CHAPTER XI. CAUSE OF THE PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. The dead are undying, (because they die to be born again), and the living are not living, (because they live but to die at last). Thus is the law of their mutual succession which nothing can forefend or alter.
41. As water is universally the same and transparent in its nature, so is the all pervading spirit of God, pure and holy in every place.
42. It is this one and self-same spirit which is the body of God, that is called the transparent Brahma. It is omnipotent and everlasting, and constitutes the whole world appearing as distinct from it.
43. The many wonderful powers that it contains, are all active in their various ways. The several powers productive of several ends, are all contained in that same body. All the natural and material forces, have the Divine spirit for their focus.
44. Brahmá was produced in Brahma as the billow is produced in the water, and the male and female are produced from the neuter Brahma, changed to and forming both of them.
45. That which is called the world, is only an attribute of Brahmá; and there is not the slightest difference between Brahmá and the world. (The one being a fac-simile of the original Mind).
46. Verily this plenitude is Brahma, and the world is no other than Brahma himself. Think intently upon this truth and shun all other false beliefs (of the creator and created, and the like).
47. There is one eternal law, that presides over all things, and this one law branches forth into many, bringing forth a hundred varieties of effects. The world is a congeries of laws, which are but manifestations of the Almighty power and omniscience. (Therefore says the psalmist: “Blessed is he, who meditates on his laws day and night”—O bhi Turat Jehovah hefzo yomam olaila).
48. Both the inert and active (matter and life), proceed from the same; and the mind proceeds from the intellect—chit of God. The various desires are evolved by the power of the mind, from their exact prototypes in the Supreme soul.
49. It is Brahmá therefore, O sinless Ráma! that manifests itself in the visible world; and is full with various forms, as the sea with all its billows and surges.
50. It assumes to itself all varieties of forms by its volition of evolution or the will of becoming many; and it is the spirit that displays itself in itself and by itself (of its own causality); as the sea water displays its waves in its own water and by itself.
51. As the various waves are no other than the sea water, so all these phenomena are not different from the essence of the lord of the world.
52. As the same seed developes itself in the various forms of its branches and buds, its twigs and leaves, and its fruits and flowers; so the same almighty seed evolves itself in the multifarious varieties of creation.
53. As the strong sun light, displays itself in variegated colours in different bodies; so does Omnipotence, display itself in various vivid colours, all of which are unreal shades. (Urdu: O leken chamakta hai har rang men.—It is His light, that shines in all colours).
54. As the colourless cloud receives in its bosom, the variety of transient hues displayed in the rainbow; so the inscrutable spirit of the Almighty, reflects and refracts the various colours displayed in creation. (Shines in the stars, glows in the sun &c. Pope).
55. From the active agent, proceed the inert matter and inactivity without a secondary cause; as the active spider produces the passive thread, and the living man brings upon him, his dull torpor in sleep. (So the active spirit of God, brings forth inertia and inactive matter, out of itself into being. The laws of statics as well as dynamics both subsist in the energy of the spirit).
56. Again the Lord makes the mind to produce matter for its own bondage only; as he makes the silkworm weave its own sheathing for its confinements alone. (So the mind maketh its material equipage, for its own imprisonment in the world).
57. The mind forgets its spiritual nature of its own will; and makes for itself a strong prison house (of its earthly possessions), as the silkworm weaves its own coating.
58. But when the mind inclines to think of its spiritual nature by its own free will; it gets its release from the prison-house of the body and bondage in the world; as a bird or beast is released from its cage, and the big elephant let loose from his fetters and the tying post.
59. The mind gradually moulds itself into the form, which it constantly thinks upon in itself; and it derives from within itself, the power to be what it wishes to become. (Constant thought brings about its end. Yádrisí bhávaná yasya &c.).
60. The long sought power when acquired, becomes as familiar to the soul, as the dark clouds are attendant upon the sky in the rainy-season.
61. The newly obtained power is assimilated with its recipient, as the virtue of every season is manifested in its effect upon the trees, (i.e. in the season fruits and flowers).
62. There is no bondage nor liberation of human soul, nor of the Divine Spirit. We cannot account for the use of these words among mankind. (These terms apply to the mind which is bound and freed, and not to the soul which is ever free).
63. There is no liberation nor bondage of the soul, which is the same with the Divine. It is this delusive world which shows the immortal soul under the veil of mortality, or as eclipsed by and under the shadow of temporary affairs.
64. It is the unsteady mind, which has enwrapped the steady soul, under the sheath of error; as the coverlet of the silkworm, covers the dormant worm.
65. All other bondages which bind the embodied soul to earth, are the works of the mind, which is the root of all worldly ties and affections.
66. All human affections and attachments to the visible world, are born in and remain in the mind; although they are as distinct from it, as the waves of the sea or as the beams of the moon; are produced from and contained in their receptacles.
67. It is the Supreme spirit, which is stretched out as one universal ocean, agitated into myriads of its waves and billows. The Intellect itself is spread out as the water of the universal ocean, containing everything that is aqueous and terrene in its infinite bosom.
68. All those that appear as Brahmá, Vishnu and Rudras, as also they that have become as gods, and those that are called men and male creatures:—
68.—(1). Are all as the waves of the sea, raised spontaneously by the underlying spirit; and so are Yama, Indra, the sun, fire, Cuvera and the other deities.
68.—(2). So too are the Gandharvas and Kinnaras, the Vidyádharas and the other gods and demigods, that rise and fall or remain for a while like the breakers of the sea.
68.—(3). They rise and fall as waves on every side, though some continue for a longer duration, as the lotus-born Brahmá and others.
68.—(4). Some are born to die in a moment, as the petty gods and men; and others are dead no sooner they are born as the ephemerids and some worms.
69. Worms and insects, gnats and flies and serpents and huge snakes, rise in the great ocean of the Divine Spirit, like drops of water scattered about by waves of the sea.
70. There are other moving animals as men and deer, vultures and jackals, which are produced on land and mountains, in woods and forests and in marshy grounds.
71. Some are long lived and others living for a short duration; some living with higher aims and ambitions, and others with no other care than that of their contemptible bodies, or self-preservation only.
72. Some think of their stability in this world of dreams, and others are betrayed by their false hope of the stability of worldly affairs, which are quite unstable. (So in Persian Daregá jehán rá baquina didam).
73. Some that are subjected to penury and poverty, have little to effect in their lives; and always torment themselves with the thoughts, that they are poor and miserable, weak and ignorant.
74. Some are born as trees, and others have become as gods and demigods; and while some are furnished with moving bodies, others are dissolved as water in the sea.
75. Some are no less durable than many kalpas (as the land and sea and mountains &c.); and others return to the Supreme Spirit, by the moonlike purity of their souls. All things have risen from the oceanlike Spirit of Brahma, like its moving undulations. It is the intellectual consciousness of every body that is termed his mind.