28. Every one sees every thing in the same manner on his outside as it is firmly imprest in his inward mind; but this sage being freed from the impression of his personality in his life time, was at liberty to take upon him whatever personality he chose for himself. (It is possible for every person and thing to become another, by forgetting and forsaking their own identity and individuality).
29. Ráma said:—I believe, O chief of sages! that the living liberated man who sits in this manner, obtains the emancipation of his soul, even though he is confined in the prison house of his body; and such was the case of the self-liberated sage Vítahavya. (The body may be confined in a single spot, but the soul has its free range everywhere).
30. Vasishtha answered:—How can Ram! the living liberated souls, have the confinement of the body, when they remain in the form of Brahm in the outward temple of his creation, which is pure and tranquil as air. (The gloss says: the ideal body like the ideal world cannot be the living or divine soul, any more than it is for a burnt vesture to invest the body. Hence Nature which is said to be the body of God, has no power over the spirit whose reflexion it is).
31. Wherever the empty and airy consciousness represents itself in any form, it finds itself to be spread out there in that form. (Hence it is that the conscious spirit assumes any form it likes, and rejects it at will without being confined within or by the same).
32. So there appears many ideal worlds to be present before us, which are full with the presence of the all pervading spirit of God. (Because all these worlds are ideas or images or reflexions of God).
33. Thus Vítahavya, who was confined in the cave and submerged under the mire; saw in the intellect of his great soul, multitudes of worlds and countless unformed and ideal creations.
34. And he having thought himself at first as the celestial Indra, conceived himself afterwards as an earthly potentate, and preparing to go on a hunting excursion to some forest.
35. This sage who supposed himself as the swan of Brahmá at one time, now became a chief among the Dása huntsmen in the forests of Kailása.
36. He who thought himself once as a prince in the land of Surástra (Surat in Bombay), had now became as a forester in a village of the Andhras in Madras.
37. Ráma said:—If the sage enjoyed heavenly bliss in his mind, what need had he of assuming these ideal forms to himself? (since no body would even in thought, like to exchange his spiritual delight for corporeal enjoyment).