60. Ráma rejoined:—How can this blind and deep rooted predilection, which has accompanied the soul from many previous births, and branched out into multifarious desires, resign its hold of the human heart all at once?
61. Vasishtha replied:—As the knowledge of truth, serves to disperse the rooted error of the material world from the mind, so the sense of the vanity of human desires, and of the bitterness of their enjoyment, dissipate their seeds at once from the heart (where they can take root no more).
62. Ráma rejoined:—After dissipation of the error of materiality, of the visible spheres of worlds; say, O sage, what is that state of the mind which follows it, and how its peace and tranquility at last?
63. Vasishtha replied:—After dissipation of the error of the material world, the mind reverts to its seat in the immaterial soul; where it is released from all its earthly bonds, and finds its rests in the state of an indifferent insouciance—vairágya.
64. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, if the error of the world is as little, as that of a child’s idea of sorrow, then what trouble there is for a man to remedy it?
65. Vasishtha replied:—All our desires, like the fond wishes of boys, being wholly extinct in the mind, there remains no more any cause of any sorrow in it; and this you may well know from the association of desires in all minds.
66. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, what is the mind, and how are we to know its nature and workings; and what good do we derive, by our best investigation of the mental powers and properties.
67. Vasishtha replied:—The inclination of the intellect towards the intelligibles, is called the mind, for its mending the thinkables only; and the right knowledge of its workings, leads to the extinction of all our worldly desires. (i.e. The thoughts of things, are productive of our desires for them; banish your thoughts, and you get rid of your desires at once).
68. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me sir, how long continues this tendency of the intellect towards the thinkables, and when does the mind come to have its unmindfulness, which causes our coma or anæsthesis of Nirvána.
69. Vasishtha replied:—There being a total absence of thinkable things, what is then left for the intellect to be intent upon; the mind dwells upon its thoughts only, but the want of thinkable objects, leaves nothing for it to think upon.