38. It was for this reason, that I have given you the narrations of Dásúra, by way of explanation of the phenomenal world, as a shadow of the noumenal.
39. Now therefore know the Spirit like Dásúra, and imitate his example in the magnanimity of your soul. Forsake the unreal, and pursue the reality for your permanent delight.
40. Rub out the dirt of desire from your mind, and see the image of truth in it as in a mirror; you will thus attain to the highest state of knowledge, and be honoured in all worlds as a perfect being.
CHAPTER LVI.
ON THE SOUL AND ITS INERTNESS.
Argument. Consideration of the activity and inactivity of the Soul, and the Vanity of the Visibles.
Vasishtha continued:—Knowing the world as a nihility, you must cease to take any delight in it; for what reasonable being is there in it that would delight in its unreality.
2. If you take the phenomenal world for a reality, you may continue to enslave yourself to the unreal material; and lose the spiritual nature of your soul.
3. Or if you know it to be a temporary existence, why then should you take any interest in what is so frail and unstable, rather than care for your immortal soul?
4. The world is no substantial existence, nor are you a being of its unsubstantiality; it is only a clear reflection of the divine mind, and extending over all infinity. (And which is refracted into all individual minds as in prismatic glasses).
5. The world is neither an agent itself, nor is it the act of any agent at all; it is simply the reflexion of the noumenal, without any agency of its own.