41. But there being in reality no duality whatever, in the unity of the Divinity; He is neither the reflector nor the reflexion himself; say who can ascertain what he is, or tell whether he is a being or not being, or a something or nothing.
42. Ráma rejoined:—If so it be as you say, that the Lord is neither the reflector nor reflexion, and neither the viewer nor the view (i.e. if he is neither the prototype nor its likeness, and neither the subjective nor objective); then say what is the difference between the cause and effect, what is the source of all these, and if they are unreal why do they appear as realities?
43. Vasishtha replied:—Whenever the Lord thinks on the manifestation of his intellect, He beholds the same at the very moment, and then becomes the subjective beholder of the objects of his own thought.
44. The intellectual vacuum itself assumes the form of the world, as the earth becomes a hill &c. by itself; but it never forgets itself for that form, as men do in their dream. Moreover there is no other cause to move it to action, except its own free will.
45. As a person changing his former state to a new one, retains his self consciousness in the interim, so the Divine Intellect retains its identity, in its transition from prior vacuum to its subsequent state of the plenum.
46. The thought of cause and effect, and the sense of the visible and invisible, proceed from errors of the mind and defects of vision; it is the erroneous imagination that frames these worlds, and nobody questions or upbraids himself for his error. The states of cause and effect, and those of the visible and invisible &c., are mere phantoms of error, rising before the sight of the living soul and proceeding from its ignorance, and then its imagination paints these as the world, and there is nobody that finds his error or blame himself for his blunder.
47. If there be another person, that is the cause, beholder and enjoyer of these (other than the Supreme One) then say what is that person, and what is the phenomenal, that is the point in question; or it is liable to reproof.
48. As the state of our sleep presents us only, an indiscernible vacuity of the Intellect (which watches alone over the sleeping world); how then is it possible to represent the One soul as many, without being blamed for it?
49. It is the self-existent soul alone, which presents the appearance of the world in the intellect; and it is the ignorance of this truth, which has led to the general belief of the creation of the world by Brahmá.
50. It is ignorance of this intellectual phenomenon, which has led mankind to many errors, under the different names of illusion or máyá, of ignorance or avidyá, of the phenomenal or drisya, and finally of the world or jagat.