5. You said you saw the earth and sky, and the rivers and mountains and many other things in the mind; but how can these and the world itself, be in any manner situated therein.
6. The sage replied:—All these things and the world also are mere non-entities, as there was no pre-existent material cause for the production of the world, before its coming to existence; therefore neither the term creation nor its sense, is in any way applicable to this world or it is seen by us. (It is therefore but the mere phantasm of an everlasting dream).
7. Hence the world creation and its meaning, proceed from ignorance of the supreme soul, which is immutable in its nature; and it is ignorance of this truth (lit. true knowledge), that produces the fallacy (lit. the false knowledge) of creation. (Therefore the world (i.e. the idea of the world), is ever present in the Divine mind).
8. Therefore I say, O thou fortunate one, that after you come to your knowledge in this respect (i.e. of the nature of God), and your ignorance of His supremely pure nature is removed:—
9. You will no more believe like myself, the false impression of your consciousness (of the existence of the world); but must come to know that, this causeless and uncreated world, is only the expanded reflexion of your own mind.
10. Where is the body and the heart, and where are these elements of water &c.; what is this dream and what are these conceptions and perceptions, and what is life or death or anything else? (All which are nothing in reality).
11. There is but one transpicuous Intellect everywhere, before which the subtile ether is opalescent, and the biggest mountain is but a mite.
12. It is of its own nature that this intellectual vacuity, reflects on something in its thought; and sees the same as its aeriform body; and this it is what is called the world.
13. As it is our intellect alone, which reflects itself in various forms in our dream; and as there is nothing besides it that then presents itself to our view, so this world is no other than the aerial form of the intellect only.
14. This universe is a quiet vacuity without any stir or shadow of anything in it; and it is the dimness of the purblind eye of the intellect, that presents these false shapes to sight, as blind men see black spots in the clear sky.