Chapter CLI - View of inexistence

Argument:—The world is a vision, and to be known only by conception, perception and meditation.

The other sage rejoined:—

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Afterwards the whole village together with all its dwellings and trees, were all burnt down to ashes like the dried straws.

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All things being thus burnt away, the two bodies of you two, that had been sleeping there, were also scorched and burnt, as a large piece of stone, is heated and split by fire.

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Then the fire set after satiating itself with devouring the whole forest, as the sea sat below in its basin, after its waters were sucked up by the sage Agastya.

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After the fire was quenched and the ashes of the burnt cinders had become cold; they were blown away by gusts of wind, as they bear away the heaps of flowers.

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Then nothing was known, as to where the hermit's hut and the two bodies were borne away; and where was that visionary city, which was seen as vividly as in waking, and was populous with numbers of people.

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In this manner the two bodies having disappeared, their existence remains in the conscious soul, as the memory of externals remains in the mind, at the insensibility of the body in the state of dreaming.

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Hence where is that passage of the lungs, and where is that Virajian soul any more? They are burnt away together with the vigour and vitality of the dead body.

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It is on account of this, O sage, that you could not find out those two bodies; and wandered about in this endless world of dreams, as if you were in your waking state.

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Therefore know this mortal state, as a mere dream appearing as waking, and that all of us are but day dreams, and seeing one another as we see the visionary beings in our dreams.

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You are a visionary man to me, and so am I also to you; and this intellectual sphere, wherein the soul is situated within itself.

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You have been ere while a visionary being in your life, until you thought yourself to be a waking man in your domestic life.

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I have thus related to you the whole matter, as it has occurred to you; and which you well know by your conception, perception and meditation of them.

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Know at last that it is the firm conviction of our consciousness, which shines for ever as the glitter of gold in the vacuum of our minds; and the intellectual soul catches the colour of our deeds, be they fair or foul or a commixture of both, in its state of a regenerated spirit.