Chapter CLIII - One soul is the cause of all

Argument:—Arrival of the Huntsman, and the sage's preceptorship of him.

The other sage said:—

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When both of us shall dwell together in that forest, and remain in the practice of our austerities; there will appear upon that spot, a certain huntsman, weary with his fatigue in pursuing after a deer.

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You will then reclaim and enlighten him, by means of your meritorious remonstrance; and he then will commence and continue to practice his austerities, from his aversion to the world.

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Then continuing in his austere devotion, he will be desirous of gaining spiritual knowledge, and make inquiries into the phenomena of dreaming.

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You sir, will then instruct him fully in divine knowledge, and he will be versed in it by your lectures on the nature of dreams.

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In this manner you will become his religious instructor, and it is for this reason that I have accosted you with the epithet or title of the huntsman's guru or religious guide.

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Now sir, I have related to you already regarding our errors of this world; and what I and you are at present, and what we shall turn to be afterwards.

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Being thus spoken to by him, and learning all these things from him, I became filled with wonder, and was he more amazed as I remonstrated with him on these matters.

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Thus we passed the night in mutual conversation, and after we got up in the morning, I honoured the sage with due respect, and he was pleased with me.

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Afterwards we continued to live together in the same homely hut of the same village, with our steady minds and our friendship daily increasing.

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In this manner time glided on peacefully upon us, and the revolutions of his days and nights, and returns of months, seasons and years; and I have been sitting here unmoved under all the vicissitudes of time and fortune.

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I long not for a long life, nor desire to die ere the destined day; I live as well as I may, without any care or anxiety about this or that.

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I then looked upon the visible sphere, and began to cogitate in my mind; as to what and how and whence it was, and what can be the cause of it.

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What are these multitudes of things, and is the cause of all these;it is all but the phenomena of a dream, appearing in the vacuity of the Intellect.

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The earth and heaven, the air and the sky, the hills and rivers, and all the sides of firmament; are all but pictures of the Divine mind, represented in empty air.

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It is the moonlight of the Intellect, which spreads its beams all round the ample space of vacuum;and it is this which shines as the world, which is an ineffaceable facsimile or cartography of the supreme Intellect in the air.

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Neither is this earth nor sky, nor are these hills and dales really in existence; nor am I anything at all; it is only the reflection of the supreme Mind in empty air.

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What may be the cause of aggregation of solid bodies, when there is no material cause for the causation of material bodies in the beginning.

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The conception of matter and material bodies, is a fallacy only; but what can be the cause of this error, but delusion of the sight and mind.

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The person in the pith of whose heart, I remained in the manner of his consciousness, was burnt down to ashes together with myself.

20. Therefore this vacuum which is without its beginning and end, is full with the reflection of the Divine Intellect; and there is no efficient or instrumental or material cause of creation, except its being a shadow of the substance of the Divine Mind.

21. All these pots and pictures, these prints and paints before us, are but the prints of the Divine Mind; nor can you ever get anything, without its mould therein.

22. But the Intellect too has no brightness of it, except its pure lucidity; for how can a mere void as vacuum have any light, except its transparency.

23. The Intellect is the pure Intelligence, of the extended entity of Brahma; which shows in itself the panorama of the universe, what else are the visibles, and where is their view besides.

24. There is but one Omnipresent soul, who is uncaused and uncausing, and without its beginning, middle and end; He is the essence of the three worlds and their contents. He is something as the universal intelligence, and shows all and every thing in itself (and reflects them in all partial intelligences according to their capacities).