28. The living soul bears its vitality as the seed bears the germ in its bosom; and this sprouts forth in future acts, in the manner of the various forms of leaves, fruits and flowers of trees.
(Thus the living soul of Brahmá was the seed of all animate and inanimate beings).
29. All other living souls that appeared in the various forms of their bodies, had such forms given to them by Brahmá, according to their acts and desires in premundane creations in former Kalpas. (Hence the belief in the endless succession of creations).
30. So the personal acts of people are the causes of their repeated births and deaths in this or other worlds; and they ascend higher or sink lower by virtue of their good or bad deeds, which proceed from their hearts and the nature of their souls.
31. Our actions are the efforts of our minds, and shape our good or bad destinies according to the merit or demerit of the acts. The fates and chances of all in the existing world, are the fruits and flowers of their past acts, and even of those done in prior Kalpas; and this is called their destiny. (Sástra: No act goes for naught even in a thousand Kalpas. Má bhuktan kshiyate Karma, kalpa koti satai rapi).
CHAPTER LXV.
Nature of the Living Soul.
Argument. The mind and its operations, the subjective and objective, and lastly the Divine Intellect.
Vasishtha continued:—The Mind sprang at first from the supreme cause of all; this mind is the active soul which resides in the supreme soul (the Ens entium).
2. The mind hangs in doubt between what is and what is not, and what is right and what is wrong. It forgets the past like the scent of a fleeting odor by its wilful negligence. (Unmindfulness is the cause of forgetfulness).
3. Yet there is no difference between these seeming contraries; because the dualities of Brahma and the soul, the mind and máyá, the agent and act, and the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, all blend together in the unity of God. (All seeming differences converge in unvarying Mind).