49. The world is neither the production of our error, nor is it a representation of our delusion or as a magic show; nor is it the permeation of the spirit as pervading all nature, but it is the very essence of the selfsame deity itself.
50. It is the Divinity Brahma itself that shines in the form of this wondrous world; it is the self-same unity, which appears to manifest, and yet so very obscure as mysterious unto us. What is visible is only pure light, and that of the serene clearness of open air, which glows and grows dim by turns, by the vicissitudes of the light and shade of creation and destruction. (These as they change are but the varied God. Thomson’s Seasons).
CHAPTER CLXXIII.
Brahma Gita Or a Lecture on Spirituality.
Argument:—The attribution of all physical force to the Divine spirit, like the ascribing of all our bodily actions to the Mind.
Ráma rejoined:—If the nature of the Divine spirit is, as the notion which is Universally entertained of it; that it is common soul of all, and infinite in its pervasion, why then is it supposed to be the soul of the living body only, and called the Ego or a personal being?
2. How does the Intellect become inert, as a block of wood or stone in the state of our sleep, and why is it said to exist or become extinct in the state of its numbness (when it is said to be universal in its nature).
3. Vasishtha replied:—It is by common usage and mode of speech, that the universal soul is said to reside as the ego or personal being in the body; as it is by common use of language only, to take the hands of the body as hands, and not to understand the feet as such. (So the embodied soul only is called the ego).
4. As the leaf of a tree is considered only as a leaf or part of the tree, so the universal soul residing in the tree (as vegetable life), passes under the designation of a tree only.
5. And as vacuity in the sky, is styled the sky also; so the universal soul dwelling in matter, is designated as that matter likewise. (And so the common vacuum indwelling a pot, passes under the name of the pot also).
6. And as an aerial castle in a dream, appears as a tangible castle to the dreamer for the time; so the universal soul living in our sleep, dream, and waking, is thought to be sleeping, dreaming or being awake at that time.