30. When the form of the outward object, comes in contact with the gemming eye sight of a person; it casts its picture on the same, which is instantly conveyed to the inward soul.
31. The image that is cast on the retina of the eye, is reflected thence to the clearer mirror of the soul, which perceives it by contact with the same; and it is thus that outer things come to the knowledge of the living soul.
32. Even babes can know whatever comes in taction with them, and so do brutes and vegetables have the power of feeling the objects of their touch; how then is it possible for the sensuous soul to be ignorant of its tangible objects?
33. The clear rays of the eyesight which surround the soul, present to it the pictures of visible objects which they bear in their bosom, and whereby the soul comes to know him.
34. There is the same relation of sensuous contact, between the perceptive soul and the perceptible objects of the other senses also; the taste, smell, sound, the touch of things, are all the effects of their contact with the soul.
35. The sound remaining in its receptacle of the air, passes in a moment in the cavity of the ear; and thence entering into the hollow space of the soul, gives it the sensation of its nature.
36. Ráma said:—I see that the reflexions of things are cast in the mirror of the mind, like the images of things carved on wooden tablets and slabs of stone; but tell me sir, how the reflexion of the image of God is cast on the mirror of the mind.
37. Vasishtha replied:—know, O best of gnostics that know the knowable, that the gross images of the universal and particular souls, which are reflected in the mirror of the mind, are as false as the images of God and deities which are carved in stones and wood.
38. Never rely, O Ráma, in the substantiality of this false world; know it as a great vortex of whirling waters, and ourselves as the waves rolling upon it.