CHAPTER XVIII. Ascertainment of the Example Or Major Proposition
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. As no body is afraid of a serpent that he sees in painting, so the sight of a living serpent neither terrifies nor pleases one who knows it.
41. And as it is our knowledge of the painted serpent that removes our fear of it as a serpent, so our conviction of the unreality of the world, must disperse our mistake of its existence.
42. Even the plucking of a flower or tearing of its (tender) leaflet, is attended with a little exertion (of the nails and fingers), but no (bodily) exertion whatever is required to gain the blessed state (of Yoga meditation).
43. There is an action of the members of body, accompanied with the act of plucking or pulling off a flower; but in the other case (of Yoga), you have only to fix your mind, and make no exertion of your body.
44. It is practicable with ease by any one sitting on his easy seat and fed with his usual food, and not addicted to gross pleasures, nor trespassing the rules of good conduct.
45. You can derive happiness at each place and time, from your own observations, as also from your association with the good wherever it is available. This is an optional rule.
46. These are the means of gaining a knowledge of the highest wisdom, conferring peace in this world, and saving us from the pain of being reborn in the womb.
47. But such as are afraid of this course, and are addicted to the vicious pleasures of the world, are to be reckoned as too base, and no better than faeces and worms of their mother’s bowels.
48. Attend now, Ráma, to what I am going to say with regard to the advancement of knowledge, and improvement of the understanding in another way.
49. Hear now the recent method in which this Sástra is learnt (by people), and its true sense interpreted to them by means of its Exposition.
50. That thing which serves to explain the unapparent meaning (of a passage), by its illustration by some thing that is well known, and which may be useful to help the understanding (of the passage) is called a simile or Example.
51. It is hard to understand the meaning given before without an instance, just as it is useless to have a lampstick at home without setting a lamp on it at night.
52. Whatever similes and examples I have used to make you understand (the precepts), are all derived from some cause or other, but they lead to knowledge of the uncaused Brahma.
53. Wherever the comparisons and compared objects are used as expressive of the cause and effect, they apply to all cases except Brahma (who is without a cause).
54. The examples that are given to explain the nature of Brahma, are to be taken in their partial (and not general) sense.
55. Whatever examples are given here as explanatory of divine nature, they are to be understood as appertaining to a world seen in a dream.
56. In such cases, no corporeal instance can apply to the incorporeal Brahma, nor optional and ambiguous expressions give a definite idea of Him.
57. Those who find fault with instances of an imperfect or contradictory nature, cannot blame our comparison of the appearance of the world to a vision in dream.
58. A prior and posterior non-entity is considered as existent at the present moment (as is the visible world which was not, nor will be afterwards). So the waking and dreaming states are known to be alike from our boyhood.
59. The simile of the existence of the world with the dreaming state is exact in all instances, as our desires, thoughts, our pleasures and displeasures, and all other acts are alike in both states.
60. Both this work and others which have been composed by other authors on the means of salvation, have all pursued the same plan in their explanation of the knowable.
61. The resemblance of the world to a dream is found also in the Srutis or Vedánta. It is not to be explained in a word, but requires a continued course of lectures (on the subject).
62. The comparison of the world to an imagery in the dream or an imaginary Utopia of the mind, is also adduced in examples of this kind in preference to others.
63. Whenever a causality is shown by a simile of something which is no cause, there the simile is applied in some particular and not all its general attributes.
64. The partial similitude of this comparison with some property of the compared object, is unhesitatingly acknowledged by the learned in all their illustrations.
65. The light of the sense (of some thing) is compared with a lamp in its brightness only, in disregard of its stand or stick, the oil or the wick.
66. The compared object is to be understood in its capacity of admitting a partial comparison (of the properties); as in the instance of sense and light, the simile consists in the brightness of both.
67. When the knowledge of the knowable thing is derived from some particular property of the comparison, it is granted as a suitable simile, in understanding the sense of some great saying (passage in the scriptures).
68. We must not overshadow our intellect by bad logic, nor set at naught our common sense by an unholy scepticism.
69. We have by our reasoning well weighed the verbosity of our opinionative adversaries, and never set aside the holy sayings of the Vedas, even when they are at variance with the opinions of our families.
70. O Ráma! we have stored in our minds the truths resulting from the unanimous voice of all the Sástras, whereby it will be evident that we have attained the object of our belief, apart from the fabricated systems of heretical Sástras.