14. This inert living principle (Jíva-Life or the Protozoa), becomes according to its literal signification the moving spirit (ákulátma), which afterwards with its power of thinking (manana) becomes the Mind, and lastly the embodied soul (Bhútátmá). (So says the Sruti; Etasmát Jáyate pránah, manah, sarvendriyánicha, Kham, Váyurúp, Prithiví &c. (i.e. From Him—the Spirit, is derived the life, mind and the organs of sense or body, whence he is styled the Living, Thinking and All acting Deity)).
15. Thus the mind is produced and changed from the quiescent nature of the Great Supreme Spirit to a state of restlessness (asthirákára) like that of a surge, heaving itself in the (Pacific) Ocean (i.e. the restful spirit of God-Brahma is transformed to the restless state of the Mind, personified as Brahmá or Hiranyagarbha, called the Atmabhu—the son of the spirit of God or God the Son, Demiurge).
16. The mind soon evolves itself as a self-volitive power which exercises its desires at all times whereby this extensive magic scene of the world is displayed to our view. This scene is figured as Virájmúrti, or manifestation of the desires of the will of Divine mind, and represented as the offspring of Brahmá in the Indian Theogony. (Vide Manu on Genesis, chap I).
17. As the word golden bracelet signifies no other thing than a bracelet made of gold, so the meaning of the word world is not different from its source—the Divine will. (The difference is formal and not material, and consists in form and not in the substance, the divine will being the substratum of the formal world).
18. Again as the word gold bears the idea of the substance of which the bracelet is made, so the word Brahma conveys the meaning of immensity which contains the world in it; but the word world contains no idea of Brahma nor bracelet that of gold. (The substance contains the form as a stone does the statue, but the form does not contain the substance, as the statue may be of earth or metal or of wood).
19. The unreality of the world appears as a reality, just as the heat of the sun presents the unreal mirage in the moving sands of the desert as real waves of the sea. (So the phantasm of the mind-Brahmá, presents the phantasmagoria of the world (Viswarúpa) as a sober reality).
20. It is this phantasy (of the reality of the unreal world), which the learned in all things, designate as ignorance—avidyá, nature—sansriti, bondage—bandha, illusion—máyá, error-moha, and darkness—tamas. (To denote our mental delusion and deception of senses. Gloss).
SECTION IV.
Nature of Bondage.
21. Now hear me relate to you, O moon-faced Ráma! about the nature of this bondage, whereby you will be able to know the mode and manner of our liberation from it (as the diagnosis of a disease being known, it is not difficult to heal it).
22. The intimate relation of the spectator with the spectacle is called his bondage to the same, because the looker’s mind is fast bound to the object of his sight. It is the absence of the visible objects, therefore, from the mirror of the mind, which is the only means of his liberation. (So also is the removal of the objects of the other senses from the mind).