15. Ráma said:—Why sir, you have said yourself of Ignorance in the chapter on Upasama or Tranquillity, and told me to know all these as products of error.
16. Vasishtha answered:—Ráma! you had been all this time immerged in your ignorance, and have at last come to your right understanding by your own reasoning.
17. It is the practice of glossologists and men of letters, to adopt the use of the word ignorance, living soul and the like, for awakening the unenlightened to their enlightenment only.
18. So long as the mind is not awakened to the knowledge of truth, it remains in the darkness of error for ever; and is not to its right understanding; even by its traversing a hundred miles.
19. When the living soul is awakened to its right sense by the force of reason, it learns to unite itself to the supreme soul, but being led without the guidance of reason, it is successful in nothing with all its endeavours.
20. He who tells the unenlightened vile man, that all this world is the great Brahma himself, does no more than communicate his sorrows to the headless trunk of a tree. (A lecture to the listless man, is not listened to).
21. The fool is brought to sense by reasoning, and the wise man knows the truth from the nature of the subject; but the ignorant never learn wisdom, without the persuasion of reason. (The wise learn by intuition, but the unwise by no instruction).
22. You had been unwise so long as you depended on your own reasoning (judgment); but being guided by me, you are now awakened to truth. (No body is wise of his own conceit without the guidance of his preceptor).
23. That I am Brahma, thou art Brahma, and so the visible world is Brahma himself; know this truth and naught otherwise, and do as you please. (All inventions and imaginations of Him are false).