CHAPTER CLXXXX. Ecstasis or Inertness of Ráma.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
40. Ráma rejoined:—This doctrine of yours, by its all negative distinctions of our knowledge of time and space, and of our actions and thing, serves to drive away our consciousness of all existence whatsoever from the mind.
41. Vasishtha replied:—Yes, because all our objective knowledge, of the distinctions of time and place and of actions and things in our minds; is the effect of our ignorance of the subjectivity of the soul, beside which there is no other substance—before the liberated spirit.
42. Ráma rejoined:—The absence of our knowledge of an intelligent agent, and also of an intelligible object; deprives us altogether of any intelligence at all; the impossibility of the union of the unity and duality together, must preserve our distinct knowledge of the knowing principle and the known or knowable object. (The transitive verb to know must have an object, and cannot like a neuter or intransitive verb, be confined to or reflect upon its agent. Gloss).
43. Vasishtha replied:—It is by your act of knowing of God, that you have or get your knowledge of Him; therefore the word is taken in its active sense by you and others (Who have to know a thing before it is known to them). But with us (or sages like ourselves), who are possest of our intuitive knowledge of ourselves as the deity, it is but a self-reflexive verb. (Gloss. Buddhi with the ignorant, means knowing; but with the sapient, it means feeling).
44. Ráma rejoined:—But how do you feel your finite selves or egoism, and your limited knowledge, as same with the infinite soul and omniscience of the deity; unless it were to ascribe your imperfections to the transcendental divinity, who is purer than the purest water, and rarer than the rarefied ether.
45. Vasishtha replied:—It is the feeling of the perfections of the divine soul in ourselves, that we call our egoism; and not the ascription of our imperfect personalities unto him. And here the duality of the living and divine souls, bears resemblance to the unity of the ventilating breeze with the universal and unfluctuating air. जीबब्रक्षनोरैक्यं ।
46. As the waves of the ocean, have been continually rising and subsiding in it; so the objective thoughts of one’s egoism and the world besides, must be always rising and falling in the subjective soul of the supreme being, as well as self-liberated persons (Hence the subjective and objective cannot be the one and same thing).
47. Vasishtha replied:—If so it be, then say what is the fault, that is so much reprehended in the popular belief of a duality; and in disregarding the creed of the Unity, which is eternal and infinite, full and perfect in itself, quite calm and quiet in its nature, and is termed the transcendent One.
48. Ráma rejoined:—If it be so (that the living soul, is as the breeze or breath of the calm air of Brahma and same with it), then tell me sir, who and what power is it, which conceives the ego, tu and others, which feels and enjoys all as their agent, if the fundamental fallacy of the world be the root of all. (The whole being false, there is nothing as one or an another or as bondage or liberation).
49. Vasishtha replied:—The knowledge of the reality of the objective or knowable things, is the cause of our bondage (in this world); true knowledge does not recognise their reality, and full intelligence which assumes the forms of (and shows) all things in itself, sees no difference of bondage or liberation before it. (All things are alike in the full light of intelligence).
50. Ráma rejoined:—Intelligence like light, does not show us all things in the same light; it shows us the difference between a pot and a picture, as light shows the white and black to view. Again as the light of our eye sight shows us the different forms of outward objects, so does our intelligence confirm and attest the reality of our visual perceptions.
51. Vasishtha replied:—All outward objects having no cause of their creation, nor any source of their production, are as incredible as the offspring of a barren woman; and the appearance of their reality which is presented to our sight, is as false as that of silver in a conchshell or in the glittering sands, and not otherwise. (The phenomenal is a mirage, and deception of sight).
52. Ráma rejoined:—The sight of the miserable world, whether it be true or false, is like the startling apparition in a dream, and attended with pain only for the time; tell me therefore the best means, how to avoid and get rid of this error.
53. Vasishtha replied:—The world being never the better than a dream, it is the reflection of the idea of its reality, that is the best method of getting rid of the snare of its tempting joys and sorrows.
54. Ráma rejoined:—But how to effect this object, which may redound to our bliss and rest; say how to put an end to the sight of the world, which shows the sights of falsities as realities, in the continuous train of its deluding dreams.
55. Vasishtha replied:—It is the due consideration of the antecedent and subsequent states of things, which must remove the erroneous impression of their reality; just as the conception of the substantiality of sights seen in our dreams, is eliminated upon reflection of their subsequent disappearance (and bearing no trace of former forms behind).
56. Ráma rejoined:—But how do the rising apparitions of the world, disappear in the depth of our minds, and what do we then come to perceive, after the vestiges of our gross remembrances have faded away? (The mind is never vacant of its thoughts of visible objects).
57. Vasishtha responded:—After the false appearance of the world, has vanished like the faded sight of a city from view; the unconcerned mind of the unconcerned soul, looks upon it as a painting, wholly washed out by the rain (i.e. as a clear blank or vacuity).
58. Ráma asked:—What then becomes of the man, after subsidence of the worldly sights and desires from his mind; like the gross looking objects of a dream; and after the mind rests in its state of listless indifference.
59. Vasishtha replied:—Then the world recedes from his sight, and then this predilection of it, and his desire for its enjoyment depart and die away along with it.
60. Ráma rejoined:—How can this blind and deep rooted predilection, which has accompanied the soul from many previous births, and branched out into multifarious desires, resign its hold of the human heart all at once?
61. Vasishtha replied:—As the knowledge of truth, serves to disperse the rooted error of the material world from the mind, so the sense of the vanity of human desires, and of the bitterness of their enjoyment, dissipate their seeds at once from the heart (where they can take root no more).
62. Ráma rejoined:—After dissipation of the error of materiality, of the visible spheres of worlds; say, O sage, what is that state of the mind which follows it, and how its peace and tranquility at last?
63. Vasishtha replied:—After dissipation of the error of the material world, the mind reverts to its seat in the immaterial soul; where it is released from all its earthly bonds, and finds its rests in the state of an indifferent insouciance—vairágya.
64. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, if the error of the world is as little, as that of a child’s idea of sorrow, then what trouble there is for a man to remedy it?
65. Vasishtha replied:—All our desires, like the fond wishes of boys, being wholly extinct in the mind, there remains no more any cause of any sorrow in it; and this you may well know from the association of desires in all minds.
66. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, what is the mind, and how are we to know its nature and workings; and what good do we derive, by our best investigation of the mental powers and properties.
67. Vasishtha replied:—The inclination of the intellect towards the intelligibles, is called the mind, for its mending the thinkables only; and the right knowledge of its workings, leads to the extinction of all our worldly desires. (i.e. The thoughts of things, are productive of our desires for them; banish your thoughts, and you get rid of your desires at once).
68. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, how long continues this tendency of the intellect towards the thinkables, and when does the mind come to have its unmindfulness, which causes our coma or anæsthesis of Nirvána.
69. Vasishtha replied:—There being a total absence of thinkable things, what is then left for the intellect to be intent upon; the mind dwells upon its thoughts only, but the want of thinkable objects, leaves nothing for it to think upon.
70. Ráma rejoined:—How can there be the absence of thinkables, when we have the ideas in store to think and reflect upon; nor is there any one who can deny the existence of ideas, which are ever imprinted in the mind (i.e. the eternal ideas).
71. Vasishtha replied:—Whatever is the ideal world of the ignorant, has no truth in it and is denied by the learned; and the conception which the sapient have of it, is that of a nameless and formless unity only.
72. Ráma rejoined:—What is that knowledge of this triple world of the ignorant, which has no truth or reality therein; and what is the true knowledge of the wise about it, which is inexpressible in words?
73. Vasishtha replied:—The knowledge of the ignorant, regarding the duality of the world, is wholly untrue from first to last; but the true knowledge of the wise, neither recognizes a duality herein; nor acknowledges the production hereof; (but views it in the light of a nullity and void).
74. Ráma rejoined:—Whatever is not produced in the beginning, can not of course exist at any time; but how is it, that this unreal and unapparent nothing, could come to produce in us its conception of a something?
75. Vasishtha replied:—This causeless and uncaused unreality of the world, appears unto us as a real entity; like the daydream that presents the false sight of the cosmos as a reality in our waking.
76. Ráma rejoined:—The sights that we see in our dreams, and the images that we conceive in our imagination; are but perceptions derived from our impressions of them in our waking state.
77. Vasishtha replied:—Tell me, O Ráma, whether the things that you see in your dream, or conceive in your imagination, are exactly of the same forms, that you see in your waking state.
78. Ráma replied:—The things that we see in our dream, and conceive of in our fancy or imagination; do all of them appear unto us in the same light, as they show themselves to us in our waking state.
79. Vasishtha questioned:—If the impressions of the waking state, come to represent themselves in our dreaming (and if our dreams are alike our waking sights), then tell me Ráma! why do you find your house standing entire in the morning, which you beheld to have fallen down in your dream.