CHAPTER CLXXVIII. Brahma-Gíta. Narrative of Aindava.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Argument:—The formlessness of the world, for its formation from the formless mind.
Ráma rejoined:—The world is known to consist of two sorts of beings, namely the corporeal or solid substances and the incorporeal or subtile essences.
2. They are styled the subtile ones, which do not strike against one another; and those again are said to be solid things, which push and dash against each other.
3. Here we see always the dashing of one solid body against another; but know nothing of the movement of subtile bodies, or of their coming in contact with another.
4. We know yet something, about the quick motion of our subtile senses to their respective objects, and without coming in contact with them, as we find in our perception of the distant orb of the moon (without touching it).
5. I repudiate the theory of the half-enlightened, who maintain the material world to be the production of the will or imagination; nor can I believe that the immaterial intellect, can either produce or guide the material body.
6. It is the will I ween, that the material breath of life, moves the living body to and fro; but tell me sir, what is that power which propels, the living breath both in and out of the beings.
7. Tell me sir, how the intangible intellect moveth the tangible body; and carries it about, as a porter bears a load all about.
8. Should the subtile intellect, be capable of moving the solid body at its will; then tell me sir, why cannot a man move a mountain also by his own will?
9. Vasishtha replied:—It is the opening and closing of the mouth of the aorta in the breast, that lets in and out the vital breath, through the passage of its hole and the lungs.
10. As you see the bellows of ironsmiths about you, having a hollow inside them, so it is the hollow of the aorta, which lets in and out the vital air, by the breathing of the heart.
11. Ráma rejoined:—It is true that the ironsmith closes and expands the valves of the bellows; but tell me sir, what power blows the wind pipe of the heart, and lets the air in and out of the inner lungs.
12. How the single breath of inhalation becomes a centuple (in order to pass into a hundred channels of the arteries), and how these hundreds combine again into one (in their exhalation); and why are some as sensible beings, and others as insensible as woods and stones.
13. Tell me sir, why the immovables have no oscillation at all; and why the moving bodies alone are possessed of their pulsation and mutation (and why ＜is＞ the vegetable creation deprived of motion, when it is possessed of sensibility in common with the animal creation).
14. Vasishtha replied:—There is an internal percipience (inner man), which moves the interior cords of the body; just as the ironsmith plies his bellows in the sight of men.
15. Ráma rejoined:—Say sir, how is it possible for the subtile and intactile soul, to move the vital airs and tangible entrails in the animal body.
16. If it be possible for the imperceptible perceptive soul, to put in motion the intestinal and tactual entrails of the body; then it may be equally possible for the thirsty soul, to draw the distant water to it. (In order to quench its thirst, instead of going to the watery pool).
17. If it be possible for the tangible and intangible, to come together in mutual contact at their will; then what is the use of the active and passive organs of action (if the will alone be effective of any purpose).
18. As the intangible powers of the soul or spirit, bear no connection whatever with the outward objects of the world; some think they can have no effect on the internal organs of the body (in putting them to action). So please explain it more fully to me.
19. Tell me, how you yogis perceive the outward corporeal things in your inner incorporeal souls; and how your formless souls, can have any command over or any contact with solid bodies.
20. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me tell you for rooting out all your doubts, and these words will not only be pleasing to your ears, but give you a conception of the unity of all things.
21. There is nothing here, at any time, what you call as a solid substance or tangible body, but all is a wide and extended vacuum of the rare and subtile spirit.
22. This spirit is of the nature of the pure Intelligence, quite calm and intangible; and all material things as the earth, are as visionary as our dreams, and the creatures of imagination.
23. There was nothing in the beginning, nor shall there be anything at the end; for want of a cause for its creation or dissolution; the present existence is an illusion, as any fleeting shape and shadow appearing before the dreaming mind.
24. The earth and sky, the air and water, and the hills and rivers that appear to sight; are lost sight of by the abstracted yogi; who by means of his abstraction, sees them in their ideal and intangible forms.
25. The outer elements and their inner perceptions, the earth, the wood and stones; are all but empty ideas of the intellect, which is the only real substratum of the ideas, and there is no reality besides.
26. Attend now to the narrative of Aindava, in elucidation of this doctrine; this will not fail to gratify your ears, though I have once before related this to you. (In the former narration the world was identified with the mind, and here it is represented as identical with the Intellect itself).
27. Attend yet to the present narration, which I am going to relate in answer to your question; and whereby you will come to know these hills and others, to be identic with your intellect.
28. There lived once in days of yore, a certain Bráhman in some part of the world, who was known under the name of Indu, and was famed for his religious austerities and observance of vedic ceremonies.
29. He had ten sons by whom he was surrounded like the world by its ten sides (of the compass); who were men of great souls, of magnanimous spirits, and were revered by all good and great men.
30. In course of time the old father met with his demise, and departed from his ten sons as the eleventh Rudra, at the time of the dissolution of the world.
31. His chaste wife followed his funeral (by concremation), for fear of the miseries of widowhood; just as the evening twilight follows like a faithful bride, the departing daylight with the evening star shining upon her forehead (in token of the vermeil spot on women’s forehead).
32. The sons then performed the funeral ceremonies, and in sorrow for their deceased sire, they left their home and domestic duties and retired to the woods for holy devotion.
33. They practiced the best method for the intensity of their attention, and which is best calculated to secure the consummation of their devotion; and was the constant reflection of their identity with Brahma (in the formula we are the lords of all, about us).
34. Thinking so in themselves, they sat in lotus like posture; and wishing to gain the knowledge of the unity of all things, they did what you shall be glad to learn from me.
35. They thought they sustained in them the whole world, which is presided over by the lotus-born Brahmá; and believed themselves to be transformed, to the form of the mundane God in an instant.
36. Believing themselves as Brahma, they sat long with the thought of supporting the world; and remained all along with their closed eyes, as if they were mere figures in painting.
37. With this belief they remained fixed and steady at the same spot, and many a month and year glided over their heads and motionless bodies.
38. They were reduced to dry skeletons, parts of which were beaten and devoured by rapacious beasts; and some of their ＜limbs＞ were at once severed and disappeared from their main bodies, like parts of a shadow by the rising sun.
39. Yet they continued to reflect that they were the God Brahmá and his creation also, and the world with all its parts, were contained in themselves (i.e. They considered themselves as Virát the form of macrocosm).