Chapter XL - On the quiescence of the soul

Argument:—God is not manifest in the world, nor is the world manifested in God; but both these appear by turns in the soul of the living-liberated person.

Vasishtha continued:—

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The sight of things, actions of the mind, the internal faculties and perceptions of the senses, being all of a superphysical nature, the true states of these categories are far removed from our knowledge, and present but a faint appearance of theirs unto us.

2. [Sanskrit available]
The minuteness of the superphysical or in totals, is outstretched in the forms of external or physical objects; but this extended appearance of the outer world, is a mere error (and creation of our false imagination).

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But when this external nature disappears and subsides in the inner soul, it is then that this phenomenal world is absorbed like a dream in the sound sleeping state of the soul.

4. [Sanskrit available]
Our enjoyments and our greatest ailments on earth, and our kindred and relations are our strongest bondages here; our wealth is for our bale and woe, therefore hold yourself to yourself alone (and mind not about all others).

5. [Sanskrit available]
Know your felicity to consist, in your communion with yourself; and that you lose yourself, by your familiarity with the world. Participate with the supreme vacuum, be calm and quiet like it, and do not disturb yourself like the turbulent air or wind. (So Hafiz and the Persian mystics: If thou seekest thyself, then seek not [but] forsake all others).

6. [Sanskrit available]
I know not myself, nor do I understand what this visible and mistaken world may mean; I am absorbed in the calm and quiet Brahma, and feel myself as the sound Brahma himself.

7. [Sanskrit available]
You behold me as another person, and address me with words thou &c. in the second person; but I find myself as calm and quiet as the transcendent vacuum itself.

8. [Sanskrit available]
It is in the vacuous sphere of the divine soul, that you view the false appearances (of things), as are produced therein by the misconceptions of your mind; and these errors are continually rising in your mind, in the manner of the erratic trepidations in the mind.

9. [Sanskrit available]
The tranquil soul of Brahma, knows (has) no effort of creation in it;nor doth the nature of creation, know the quiescent nature of Brahma. It is as the soundly sleeping soul knows no dream, nor does the dreaming man know the state of sound sleep. (The nature of Brahma is one of profound sleep, and that of creation is no other than a dream).

10. [Sanskrit available]
Brahma is ever wakeful, and the world is no other than a waking dream, and the living liberated man knows, the phenomenon as a reflection of the noumenon in his tranquil understanding.

11. [Sanskrit available]
The intelligent man well knows the true state of things in the world, and holy men are as quiet in their souls as the autumnal sky with a moving cloud.

12. [Sanskrit available]
The erroneous conception of one's egoism or personality, and that of the existence of the world; is like the impression of the relation of a battle, preserved in one's memory or as pictured in his imaginations; in both cases truth and falsehood are found to be blended together.

13. [Sanskrit available]
The phenomena of the world, which is neither exhibited in the divine spirit, as an intrinsic or subjective part of itself nor has it a viewer (or subjective framer) for itself; which is neither a vacuity nor even a solidity of its nature; cannot be otherwise than an erroneous conception of the mind.