17. How is it then, O goddess! that they came to be placed in this place. I see them as Images situated within and without the mirror of my mind, and know not whether these be living beings (or the false chimeras of my imagination).
18. Sarasvatí replied:—All our external perceptions of things, are the immediate effects of our internal conceptions of them. The intellect has the knowledge of all the intelligibles in it, as the mind has the impressions of mental objects in itself. (Or in other words:—the intellect is possessed of all intelligence, like the mind of its thoughts, as they present themselves in dreams. Gloss).
19. The external world appears in an instant in the same form and manner to one, as he has its notion and impression in his intellect and mind; and no distance of time or place, nor any intermediate cause can create any difference in them.
20. The inward world is seen on the outside, as the internal impressions of our minds, appear to be seen without us in our dreams. Whatever is within us, the same appears without us, as in our dreams and desires, and in all our imaginations and fancies of objects.
21. It is the constant habitude of your mind, that presented these things as realities to your sight, and you saw your husband in the same state in which you thought him to be, when he died in that city of yours.
22. It is the same place wherein he exists at present, and is presented with the same objects of his thought at present as he had at that moment. Any thing that appears to be different in this state, proceeds from the turn of his mind of thinking it so before.
23. All that appears real to him, is as unreal as his dream or desire, and the creation of his fancy; for every thing appears to be the same as it is thought of in the mind. (All external objects are representations of their prototypes in the mind).
24. Say therefore what truth can there be in these visionary objects, which are altogether unsubstantial as dreams, and vanish in the end into airy nothing.
25. Know then every thing to be no better than nothing; and as a dream proves to be nothing upon waking, so is waking also a dream and equally nothing at death.
26. Death in life time is a nullity, and life in death becomes null and extinct; and these extinctions of life and death, proceed from the fluctuating nature of our notions of them.