Chapter LXXXI - Unsubstantiality of the mind

Argument. The unsubstantiality of the Mind is established by Reasoning an Intuition.

Vasishtha resumed:—

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Having thus considered and known the mind in themselves; and in the aforesaid manner; it is the business of great minded philosophers, O mighty Rama, to enquire into the nature of the soul, as far as it is knowable (by the help of psychology).

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And knowing the world to be purely the soul, it is to be enquired, whence arose the phantom of mind which is nothing in reality.

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It is ignorance, error and illusion, which exhibit the vacant and visionary mind to view, as it is our false imagination, which forms an arbour of trees in the vacant air.

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As the objects standing on the shore, seem to be moving to ignorant boys passing in a boat;so the sedate soul appears to be in motion (like the mind) to the unintelligent.

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After removal of our ignorance and error, we have no perception of the fluctuation of our minds;as we no more think the mountains to be in motion, after the velocity of air car is put to a stop.

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I have given up the thoughts of all internal and external things, knowing them as the creation of my airy mind only. Thus the mind and its actions being null and void, I see all things to exist in the spirit of Brahma alone.

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I am freed from my doubts, and sit quiet devoid of all care; I sit as Siva without a desire stirring in me.

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The mind being wanting, there is an end of its youthful desires and other properties also; and my soul being in the light of the supreme spirit, has lost its sight of all other colours and forms presented to the eyes.

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The mind being dead, its desires also die with it, and its cage of the body is broken down without it. The enlightened man being no more under the subjection of his mind, is liberated from the bondage of his egoism also. Such is the state of the soul, after its separation from the body and mind, when it remains in its spiritual state in this and the next world.

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The world is one calm and quiescent Unity of Brahma, and its plurality or multifariousness is as false as a dream. What then shall we think or talk of it, which is nothing in reality.

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My soul by advancing to the state of divine holiness, becomes as rarefied and all-pervasive as the eternal spirit of God, in which it is situated for ever.

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That which is, and what is not, as the soul and the mind the substantial and the unsubstantial, is the counterpart of the something, which is rarer than air, calm and quiet, eternal and intangible; and yet all pervading and extended through all.

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Let there be a mind in us, or let it remain or perish for ever; yet I have nothing to discuss about it, when I see everything to be situated in the soul.

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I considered myself as a limited and embodied being, as long as I was unable to reason about these abstruse subjects; and now I have come to know my unlimited form of the spirit;but what is this that I call "myself"is what I have not yet been able to know, since the whole is full with the one supreme spirit.

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But the mind being granted as dead, it is useless to dubitate about it; and we gain nothing by bringing the demon of the mind to life again.

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I at once repudiate the mind, the source of false desires and fancies; and betake myself to the meditation of the mystic syllable "Om" with the quietness of my soul, resting quiescent in the Divine spirit.

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With my best intelligence, I continue always to inquire of my God, both when I am eating or sleeping or sitting or walking about.

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So do the saints conduct their temporal affairs, with a calm and careless mind, meditating all along on the Divine soul in their becalmed spirits.

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So do all great minded men gladly pass their lives, in the discharge of their respective duties, without being elated by pride or the giddiness of vanity; but manage themselves with a cheerfulness resembling the gentle beams of the autumnal moon.