8. The great fabrics of human wishes, fell down with the cities of the Gods; and the peaks of mountain were hurled headlong, by shocks of tremendous earthquakes.
9. Ráma rejoined:—Now sir, if the world is but a representation of the ideal in the mind of the great God Brahmá or Virát; then what is the difference of earth, heaven and hell to him (who encompasses the whole in his body or mind).
10. How can these worlds be said, to be the members of his body; or can it be thought, that the God resides in them with his stupendous form.
11. I well know that Brahmá is wilful spirit of God, and has no form of himself; and so do I take this world, for a formless representation of the will or idea in the Divine Mind. Please sir, explain this clearly unto me.
12. Vasishtha replied:—In the beginning this world was not in existence, nor inexistence either; because there was the eternal Intellect, which engrossed all infinity in itself, and the whole vacuity of space with its essence.
13. This vacuity of it (the subjective chit), is known as the objective chetya or thought; and the intellect without forsaking its form, becomes chetana or the power of intellection (or the mind) itself.
14. Know this intellection as the jíva or living soul, which being condensed (with feelings &c.) becomes the gross mind; but none of these essences or forms of existence, have any form whatever.
15. The vacuity of the intellect, remains as the pure vacuum in itself forever; and all this which appears as otherwise, is no other and nothing without the self-same soul.
16. The very soul assumes to it its egoism (or personality), and thinking itself as the mind, becomes sullied with its endless desires, in its vacuous form. (The pure soul is changed to the impure spirit or volitive mind).
17. Then this intellectual principle, thinks itself as the air, by its own volition; and by this false supposition of itself, it becomes of an aerial form in the open air.