[CHAPTER CXIII.]
The Parable of the Vain Man Continued.
Argument.—Interpretation of the parable of the Aerial man.
RÁMA said:—Please sir, give me the interpretation of your parable of the false man, and tell me the allusion it bears to the fanciful man, whose business it was to watch the air or sky (and to make his new posts for that purpose).
2. Vasishtha replied:—Hear me, Ráma, now expound to you the meaning of my parable of the false man, and the allusion which it bears to every fanciful man in this world.
3. The man that I have represented to you, as a magical engine (máyá yantra), means the egoistic man, who is led by the magic of his egoism, to look upon the empty air of his personality as a real entity (and whose sole care it is to preserve its vital air as its only property).
4. The vault of the sky, which contains all these orbs of worlds; is but an infinite space of empty void, as it was ere this creation came into existence, and before it becomes manifest to view.
5. There is the spirit of the inscrutable and impersonal Brahma, immanent in this vacuity and becomes apparent in the personality of Brahmá, in the manner of the audible sound issuing out of the empty air, which is its receptacle and support.
6. It is from this also that there rises the subtle individual soul with the sense of its egoism, as the vibration of current winds springs from the motionless air; and then as it grows up in time in the same element, it comes to believe its having an individual soul and a personality of its own.
7. Thus the impersonal soul being imbibed with the idea of its personality, tries to preserve its egoism for ever; it enters into many bodies of different kinds, and creates new ones for its abode upon the loss of the former ones.