CHAPTER XL. Reflections on Human Life and Mind.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
41. This minutely intelligent substance, is next joined with the five internal senses, which form its body, and which is otherwise called its spiritual body (átivahika or lingadeha).
42. This spiritual being by its long association with the external senses, comes to believe itself as a sensible being; and then by imagining to have the sensible form, it finds itself invested with a material body (ádhibhautika-deha) as beautiful as that of a lotus.
43. Then seated in the embryo, it reposes in a certain position for sometime, and inflated itself like the air, until it is fully expanded.
44. It then thinks itself to be fully developed in the womb, as a man dreams of a fairy form in his sleep, and believes this illusion as a reality.
45. He then views the outer world, where he is born to die, just as one visits a land where he is destined to meet his death; and there remains to relish its enjoyments, as prepared for him.
46. But the spiritual man soon perceives every thing as pure vacuum, and that his own body and this world are but illusions and vain vacuities.
47. He perceives the gods, and human habitations, the hills and the heavens resplendent with the sun and stars, to be no more than abodes of disease and debility, decay and ultimate death and destruction.
48. He sees nothing but a sad change in the natures of things, and all that is movable or immovable, great or small, together with the seas, hills and rivers and peoples of this earth and the days and nights, are all subject to decay sooner or later.
49. The knowledge that I am born here of this father, and that this is my mother, these my treasures, and such are my hopes and expectations, is as false as empty air.
50. That these are my merits and these my demerits, and these the desires that I had at heart; that I was a boy and am now young; are the airy thoughts of the hollow mind.
51. This world resembles a forest, where every being is like a detached arbor; the sable clouds are its leaves, and the stars its full blown flowers.
52. The walking men are as its restless deer, and the aerial gods and demons its birds of the air; the broad day light is the flying dust of its flowers, and the dark night the deep covert of its grove.
53. The seas are like its rills and fountains, and the eight boundary mountains as its artificial hills; the mind is the great tank in it, containing the weeds and shrubs of human thoughts in abundance.
54. Wherever a man dies, he is instantly changed to this state, and views the same things every where; and every one thus rises and falls incessantly, like the leaves of trees in this forest of the world.
55. Millions of Brahmás, Rudras, Indras, Maruts, Vishnus and Suns, together with unnumbered mountains and seas, continents and islands, have appeared and disappeared in the eternal course of the world.
56. Thus no one can count the numbers of beings that have passed away, are passing and shall have to pass hereafter, nor such as are in existence and have to become extinct in the unfathomable eternity of Brahma.
57. Hence it is impossible to comprehend the stupendous fabric of the universe any how except in the mind, which is as spacious as the infinite space itself, and as variable as the course of events in the world.
58. The mind is the vacuous sphere of the intellect, and the infinite sphere of the intellect, is the seat of the Supreme.
59. Now know the whirlpool and waves of the sea to be of the same element, as the sea in which they rise and fall, though they are not of the same durable nature as the sea water, by reason of their evanescence. So the phenomena are the same with the Noumena, though none of these is a reality.
60. The etherial sphere of heaven, is but a reflexion of the intellectual sphere of the Divine mind, and the bright orbs of the firmament, are as gems in the bosom of Brahma. Its concavity is the cave of the mind of the Eternal One.
61. The world according to the sense in which I take it, as the seat of God, is highly interesting, but not so in your sense of its being a sober reality. So the meaning of the words “I and thou,” refers according to me to the intellectual spirit, and according to you to the living soul and body.
62. Hence Lílá and Sarasvatí, being in their vacuous intellectual bodies, were led by the pure desire of their souls, to every place without any obstruction or interruption.
63. The intellectual spirit has the power, to present itself wherever it likes, on earth or in the sky, and before objects known or unknown and wished to be known by it. It was by this power that they could enter into the tent of the prince.
64. The intellect has its way to all places and things, over which it exercises its powers of observation, reflection and reasoning to their full extent. This is known as the spiritual and unconfined body (Átiváhika), whose course cannot be obstructed by any restriction whatever.