19. Vasishtha replied:—The sense in which you use the world body, is quite unknown to the spiritualist, who discard the material meaning of the term, as they reject the idea of the dancing of stones in air. (The learned know the spiritual body only).
20. The meaning of the word body, is the same as that of Brahma (who is all in all); and there is no difference in the meaning of the two, as there is none between the words fluid and liquid.
21. The body is a visionary appearance, and the great body of Brahma, is likened unto the figure of a phantom in vision, which represents the forms of all things as in dream in the stupendous fabric of the universe. [Brahma is more likely the phantasmagoria that shows all forms in it. Gloss].
22. But the difference between thy dream or vision and spectrum of Brahma, consist in the former representing the figures of thy previous thoughts alone, which disperse and vanish upon thy waking; but the universe which is exhibited in spectrum of Brahma, is not so evanescent as that of other.
23. What is thing then we call the body, and how does it appear into us in the shape of something in our dream; and why doth anything appearing as a reality in dream, appear as nothing and vanish as an error upon our waking.
24. There is no waking, sleeping or dreaming, nor any other condition of being, in the Turíya or transcendent state of Brahma [as in those of the divine hypostases of Brahmá, Virát and others]. It is something as the pure and primeval light and as the transparent air, all quiet and still, [as the infinite eternity].
25. It is the same as the unknown and inscrutable light, which shows and glows before us to this day; It is the same primeval and primordial light, that showed first the sight of the world to view, as if it were a dream in the gloom of night. (Light was nature’s first born, and brought forth all nature from it).
26. As in passing from one district to another, the body though proceeding onward, is ever in the midst of its circuit, and yet never fixed at any spot; so are all things in their endless rotation in this world, whether singly or collectively.
27. The sight of the world, like that of a dream, presents <a> favourable aspect to some minds, but it presents a clear and serene prospect to men of unclouded intellects.
28. The vacuum as well as the plenum of objects, and the reflexion as likewise the eclipse or adumbration of things; the existence and inexistence of the world and matter, and the unity and duality of the divine entity, are all but the extraneous phases or aspects of the same vacuous intellect.