CHAPTER CXXXXVII.
The Phenomenon and Perspection of Dreams.
Argument:—The rise of dream from sound sleep; and the vision of friends and relations in Dreaming.
The sage continued:—Hear me now, O strong armed archer, how I awoke from my sound sleep, and saw the sight of the world in my dream; just <as> a man rising on the surface from the depth of the sea, surveys the heavens above him.
2. I saw the heavens, as hewn out of the etherial vacuum; and I beheld the terrestrials, as sculptured out of the earth; but found them all, to be fashioned out of the Divine Mind; or framed in that manner, by my visual organs or ocular deception only.
3. The world appeared, as the early or long sprung blossom of the arbour of the eternal mind; or as the ceaseless waves of the vast ocean, or as phantoms of my deluded eye sight.
4. It seemed to appear from the bosom of the sky above, or to have proceeded from all sides of heaven; it seemed moreover as a masonry carved out of the mountains of all quarters of the firmament, and also as a prodigy rising out of the earth or Tartarus.
5. It seemed also to have sprung out of the heart, as any of its feelings or affections; and to have filled all the space of vacuity, as the all pervading clouds of heaven; methought it likewise as the produce of a large forest, or like seeds or grains growing out of the earth.
6. As pictures of houses with apartments, are painted upon the planes of level plates; so the figures of living beings, are drawn upon the smooth flatness of the Intellect, together with all the members and organs of their bodies.
7. These worlds appear to have sprung in some unknown part of Infinity, and to have presented themselves to our view, like flying herds of distant regions coming to our sight; or as presents are brought to the presence of prince from different parts of lands, or as the retributions and rewards of one’s <good> or bad deeds in this life, meet him in the next and successive transmigration.
8. The world is but a blossom of the great arbour of Brahma, or a little billow of vast ocean of Eternity; it is a sculpture on the colossal pillar of the Intellect, without being carved out or cast upon it. (It is the macrocosm moulded in the mind of God).