CHAPTER LXVIII.
The Fallacy of the Existence of the World.
Argument:—Exposition of the Erroneous conception of the Material World.
The Nymph continued:—Now as it is the habit of long practice, combined with the understanding and cogitation of a subject, that makes one proficient in it; so these being applied to the meditation of the spiritual and pure soul, will cause the material world to vanish in the stone (we have been talking of).
2. Vasishtha said:—After the celestial nymph had spoken in this manner, I retired to the cavern of a rock, where I sat in my posture of Padmásana (or legs folded upon one another); and became engaged in my samádhi-devotion (or abstract and abstruse meditation).
3. Having given up all thoughts of corporeal bodies, and continued to think only of the intellectual soul, according to the holy dictate of the nymph as said before.
4. I then had the sight of an intellectual void in me, which present a clear and fair prospect before me, resembling the clearness of the vacuous vault of heaven in autumnal season.
5. It was at last by my intense application, to the meditation of the true One (or the God in spirit), that my erroneous view of the phenomenals, entirely subsided within me (or disappeared from my mind).
6. The intellectual sphere of my mind, was filled by a transcendent light; which knew no rising or setting, but was always shining with an uniform radiance.
7. As I was looking into and through the light, that shone in me, I could find neither the sky nor that great stone, which I sought to find.
8. I then found the clear and thick blaze of my spiritual light, to ravish my outward sight; as it had enrapt my inward vision.