CHAPTER LIII.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
39. By this means you will be awakened to light, by your knowledge of the supreme; and when you come to comprehend the Infinite in yourself, you shall have no more to be born in any mortal form.
40. When you are acquainted with the knowledge of the knowable soul, then will your soul find its refuge in eternal soul of Hari, who absorbs all souls in him.
41. When I tell you that this is I and I am that, mind that I mean to say that, this and that is the Ego of the supreme soul, which I assume to myself for your instruction.
42. I understand you to be enlightened to truth, and to rest in the state of supreme felicity; and now that you are freed from all your temporal desires, I wish you to be one with the true and holy spirit.
43. View in yourself the soul of all beings and those beings themselves; think your own self or soul as the microcosm of the great universe, and be tolerant and broad sighted in your practice of Yoga. (The word Sama darsi, here rendered broad sighted, means one who sees every[one] in one and [the] same light; whence it is synonymous with universal benevolence and fellow feeling).
44. He who worships the universal soul that resides in all beings, as the one self-same and undivided spirit; is released from the doom of repeated births, whether he leads a secular or holy life in this world.
45. The meaning of the word "all" is unity (in its collective sense), and the meaning of the word "one" is the unity of the soul; as in the phrase "All is one" it is meant to say that the whole universe is collectively but one soul. (The soul also is neither a positive entity, nor a negative non-entity, but it is as it is known in the spirit (of the form of ineffable light and delight).)
46. He who shines as light within the minds of all persons, and dwells in the inward consciousness or percipience of every being, is no other than the very soul that dwells within myself also.
47. That which is settled in shape of savour in the waters all over the three worlds. (i.e. in the earth, heaven, and underneath the ground); and what gives flavour to the milk, curd and the butter of the bovine kind, and dwells as sapidity in the marine salt and other saline substances, and imparts its sweetness to saccharine articles, the same is this savoury soul, which gives a gust to our lives, and a good taste to all the objects of our enjoyment.
48. Know your soul to be that percipience, which is situated in the hearts of all corporeal beings, whose rarity eludes our perception of it, and which is quite removed from all perceptibles; and is therefore ubiquitous in every thing and omnipresent every where.
49. As the butter is inbred in all kinds of milk, and the sap of all sappy substances is inborn in them, so the supreme soul is intrinsical and immanent in every thing.
50. As all the gems and pearls of the sea, have a lustre inherent in them, and which shines forth both in their inside and outside; so the soul shines in and out of every body without being seated in any part of it, whether in or out or where about it.
51. As the air pervades both in the inside and outside of all empty pots, so the spirit of God is diffused in and about all bodies in all the three worlds. (This is the meaning of omnipresence).
52. As hundreds of pearls are strung together by a thread in the necklace, so the soul of God extends through and connects these millions of beings, without its being known by any. (This all connecting attribute of God, is known as sútrátmá in the Vedánta).
53. He who dwells in the hearts of every body in the world, commencing from Brahma to the object grass that grows on the earth; the essence which is common in all of them, is the Brahma the unborn and undying.
54. Brahmá is a slightly developed form of Brahma, and resides in the spirit of the great Brahma, and the same dwelling in us, makes us conceive of our egoism by mistake of the true Ego.
55. The divine soul being manifest in the form of the world, say what can it be that destroys or is destroyed in it; and tell me, Arjuna, what can it be that is subject to or involved in pleasure or pain.
56. The divine soul is as a large mirror, showing the images of things upon its surface, like reflexions on the glass; and though these reflexions disappear and vanish in time, yet the mirror of the soul is never destroyed, but looks as it looked before.
57. When I say I am this and not the other (of my many reflexions in a prismatic glass, or of my many images in many pots of water), I am quite wrong and inconsistent with myself; so is it to say, that the human soul is the spirit or image of God, and not that of any other being, when the self-same Divine spirit is present and immanent in all. (The catholic spirit of the Hindu religion, views all beings to partake of the Divine spirit, which is in all as in a prismatic glass).
58. The revolutions of creation, sustentation and final dissolution, take place in an unvaried and unceasing course in the spirit of God, and so the feelings on surface of the waters of the sea. (Egoistic feelings rising from the boisterous mind, subside in the calmness of the soul).
59. As the stone is the constituent essence of rocks, the wood of trees and the water of waves; so is the soul the constituent element of all existence.
60. He who sees the soul (as inherent) in all substances, and every substance (to be contained) in the soul; and views both as the component of one another, sees the uncreating God as the reflector and reflexion of Himself.
61. Know Arjuna, the soul to be the integrant part of every thing, and the constituent element of the different forms and changes of things; as the water is of the waves, and the gold is of jewelleries. (The spirit of God is believed as the material cause of all).
62. As the boisterous waves are let loose in the waters, and the jewels are made of gold; so are all things existent in and composed of the spirit of God.
63. All material beings of every species, are forms of the Great Brahma himself; know this one as all, and there is nothing apart or distinct from him.
64. How can there be an independent existence, or voluntary change of anything in the world; where can they or the world be, except in the essence and omnipresence of God, and wherefore do you think of them in vain?
65. By knowing all this as I have told you, the saints live fearless in this world by reflecting on the supreme Being in themselves; they move about as liberated in their lifetime, with the equanimity of their souls.
66. The enlightened saints attain to their imperishable states, by being invincible to the errors of fiction, and unsubdued by the evils of worldly attachment; they remain always in their spiritual and holy states, by being freed from temporal desires, and the conflicts of jarring passions, doubts and dualities.