32. Ráma said:—I can understand sir, how a moiety of our ignorance is removed by conversation with the wise, as also how a fourth part of it driven by the study of sástras, but tell me sir, how the remainder of it is removed by our belief and reliance in the spirit.
33. Tell me sir, what you mean by the simultaneous and gradual removal of ignorance, and what am I to understand by what you call the nameless one and the true reality, as distinguished from the unreal.
34. Vasishtha replied:—It is proper for all good and virtuous people who are dispassionate and dissatisfied with the world, to have recourse to wise and holy men, and argue with them regarding the course of nature, in order to get over the ocean of this miserable world.
35. It is proper also for intelligent persons, to be in diligent search after the passionless and unselfish men wherever they may be found; and particularly to find out and reverence such of them, as are possessed with the knowledge of the soul, and are kindly disposed to impart their spiritual knowledge to others.
36. The acquisition of such a holy sage, takes away one half of one’s temporal and spiritual ignorance; by setting him on the first and best step of divine knowledge. (The subsequent stages of yoga, are based upon the initiatory step or stage).
37. Thus half of one’s spiritual gloom being dispelled by association with the holy; the remaining two fourths are removed, by religious learning and one’s own faith and devotion.
38. Whenever any desire of any enjoyment whatever, is carefully suppressed in one’s self by his own endeavour; it is called his self-exertion, which destroys one fourth of spiritual ignorance.
39. So it is the society of the holy, the study of Sástras and one’s own exertion, which tend to take away one’s sins, and it is done by each of these singly or all of these conjointly, either by degrees or at once and at the same time.
40. Whatever there remains either as something or nothing at all, upon the total extinction of ignorance, the same is said to be the transcendent and nameless or unspeakable something or nothing (owing to its being beyond all conception).
41. This is verily the real Brahma, the undestroyed, infinite and eternal one; and which being but a manifestation of the unsubstantial will, is understood as an inexistent blank likewise. By knowing the measureless, immeasurable and unerring being, do you rely in your own nihility of nirvána, and be free from all fear and sorrow. (He who thinks himself as nothing, has no care or fear for anything).