CHAPTER CXXII. Ascertainment of the Self or Soul.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. How can the unembodied soul be affected by the passions and feelings of the body? It is the ignorant and unintelligent only, that are subject to vain suspicions about unrealities.
41. The indestructible intellect of the unintelligent even, is not destroyed by the destruction of their bodies, how then should the intelligent be afraid of their dissolution?
42. The intellect is irresistible in its course, and roves about the solar path (ecliptic); it is the intellectual part that makes the man, and not the outward body. (Puri sete purushah; it is the inner soul that is called man).
43. The soul called the purusha or inner person, whether it abideth in the body or not, and whether it is intelligent or otherwise (rational or irrational), never dies upon the death of the body.
44. Whatever miseries you meet with, Ráma! in this transient world, all appertain to the body, and not to the intangible soul or intellect.
45. The intellectual soul being removed from the region of the mind (which is but an inward sense, and of the nature of vacuity, and not the grains of the brain composing the mind), is not to be approached by the pleasures and pains affecting the body and mind.
46. The soul that has curbed its earthly desires, flies to its seat in the spirit of Brahma, after the dissolution of its prison house of the body; in the same manner as the bee lying hid under the coverlet of the lotus petals in the darkness of the night, takes to its heavenward flight by the dawning light of the day.
47. If life is known to be frail, and the living state to be a transient scene, then say, O Ráma! what it is that is lost by loss of this prison-house of the body, and what is it that you mourn for?
48. Think therefore, O Ráma! on the nature of truth; and mind not about the errors of ignorance. Be freed from your earthly desires, and know the sinless soul to be void of all desires.
49. The intellectual soul being tranquil and transparent, and a mere witness of our doings, without any doing or desire of its own, receives the reflexion of the undesirous God, as a mirror reflects the images of things.
50. The soul being, as said before, a translucent particle, reflects the images of all worlds in itself; as a polished gem reflects the rays of light in its bosom.
51. The relation of the indifferent soul with the world, is like that of the mirror and its reflexions; the difference and identity of the soul and the world, are of the same kind.
52. As the activities of living beings, have a free play with the rising sun; so the duties of the world, are fully discharged by the rising of the intellect.
53. No sooner you get rid of your error of the substantiality of the world, than you shall come to the consciousness of its being a vacuum, resting in the spirit of God (which is the receptacle of infinite space, and whatever there appears in it).
54. As it is the nature of a lighted lamp to spread its lustre all around, so it is the nature of mental philosophy, to enlighten us with the real state of the soul.
55. The essence of the supreme soul gave rise to the mind (will) at first, which spread out the universe with its net work of endless varieties. It was as the sky issuing out of the infinite vacuity, and assuming the shape of the blue atmosphere which is also a nullity.
56. Privation of desires melts down the mind, and dissolves the mist of ignorance from the face of the intellect. Then appears the bright light of the one infinite and increate God, like the clear firmament of autumn after the dispersion of clouds.
57. The mind sprouts out at first from the supreme soul with all its activities, and takes upon it the nature of the lotus-born Brahmá by its desire of creation. It stretches out a variety of worlds by its creative will, which are also as the fancied apparitions, appearing before the imaginations of deluded boys.
58. Non-entity appears as an entity before us, it dies away at death, and reappears with our new birth. The mind itself takes its rise from the divine intellect, and displays itself in the substance of the Divine Soul, as the waves play about on the surface of the waters of the deep.