, which are ever present
in his knowledge, and never lost sight of in his consciousness.
32. I have given you the analogy of our dreams and
thoughts, to prove the essentiality of our notions and ideas;
and whereas the worlds appertain to the will and subsists in
the mind of omniscience, they are not otherwise than the essence
of the Great Brahma Himself.
33. As there is nothing wanting or impossible to be produced,
in the aerial castle of your imagination; so there is
nothing which does not and cannot exist in the will and mind
of the almighty.
34. Whatsoever is thought of in any form, in the Divine
Mind, the same remains fixed therein in the very form; and
the same appears to be situated in the same nature before our
views in its photo or in a scenograph[**scenography].
35. Hence this semblance of the Divine Mind, is perceived
only by our internal senses, and not perceptible to the external
organs, or to both of these at once; because it is for our minds
only to perceive the impressions of the eternal mind, and to
impel the internal organs (by their inward efforts), to receive
those reflexions.
36. As the lord has willed everything at first, so it lasts
with him to the very last of his creation (i. e. from the very
beginning of his Sankalpa, to the end of the kalpa epoch);
when his will of creating the world anew, gives another form
to the state of things in future.
37. The Lord manifests himself as he wills, in the manner of
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his will, and in the form of another world in every kalpa duration
of creation; as the minds of men come to see another
world and another state of things in their each successive
dream.
38. There is nothing which does not exist, in this worldly
city of Divine will, and all that exists therein is naught but the
production of the Divine Intellect; therefore this world is to
be known, as full of the forms of the productive mind of God.
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CHAPTER CCX.
REFUTATION OF THE CONCEPTION OF A DUALITY IN UNITY.
Argument:--End of Vasishtha's Replies to[**space added] the important
qeries[**queries], and
his showing the unity of the world with Brahma himself.
Vasishtha resumed and said:--Now here[**hear] me tell you in
reply to the question, why the heaven is not filled with
a hundred full moons, if it were the wish of a hundred persons to
shine as such a luminary on future, and if the wishes of all
are crowned with success in their next state of being. (The
souls of the pious are said to twinkle as stars in heaven).
2. Those that aspired to become as bright as the full moon
of heaven, became actually so in their conception of themselves
as such in the sphere of their minds; and not by their situation
in the vault of the sky or in the orb of that luminary.
3. Say who has ever and anywhere, got into the imaginary
city of another; and who has ever got any fancied treasure,
except the framer of the fancy and the fabricator of the wished
for wealth. (Every one is the master of his own Utopia and
delights in his hobby horse).
4. Every one has a heaven of his own, in the utopia of his
creation; wherein he is situated and shines as a full bright
moon, and without its phases of the wane and waste[**wax].
5. All those aspirants to luminosity, had thought of entering
into the moon of his own mind; and there he found himself to
rest at last, with full light of that luminary and delight of his
conscious soul.
6. Each of them thought of entering into the disc of the
moon shining in their minds, and felt themselves glad in their
situation, as if they were seated in the orb of the celestial
moon.
7. Whatever one seeks and searches after, the same becomes
con-natural with his consciousness; and in the case of his firm
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belief in the same state, he thinks and feels himself to be the
very same.
8. As every aspirer to the state of the full moon, came to be
such in his respective conception of that luminary; so the
suitors of the same bride in marriage, became wedded to her
according to his own conception of hers. (Every one imagines
his doxy[**?--P2:ok/SOED], as a fairy paragon of beauty).
9. The one pure maiden that is thought of being taken to
wife, by many men in their minds; is never defiled by any one
of them in her character, by their simple enjoyment of her ideal
only. (The ideal is not tangible possession).
10. As the sovereign ruler of the seven continents, holds
his sway over them, without ever going out of his city; so the
soul passes to them all, by remaining in the precincts of its
body: and so does every man see his imaginary castle, in the
sphere of his own house.
11. When the whole universe owes its origin, to the imagination
of its omniscient originator-[**--]the self born Brahma; what
can it be otherwise, than an intangible vacuum and quite calm
and quiet in itself. (The moving bodies are the fixed figures
of the divine mind, and appear to be turning round like the
pictures in a panorama or the objects in a scenograph[**scenography]).
12. Now hear me tell you of the unknown and invisible
results of the acts [**[of]] piety, such as charity,
obsequeous[**obsequious] rites, religious
austerities and the mutterings of holy mantras, which
accrue to the departed ghosts of bodily beings in the next
world.
13. The souls marked with traces of pious acts in them,
come to view them vividly as their actual works, and painted in
as lively colours as their dreams, by fabrications of their lively
intellects.
14. The carnal mind distrusting the reality of these impressions
of consciousness, and disregarding the internal operation
of the inward intellect; becomes restless for its sensuous enjoyment
and exercise of the outward organs of action, until by
abatement of this fervour, it is restored to its inward peace and
tranquility.
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15. It is the theme of early poets which tells us, that the
impressions of the acts of piety and charity which are imprinted
in the intellect, are reflected over the passive soul in the next
world, when the conscious soul continues to keep the gratification
of those acts.
16. Thus the rewards of charity and uncharitableness, are
equally felt in the gratification and dissatisfaction of the soul
in this world also, where everything is by our feeling of it.
17. Thus have [**[I]] answered fully to whatever you have asked
of me; and now know from all this, that the sensible world
is an intangible dream, and an air drawn spectacle of the
mind.
18. The prince rejoined:--But please to tell me sir, how
could the intellect [**[exist]] alone and itself before the production of the
body; and how can a light subsist without its receptacle of a
lamp or lantern.
19. Vasishtha replied:--The sense in which you use the
world[**word] body, is quite unknown to the spiritualist, who discard
the material meaning of the term, as they reject the idea of
the dancing of stones in air. (The learned know the spiritual
body only).
20. The meaning of the word body, is the same as that of
Brahma (who is all in all); and there is no difference in the
meaning of the two, as there is none between the words fluid
and liquid.
21. The body is a visionary appearance, and the great body
of Brahma, is likened unto the figure of a phantom in vision,
which represents the forms of all things as in dream in the
stupendous fabric of the universe. [Brahma is more likely the
phantasmagoria that shows all forms in it. Gloss].
22. But the difference between thy dream or vision and
spectrum of Brahma, consist[**consists] in the former representing the
figures of thy previous thoughts alone, which disperse and vanish
upon thy waking; but the universe which is exhibited in [**[the]] spectrum
of Brahma, is not so evanescent as that of [**[the]] other.
23. What is [**[this]] thing then we call the body, and how does it
appear into us in the shape of something in our dream; and
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why doth anything appearing as a reality in dream, appear as
nothing and vanish as an error upon our waking.
24. There is no waking, sleeping or dreaming, nor any other
condition of being, in the Turíaya[**Turíya] or transcendent state of
Brahma [as in those of the divine hypostases of Brahma, Virat
and others]. It is something as the pure and primeval light
and as the transparent air, all quiet and still, [as the infinite
eternity].
25. It is the same as the unknown and inscrutable light,
which shows and glows before us to this day; It is the same
primeval and primordial light, that showed first the sight of the
the world to view, as if it were a dream in the gloom of night.
(Light was nature's first born, and brought forth all nature
from it).
26. As in passing from one district to another, the body
though proceeding onward, is ever in the midst of its circuit,
and yet never fixed at any spot; so are all things in their endless
rotation in this world, whether singly or collectively.
27. The sight of the world, like that of a dream, presents
favourable aspect to some minds, but it presents a clear and
serene prospect to men of unclouded intellects.
28. The vacuum as well as the plenum of objects, and the
reflexion as likewise the eclipse or adumbration of things; the
existence and inexistence of the world and matter, and the unity
and duality of the divine entity, are all but the extraneous
phases or aspects of the same vacuous intellect.
29. The world is entirely or complete[**-ly] evolution from the
fulness [**fullness--P2: fulness ok/SOED] of the deity; and stands as a
complete counterpart of
the original; it is neither a shining or unshining body by itself,
but is as bright as the contents of a crystal within its bowels.
30. Wherever there is the evolution of the world in the intellect,
there is the presence of the subtile soul also at that
place, and whenever there is a jot of thought any where, it is
attended with the thought of the world also. (The mind and
soul are one with creation, and the same thing).
31. The vacuum of intellect is present every where [** everywhere],
(pervading
and comprehending the whole). And this omnipresence
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of[**delete 'of'] is the divine presence, ([**'[']which engrosses and
envelopes this
all] which is termed the world. [The word world-[**--]jagat passing
[in our right[**sight]], is spiritually sánta or quiet].
32. The divine soul is as quiet and unchangeable, as this
universe is stable and stationary; and it is the fluctuation of
the supreme mind, which causes these variations in the face of
the city of the divine will. [or the world].
33. The impossibility of any other inference [of the world's
duality or its being aught [**something is missing--P2: is it?] otherwise
than the divine entity];
proves it necessarily to be of the very same essence. Any unreasonable
hypothesis of sophists is inconsistent with this subject
[of the absolute unity].
34. The joint assent of the common belief of mankind, the
testimony of the sástras, and the dicta of the Vedas, are established
and incontrovertable[**incontrovertible] truths. Hence nobody can have
any
doubt in regard to the real entity of the Divine spirit.
35. This being confessed it becomes evident, that the world
is the deity itself; and when the world appears as one with the
deity, it is seen in our clairvoyance to be extinct in the Divine
essence. (Clairvoyance is charama-sákshat kára or the last
sight of creation at one's dying moment; when the world disappears,
and[**delete 'and'] eternity appears full open to view. Gloss).
36. From this analogy of the ultimate evanescent sight of
the world, it will be evident to the living soul, that the sight of
the phenomenal is wholly lost before it in the noumenal. This
is the doctrine of cosmotheism, wherein whole nature is seen
in nature's God.
37. He who is acquainted with the sphere of his intellect,
is not unacquainted with the fact of the dependency of the arbour
of the world to it, he sees the three worlds in himself, in
either of his two states of bondage and liberation, (The fettered
soul is fastened to the sight of the material and temporal
world; but the liberated soul views it in its spiritual light).
38. The visible world though so manifest to view, is entirely
lost to sight upon its right knowledge; and the knower thereof
in its light, becomes like the setting sun, wholly invisible to
public sight, and remains as mute as a clod of silent stone.
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39. The way that is established by the Vedas, and received
by the general assent of wise men[**space added]; is to be
acnowledged[**acknowledged], as the
right path leading to sure success. (vox populi vox dei).
40. He who adheres steadily to his own purpose, by utter
disregard of all other objects in his view; is said to be firmly
fixed to his point, and is sure to reap his success at the end.
41. Everything appears to one in the some[**same] light, as he is
accustomed to view and take it for; and whether this object of
his faith is a true or false one, it appears just the same to any
body as he is wont to believe it.
42. This is the conclusion of your question, as I have determined
and delivered to you; now be quick and walk your way
with perfect ease of your mind, health of your body and agility
of your limbs.
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CHAPTER CCXI.
LECTURE ON TRANSCENDENT TRUTH.
Argument:--Relation of Brahma as the all-pervading spirit, and of the
means of the presentation of spiritual being before one.
Vasishtha resumed:--As I was sitting relating these
things to the prince, he honoured me with his obeisance;
and then thinking I had dispensed my task to him,
rose up to proceed on my aerial journey: (from the Ilávrita-Varsha
of kushadwipa[**Kushadwípa]).
2. Thus I have related unto you this day, O most intelligent
Ráma, regarding the omnipresence of the Divine spirit; keep
this vacuous view of Brahma before your sight, and proceed
everywhere with the peace of your mind: (as you are ever living
and moving in the Lord).
3. Know all this to be Brahma itself, and a nameless and
unsubstantial void only; it is something unborn and increate,
all calm and quiet, and without[**space removed] its beginning, middle
and
end. (It is infinity in space and eternity in duration).
4. It is said to be the reflexion of the intellect, and named
as Brahma from its immensity, it is termed the most transcendent,
and something without any designation at all.
5. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how can we have the sights
of the celestial, and of the Siddha and Sádhya spirits, of Yoma[**Yama],
Brahma and of the heavenly Vidyádharas and choiristers[**choristers];
and tell
me also sir, how the people of the other spheres can be visible
to us.
6. Vasishtha replied:--The celestial siddhas, Sádhyas, the
Gods Yoma[**Yama] and Brahma, and the Vidyádhara demigods; these
together with all other beings of great souls and wondrous
might;--
7. Are all visible to you both by day and night, and above,
below, behind and ever before you, if you will but look at them
-----File: 585.png---------------------------------------------------------
with the eyes of your mind; but if you shut your mental eye
against spirituality, you can never have the sight of spirit presented
before your view. (This passage is illustrated in the
story of Chudaloka. gloss).
8. These beings being habituated to be viewed in our
minds, are never afar from us, and as they are represented to
be volitive or self willed beings, they are said to be ever roving
every where. (The spirits are of two kinds; some stationary
in their particular lokas or spheres; and other[**others] to be
wondering[**wandering]
about. gloss).
9. These volitional beings are as fickle as the living creatures
of this earth of ours; and as the volatile winds, which are
blowing at random in every direction.
10. These resemble the airy creatures of your imagination
and dream, which hover and gather about you by day and
night; while the others are devoid of their volition and motion,
and are settled stationery[**stationary] in their respective spheres.
11. If you can in the calm quietness of your mind and soul,
secure the reflexion of any of these spirits in your silent and
steadfast meditation; you can without fail, have the visitation
of the same in the inmost recess of your soul. (and hold your
secret communion with it also. gloss).
12. In this manner do men see the gods as they see the
siddhas, arrayed with all their majesty and glory, as they are
feigned to be in their intense meditations. (Dhyanenaivaparadevah).
13. Now as men of steady minds, find themselves to be soaring
to heaven, in the company of the siddhas and clad in all
their glory; those of fickle and unsubdued minds, have to take
great pains, in order to confine the fleeting object of their contemplation
under their control. (It is often dangerous to the
unadept novice in meditation, to let slip the object of his contemplation
from his grasp).
14. The world is altogether an unsubstantial and imperceptible
thing; and is ever as silent and a serene void, as the
vacuum of the intellect (or the Divine mind). It appears how-*
-----File: 586.png---------------------------------------------------------
*ever as a solid and compact mass, according as the notion we
have of it in our consciousness. (i. e. This nothing is thought
of [**[as]] something, according to our mistaken notion or conception of
it).
15. It does not exist in our unconsciousness, nor does it
appear to be in existence or otherwise it is not dull, insensible
and unthinking beings; it is a vacuity and nullity, and utterly
an intangible and imperceptible thing in our sensibility and
unconsciousness
of it.
16. It is the nature of the intellect to reflect in itself, and
all that is seen about us, is the shadow of that reflexion; the
knowledge of substantiality in this shadowy reflection, proceeds
from the vanity of the intellect, and not from its nature which
[**[is]] free from mistake.
17. There can be no talk of causation, production or vegetation,
in the nature of the universe; which being an absolute
void, is entirely devoid of the elements of cause and effect.
(Ex nihilo nihil fit[**hyphens replaced by spaces] &c[**.]).
18. That which appears to be produced, is only a void in
the midst of primeval vacuum (teo et beo); nor can there be
the attribution of unity or duality to the infinite vacuity.
19. Yet the world appears as something existent in your
mind; and as visible before your eyes; and this happens in the
same manner as you have the consciousness and sight of your
dreams; in the unruffled calm of your hollow sleep.
20. As imagination causes the mountains and mountainous
regions, to rise in the hollow sphere of our minds; but neither
is the one nor the other found to be really existent therein;
such is this creation an airy working of the divine mind; (and
leaving no trace of it left behind).
21. Hence it is the nature of the wise and sapient, to remain
as quiet and mute as motionless blocks of wood or stone; and
the character of great minds, to manage themselves as wooden
puppets, moving wholly as they are moved by the prime mobile
power of God alone: (Without being actuated by their own
desire, or deeming themselves as free agents).
-----File: 587.png---------------------------------------------------------
22. As the waves are seen to roll about on the surface [**add: of]
waters, and as the eddies are whirling round and hurling head
long into the deep; so the whole creation and all created things,
turn about the pivot of the great Brahma alone. (Not an
atom herein, has an excentric course of its own).
23. As vacuity is inborn in the firmament, and undulations
are iminament[**immanent] in the air; so are these creations inherent and
inseparably connected with the divine spirit, in their amorphous
or formless and ideal shapes. (This passage maintains the
idealistic[**corrected typo: ideal. istic]
theory of the ancients).
24. As an air drawn castle of our will or imagination, presents
a substantial shape before us with all its unsubstantialness;
so does this world appear as a campact[**compact] frame exhibited
before us, notwithstanding its situation in the formless mind of
Brahma.
25. All these three worlds, that we are accustomed to believe
as real ones, and as seats of our temporal as well as spiritual
concerns; are all void and formless, and as unreal ones as
the airy castles of our imagination.
26. As it is the thought of our minds, that creates full populous
cities in them; so it is the thought of the mind of God, that
creates these numerous worlds, and presents them to our minds
and eyes.
27. Though ever and all along thought as a reality, this
visible world bears no meaning at all; and resembles the sight
of a man's own death in his dream.
28. As a man sees the funeral of his dead body, conducted
by his son in his dream; so the unreal world is seen as a
reality, in as much as it is reflected as such by its supreme
contriver.
29. Both the entity and non-entity of the cosmos or world,
constitute the corpus of the immaculate deity; just as a fictitious
name applied to a person, makes no difference in his personage.
30. Whether what I have said is true or not, (that the
siddhas and others are mere imaginary or spiritual beings),
-----File: 588.png---------------------------------------------------------
you have nothing to lose or gain therefrom, (because we have
no concern whatever with them); and as it is useless for wise men[**space
added]
to expect any reward by casting fruits into the Phálgu
river, so it is of no good to the intelligent who have known
the true God, to take the pains of invoking the aid of the
minor Gods[**gods] instead of Him.
-----File: 589.png---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER CCXII.
ON ASCERTAINMENT OF TRUTH.
Argument:--Thinking God as the Ego, Brahmá and the creation, and
the description of God.
Vasishtha resumed:--The man that considers himself as
the Ego, from his possession of the intellect and intellectual
powers in him; elevates him to the rank of Brahma
and contains the whole world in himself.
2. As the Lord Brahmá or Hiranyagarbha remained in this
state (of the totality of souls[**)] he was not then the creator of
the world; but was alike the increate Brahma-[**--]the everlasting
god, as he continued from all eternity. (Brahmá assimilating
himself to the impersonal God, had no personality of himself,
so the holy trinity was all One, before the Lord caused his
coeternal son to create the world; as nothing was created but
by the son).
3. It is in our consciousness, that the world appears in this
manner, and is like the mirage in a desert, where its very unreality
shows itself as a reality. (Hence our consciousness, is
not always the test of truth).
4. It is since the creation, that the primeval vacuum began to
present, the blunder or false[**falsity] of the world in itself; but how and
whence arose this blunder, unless it were the presentation of
Brahma himself. (Delusion is god also).
5. The world is a whirlpool (a revolving sphere), in the vast
ocean of Brahma (i. e. in the great expanse of vacuum). Where
then is the question of unity or duality in this, or the talk of
the dualism of the eddy from the waters of the deep)[**delete ')'], or how
can there be the topic of unity in want of a duality. (The
world is therefore Brahma-dharma or an hypostasis of God.
gloss).
6. The great Brahma is profoundly quiet, and having his
intellect inherent in himself, he is conscious of his being the
-----File: 590.png---------------------------------------------------------
great or sole Ego (or the totality of beings) in his mind, and
sees himself as the midst of the vast expanse of vacuity.
7. As fluctuation is inherent in air, and heat is inbred in
fire; and as the moon contains its coolness in itself, so does the
Great Brahma brood over the eternal ideas of things, contained
in the cavity of his fathomless mind.
8. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how does the divine mind
come to think of and brood upon his creation; when the eternal
intellect is ever employed in its process of intellection. The
course of Divine thought being unobstructed from eternity to
eternity, its even tenor cannot be supposed to be now and then
turned to the act of creation, or even said to be brought in its
action and motion, since the time that this creation first began
to exist (There can be no talk of the beginning or end of the
world before eternity).
9. Vasishtha replied:--It is even so, O Ráma! the great Ego
of God always thinks of everything in itself; and the increate
and ever existent spirit of God, has never anything unknown
to his knowledge. (The evolution and involution of the world,
are known by the terms of its creation and annihilation).
10. The vacuous Brahma is ever and every where present
both in creation and non-creation (i. e. both before as well as
after it); and there is nothing that is known to him as existent
or nonexistent at any time, (since the ignorant know the world
as existent, and the learned consider it a nihility; but the
Lord knows them all in himself).
11. As the mind is conscious of its fluctuation, and the moon
of her coldness; and as the air knows its voidness, so doth
Brahma know himself as the Ego, and never thinks himself without
the other. [**(]They are Misra or combined together).
12. Such is the entity of God, and never unlike to or otherwise
than this; and whereas the world is without its beginning
and end, it must be as imperishable as Brahma himself. (The
world is without end).
13. It is only from your want of sufficient intelligence, and
hearing of or prejudice in the word non-ego; that you are led
to the belief of a duality, in the undualistic unity of the Deity.
-----File: 591.png---------------------------------------------------------
14. Never does any body nor anything here, think of itself
of anything whatever; there is none and naught whatsoever, that
can think unless it is the same with the Divine Ego.
15. The apparent threefold[**space removed] world, ever appears in this
manner;
as one with and inseparable from God what dwells alike
and evenly in all, which composes one uniform whole, without
admixture of any diversity or duality: (all which blend together
in harmony in one universal unity).
16. Know O Ráma, that[**there] is nothing like a rock or tree, [**[that]] is
produced in empty vacuity; so these seeming solid worlds, can
never be produced in the vacuous spirit of Brahma: (but are
all mere phantoms of what they appear to be) know this, and
go on freely in your own way.
17. Precepts to men of little intelligence and doubtful minds,
fail to persuade them to the knowledge of truth; and so long as
they can not comprehend the unity, they are ever apt to believe
in the multiplicity of objects.
18. Neither precepts nor sástras, can lead the ignorant to
the knowledge of truth, unless they can get rid of their prejudice
of diversity, which the creator Brahmá, has spread over
the minds of men.
19. Ráma rejoined:--I understand sir, what you say (regarding
the ego as the agent); but I beseech you to explain it by
some illustration, for my clear knowledge of it.
20. What does the supreme Brahma do, by his assuming the
title of ego or thinking agent to himself; you know all this (by
your vast knowledge), though it is not quite satisfactory to
your audience.
21. Vasishtha replied:--The supreme One that was quite
indistinct before (as the undistinguishable chaos); becomes after
his assumption of the title ego to himself, divided and distinguished
into the distinct essences of vacuum, space and its directions
and time with all its divisions. (The ego itself is diversified
into these various forms).
22. The ego then assuming its personality, finds many such
distinctions appearing before itself; which are quite impercep-*
-----File: 592.png---------------------------------------------------------
*tible in its state of impersonality. (The personal soul only, is
conscious of these).
23. The knowledge of these vacuous principles[**,] their qualities
and attributes, which is preserved in the soul in the forms
of their abstract ideas; is expressed afterwards by certain symbolical
sounds or words, which are also as void as air. (A word
is a breath, and the breath is air).
24. It is thus the formless and vacuous principle of the
ego, entertains in itself or its soul, the notions or knowledge of
times and space in their ideal forms.
25. This universe which appears as the rechauffe or reflex
of the ideal of the ego, and seems as the visible and substantial
world, is in reality but the intangible Brahma, and appearing
as the tangible non Brahma to view.
26. The world is verily the quiet spirit of Brahma, it is one
with Him, and without its beginning, middle or end; it is verily
the void of Brahma, who assumes to himself the titles of Ego
and the living soul, vacuous himself in his own vacuous self, as
this vast and extensive phenomenon, and as something otherwise
than what He is. (The world is the mirror of the divine
Mind and its thoughts).
-----File: 593.png---------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER CCXIII.
NARRATION OF RAMA'S[**RÁMA'S] PRIOR PUPILAGE UNDER
VASISHTHA.
Argument:--Vasishtha's relation of a lecture delivered to Ráma in a
former birth.
Vasishtha continued:--O Ráma, the destroyer of thy
enemies, this very question that you have asked me
today, was put to me once before, when you had been a pupil
under my discipline.
2. In a former age, there was once this spiritual discourse
betwixt ourselves, when you had been a pupil of mine in a certain
forest (according to Metempsychosis), the present is but a
repetition of a past life. The wheel of life rolls and revolves
incessantly from age to age.
3. As I sat there as your preceptor, and your sitting in my
presence as my pupil; you then had put this very question to
me, with the gravity of your understanding.
4. The Pupil said:--You sir that know all things, now
deign to remove this doubt and difficulty of mine, regarding
what things die and perish at the great deluge, and what things
are not liable to destruction.
5. The Preceptor replied saying:--Know my son, that the
relics of all things are utterly destroyed at the last deluge; as
your thickening dreams disappear in your sound sleep.
6. The hills and rocks on all the ten sides[**space added] of the earth, are
all destroyed without any distinction, and of the actions of men
and routine of their business, there remains nothing behind.
7. All beings are destroyed at the end, and the great void
(that is the receptacle of all bodies), becomes a perfect void.
8. The Gods Brahma, Vishnu, Indra, Rudra and others, that
are the prime causes of the causal agencies of this world, do all
become extinct at the end of the world, and there remains no
vestige of them at last.
9. There remains only the great vacuity of the divine intel-*
-----File: 594.png---------------------------------------------------------
*lect, which is ever existent and undecaying; and this appears
from the divine spirits[**spirit] remaining as the witness both of
annilations[**annihilations]
as also of the regeneration of the past and future worlds.
10. The entity never becomes a non-entity, nor the non-entity
never comes to be an entity; tell me therefore where the
past world disappears, and from whence the future world comes
to existence.
11. The Preceptor replied:--This world, my boy, is not
wholly destroyed nor does it become altogether extinct; and it
is quite true that nothing never goes to nothing, nor does anything,
nor does anything[**delete last 3 words] ever proceed from a nihility.
12. That which is an entity in reality, never becomes a non-entity
in anywise, and how can that which is inexistent of itself,
ever become a nil and null afterwards (Ex Nihilo nihil
fit &c[**.]).
13. Where is water to be had in the mirage, and when are
the two seeming moons to be[**space added] seen in the sky; where are
the
delusive hairs found to be floating in the air, and when does a
false conception prove to be true. (So the seeming world is a
nullity, although it appears awhile as something to our deluded
sight).
14. Know my son, all these phenomenals to be mere delusions,
and without any reality in them; they appear as cities
and towns in our dreams, and are ever obtrusive on us.
15. They are however liable to vanish away quite out of our
sight at last, as our dreams disappear upon our waking, and as
our waking scenes are lost and hid under the veil of our sleep.
16. As we know nothing where the city of our dreaming,
vanishes away at last[**space added] upon our waking; so we are quite
ignorant
about that chaotic void, wherein the universe submerges upon
its exit.
17. The Pupil rejoined:--If the world is a nullity as you
say, then sir, be pleased to tell what is it that thus appears
to and disappears from us by turns; and what is that vacuous
intellect which presents this extensive view before us; as also
how does the void present its reflexion of the plenum and to
what purpose.
-----File: 595.png---------------------------------------------------------
18. The Preceptor replied:--It is the vacuous sphere of the
intellect, my boy, that thus shines with its transparency; and
it is this reflexion of it which is called the world, which is no
other than this.
19. It is the reflexion of the widely extended substance of
the great void of the intellect; and this apparently solid figure
of it, is no other than the same transpicuous form of that intellect.
(So says the sruti, Brahma reflects his twofold[**space removed] forms to
us, the one opaque and seen with our naked eye, and the other
translucent and viewed by our mental sight).
20. The incorporeal Brahma like all corporeal bodies, presents
both a fair as well as a dark complexion; (the one being
his clear or intellectual form seen by the clear sighted, and the
other his hazzy[**hazy] figure viewed by gross understandings). He
also discloses himself some times and closes at another, which
cause the creation and annihilation of the world. (Manu calls
it the waking and sleeping of God, and others the evolution
and involution of the divine spirit).
21. The clearness of the divine spirit, ever remains the
same and unaltered, both before and after the creation and its
dissolution; as a fountain of limpid waters is always clear,
whether it reflects the shadows of its bordering arbours or not.
(No change in nature can affect the spirit of God).
22. As a man remains unchanged in his sleep, whether he be
dreaming or enjoying his sound rest; so the spirit continues
alike in its intellect, whether it is in the act of creation or annihilation.
23. As the ideal world appears to be calm and quiet, both
in the dream of the dreamer, as well as in the sound sleep of
the sleeper; so this visible world of ours is ever viewed in its
calmness, in the tranquil spirit of the Lord and of the contemplative
saint.
24. Hence I do not recognize the existence of a vacuum or
sky, any where and independent of our soul; nor can we expect the
same sphere appearing in the souls of others, as it does in ours
according to our view of it.
25. If we can perceive the light of our intellect, even at the
-----File: 596.png---------------------------------------------------------
point of our death, and disappearance of the world from us;
why should we not conceive the same to be the case with
others, and that they do not perceive the same intellectual
light also in their consciousness. (This is an evidence of the
immortality in our souls).
26. The Pupil rejoined:--If such is the case, that others
who are awake, have the same view of the world, as the dreamer
has in his dream; then I believe that all those that are
living, have the same view of the world as those that are dying,
(i. e. A mere faint idea of it and not a substantial one).
27. The preceptor replied:--So it is, O my intelligent lad,
the world then does not appear in its real form (of a solid body
to the dreamer and the dying), as it appears as a reality to the
intellects of others (that are waking and living). Idealism
presents the true picture of the world.
28. The world does not appear and is not anything, and
nothing that is real or has any reality in it; it is a mere
reflexions[**reflexion]
of the intellect, and there can be no reality in our false
sight of it.
29. It is apparent everywhere, and seems to be in every
way at all times; but it does not exist [in reality] in any way[**space
added],
anywhere or at any time[**space added].
30. And because it is both the real and unreal form of
Brahma, it is both a reality as well as unreality likewise; and
being of the intellectual void, is never destructible nor ever
destroyed.
31. The vacuous entity of the supreme intellect, which exhibits
the phenomena of creation and its destruction (in repeated
rotation), abounds with our misery only, if we attend to its
occurrences with any degree of concern; but it does not affect
us at all, if we can but remain altogether unconcerned with its
casualties.
32. All these appearances exist every where at all times, in
the same manner as they appear to the ignorant; but in truth,
they appear in no where, in any manner or at any time to the
wise and learned, (who know the nature of worldly delusions).
33. It is the one self-same Being that appears as a god in
-----File: 597.png---------------------------------------------------------
one place, and as a pot or clod in another. Here he is, seen as
a hill and there as a rill or dale; He is an arbour here, of furze
or bush there, and the spreading grass in another. He is the
moving and movable some where and the unmoving and
unmovably[**unmovable]
else where; and He is the fire and all other elements
also everywhere.
34. He is entity and nonentity, and both vacuity and solidity
also; He is action and duration, and the earth and sky
likewise. He is the being and not being, and their growth and
their destruction likewise, and He is good as well as the evil,
that attends on one and forefends another.
35. There is nothing that is not He, who though one is
always all things in all places; He is in and out of everything,
and extends along the beginning, middle and end of all things.
He is eternity and duration and the three divisions of time also;
(i. e. the present, past and future, called the triple time).
36. He is all, and existent in all things, in all places and
times; and yet He is not the All, and neither existing with
anything at any time or place; (but is but dimly seen in these
His lowest works. Milton).
37. Know now, Ráma, that Brahma being the universal soul,
He is all in all places and times; and because Brahma is the
conscious soul, He exhibits all things to our consciousness, as if
they were images in our dreams or the creatures of our imagination.
(i. e. A corporeal God only can form a formal and plastic
world; but the intellectual soul of God, can make only a
formless and immaterial creation, as we see in our dream and
phantasies).
38. The maker of the terrene world, must have an earthly
body; and the framer of the woody arbours must have a wooden
frame, but the Lord God of all, has neither a corporeal body nor
a material shape. (Thus they frame a fire, air and water
God, but the true God is none of these elements).
39. Others make a mountain God as the Lord of all; and
some even make and worship a human figure as the supreme
God: (and so are all the heathen Gods represented in human
figures).
-----File: 598.png---------------------------------------------------------
40. Some make a picture the Lord and maker of all; and
others make some image as such, and worship it as the great
God of all.
41. But there is only one supreme Being, who is the maker,
supporter and the Lord God of all others; He is without beginning
and end, and the Lord Brahma, whose spirit upholds and
supports all others.
42. A straw made image or an earthen not, is attributed with
divine powers, and represented as the Most high; and so the
formless God is shown in frail images, which are made and destroyed
by human hands.
43. An outward object is made the actor and enjoyer of
acts; but the wise know intelligence only, as the active and
passive agent of all actions.
44. But the truly wise[**deleted '.'] (i. e. the vacuist) acknowledges no
active nor passive agent of creation; although many among the
wise (i. e. the Páshupatas) recognize one God alone, as the only
actor, and enjoyer of all.
45. All these views may be probable, and well apply to the
most high, who is the sole object of all these theories; and
as there is nothing, which can be positively affirmed or denied of
Him. (Here the vacuist Vasishtha is a tolerator of all faiths,
as suited to the capacities of the different understanding of
men).
46. All these believers look to their desired objects, as manifest
to their view in the vacuous space of their intellects, and
by viewing the whole world in themselves, they remain undecayed
at all times.
47. All visibles and all laws and prohibitions, together with
all desires and designs of men; are confined with their knowledge
of them in themselves. Hence those that are true to
their faiths, and firm in the observance of their duties and performance
of their acts, are verily of the nature of the divine
soul, by their viewing all nature in themselves.
48. This very doctrine was inculcated to [**[you]] before, when you
had been a pupil under my preceptorship; but as you could
not fully comprehend it then, you are doomed to another birth,
-----File: 599.png---------------------------------------------------------
to learn it again from me. (Vasishth[**Vasishtha] means to say that he is
immortal, though Ráma may have his transmigration in many
incarnations).
49. The world representing the longsome[**space removed] dark and
dreary
winter night, presents the pure light of knowledge, shining
with the serene and cooling beams of the autumnal lunar disk;
now O Ráma! as you [**[are]] edified by your pure intelligence, shake
off the dross of dull ignorance from you, and continue in the
discharge of your duties, as they have lineally descended to
you and to your royal race.
50. Do you remain released from your attachment, to all
things of this temporal world; and relying solely in the One
supreme and universal soul, whose pure nature is
preceptible[**perceptible]
throughout all nature; then be as lucid as the pellucid sky,
with the peace of your mind and transfort[**transport] of your soul, and
learn to rule your realm with justice and equity.



Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 




( My humble salutations to Brahmasri Sreemaan Vihari Lala Mitra ji for the collection)




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