Chapter V - The narration of rama’s perfect rest

Argument: Rama's relation to Vasishtha, of his perfect rest in godliness.

Rama said:—

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O my venerable guide! My retrospection of your sermons, has set my mind to perfect rest, and I see the traps and turmoils of this world before me, with a quite indifferent and phlegmatic mind.

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My soul has found its perfect tranquillity in the Supreme Spirit, is as the parched ground is cooled by a snow or of rainfall after a long and painful drought.

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I am as cool as coldness itself, and feel the felicity of an entire unity in myself; and my mind has become as tranquil and transparent, as the limpid lake that is undisturbed by elephants.

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I see the whole plenum of the universe, O sage! in its pristine pure light; and as clear as the face of the wide extended firmament, without the dimness of frost or mist.

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I am now freed from my doubts, and exempted from the mirage of the world; I am equally aloof from affections, and have become as pure and serene, as the lake and sky in autumn.

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I have found that transport in my inmost soul, which knows no bound nor decay; and have the enjoyment of that gusto, which defies the taste of the ambrosial draught of gods.

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I am now set in the truth of actual existence, and my repose in the joyous rest of my soul. I have become the delight of mankind and my own joy in myself, which makes me thank my felicitous self, and you also for giving me this blessing. (The Sruti says, Heavenly bliss is the delight of men, and the heartfelt joy of every body).

8. [Sanskrit available]
My heart has become as expanded and pure, as the expanse of limpid lakes in autumn; and my mind hath become as cold and serene, as the clear and humid sky in the season of autumn.

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Those doubts and coinings of imagination, which mislead the blind, have now fled afar from me; as the fear of ghosts appearing in the dark, disappear at the light of day-break.

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How can there be the speck or spot of impurity, in the pure and enlightened soul; and how can the doubts of the objective nature, arise in the subjective mind? All these errors vanish to naught, like darkness before moon light.

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All these appearances appearing in various forms, are but the diverse manifestations of the self-same soul; it is therefore a fallacy to suppose, this is one thing and that another, by our misjudgment of them.

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I smile to think in myself, the miserable slave of my desires that I had been before; that am now so well satisfied without them. (The privation of desire gives greater satisfaction than its fulfilment).

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I remember now how my single and solitary self, is one and all with the universal soul of the world; since I received my baptism with the ambrosial fluid of thy words.

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O the highest and holiest station, which I have now attained to; and from where I behold the sphere of the sun, to be situated as low as the infernal region.

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I have arrived at the world of sober reality and existence, from that of unreality and seeming existence. I therefore thank my soul, that has became so elevated and adorable with its fulness of the Deity.

O venerable sage said:—

16. [Sanskrit available]
I am now situated in everlasting joy, and far removed from the region of sorrow;by the sweet sound of the honeyed words, which have crept like humming bees, into the pericarp of my lotus-like heart.