Argument. Hybernation of the Sage in a subterraneous cell, and the revery of his dominion over aerial spirits.
Vasishtha continued:—The Sage Vítahavya having thus reflected in his mind, renounced all his worldly desires, and sat in his hypnotic trance in a cave of the Vindhyan mountains.
2. His body became motionless and devoid of its pulsations, and his soul shot forth with its intellectual delight; then with his calm and quiet mind, he sat in his devotion, as the still ocean in its calmness.
3. His heart was cold and his breathings were stopped; and he remained as an extinguished fire, after its burning flame had consumed the fuel.
4. His mind being withdrawn from all sensible objects, and intensely fixed in the object of his meditation; his eye-sight was closed under the slight pulsations of his eyelids.
5. His slight and acute eye-sight was fixed on the top of his nose, and had the appearance of the half opening bud of the lotus. (The lotus is the usual simile of the eye, and the opening bud of the half opened eye).
6. The erect structure of the head and neck and body of the meditative sage, gave him the appearance of a statue hewn upon a rock (in bas relief).
7. Sitting in this posture with his close attention to the supreme soul in the Vindhyan Cave; he passed there the period of thrice three hundred years as half a moment (close attention shortens the course of time, for want of the succession of thoughts by which time is reckoned).
8. The sage did not perceive the flight of this length of time, owing to the fixedness of his mind in his soul; and having obtained his liberation in his listless state, he did not lose his life in his obstipated devotion.
9. Nothing could rouse him all this time from his profound hypnotism, nay not even the loud roar of the rainy clouds, could break his entranced meditation yoga-nidra.
10. The loud shouts and shots of the soldiers and huntsmen on the borders, and the cries and shrieks of beasts and birds, and the growling and snarling of the tigers and elephants on the hills (could break his sound repose).
11. The loud roaring of lions, and the tremendous dashing of the water falls; the dreadful noise of thunder-claps, and the swelling clamour of the people about him (could shake his firmness).
12. The deep howling of furious Sarabhas, and the violent crackling of earthquakes; the harsh cracking of the woods in conflagration, and the dashing of waves and splashing of torrents upon the shore (could move him from his seat).
13. The rush of terraqueous waters falling on rocky-shores, and the clashing off the torrents dashing on each other; and the noise and heat of wild fires, did not disturb his repose:—samádhi—sang froid. (Such was the firmness of dying martyrs and living yogis, as it was witnessed in the case of the yogi, brought to this town from the jungles).
14. He continued only to breathe at his will to no purpose, as the course of time flows for ever to no good to itself; and was washed over on all sides of his cave by currents of rain water, resembling the waves of the Ocean. (The recent yogi was drowned under the flood of the river, and came out alive afterward).
15. In the course of a short time he was submerged under the mud; which was carried upon him by the floods of rain water in the mountain cave of his devotion. (Yogis are said to live both under water and earth, as it was witnessed in the case of the Hatha yogi of Lahore).
16. Yet he continued to keep his seat amidst that dreary cell, buried as he was by the mud up to his shoulders. (The fact of the Fakir of Lahore who lay buried underneath the ground is well known to many, and his head was raised like a stone on the cold and stiff rock of his body).
17. The long period of three centuries passed over him in this way, when his soul was awakened to light under the pain of the rains of his mountain cell.
18. The oppressed body then assumed its intellectual or spiritual form lingadeha; which was a living subtile body as air or light but without its acts of breathing the vital air. (The aerial spirit has vitality, without inhaling or exhaling the vital air).
19. This body growing by degrees to its rarefied form by its imagination, became of the form of the inner mind, which was felt to reside within the heart. (But the mind is seated in the brain, and not in the heart).
20. It thought in itself of having become a pure and living liberated seer or sage, in which state it seemed to pass a hundred years under the shade of a Kadamba tree, in the romantic grove of the Kailása mountain (a peak of the Himalayas).
21. It seemed of taking the form of a Vidyádhara for a century of years, in which state it was quite free from the diseases of humanity. It next thought of becoming the great Indra who is served by the celestials, and passing full five Yuga ages in that form.
22. Ráma said:—Let me ask you, Sir, how could the mind of the sage conceive itself as the Indra and Vidyádhara, whom it had never seen, and how could it have the ideas of the extensive Kailása and of the many ages in its small space of the cell, which is impossible in nature.
23. Vasishtha replied.—The Intellect is all comprehending and all pervading, and wherever it exerts its power in any form, it immediately assumes the same by its own nature. Thus the undivided intellect exhibits itself in various forms throughout the whole creation.
24. It is the nature of the intellect to exhibit itself in any form, as it represents itself in the understanding; and it is its nature to become whatever it pleases to be at any place or time. (It is the nature of the finite heart to be confined in the finite cell of the body, but the nature of the infinite intellect grasps all and every thing at once in itself, as it ranges through and comprehends the whole and every part of the universe within it).
25. So the impersonal sage saw himself in various forms and personalities in all the worlds, in the ample sphere of his consciousness within the narrow space of his heart. (The heart is said to be the seat of the soul. And so says Pope. “As full and perfect in a hair as heart”).
26. The man of perfect understanding, has transformed his desires to indifference; and the desires of men like seeds of trees, being singed by the fire of intelligence; are productive of no germ of acts.
27. He thought to be an attendant on the god (Siva), bearing the crescent of the moon on his forehead, and became acquainted with all sciences, and the knowledge of all things past, present and future.
28. Every one sees every thing in the same manner on his outside as it is firmly imprest in his inward mind; but this sage being freed from the impression of his personality in his life time, was at liberty to take upon him whatever personality he chose for himself. (It is possible for every person and thing to become another, by forgetting and forsaking their own identity and individuality).
29. Ráma said:—I believe, O chief of sages! that the living liberated man who sits in this manner, obtains the emancipation of his soul, even though he is confined in the prison house of his body; and such was the case of the self-liberated sage Vítahavya. (The body may be confined in a single spot, but the soul has its free range everywhere).
30. Vasishtha answered:—How can Ram! the living liberated souls, have the confinement of the body, when they remain in the form of Brahm in the outward temple of his creation, which is pure and tranquil as air. (The gloss says: the ideal body like the ideal world cannot be the living or divine soul, any more than it is for a burnt vesture to invest the body. Hence Nature which is said to be the body of God, has no power over the spirit whose reflexion it is).
31. Wherever the empty and airy consciousness represents itself in any form, it finds itself to be spread out there in that form. (Hence it is that the conscious spirit assumes any form it likes, and rejects it at will without being confined within or by the same).
32. So there appears many ideal worlds to be present before us, which are full with the presence of the all pervading spirit of God. (Because all these worlds are ideas or images or reflexions of God).
33. Thus Vítahavya, who was confined in the cave and submerged under the mire; saw in the intellect of his great soul, multitudes of worlds and countless unformed and ideal creations.
34. And he having thought himself at first as the celestial Indra, conceived himself afterwards as an earthly potentate, and preparing to go on a hunting excursion to some forest.
35. This sage who supposed himself as the swan of Brahmá at one time, now became a chief among the Dása huntsmen in the forests of Kailása.
36. He who thought himself once as a prince in the land of Surástra (Surat in Bombay), had now became as a forester in a village of the Andhras in Madras.
37. Ráma said:—If the sage enjoyed heavenly bliss in his mind, what need had he of assuming these ideal forms to himself? (since no body would even in thought, like to exchange his spiritual delight for corporeal enjoyment).
38. Vasishtha replied:—Why do you ask this question, Ráma, when you have been repeatedly told that this world is a false creation of the divine mind, and so were the creations of the sage’s mind also (neither of them being anything in reality).
39. The universe which is the creation of the divine intellect, is as unsubstantial as empty air; and so the ideal world of the human mind, being but a delusion, they are both alike.
40. In truth, O Ráma! neither is that world nor is this other any thing in reality; nor have I or thou any essentiality in this nonessential world, which is filled only with the essence of God.
41. The one is as the other at all times, whether past, present or future; all this visible world is the fabric of the mind which is again but an ectype of the Intellect.
42. Such is the whole creation, though appearing as otherwise; it is no other than the transcendental vacuum, although it seems to be as firm as adamant. (Vasishtha resolves every thing to his prime essence and unity of vacuity).
43. It is its ignorance that the mind exhibits itself in the forms of the production, growth and extinction of things; all which are like the rise and swinging and sinking of waves, in the ocean of eternal vacuity.
44. All things are situated in the vacuous sphere of the intellect, and are perceived by its representative of the mind, in the form of the firm and extended cosmos, though it has no extension in reality.