CHAPTER XXIX.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
117. The god replied:—Hear me, O Brahman, that art best acquainted with the knowledge of Brahma; tell you about the best mode of worshipping the gods, and the performance of which is sure to set the worshipper free. (From the bonds of the world all at once).
118. Tell me first, O great armed Brahman, if you know at all who is that god, whom you make the object of your worship, if it be not the lotus-eyed Vishnu or the three-eyed Siva neither.
119. It is not the god born of the lotus Brahmá, nor he who is the lord of the thirteen classes of god—the great Indra himself; it is not the god of winds—Pavana, nor the god of fire, nor the regents of the sun and moon.
120. The Brahman (called an earthly god bhudeva) is no god at all, nor the king called the shadow of god, is any god likewise, neither I or thou—the ego and tu (or the subjective self and objective unself) are gods; nor the body or any embodied being, or the mind or any conception or creation of the mind is the true god also.
121. Neither Laxmí the goddess of fortune, nor Sarasvatí the goddess of intelligence are true goddesses, nor is there any one that may be called a god, except the one unfictitious god, who is without beginning and end, that is the true god. (The Viswasaratantra of Siva treats of the one infinite and eternal God).
122. How can a body measured by a form and its dimensions, or having a definite measure be the immeasurable deity! it is the inartificial and unlimited Intellect, that is known as the Siva or the felicitous one.
123. It is that which is meant by the word God—Deva—Deus, and that is the object of adoration; that is the only ens or on, est or Esteor Esten, out of which all other beings have proceeded, and in which they have their existence, and wherein they subsist with their formal parts.
124. Those unacquainted with the true nature of the felicitous Siva, worship the formal idols and images; as a weary traveller thinks the distance of a mile, to be as long as the length of a league.
125. It is possible to have the reward of one's adoration of the Rudras and other gods; but the reward of the meditation of the true God, is the unbounded felicity of the soul.
126. He who forsakes the reward of true felicity, for that of fictitious pleasures; is like one who quits a garden of mandara flower, and repairs to a furze of thorny karanja plants.
127. The true worshippers know the purely intellectual and felicitous Siva, to be the only adorable god; to whom the understanding and tranquillity and equanimity of the soul are, the most acceptable offerings than wreaths of flowers.
128. Know that to be the true worship of God, when the Deity of the spirit (or spiritual Divinity), is worshipped with the flowers of the understanding and tranquillity of the spirit. (Worship God in spirit and with the contriteness of thy spirit).
129. The soul is of the form of consciousness (and is to be worshipped as such), by forsaking the adoration of idols; Those that are devoted to any form of fictitious cult, are subject to endless misery.
130. Those knowing the knowable one are called as saints; but those who slighting the meditation of the soul, betake themselves to the adoration of idols, are said to liken little boys playing with their dolls.
131. The Lord Siva is the spiritual god, and the supreme cause of all; He is to be worshipped always and without fail, with the understanding only. (So the sruti: The vipras adore him in their knowledge, but others worship him with sacrifices &c.)
132. You should know the soul as the intellectual and living spirit, undecaying as the very nature herself; there is no other that is to be worshipped, the true puja is the worship of the spirit. (God is to be worshipped in spirit only).
133. Vasishtha said:—The soul being of the nature of intellectual void, as this world is an empty void also; please tell me, my lord, how the Intellect could become the living soul etc., as you have declared.
134. The god replied:—There being an only vacuous Intellect in existence, which is beyond all limit; it is impossible for an intelligible object to exist anywhere which may continue to all eternity. (The subjective only is self-existent, and the objective is a nullity; it being impossible for two self-existent things to co-exist together).
135. That which shines of itself, is the self-shining Being; and it is the self or spontaneous agitation of that Being, which has stretched out the universe.
136. Thus the world appears as a city in dream before the intellectual soul, and this soul is only a form of the inane intellect, and this world is but a baseless fabric.
137. It is altogether impossible for aught of the thinkables and visibles, to exist anywhere except in the empty sphere of the intellect, and whatever shone forth in the beginning in the plenitude of the Divine intellect, the same is called its creation or the world from the first.
138. Therefore this world which shows itself in the form of a fairy land in dream, is only an appearance in the empty sphere of the intellect; and cannot be any other in reality.
139. The Intellect is the human speech, and the firmament that supports the world; the intellect becomes the soul and the living principle, and it is this which forms the chain of created beings. (The seeming appearances being null and void; the Intellect is all and everything).
140. Tell me, what other thing is there that could know all things in the beginning and before creation of the universe, except it were the Intellect which saw and exhibited everything, in heaven and earth as contained in itself.
141. The words sky, firmament, and the vacuum of Brahma and the world, are all applicable to the Intellect, as the words arbour and tree are but synonymous expressions for the same thing.
142. And as both our dreams and desires arise in us by our delusion, so it is our illusion only which makes us perceive the existence of the outer world; in the empty space of the intellect.
143. And as it is our empty consciousness, that shows the sight of the external world in our dream; so it is that very thing that shows us the same, in the waking dream of ourselves.
144. As it is not possible for the city in a dream, to be represented any where except in the hollow space of our intellect; so it is impossible for the waking dream of the world, to be shown elsewhere except in the emptiness of the same.
145. As it is not possible for any thing that is thinkable to exist any where except in the thinking mind, so it is impossible for this thinkable world to exist any other place beside the divine mind.
146. The triple world rose of itself at the will and in the empty space of the supreme Intellect, as it was a dream rising and setting in the self same mind, and not as any thing other than it, or a duality beside itself.
147. As one sees the diverse appearances of ghatas and patas, pots and painting in his dream, and all lying within the hollowness of his mind; so the world appears of itself, in the vacuity of the Divine Intellect, at the beginning of creation.
147a. As there is no substantiality of anything in the fairy land of one's dream, except his pure consciousness of the objects; so there is no substantiality of the things which are seen in this triple world, except our consciousness of them.
148. What ever is visible to sight, and all that is existent and inexistent, in the three times of the present, past and future; and all space, time and mind, are no other than appearances of vacuous intellect (of Brahma).
149. He is verily the god of whom I have told you, who is supreme in the highest degree (lit. in its transcendental sense). Who is all and unbounded and includes me, thee and the endless world in Himself.
150. The bodies of all created beings, of thine, mine, and others, and of all in this world, are all full with the intellectuality of the supreme soul and no other.
151. As there is nothing, O sage, except the bodies that are produced from the vacuous intellect or intellectual vacuity of Brahma, and resembling the images produced in the fairy land of one's dream; so there is no form or figure in this world, other than what was made in the beginning of creation.