Chapter XCV - The anaesthetic platonism of sikhidhvaja

Argument:—Dispersion of the gloom of ignorance from the mind of Sikhidvaja. His coming to the Light of Truth and the Tranquillity of his soul.

Sikhidvaja said:—

1. [Sanskrit available]
If the view of the whole universe is but a phantom, and our knowledge of myself, thyself and of this and that, is but an error of our mind, then why is it that we should be concerned about or sorry for anything.

Kumbha replied:—

2. [Sanskrit available]
The erroneous impression of the existence of the world, has so firmly laid hold of the minds of men; as the frozen water appearing as crystal, is believed as dry land by people.

3. [Sanskrit available]
It is said by the learned, that the knowledge of gross matter is lost with the dispersion of ignorance; and that there is no other way of getting rid of this long contracted prejudice, without our riddance from ignorance.

4. [Sanskrit available]
It is the acuteness of the understanding, which is the only means of our coming to the knowledge of truth; that the creation and dissolution of the world, are dependant on the will and causality of the supreme Being.

5. [Sanskrit available]
He whose understanding becomes, is sure to lose his rooted prejudice by degrees; and come to the knowledge of the nihility of the material world.

6. [Sanskrit available]
In this way of refining your mind from its prepossession of gross ideas, you will come to find the erroneous conception of a prime male (adipurusha), as that of Brahma (or Adam) as the first creative power, to be as false as the water in the mirage.

7. [Sanskrit available]
The great grandfather of the world being a nullity, the creation of all creatures by him (who is thence called Prajapatih or lord of creatures);is likewise as false and null, as it is absurd for an impossibility to come into being.

8. [Sanskrit available]
The perception of a thing in esse, is as false as the conception of water in the mirage; a little reflection is enough to remove this error, like the mistake of silver in cockles and conch-shells.

9. [Sanskrit available]
Any work which appears to exist without its cause, is only a phantom of fallacy, and has no essential form whatever in reality.

10. [Sanskrit available]
Whatever is done by one's erroneous knowledge or mistake of a thing, comes to be of no use to him; as the attempt to fill a pot with the water of the mirage, proves to be utterly vain.

Sikhidvaja said:—

11. Why can't we call the supreme Brahma, to be the cause of Brahma—the first creator of the world who is called the son of God, the one unborn and without end, and the inexpressible and everlasting.

Kumbha replied:—

12. [Sanskrit available]
[Sanskrit available]
The God Brahma, being neither the cause nor the effect of any action, is but an invariable unity and transcendent spirit, and is never the cause or effect of anything.

13. [Sanskrit available]
How can the incomprehensible and unknowable Brahma, be designated as the creator, when he is not predicable by any of the predicates of the creator or created or as the instrument or cause of anything.

14. [Sanskrit available]
The world having no separate cause, is no separate product of any causality whatever; it is no duality but one with the unity, without its beginning or end, and co-eternal with the eternal one. (To pan—God is all in all).

15. [Sanskrit available]
He that is inconceivable and unknowable, is perfect felicity, tranquillity and ever undecaying, and can never be the active or passive agent of anything, on account of the immutability of his nature.

16. [Sanskrit available]
Hence there is nothing as a creation, and the visible world is but a nihility, and the Lord God is neither an active nor passive agent, but quite still and full of bliss.

17. [Sanskrit available]
There being no causal power, the world is not the production of any body; it is our error only that this world as a production without any assignable cause.

18. [Sanskrit available]
The uncaused world is the product of nothing, and therefore nothing in itself; for if it be the production of nobody, it is a nullity like its cause also.

19. [Sanskrit available]
The non-existence of anything or the not being of everything (except that of the supreme Being), being proved as a certain truth; we can have no conception of anything, and the absence of such conception, it is in vain to suppose the existence of an egoism or tuism.

Sikhidvaja said:—

20. [Sanskrit available]
Sir, I now perceive the truth, and find the reasonableness of all that you have said; I see now that I am the pure and free soul, and quite aloof of any bondage or its liberation from bonds.

21. [Sanskrit available]
I understand Brahma as no cause of anything, for his entire want of causality; and the world is a nullity for its want of a cause, and therefore there is no being whatever which we reckon as a category.

22. [Sanskrit available]
Thence there is no such category as the mind or its seed, nor its growth nor decay; I therefore bow down to myself of which alone I have a consciousness in me.

23. [Sanskrit available]
I am alone conscious of myself, existence in myself and have no real knowledge of any thing else beside me, and which appear as fleeting clouds in the womb of the sky.

24. [Sanskrit available]
The distinct knowledge of the different categories of time, place, action in the world, is now entirely blended in the knowledge of the unity of the tranquil spirit of Brahma (which composes all varieties in itself).

25. [Sanskrit available]
I am tranquil, calm and quiet and settled in the spirit of God; I do not rise nor fall from nor move about this prop. I remain as you do in immovable spirit of God, which is all quiet, holiness and felicity in itself.