The one indivisible reality of Brahman beyond the distinction of Appearance and Reality.
Brahman, The Absolute —
The Reality Beyond Appearance
Brahman and Appearance of Reality
Brahman and Appearance of Reality
The Way of Direct Inquiry into Absolute Brahman
The Appearance of Creation in Brahman
Every form we see, every desire we pursue, and every illusion we hold arises through the movement of the mind. Yet beyond this fleeting appearance lies the non-dual reality of Brahman. This space explores the passage from appearance to reality, where discrimination (Viveka) dispels ignorance (Avidyā) and reveals Pure Awareness. Discover how the seeker may dissolve egoism, understand the movements of the mind, and enter the stillness of Turīya. Here, the wisdom of Brahman points beyond the mind and its appearances toward the freedom of Mokṣa.
The Illusion of King Lavana and the Powers of Mind
Tell me also who was that sorcerer and where he fled, after putting the good prince Lavana to all his tribulation, and then restoring him to his former exalted position. The mind is the perceptive and sensitive principle and not the body. This principle is subject to endless pains and pleasures in its unenlightened or unawakened state, and the body bears no relation with them. But the darkness over-hanging on the minds of the enlightened, is as soon put to flight as the shade of night overspreading the bed of lotuses, is dispersed at sun rise. It is the mind dwelling in the body, that makes it to rise and set, to eat and drink, to walk and go, and to hurt and kill, all which are acts of the mind, and not of the body. The mind has to feel the effects of its actions whether good or evil; and in order that you may understand it well, hear attentively what I will now relate unto you.
Having determined so, and getting the things ready for the sacrifice, he entered the sacrificial hall for his initiation in the sacred rites. Having performed the sacrifice to his heart’s content, and honoured the gods, sages and Brāhmans; he went to a forest to reside there for a year. Thus the king Lavana attained the merit of the sacrifice, in his internal satisfaction of having attained the meritoriousness of the sacrifice. Hence learn to know the mind to be the recipient of pleasure and pain; therefore employ your attention, Rāma! to the purification of your mind. After I had pondered the matter and clearly seen its cause, I expounded the meaning of the magician’s spell, in the way as I shall now relate to you, my Rāma! It was then that Indra, the lord of heaven had compassion for Lavana, and sent his heavenly messenger in the form of the magician to avert his calamity. Rāma said:—You said sir, that it is by weakening the desires of our mind, that we can put an end to our pleasures and pains; but tell me now, how is it possible to stop the course of our naturally fickle minds.
Vasishtha replied:—
“He thought of many changes in his mind, as those of birth and death, of pleasure and pain, of the course of nature and effect of ignorance and the like; and then having ordained them as he willed, he disappeared of himself as snow before the solar light.”
Thus this god, the personification of Will, rises and sets repeatedly, as he is prompted from time to time by his inward wish. So there are millions of Brahmās born in this mundane egg, and many that have gone by and are yet to come, whose number is innumerable. The man that is possessed of such right discrimination of good and evil, and of right and wrong, and who is confident of the purity of his own nature, and of his belonging to the best caste (of a Brāhman); attains by degrees the supernatural powers for his own good, as also for the enlightenment of his mind, by means of his knowledge of the seven essential grounds of Yoga meditation.
The Mind, Appearance and Perception
“Please Sir, explain to me by some illustration, how this world, appears as a visible object to the inner mind.”
If the mind do not join a thing with its known properties and qualities; then the sun and the luminaries would appear to be without their light. In whatever manner the mind represents itself in its various aspects, the same becomes evident to us both in our perceptions and conceptions of them. The mind is a pulsation of the power of the Divine Intellect, that ventilates in the breeze and glares in luminous bodies, melts in the liquids and hardens in solid substances. The mind is embodied in the organic body, accompanied by the sensible organs; but it is the mind that actuates the senses and receives the sensations; the senses are the products of the mind, but the mind is not a production of sensations.
The mind of the sage, which is practised in mental abstraction, may with ease be inclined to convert his pleasures to pain, and his pains to pleasure. One sees a demon in a deity, and a snake where there is no snake; it is the idea that fosters the thought. These examples reveal the subtle distinction between Appearance and Reality: what the mind perceives is not necessarily what truly is.
Pleasure and pain are situated in the mind like the oil in the sesamum seed, and these are thickened or thinned like the oil under particular circumstances of life. Prosperity thickens our pleasure, and adversity our pain; and these are thinned by their reverses again.
“It is the mind that is satisfied and delighted at the fulfilment of our wishes, and not the body which is insensible of its enjoyments.”
He whose mind does not wave to and fro like a brandished sword, but remains fixed as a post or pillar to its best intent and object, is the best of men on earth; all others (with fickle minds), are as insects continually moving in the mind.
From Mental Agitation to Reality
Now attend to the best remedy, that I will tell you to heal the disease of the heart; which is within one’s own power and harmless, and a sweet potion to taste. The mind is to be carefully treated as a patient by the prescriptions of reason, and by discriminating the truth from untruth, as we do good diet from what is injurious. Employ your mind to the acts of goodness by the light of your understanding; as you join your soul to the meditation of God by light of your spirit.
“He who can take the unpleasant for the pleasurable in his understanding; may with ease subdue his mind, as a giant overcomes a boy by his might. The One All and all-pervading quiescent Brahma can be known then only, when the desires of the mind are all cut off by the weapon of indifference to all worldly things.”
Join yourself to your intellectual or abstract thoughts at first, and then to your spiritual speculations. Being then master of your mind, contemplate on the nature of the Supreme soul.
It is by your exertion and fixed attention, O Rāma! that you can correct the errors of your mind and distinguish between Appearance and Reality, as one gets over the wrong apprehension of taking one thing for another. Whether the mind roves here; or goes to another world with its earthly thoughts, it continues in the same state as before unless it is changed to another form (of purity), by its attainment of liberation (from humanity).
The mind is blown away by its destitution of egoism (Ahantā) and meitatism (mamatā), like a cloud by the winds. The man that is devoid of desires, cares for nothing, whether the winds may howl with the fury of storms; or the seas break their bounds, or the twelve suns (of the Zodiac) rise at once to burn the universe. The more we curb the desires of our minds, the greater we feel our inward happiness; as the fire being extinguished, we find ourselves cooled from its heat.
As the essence of air is imperceptible without its vibration, so we can have no notion of the momentum of our minds, apart from the idea of their oscillation. The mortification of the mind, is attended with the subsidence of our woes; but the agitated thoughts in the mind, are causes of all our woes. The mind is a thing that stands between the real and unreal and between intelligence and dull matter, and is moved to and fro by the contending powers on either side. It is by virtue of the exertion of your manly powers and activities, and by force of constant habit and continued practice; that you can succeed to attain any thing, to which, you employ your mind with diligence.
- Treat the mind carefully as a patient using the prescriptions of reason.
- Discriminate truth from untruth, just as one distinguishes a healthy diet from an injurious one.
- Employ the mind in acts of goodness by the light of understanding, joining the soul to the contemplation of God through spiritual insight.
- Relinquish all desires of the mind using the weapon of indifference to worldly things to know the all-pervading, quiescent Brahma.
- Cast away the concepts of Ahantā (egoism) and Mamatā (mine-ness); as the fire is extinguished, the heat subsides into inward happiness.
The Nature of Worldly Delusion (Avidyā) and Knowledge (Viveka)
Be wise, O Rāma; and do not think like the ignorant; but consider well all that I tell you;—there is no second moon in the sky, but it appears so only by deception of our optical visions. Though you are the actor of an action, yet think not yourself as such, minding your inability to do or undo any thing: for how can you boast yourself as the actor, when you know your inability for action. Though hollow in the inside, the world appears to be full with its apparent contents; and though all the worlds are continually in motion, yet they seem to be standing still.
The power of this delusion is essentially spread over all the works of creation, as the light of a lamp, is spread over things in its effulgence and not in substance. The delusion consists in the building of aerial castles in the mind, without their substance; and though these appear in hundreds and thousands of shapes, they have no substantiality in them. It deludes the ignorant, as a mirage misleads the deer in a desert; but it can not deceive the knowing man by its false appearances. Covered with dust and with heat and sweat of its body, it grasps the earth and flies all about the world. The deluded man ever toils and moils, and runs every where after his greed. It is as an extinguishing lamp, whose flame is lost and fled we know not where. It is visible as a mist, but try to lay hold on it, and it, proves to be nothing. This earth is a handful of ashes, which being flung aloft flies in particles of dust; and the upper sky which appears to be blue, has no blueness in it. There is the same delusion here on earth, as in the appearance of couple of moons in the sky; and in the vision of things in a dream, as also in the motion of immovable things on the land, to the passenger in a boat. Delusion like a mother and wife often offers us fresh delights, with her tender looks and breasts distilling sweet milk. But these delights serve only to poison us, while they seem to cool the worlds with their distillation; just as the crescent orb of the moon, injures us with too much of her moistening influence, while it appears to refresh us with her full bright beams. Look at the power of this unsubstantial ignorance, a negative thing, and still there is nothing which it can not alter to some thing else. It is strange that man should be blinded by the womanish attire of error, which beguiles the man but dares not to look at him face to face.
As the dark night flies away before the advance of solar light, so does ignorance disappear, before the advancement of true knowledge—Viveka. That which is never born or dead, and which is ever existent in all worlds, and in which the conditions of being and change are altogether wanting. The thought that ‘I am distinct from Brahma’, binds the mind to the world; but the belief that ‘Brahma is all’ releases the mind from its bondage. The thought that ‘I am neither flesh nor bones, but some thing else than my body,’ releases one from his bondage; and one having such assurance in him, is said to have weakened his avidyā or ignorance.
Thus ignorance is pictured with a visible form, in the imagination of the unenlightened; but the enlightened never attribute sensible qualities to inanimate and imaginary objects. By understanding the distinction between Appearance and Reality, you come to see that the apparent blackness of the sky is no black colour of its own; so too, the seeming darkness of ignorance is no darkness in reality. Ignorance is the producer of passions and tempter to all transient objects; it is busy in destroying the knowledge of the soul, and is destroyed by knowledge of the soul only. (Ignorance leads to materialism, but it is lost under spiritual knowledge).
The great ignorance that rises in the mind and raises the desires of thy heart, has spread the net of thy false hopes for thy ruin, causing thy death and decrepitude under them. Learn ye that are seekers of truth, that the words: I, mine and this and that, are all meaningless in their true sense; and that there is nothing that may be called real at any time, except the knowledge of the true self and essence of Brahma. The phenomenals rise to view from our ignorance, and disappear before the light of knowledge (as the dreams and spectres of the dark, are put to flight before the rising sun-light). They appear in various forms in the substratum of the soul, as the fallacy of a snake appearing in the substance of a rope. While the ignorant labour under the doubt of the two ideas, of a rope and a snake in the rope; the learned are firm in their belief, and sight of one true God in all things.
Do not therefore think as the ignorant do, but consider all things well like the wise and the learned. Forsake your earthly wishes, and do not grope like the vulgar by believing the unself as the self. As the wood of a tree and its gum resin, and its fruit and seed, are not one and the same thing, though they are so closely akin to one another; so is this body and the embodied being, quite separate from one another, though they are so closely united with each other.
The thought that ‘I am happy or miserable,’ is as false as the conception of water in the mirage:—and knowing it as such, give up your misconceptions of pleasure and pain, and place your reliance in the sole truth. Do not, O Rāma! give way to ignorance in your mind, which being overspread by its darkness, will render it difficult for you to pass over the errors of the world. It views a dry desert in the wide waters, beating with billows and undulating with the fragrance of the aqueous kalpa flowers; and imagines a dry mirage in the empty clouds of autumn. Ignorance builds the imaginary castles in empty air, and causes the error of rising and falling towers in the clouds; it is the delusion of our fancy, that makes us feel the emotions of pleasure and pain in our dreams. Ignorance taking possession of the mind, converts the enthroned princes to peasants; and reduces them to a condition worse than that of beastly huntsmen. Knowing everything with avidity in thy watchful mind, and performing all thy duties with due submission, and keeping from the common track with thy exalted mind, thou wilt raise thyself above comparison with any other person.
| Aspect of Perception | The Illusory View (Avidyā) | The Real View (Viveka) |
| The Sky & Stars | Appears blue or possesses dark color | Blue color is a non-entity; the sky lacks intrinsic blueness |
| Gold & Ring | Believing circularity is an essential entity | Gold alone is the true substance; form is merely apparent |
| Double Moons | Optical deception showing a second moon | Only one single moon exists in reality |
| Motion of Land | Fixed trees seem to move to a boat passenger | The viewer is in motion; the land remains steadfast |
| Mirage in Desert | Perceiving undulating water in dry sand | The water is non-existent; it is a misconception of sight |
| Dualistic Self | “I am distinct from Brahma” (Bondage) | “Brahma is all; I am not mere flesh or bones” (Liberation) |
The Illusion of King Lavana and the Powers of Mind
Tell me also who was that sorcerer and where he fled, after putting the good prince Lavana to all his tribulation, and then restoring him to his former exalted position. The mind is the perceptive and sensitive principle and not the body. The distinction between appearance and reality begins with understanding that what is perceived by the mind is not necessarily the ultimate reality. This principle is subject to endless pains and pleasures in its unenlightened or unawakened state, and the body bears no relation with them. But the darkness over-hanging on the minds of the enlightened, is as soon put to flight as the shade of night overspreading the bed of lotuses, is dispersed at sun rise. It is the mind dwelling in the body, that makes it to rise and set, to eat and drink, to walk and go, and to hurt and kill, all which are acts of the mind, and not of the body. The mind has to feel the effects of its actions whether good or evil; and in order that you may understand it well, hear attentively what I will now relate unto you.
Having determined so, and getting the things ready for the sacrifice, he entered the sacrificial hall for his initiation in the sacred rites. Having performed the sacrifice to his heart’s content, and honoured the gods, sages and Brāhmans; he went to a forest to reside there for a year. Hence learn to know the mind to be the recipient of pleasure and pain; therefore employ your attention, Rāma! to the purification of your mind. I was myself present in the court-house of king Lavana, at the time when the magician made his appearance there, and I saw all that took place there with my own eyes. After I had pondered the matter and clearly seen its cause, I expounded the meaning of the magician’s spell, in the way as I shall now relate to you, my Rāma! It was then that Indra, the lord of heaven had compassion for Lavana, and sent his heavenly messenger in the form of the magician to avert his calamity.
Rāma said:—You said sir, that it is by weakening the desires of our mind, that we can put an end to our pleasures and pains; but tell me now, how is it possible to stop the course of our naturally fickle minds. Vasishtha replied:—He thought of many changes in his mind, as those of birth and death, of pleasure and pain, of the course of nature and effect of ignorance and the like; and then having ordained them as he willed, he disappeared of himself as snow before the solar light. Thus this god, the personification of Will, rises and sets repeatedly, as he is prompted from time to time by his inward wish. So there are millions of Brahmās born in this mundane egg, and many that have gone by and are yet to come, whose number is innumerable. The man that is possessed of such right discrimination of good and evil, and of right and wrong, and who is confident of the purity of his own nature, and of his belonging to the best caste; attains by degrees the supernatural powers for his own good, as also for the enlightenment of his mind, by means of his knowledge of the seven essential grounds of Yoga meditation.
The Seven Grounds of Yoga Meditation (Jnāna-Bhūmikās)
Rāma said:—Please sir, tell me in brief, what are the grounds of yoga meditation, which produce the seven kinds of consummation, which are aimed at by the yogi adepts. You sir, who are best acquainted with all recondite truths, must know it better than all others.
Vasishtha replied:—The truce that takes place in the mind, in the interim of a past and future thought of one object to another (arthadar thāntara); know that respite of the mind in thinking, to be the resting of the soul, in the consciousness of its self-entity swarūpa. That state of the soul, which is devoid of its sense of egoism and destitute of its knowledge of dualism, and its distinction from the state of the one universal soul, and shines forth with its unsleeping intelligence, is said to be at rest in itself or swarūpa.
The cognition of the reality of any thing either by bias—rudhādhyāsa or mistake—arudha, is called the waking dream; as the sight of two moons in the halo, of silver in shells, and water in the mirage; as also the imaginary castle building of day dreamers. The reliance which is placed in things seen in a dream, after one wakes from his sleep, is called his waking dream, and lasting in its remembrance only in his mind. In this last state of the soul or mind, all outward objects from a straw up to a mountain, appear as mere atoms of dust in its presence; as the mind views the miniature of the world in profound meditation. A long continued waking dream is accounted as the waking state—jāgrat, and it becomes diversified according to the diversity of its objects (i. e. waking is but a continued dreaming). The distinction between appearance and reality becomes clear when what is perceived as real is understood to be shaped by the mind and its changing objects.
Disputants are apt to hold out many more stages of Yoga meditation; but in my opinion these (septuple stages) are sufficient for the attainment of the chief good on ultimate liberation. Knowledge of truth is liberation (moksha), and all these three words mukti, moksha and jnāna are used as synonymous terms; because the living being that has known the truth, is freed from transmigration as by his liberation also. Liberation is placed at the end of these, and is attained without difficulty after them. Attend now to the definitions of these steps as I shall explain them unto you:
- First Stage: Desire of Goodness. First of all is the desire of goodness, springing from dispassionateness to worldly matters, and consisting in the thought, “why do I sit idle, I must know the Sāstras in the company of good men”.
- Second Stage: Discretion. The second is discretion, which arises from association with wise and good men, study of the Sāstras, habitual aversion to worldliness, and consists in an inclination to good conduct, and the doing of all sorts of good acts.
- Third Stage: Subduing the Mind. third is the subduing of the mind, and restraining it from sensual enjoyments; and these are produced by the two former qualities of good will and discretion.
- Fourth Stage: Self-Reliance. The fourth is self-reliance, and dependence upon the Divine spirit as the true refuge of this soul. This is attainable by means of the three qualities described above.
- Fifth Stage: Worldly Apathy. The fifth is worldly apathy, as it is shown by one’s detachment from all earthly concerns and society of men, by means of the former quadruple internal delight (which comes from above).
- Sixth Stage: Cogitation of Abstract Meaning. Then comes the powers of cogitation into the abstract meanings of things, as the sixth step to the attainment of true knowledge. It is fostered either by one’s own exertion, or guidance of others in search of truth.
- Seventh Stage: Generalization / Integration. Continued habitude of these six qualifications and incognition of differences in religion, and the reducing of them all to the knowledge of one true God of nature, is called generalization.
This universal generalization appertains to the nature of the living liberation of the man, who beholds all things in one and in the same light. Above this is the state of that glorious light, which is arrived by the disembodied soul. The living liberated are not plunged in the waters of pleasure and sorrow, but remain sedate and unmoved in both states; they are at liberty either to do or slight to discharge the duties of their conditions and positions in society.
These seven stages of knowledge are known only to the wise and thinking men, and not to beasts and brutes and immovable things all around us. They are unknown to the barbarians and those that are barbarous in their minds and dispositions. Those who being freed from ignorance, have not arrived at their ultimate perfection of disembodied liberation; have yet secured the salvation of their souls, by being placed in these stages of knowledge in their embodied state during their life time. There are some that have advanced only a quarter or half or three fourths of a stage. Some have passed over four quarters and a half, and some six and a half.
Appearance vs. Reality: The Analogy of Gold and Ornaments
Rāma said:—Please tell me sir, how the gold can have its consciousness of its form of the ring, as the soul is conscious of its transformation to egoism.
There are no other worlds beside Brahma, nor is the heaven without Him. The hills, the demons, the mind and body all rest in that spirit which is no one of these. He is beyond your egoism or tuism, ipseism and suism, and all your entities and non-entities. There is no attribution nor particularity in Him, who is above all your ideas, and is none of the ideal personifications of your notions (i. e. He is none of the mythic persons of abstract ideas as Love and the like).
Rāma said:—I understand now Brahma to be self-same in all things, yet I want to know what is this creation, that we see all about us.
Vasishtha replied: As the waves of the ocean rise and fall in the body of its waters, so do these phenomena appear as the noumena in the mind of God (as his ever-varying thoughts). The production and extinction of the world, are mere thoughts of the Divine mind; as the formation and dissolution of ornaments take place in the self-same substance of gold. This plenitude of the world is without its beginning and end, and appears as a faultless or perfect peace of workmanship. It is full with the fullness of the supreme Being, and remains full in the fullness of God. This plenum which appears as the created world, is essentially the Great Brahma, and situated in his greatness; just as the sky is situated in the sky, tranquillity in tranquillity, and felicity in felicity. Look at the reflexion of a longsome landscape in a mirror, and the picture of a far stretching city in the miniature; and you will find the distances of the objects lost in their closeness. So the distances of worlds are lost in their propinquity to one another in the spirit of God.
Lavana’s Vision Behind the Appearance of Reality
The king Lavana, having at the end of his dream, perceived the falsehood of his vision, resolved on the following day to visit that great forest himself. Roving in this region he beheld everything, he had seen before in his dream; he then inquired into the former circumstances, and wandered to learn their conformity with the occurrences of his vision. He beheld the same landscapes and leafless branches of trees, shorn of their foliage by the all devouring famine; he saw the same hunters pursuing their chase, and the same helpless orphans lying thereabouts.
The old matrons with their eyes flowing with brilliant drops of tears, and with their bodies and bosoms emaciated under the pressure of their afflictions; were mourning with loud acclamations of woe in that dreary district, stricken by drought and dearth. We remember your sweet smiles, showing your coral teeth resembling the red gunjaphalas to our lords, as they descended from the towering tāla (palm trees), with their red-ripe fruits held by their teeth, and growing on the cloud-capt mountains. Being cast on the waves of this earthly ocean, and joined to the daughter of a Chandāla, thou wast, O prince! subjected to mean and vile employments, that disgraced thy princely character. She happened to have here a husband as beautiful as the moon, who was a king and chanced to pass by this way. By this accident they were matched together, in the manner that an ass finds by chance a pot of honey lying on her way in the forest.
He reflected repeatedly on this strange occurrence, and its curious concurrence with his adventures in the dream. He made repeated queries relating to other circumstances, and the more he heard and learned of them, the more he found their coincidence with the occurrences of his vision. He sympathised with their woes, and saw them in the same state, as he had seen them before in his dream. And then he gave suitable gifts and presents to relieve their wants and woes. In the morning the King appeared in his court hall, and sitting there amidst his courtiers, asked me saying:—”How is it, O sage, that my dream has come to be verified in my presence to each item and to my great surprise?”
Know thus, O Rāma! it is the illusion of Avidyā, that is the cause of a great many errors, by making the untruth appear as truth, and representing the sober reality as unreality. The story of Lavana reveals the subtle distinction between appearance and reality: what appears as an external experience may arise from the movements and impressions of the mind. Distance appears to be nigh, as a distant mountain seen in the mirror; and a long time seems a short interval, as a night of undisturbed repose. The stable seems unsteady, as in the erroneous notion of the motion of fixed objects to one passing in a vehicle; and the unmoving seem to be moving to one, as under the influence of his inebriation. It is the notion that gives a shape to all things; it makes a kalpa age appear as a moment, and also prolongs a moment of time to a whole Kalpa. A man deprived of understanding, believes himself as he is said, to have become a sheep; so a fighting ram thinks himself to be a lion in his ideal bravery.
Ignorance causes the blunder of taking things for what they are not, and falling into the errors of egoism and tuism: so all errors in the mind produce errors in actions also. Lavana’s remembrance of the dream of his having lived in the habitation of the Pukkasa, was the internal cause, that represented to him the external picture of that abode, as it was a reality. (The mind shows what we think upon, whether they are real or unreal ones). In this manner is the thought of my having eaten something while I am really fasting; and that of my having sojourned in a distant country in a dream, appears true to me while I think of them.
The notion of Lavana as settled in the minds of the Vindhyans, as the thoughts of these people rose in the mind of the king. (If it is possible for us to transfer our thoughts to one another, how much easier must it be for the superior instrumentality of dreams and revelations to do the same also. This is the yoga, whereby one man reads the mind of another). Again the same error taking possession of many minds all at once, proves the futility of common sense and universal belief being taken for certainty, hence the common belief of the reality of things, is the effect of universal delusion and error.
“One idea embraces many others also under it, as those of the waves and current, are contained under that of water. And so one thought is associated by others relating its past, present and future conditions of being; as the thought of a seed accompanies the thoughts of its past and future states and its fruits and flowers of the tree. All that we see in our error, is as inexistent as oiliness in sands; and so the bracelet is nothing in reality, but a formal appearance of the substance of gold. As all things are full of the Spirit, so we have distinct ideas of them in our minds, which are also spiritual substances; and are not as dull material stones which have no feelings.”
There can not be a relation or connection of two dissimilar things, which may be lasting, but are never united together. For without such mutual relation of things, no idea of both can be formed together. The intellect being joined with an abstract idea, produces an invisible, inward and uniform thought: so dull matter joined to another dull object, forms a denser material object to view. But the intellectual and material can never unite together owing to their different natures. But there is no relation between intellect and matter; as there is between the stone and the wood; the intellect cannot combine with wood and stone to form anything. (The mind and matter have no relation with one another, nor can they unite together in any way).
Realizing the Supreme Intellect and Dissolving Mind
Know ye seekers of truth, all things to be identic with the entity of God. Renounce your knowledge of nonentities and the various kinds of errors and fallacies and know the One as All to pan. (The omnipotent spirit of God, is joined with all material things, in its spiritual form only; and it is knowable to the mind and spirit of man, and never by their material organs of sense). To Him there is no limit of time or place, but his presence extends over all his creation. It is ignorance that separates the creator from creation, and raises the errors of egoism and tuism (i. e. of the subjective and objective. The union of these into One is the groundwork of pantheism). The knowledge of unity removes that of a distinct creation, as the knowledge of the clay takes off the sense of puppet soldiers made of it.
Between the sight and its object, there lieth the eye of the beholder, which is beyond the sight of its viewer, and is neither the view nor the viewer. (Such is the supreme Being hidden alike from the view and the viewer). Drive your dullness, and remain always in the company of your sound intellect as a solid rock; and whether in joy or grief, commit your soul to your Maker. Remain free from anxiety about the present, as you are unconcerned about the future. Never be impelled by the impulses of your mind; but remain steadfast in your trust in the true God. Be unconcerned with all, and remain as an absent man. Let thy heart remain callous to everything like a block of stone or toy of wood; and look upon your mind as an inanimate thing, by the spiritual light of your soul.
The unselfpossessed (unspiritual) man, that follows the dictates of his fickle and wilful mind, resembles a man of the border land, following the customs of the outcast Mlechchās or barbarians. Having disregarded the dictates of your vile mind, you may remain at ease and as fearless, as an insensible statue made of clay. He who understands that there is no such thing as the mind, or that he had one before but it is dead in him to-day; becomes as immovable as a marble statue with this assurance in himself.
“Remain firm as thou art with thyself (soul), by casting afar thy fancied and fanciful mind from thee; and be freed from the thoughts of the world, by being settled in the thought of the Supreme Soul. He that has purged off his mind, is indeed a man of great understanding; he has gone across the error of the existence of the world, and become purified in his soul. We have considered long, and never found anything as the impure mind in the pure soul.”
Consolation to Rāma: The Absolute Nature of Self
Thou hast O Rāma! known whatever is to be known by man; and thou hast certainly extirpated thy desire in all thy actions through life. Why dost thou lament at the grief or loss of a friend, when thou art so friendless in thyself. Being thrown alone in this world, whom dost thou claim as a friend of thy soul? When a jar is broken in twain from its upper part, its vacuity is not lost, but mixes with the air; so the body being destroyed, the indestructible soul is not lost with it (but unites with its original source). There is a certain illusion, which raises the false appetites within us; otherwise the unity of the soul requires the help of no duality or secondary substance, in order to be united with the sole unity. It is the mental deception, O Rāghava, that presents before it the phenomena of the triple world, representing diverse forms according to the triplicate nature of man (the satva, rajas and tamas). These are as lines on the leaves of trees, and as the curls and waves on the surface of waters. They are as ornaments made of that gold, and as the heat and cold of that fire and water.
The pure notion that we have of an everlasting Being, apart from all sensible ideas and impressions, is called the Intellect and soul. Now Rāma, that hast a bodiless soul of the form of pure intellect, thou canst have no cause to fall into the error, of being sorry for or afraid of the vanities of the world.
The intellect is irresistible in its course, and roves about the solar path (ecliptic); it is the intellectual part that makes the man, and not the outward body. Whatever miseries you meet with, Rāma! in this transient world, all appertain to the body, and not to the intangible soul or intellect. Think therefore, O Rāma! on the nature of truth; and mind not about the errors of ignorance. Be freed from your earthly desires, and know the sinless soul to be void of all desires.
The soul being, as said before, a translucent particle, reflects the images of all worlds in itself; as a polished gem reflects the rays of light in its bosom. As it is the nature of a lighted lamp to spread its lustre all around, so it is the nature of mental philosophy, to enlighten us with the real state of the soul. Non-entity appears as an entity before us, it dies away at death, and reappears with our new birth. This is the distinction between appearance and reality: what appears as an entity is not necessarily the underlying reality.
“The mind itself takes its rise from the divine intellect, and displays itself in the substance of the Divine Soul, as the waves play about on the surface of the waters of the deep.”