CHAPTER XIV. Establishment of Brahma.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. The mind that is gratified with intellectual delights, becomes as expanded as the intellect itself, and thinks those pleasures to constitute the sum total of worldly enjoyments.
41. The Intellect is said to remain unchanged in all its succeeding stages; and though it never changes from that state, yet it wakes (developes) by a power intrinsic in itself.
42. The uninterrupted activity of the Intellect, indulges itself in the amusement of manifesting the intelligibles in the form of the world (i.e. Of evolving the knowables from its own knowledge of them. Or it is the pleasure of the intellect to unfold the secrets of nature to view).
43. The extent of the intellectual faculty, is wider and more rarefied than the surrounding air, and yet it perceives its distinct egoism by itself and of its own nature. (The subjective knowledge of ego—self).
44. Its knowledge of self, springs of itself in itself like the water of a fountain; and it perceives itself (its ego) to be but an atom amidst the endless worlds.
45. It perceives also in itself the beautiful and wondrous world, which is amazing to the understanding, and which is thereafter named the universe. (i.e. The one existing in the other and not without it: meaning, the soul to be the seat of both the subjective and objective knowledge).
46. Now Ráma, our egoism being but a conception of the intellect is a mere fiction (kalpaná); and the elementary principles being but creatures of egoism, they are also fictions of the intellect.
47. Again the living soul being but a resultant of our acts and desires, you have to renounce these causes, in order to get rid of your knowledge of ego and tu (i.e. of the existence of yourself and that of others); and then you attain to the knowledge of the true one, after discarding the fictions of the real and unreal.
48. As the sky looks as clear as ever, after the shadows of clouds are dispersed from it, so does the soul look as bright as it existed at first in the intellect, after its overshadowing fictions have been removed.
49. The universe is a vacuum, and the world is a name for the field of our exertions. This vacuity is the abode of the gods (Viswa and Viráj, both of whom are formless). The wonderful frame of plastic nature, is but a form of the formless intellect and no other.
50. What is one’s nature never leaves him at any time; how then can a form or figure be given to the formless Divinity?
51. The divine intellect is exempt from all the names and forms which are given to unintelligent worldly things, it being the pervader and enlivener, of all that shines in the world. (Intellect is the power of understanding).
52. The mind, understanding and egoism, with the elements, the hills and skies, and all things that compose and support the world, are made of the essences proceeding from the intellect. (The intellect from interlegere contains all things).
53. Know the world to compose the mind-chitta of the intellect-chit of God, because the mind does not subsist without the world. Want of the world would prove the inexistence of the mind and intellect which consist of the world. (Hence the identity of the intelligent world with the mind and intellect of God).
54. The intellect like the pepper seed, is possest of an exquisite property within itself, and bears like the flavour of the other, the element of the living soul, which is the element of animated nature.
55. As the mind exerts its power and assumes its sense of egoism, it derives the principle of the living soul from the Intellect, which with its breath of life and action, is called a living being afterwards. (The mind is what thinks, moves and acts).
56. The intellect (chit), exhibiting itself as the mind (chitta), bears the name of the purpose it has to accomplish, which being temporary and changeable, is different from the chit and a nullity. (The mind being the principle of volition, is applied also to the object of the will, as we say, I have a mind to play; which is equal to the expression, I have a playful mind: and this state of the mind being variable, is said to be null).
57. The distinction of actor and act, does not consist in the intellect, it being eternal, is neither the author or the work itself. But the living soul, which is active and productive of acts, is called the purusha or the embodied soul residing in the body—purau-sete. It is action which makes the man-purusha, from which is derived his manhood-paurusha.
58. Life with the action of the mind constitutes the mind of man. The mind taking a sensitive form, employs the organs of sense to their different functions. (The sensitivity of the mind bears an active and not the passive sense of sensitiveness or sensibility).
59. He, the radiance of the light of whose intellect, is the cause of infinite blessings to the world, is both its author and workmanship from all eternity, and there is none beside him. (He is the Pratyagátmá the all-pervading soul).
60. Hence the ego or living soul is indivisible, uninflammable, unsoilable and undriable in its essence; it is everlasting and infinite (ubiquious), and as immovable as a mountain. (The living soul is viewed in the light of the eternal soul).
61. There are many that dispute on this point, as they dispute on other matters, in their error, and mislead others into the same; but we are set free from all mistake. (The disputants are the dualists, who make a distinction between the eternal and created souls. (Jívátmá-paramátmá-dvaita-vádis)).
62. The dualist relying on the phenomena, is deceived by their varying appearances; but the believer in the formless unity, relies in the everlasting blessed spirit (which he views in his intellect).
63. Fondness for intellectual culture, is attended with the vernal blossoms of intellect, which are as white as the clear firmament, and as numberless as the parts of time.
64. The intellect exhibits itself in the form of the boundless and wonderful mundane egg, and it breathes out the breath of its own spirit in the same egg. (The breathing soul is called the sútrátmá one of the ten hypostases of Brahma, the vital air is the first of the elementary bodies, in the order of emanation alias creation).
65. It then showed itself in the wondrous form of the antimundane waters, not as they rise from springs or fall into reservoirs, as also in those of the substances constituting the bodies of the best of beings.
66. It next shone forth with its own intellectual light, which shines as bright as the humid beams of the full moon.
67. Then as the intellect rises in full light with its internal knowledge, upon disappearance of the visibles from sight; so also it is transformed to dullness by dwelling upon gross objects, when it is said to be lie dormant. In this state of the intellect, it is lowered to and confined in the earth.
68. The world is in motion by the force of the Intellect, in whose great vacuity it is settled; it is lighted by the light of that Intellect, and is therefore said to be both existent as well as inexistent by itself.
69. Like the vacuity of that Intellect, the world is said now to exist and now to be inexistent; and like the light of that Intellect, it now appears and now disappears from view.
70. Like the fleeting wind which is breathed by that Intellect, the world is now in existence and now inexistent; and like the cloudy and unclouded sphere of that Intellect, the world is now in being and now a not being.
71. Like the broad day light of that Intellect, the world is now in existence, and like the disappearance of that light, it now becomes nothing. It is formed like collyrium from the particles of the oil of the rajas quality of the Intellect.
72. It is the intellectual fire that gives warmth to the world, and it is the alabaster (conch) of the intellect that causes its whiteness; the rock of intellect gives it hardness, and its water causes its fluidity.
73. The sweetness of the world, is derived from the sugar of the intellect, and its juiciness from the milk in the divine mind; its coldness is from the ice, and its heat from the fire contained in the same. (i.e. The divine Intellect is the material cause (upádána kárana) of the world).
74. The world is oily by the mustard seeds contained in the Intellect; and billowy in the sea of the divine mind. It is dulcet by the honey and aureate by the gold contained in the same.
75. The world is a fruit of the tree of Intellect, and its fragrance is derived from the flowers growing in the arbour of the mind. It is the ens of the Intellect, that gives the world its entity, and it is the mould of the eternal mind, that gives its form.
76. The difference is, that this world is changeful, while the clear atmosphere of the Intellect has no change in it; and the unreal world becomes real, when it is seen as full of the Divine spirit.
77. The invariable self-sameness of the Divine spirit, makes the entity and non-entity of the world alike (because it has no existence of its own, but in the Supreme soul). And the words ‘part and whole’ are wholly meaningless, because both of these are full with the divine spirit.
78. Fie to them, that deride notions as false talk; because the world with its hills, and seas, earth and rivers, is all untrue without the notion of God’s presence in it. (The Buddhists are perceptionalists, and have no faith in any thing beyond their sensible perceptions (pratyaksha); but the Vedantic spiritualists, on the contrary, are abstract conceptionalists, and believe nothing to be true, of which they have no notion or inward conception).
79. The intellect being an unity, cannot be mistaken for a part of any thing; and though it may become as solid as a stone, yet it shines brightly in the sphere of its vacuity.[13]