CHAPTER XXXVI.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INTELLECTUAL SPHERE.
Argument. The Intellect as pervading all things, and making us acquainted with them.
Ráma said:—Tell me O Bráhman! how the mundane system subsists in the extra mundane immaterial soul, for the sake of my advancement in knowledge.
2. Vasishtha replied:—The worlds having no separate existence (before or after their formation) except in the Supreme mind, they are all situated in the Divine Intellect, like the unheaving and unseen would be waves of the sea.
3. As the all-pervading sky is not to be seen owing to its extreme tenuity; so the undivided nature of the all-pervasive intellect, is not to be perceived on account of its rarity.
4. As the gem has its brilliancy in it, whether it is moved or unmoved by any body, so the unreal world has its potential existence in the Divine Spirit, both in its states of action and inactivity. (Hence the eternity of the world in the Eternal Mind).
5. As the clouds abiding in the sky, do not touch the sky or have a tangible feeling of its vacuity; so the worlds subsisting in the receptacle of the Intellectual soul, have no contact with the extraneous (pará) intellect, which is unconnected with its contents.
6. As the light residing in the waters of the sea or a pot of water, is not connected either with the water or pot, nor is it felt by us but by its reflexion; so the intangible soul abides unconnected in its receptacle of the body, and reflects itself to our knowledge only.
7. The intellect is devoid of every desire and designation; it is the indestructible soul, and is named by our intelligence of it as (Chetya) intelligible; or from some one of our intelligible ideas as the living soul &c.
8. It is clearer than the translucent air, and finer than it by a hundred times; it is known as an undivided whole by the learned; who view it as identic with the whole undivided world, which it comprehends within itself.