3. Now this viewer—Brahma, and his viewing and the view of the world, must either all be false (as there is no duality in nature); or they must all be true, having the spirit of Brahma at the bottom.
4. Ráma rejoined:—Now sir, please to tell me, how this spiritual and shadowy sight of the primeval Lord of creation, could be realized in its solidified state, and reality can there be in the vision of a dream.
5. Vasishtha replied:—The spiritual view is ever apparent by itself within ourselves; and our continuous and ceaseless sight of it, gives it the appearance of a solid reality.
6. As the visionary sights of our dreams, come to be realized in times, by our continuous poring upon them; so doth the spiritual appear as real, by our constant habit of thinking them as such. (So it is recorded in the case of King Harischandra of old).
7. The constant thought of the reality of our spiritual body, makes appear as a real object to our sight; as the constant craving of deer after water, makes it appear in the mirage of the parched desert before them.
8. So the vision of this world, has like every other fallacy, misled us like the poor and parching deer, to the misconception of water in the mirage; and does this and all other unrealities appear as real ones in our ignorance.
9. Many spiritual and intellectual objects, like a great many unreal things, are taken for the material and real, by the avidity of their desires and ignorant admirers.
10. The impression that I am this, and that one is another, and that this is mine and that is his; and that these are the hills and skies about us; are all as erroneous as the conception of reality in our dreams and false phantoms of the brain.
11. The spiritual body which was at first conceived, by the prime creator of all—Brahmá, assumed a material form as that of a globe under his sight. (Meaning the Mundane egg).
12. The living soul of Brahma, being born of the mundane egg in a corporeal body; forgot or rather forsook to think of its incorporeal intellectuality, and thought himself as composed of his present material body only. He looked into it and thought, that this was his body and the recipient of his soul: (instead of the souls being the fountain of the body).