CHAPTER XLI. Discrimination of Error.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
41. You think that you have passed seventy years of your life, and that you are now beset by very formidable enemies.
42. And that having waged a furious battle, you have returned to this abode of yours, where you are now seated and intend to adore the goddesses, that have become your guests herein.
43. You are thinking that these goddesses will bless you with your desired object, because one of them has given you the power of recollecting the events of your former births.
44. That these goddesses have opened your understanding like the blossom of a lotus, and that you have the prospect of getting your riddance from all doubts.
45. That you are now at peace and rest, and enjoy the solace of your solity; and that your long continued error (of this world), is now removed for ever.
46. You remember the many acts and enjoyments of your past life, in the body of prince Padma, before you were snatched away by the hand of death.
47. You now perceive in your mind, that your present life is but a shadow of the former, as it is the same wave, that carries one onward, by its rise and fall.
48. The incessant current of the mind flows as the stream of a river, and leads a man, like a weed, from one whirlpool into another.
49. The course of life now runs singly as in dreaming, and now conjointly with the body as in the waking state, both of which leave their traces in the mind, at the hour of death.
50. The sun of the intellect being hid under the mist of ignorance, there arises this network of the erroneous world, which makes a moment appear as a period of hundred years.
51. Our lives and deaths are mere phantoms of imagination, as we imagine houses and towers in aerial castles and icebergs.
52. The world is an illusion, like the delusion of moving banks and trees to a passenger in a vessel on water, or a rapid vehicle on land; or as the trembling of a mountain or quaking of the earth, to one affected by a convulsive disease.
53. As one sees extraordinary things in his dream, such as the decapitation of his own head; so he views the illusions of the world, which can hardly be true.
54. In reality you were neither born nor dead at any time or place; but ever remain as pure intelligence in your own tranquility of soul.
55. You seem to see all things about you, but you see nothing real in them; it is your all seeing soul, that sees every thing in itself.
56. The soul shines as a brilliant gem by its own light, and nothing that appears beside it, as this earth or yourself or any thing else, is a reality.
57. These hills and cities, these people and things, and ourselves also, are all unreal and mere phantoms, appearing in the hollow vault of the Bráhmana of the hilly district.
58. The kingdom of Lílá’s husband, was but a picture of this earth, and his palace with all its grandeur, is contained in the sphere of the same hollow shrine.
59. The known world is contained in the vacuous sphere of that shrine, and it is in one corner of this mundane habitation, that all of us here, are situated.
60. The sphere of this vaulted shrine, is as clear as vacuity itself, which has no earth nor habitation in it.
61. It is without any forest, hill, sea or river, and yet all beings are found to rove about in this empty and homeless abode (i.e. in the Divine Mind).
62. Here there are no kings, nor their retinue, nor any thing that they have on earth. Vidúratha asked:—If it is so, then tell me goddess! how I happened to have these dependants here?
63. A man is rich in his own mind and spirit, and is it not so ordained by the Divine mind and spirit also? If not, then the world must appear as a mere dream, and all these men and things are but creatures of our dreams.
64. Tell me goddess, what things are spiritually true and false, and how are we to distinguish the one from the other.
65. Sarasvatí answered:—Know prince that, those who have known the only knowable one, and are assimilated to the nature of pure understanding, view nothing as real in the world, except the vacuous intellect within themselves.
66. The misconception of the serpent in a rope being removed, the fallacy of the rope is removed also; so the unreality of the world being known, the error of its existence, also ceases to exist.
67. Knowing the falsity of water in the mirage, no one thirsts after it any more, so knowing the falsehood of dreams, no one thinks himself dead as he had dreamt. The fear of dreaming death may overtake the dying, but it can never assail the living in his dream.
68. He whose soul is enlightened with the clear light of the autumnal moon of his pure intellect, is never misled to believe his own existence or that of others, by the false application of the terms I, thou, this &c.
69. As the sage was sermonizing in this manner, the day departed to its evening service with the setting sun. The assembly broke with mutual greetings to perform their ablutions, and it met again with the rising sun, after dispersion of the gloom of night.