CHAPTER XXI. Guide to Peace.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
Soon after the insensibility occasioned by one’s death is over, there appears to him (soul) the sight of the world, as he viewed it with his open eyes when he was living.
2. It presents before him the circle of the sky and its sides with the cycle of its seasons and times, and shows him the deeds of his pious and secular acts, as they were to continue to eternity.
3. Objects never seen nor thought of before, also offer themselves to his view, as the sight of his own death in a dream, and as they were the prints in his memory.
4. But the infinity of objects, appearing in the empty sphere of the immaterial intellect, is mere illusion, and the baseless city of the world, like an aerial castle, is but the creation of imagination.
5. It is the remembrance of the past world, that makes it known to us (because it is impossible to recognise any thing without a previous impression of its kind in the mind). Hence the length of a kalpa age and the shortness of a moment, are but erroneous impressions proceeding from the rapidity and slowness of our thoughts.
6. Therefore knowledge, based upon previous notions or otherwise, is of two kinds, and things known without their cause, are attributed to Divine Intelligence (as the hidden cause of all).
7. We are conscious also of thoughts, unthought of before in our minds, as we often have in our dreams; and think of our parents after their demise by mistake of other persons as such.
8. Sometimes genius supercedes the province of memory, as in the first creation or discovery of a thing, which is afterwards continued by its remembrance.
9. According to some, those visible worlds are said to have remained in their ideal state in the Divine mind; and according to others, that there were no pre-existent notions of these in the mind of God.
10. According to some others, the world manifested itself not from the memory, but by the power and will of God; while others maintain it to be the production of a fortuitous combination, of intelligence and atomic principles on a sudden (Kákatálíya sanyoga).
11. It is the entire forgetfulness of the world, which is styled liberation, and which can not be had from attachment to what is desirable or aversion of the undesirable.
12. It is difficult to effect an entire negation, both of one’s subjective as well as objective knowledge of his self, and the existence of the outer world; and yet no body can be freed without obliteration of both.
13. As the fallacy of taking a rope for a snake, is not removed until the meaning of the world snake, is known to be inapplicable to the rope; so no one can have rest and peace of his mind, unless he is convinced of the illusive nature of the world.
14. One party, who is at peace with himself (by his abandonment of the world), can not be wholly at rest without divine knowledge; as the ghost of his inward ignorance, may overtake him after his getting rid of the devil of worldliness.
15. The world is certainly a monster in itself without the knowledge of its Author; but the difficulty of knowing the first cause, has rendered it an impassable wilderness.
16. Lílá said:—If reminiscence be the cause of one’s reproduction, then say, O goddess! what were the causes of the birth of the Bráhmanic pair, without the vestiges of their past remembrance.
17. The goddess replied:—Know that Brahmá the first progenitor of mankind, who was absolute in himself, did not retain any vestige of his past remembrance in him.
18. The first born, who had nothing to remember of a prior birth, was born in the lotus with his own intelligence—chaitanya; (and not because of his remembrance).
19. The lord of creatures being thus born by chance of his own genius or creative power, and without any assignable cause or design on his part, reflected within himself “now I am become another and the source of creation.”
20. Whatever is thus born of itself, is as it were nothing and never produced at all, but remained as the absolute intellect itself in nubibus (chinnabhas).
21. It is the Supreme being that is the sole cause of both states of reminiscence (i.e. the one caused by vestiges of prior impressions, and the other produced by prior desires); and both the conditions of cause and effect combine in Him in the sphere of his intellect.
22. Thus it is the knowledge of the union of the cause and effect, and the auxiliary cause in Him, that gives us our tranquillity and naught otherwise.
23. Causality and consequence are mere empty words of no significance, since it is the recognition of the universal intellect, which constitutes true wisdom.
24. Hence nothing is produced that is seen in the phenomenal, or known in the noumenal or intellectual world (Chid-jagat); but every thing is situated within the space of the sphere of the intellect in one’s own soul.
25. Lílá said:—O! wonderful was the sight thou hast shown me, O goddess; it was a fair prospect of the world as in its morning light, and as brilliant as in the glare of a lightning.
26. Now goddess! deign to satisfy my curiosity, until I become conversant with it by my intense application and study.
27. Kindly take me to that dwelling where the Bráhman pair dwelt together, and show me that mountainous spot of their former residence.
28. The goddess replied:—If you want to see that sight, you shall have to be immaculate, by forsaking the sense of your personality (mana or meum), and betaking yourself to the clairvoyance or clear sightedness of seeing the unintelligible Intellect (achetya-chit) within the soul.
29. You shall then find yourself in a vacuous atmosphere (vyomátman), and situated in the sky (nabhas-nubibus), resembling the prospects of earthly men, and the apartments of the firmament (i.e. all nil and void).
30. In this state we shall be able to see them with all their possessions without any obstruction; otherwise this body is a great barrier in the way of spiritual vision.
31. Lílá said:—Tell me kindly, O goddess! the reason, why do we not see the other world with these eyes, nor go there with these bodies of ours.
32. The goddess replied:—The reason is that you take the true futurity for false, and believe the untrue present as true. For these worlds which are formless, appear as having forms to your eyes, as you take the substance gold in its form of a ring.
33. Gold though fashioned as a circlet, has no circularity in it; so the spirit of God appearing in the form of the world, is not the world itself.
34. The world is a vacuity full with the spirit of God; and whatever else is visible in it, is as the dust appearing to fly over the sea. (Hence called máyá or illusion of vision, as specks peopling the summer skies).
35. This illusory quintessence of the world is all false, the true reality being the subjective Brahma alone; and in support of this truth we have the evidence of our guides in Vedánta philosophy, and the conviction of our consciousness.
36. The Brahma believer sees Brahma alone and no other anywhere, and he looks to Brahma through Brahma himself, as the creator and preserver of all, and whose nature includes all other attributes in itself.
37. Brahma is not known only as the author of his work of the creation of worlds, but as existent of himself without any causation or auxiliary causality (i.e. as neither the creator or created, nor supporter of nor supported by another).
38. Until you are trained by your practice of Yoga, to rely in one unity, by discarding all duality and variety in your belief, so long you are barred from viewing Brahma in his true light.
39. Being settled in this belief of unity, we find ourselves by our constant practice of Yoga communion, to rest in the Supreme spirit.
40. We then find our bodies mixing with the air as an aerial substance, and at last come to the sight of Brahma with these our mortal frames.