CHAPTER LXXXXVII.
The Magnitude of the Sphere of the Intellect.
Argument. The Intellectual, Mental and Material Spheres, and their representations in the Mind.
Ráma said:—I come to understand, O venerable sage! from all you have propounded, that this grandeur of the universe being the work of the Divine Mind, is all derived from the same. (Here the creation of the world by the Divine mind, is viewed in the pantheistic light of Emanation).
2. Vasishtha answered:—The Mind as already said, having assumed a substantial form, manifested itself in the form of water in the mirage, raised by the shining blaze of its own light. (This passage embodies both theories, that light was the first work of God, and the Spirit of God moved on the surface of the waters. O ruh Eloim marhapeth-fi pene al maim. Genesis. Apa eva Sasarjádan. Manu).
3. The mind became amalgamated (identic), with the contents of the world, in the Spirit of Brahmá, now showing itself in the form of man, and now appearing as a God. (i.e. the mind reflected on these images which were evolution of itself in itself; because the thought or product of the mind, was of the same substance with itself). (This accords with the pantheistic doctrine, that God and Nature are one substance, and the one is a modification of the other).
4. Somewhere he showed himself as a demon and at another place like a yaksha (yakka); here he was as a Gandharvá, and there in the form of a Kinnará. (All these were the ideal manifestations of the Divine Mind).
5. The vast expanse of the Mind, was found to comprise in it the various tracts of land; and the pictures of many cities and habitable places. (Because the mind is the reservoir of all their images).
6. Such being the capacity of the mind, there is no reckoning of the millions of bodies, which are contained in it, like the woods and plants in a forest. All those are not worth our consideration in our inquiry about the mind. (They are as useless to the psychologist as botany is to the geologist).
7. It was this mind which spread out the world with all its contents, beside which there exists naught but the Supreme Spirit. (The mind is the container of the archetypes of the ectypal world, or the recording power of knowledge; but the Supreme Soul is the disembodied self-consciousness, having the principle of volition or Will; while the Spirit is the animating faculty of the soul).
8. The soul is beyond every category, it is omnipresent and the substratum of all existence, and it is by the power of this soul, that the mind doth move and manifest itself. (The mind is the soul incorporated with bodies; but the soul is quite apart from these).