38. All things expressed, in words have certain causes assigned to them; but the cause of their nature remains inexplicable, (whence nature—swabháva is said to be avidyá or hidden ignorance). It is the cause of this prime nature (i.e. God), whose knowledge alone conduces to our liberations (from ignorance).
39. Nothing whatever has its particular nature of itself, unless it were implanted in it by the intelligence of God, as it were by infusion of the moisture of divine intelligence.
40. All our thoughts, are agitated by inspiration of the breath of the great intellect; know them therefore as proceeding from the vacuum of the entity of the supreme Brahma.
41. There is no difference whatever, in the different nature of the creator and creation; except it be as that of the air and its agitation, which are the one and same thing and of the same nature. The thought of their difference is as erroneous, as the sight of one’s death in his dream.
42. An error continues so long, as the blunder does not become evident by the light of reasoning; when the error being cleared of its falsity, flies to and vanishes into the light and truth of Brahma.
43. Error being the false representation of something, flies away before a critical insight into it; and all things being but productions of our error, like our conception of the horns of hare, they all vanish before the light of true knowledge, which leaves the entity of Brahma only at the end.
44. Therefore give up all your errors and delusions, and thereby get rid of the burden of your diseases and decay; and meditate only on the One, that has no beginning, middle, or end, is always clear and the same, and full of bliss and felicity, and assimilate yourself to the nature of the clear firmament: (which according to Vasishtha is the nature and form of God).
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Sermon on the Practice of Spiritual Yoga or
Intellectual Meditation.
Argument:—Elucidation of the doctrine that, the best way of avoiding worldly affairs, is to refrain from mixing with them.
Vasishtha continued:—The man who is lost in the pleasure or under the pains, which fall to his share in this life, is lost for ever for the future; but he who is not thus lost (by keeping his soul aloof from the vicissitudes of life), is pronounced to be imperishable by the verdict of the sástras.