44. Lílá said:—Tell me kindly, O good goddess! for the enlightenment of my understanding, how this misconception of its changeableness, first came upon the soul in the beginning.
45. The goddess replied:—It is the gross view of the abstract, that causes us to assume the discrete spirit, in the concrete forms of the earth and sky and rocks and trees (all of which subsist in the spirit, and are unsubstantial in themselves).
46. As the divine intellect manifests itself, as the soul and model of all forms; so we see these manifestations, in the transcendental sphere of its pure intelligence.
47. In the beginning, God conceived himself as the lord of creation (Brahmá); and then as it were in a dream, he saw in himself, all the forms as they continue to this time.
48. These forms were manifested in the divine spirit, at first as his will; and then exhibited in the phenomenal world, as reflexions of the same, in all their present forms.
49. Among these some are called living beings, which have the motions of their bodies and limbs; and live by means of the air which they breathe, and which circulate in their bodies through the lungs and arteries.
50. Such also is the state of the vegetable creation from the first, that they having their inward sensitiveness, are notwithstanding devoid of outward motion, and receive their sustenance by the roots; wherefore they are called Pádapas or pedobibers.
51. The hollow sphere of the divine intellect, beaming with intelligence, sends forth its particles of percipience, which form the consciousness of some beings, and sensitiveness in others.
52. But man uses his eyes to view the outer and the reflected world (in disregard of his consciousness of the real); although the eyes do not form his living soul, nor did they exist at his creation and before his birth. (When his view was concentrated within himself as in his sleeping visions).
53. It is according to one’s estimation of himself, that he has his proper and peculiar desires, and the particular form of his body also. Such is the case of the elementary bodies likewise, from their inward conception of their peculiar natures.