Chapter XXVII - Sermon on the superior sort of yoga meditation.

Argument:—Mistake of the action of the Intellect in the action of the mind, as the cause of the phenomenal world; and the removal of this error of the mind, as the cause of the intellectual peace and rest in its real state.

Vasishtha continued:—

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Be dead to your sensibility, and retain the tranquillity of your soul, by conforming with whatsoever thou gettest or is meted out to thy lot; or else the fair (order of nature and ordinance of God), will appear as foul, as a pure crystal shows itself as black in the shade.

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All and every thing being contained in the only one, all extended soul, we can not conceive how the conception of variety or multiplicity can rise from the unity. (To Him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all. Pope).

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The category of the intellect is entirely of a vacuous nature, and having neither its beginning nor end; and is neither produced nor destroyed, with the production and destruction of the body. (And though it is diffused all over the body and its various powers and senses, yet there is variation of its own essence. Gloss).

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All insensible and material bodies, are moved by the miraculous power of the intellect or mind; which being unmoved of itself gives motion to bodies, as the still waters of the sea gives rise to the waves. (Here the intellect is explained as the mind in the gloss).

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As it is an error to suppose a sheet of cloth in a cloud, so the supposition of egoism in the body, is altogether erroneous: (since one's personality consists in the soul and not in the person).

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Do not rely in the unreal body, which is of this world, and grows to perish in it; but depend on the real essence of the endless spirit, for thy everlasting happiness (in both worlds).

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The vacuous intellect, is the essential property of the immortal soul; this is the transcendent reality in nature, and may this super-excellent entity be thy essence likewise.

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If you are certain of this truth, you become as glorious as that essence also; because the deep meditator loses himself in the meditated object, in his intense meditation of the same. (This assimilation of the triputi or triple condition of the thinker and his act and object of thought in one, is the meaning and main end of the yoga meditation of union).

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The triple condition of the viewer, view and act of viewing, are the three properties of the one and same intellect; and there is nothing which is any other than (or not the same with) the knowledge thereof, as there is no thought unlike the act of its thinking. (This shows the agreement of the cause, its causation and effect).

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The soul is ever calm and clear and uniform in its nature, it does not rise and fall like the tides by the lunar influence, nor is it soiled like the sea waters by tempestuous winds. (The soul is ever unruffled at any event).

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As a passenger in a boat beholds the rocks and trees on the bank to be in motion, and as one thinks a shell or conch to be composed of silver; so the mind mistakes the body for reality, (which in truth is an unreal appearance).

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As the sight of the material dismisses the view of the intellectual, so doth intellectuality discard the belief of the material; and so the knowledge of the living soul being resolved in the supreme soul, there remains nothing at last, except the unity of the all pervading spirit.

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The knowledge that all this (world), is quite calm and quiet (in its nature); and the whole is an evolution of the divine spirit, takes away the belief in everything else, which is naught but the product of error and illusion.

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As there is no forest in the sky, nor moisture in the sands;and as there is no fire in the disk of the moon, so there is no material body in the sight of the mind. (Mentally considered, there is no matter).

Rama fear not for this world said:—

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the mere creation of thy error, and without its real existence whatsoever, know this transcendent truth, O thou best amongst the inquirers of truth, that this world is a nullity and void.

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Your mistake of the existence of the visible world, and the disbelief which you fostered with regard to the entity of the invisible soul, must have been removed this day by my preaching, say now what other cause there may be of your bondage in this world.

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As a plate, water-pot and any other earthenware, is no more than the earth (of which it is made); so the outer world is no other than the inner thought of the mind, and it wears away under the power of reasoning.

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Whether exposed to danger and difficulty, or placed in prosperity or adversity, or betided by affluence or penury; you must preserve, O Rama, your even disposition amidst the consciousness (or knowledge) of your joy and grief; be gladly free from the knowledge of your egoism, and remain as you are sedate by your nature, and without your subjection in any state.

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Remain Rama, as thou art, like the moon in the sphere of thy race, with thy full knowledge of everything in nature; avoid thy joy and grief at every occurrence, and give up thy desire and disgust for anything in the world. Do so or as you may choose for yourself.