5. The belief of the ignorant man in the reality of himself, thyself and all others, does not affect the knower of truth, as the delusion of mirage never overtakes the man on Mount Meru: (where the deceptive sands of the deserts are wanting).
6. As the man intent upon one object, has no consciousness of any other thing in his mind; so one enrapt at the sight of God alone, is conscious of nothing besides.
7. There neither is nor was nor shall ever be, any such thing as the material world at any time; the world in esse is the image of Brahma himself, and abides in his spirit.
8. The world is the splendour of the chrystalline vacuum of the Divine Intellect, and subsists in the vacuity of the supreme soul itself; it is in this light that the universe is seen in the dhyána yoga or abstruse contemplation of <the> yogi.
9. As there is nothing in an empty dream or in the aerial castle of imagination except the clear atmosphere of the Intellect; so there is no essence or substance nor form or figure of this world, that we view in our present waking state.
10. At first there was no creation of any kind, nor this world which appears to us (in its material form); it exists in its aerial form in the Divine Mind from all eternity; and there being no primary or secondary cause of it, how is it possible to call it a material thing of its own spontaneous growth.
11. Therefore there is nothing that sprang itself out of nothing at first, nor was there ever a creator called Brahmá or other by the ignorant, in the beginning; there is nothing but an infinite void from eternity to eternity, which is filled by the self-born or increate spirit, whose intellect exhibits this creation, contained for ever and ever in its vacuity.
CHAPTER CLXV.
On the Similarity of Waking and Dreaming.
Argument:—The steadiness of the Intellect in waking and Dreaming, which are alike to one another.
Vasishtha continued:—In the state of waking dream the dream passes under the name of waking; and in the state of dreaming wakefulness, this waking goes by the name of sleeping.[2]