8. Ráma replied:—I see this world as a formless void, situated in the infinite vacuity of Brahma; it is an uncreated and unsubstantial nihility, and with all its visibility, it is an invisible nothing.
9. It is as the appearance of water in the mirage, and as a whirlpool in the ocean; its glare is as glitter <of> gold in the dust, and of sands in the sandy shores of seas in sunshine.
10. Vasishtha said:—Ráma! if you have become so enlightened and intelligent, then I will tell you more for the edification of your understanding; and put some questions for your answer to them, in order to remove my doubts regarding them.
11. Tell me, how can the world be a nullity, when it shines so very brightly all about and above our heads; and how can all these things, which are so resplendent to sight, and always perceptible to our senses.
12. Ráma replied:—The world was never created in the beginning, nor was anything ever produced at any time, it is therefore as nil as the offspring of an unprolific woman and a creation of our imagination only.
13. It is true that there is no result without its cause, or that nothing comes from nothing, but can be the cause of the world when it is a nullity, and a production of our error only.
14. The immutable and everlasting deity, cannot be the creator, without changing itself to a finite form; how can therefore be there a cause of this frail and finite form?
15. It is the unknown and nameless Brahma, that shows himself as the cause of the world, which having proceeded from him is his very self, nor does the word world bear any other sense at all (nor it can be made to bear any other sense).
16. The first intelligence named as the God Brahmá, rises from and abides for a little while, that unknown and nameless category of the universal spirit, as the conscious soul and having a spiritual body. (This is called the jívátmá or the living soul with a personal body of it).
17. It then comes to see on a sudden, the luminaries of the sun and moon and the heavenly hosts, rising in the infinity of the Divine Mind, and thinks a small moment as a long year as its reverie of a dream. (The Morning and evening of the creation of Brahmá, occupying many a year of mortals).