3. The idea of one’s egoism (or his personality in own person), is said to be an idealism by idealists; but it is the conception of the signification of the word air or vacuity (which is the essence of the Deity), that is represented as the repudiation of that erroneous notion.
4. The idealists represent the sense of all substances, as a creation of the imagination, while it is the idea of a pure vacuum, which they say to be the resignation of this erroneous conception. (The vacuistic Vasishtha treats here in length of the nullity of all substances, and the eternity of all pervading vacuum, and establishes the doctrine of the nothingness of the world and its God).
5. The idea of any thing in the world as something in reality, is said to be mere imaginary by the best and wisest of men; but the belief of all things as an empty nothing, displaces the error of thought from the mind. Since all things are reduced to and return to nothing, it is this alone which is the ever lasting something. (Ullum est nullum, et nullum est ullum).
6. Know thy remembrance of anything, is thy imagination of it only, and its forgetfulness alone is good for thee; therefore try to blot out all thy former impressions from thy mind, as if they were never impressed on it.
7. Efface from thy mind the memory of all thou hast felt or unfelt (i.e. fancied), and remain silent and secluded like a block after thy forgetfulness of all things whatsoever.
8. Continue in the practice of thy continuous actions, with an utter oblivion of the past (nor need the assistance of thy memory of the past, in the discharge of thy present duties); because thy habit of activity is enough to conduct thee through all the actions of thy life, as it is the habit of a half-sleeping baby to move its limbs (without its consciousness of the movements). (Such is the force of habit, says the maxim Abhyastopapatti—habit is second nature).
9. It requires no design or desire on the part of an actor to act his part, whereto he is led by the tenor of his prior propensities (of past lives); as a potter’s wheel is propelled by the pristine momentum, without requiring the application of continued force for its whirling motion. So O sinless Ráma! mind our actions to be under the direction of our previous impressions, and not under the exertion of our present efforts.
10. Hence inappetency has become the congenial tendency of your mind, without its inclination to the gratification of its appetites. The leanings of men to particular pursuits, are directed by the current of their previous propensities. The predisposition of the mind, is said to be the cause of the formation of the character and fortune of a man in his present state, (which is otherwise said to be the result of his predestination) which runs as a stream in wonted course, and carries all men as straws floating along with its tide.
11. I am proclaiming it with a loud voice and lifted arms, and yet no body will hearken unto me when I say that, want of desire is our supreme bliss and summum bonum, and yet why is it that none would perceive it as such?
12. O the wondrous power of illusion! that it makes men to slight their reason, and throw away the richest jewel of their mind, from the chest of their breast wherein it is deposited.