Valmiki

“ As the shades of night obscure the visibles from sight, so the clouds of ignorance darken the bright aspect of the universe, as it is represented in the soul divine.
20. As the waters of the ocean, roll of themselves in the forms of waves and eddies; so doth the Intellect exhibit the pageant of the universe, of itself and in itself from all eternity.
21. The Intellect itself is the soul of the body, and like air is never extinct or wanting any where; therefore it is all in vain, to be in fear of one’s death at any time. (Life and death are indifferent to the yogi) . ”

“ There is again the huge snake of worldly affairs, which benumbs it with its poisonous breath; and so do the fairies on the face of the earth, serve to enslave the mind in love to them.
43. There is also the wild fire of anger, which boils like a smart bile with its burning flame in the human breast; and inflames the mind with endless pain, by its repeated recurrence in the bosom.
44. The desires clinging to the mind, are as gnats and fleas, biting and stinging it constantly; and its carnal enjoyments, appetites and revelries, are as shakals shrieking loudly about it. ”

“ The world subsists undivided in the bas-relief of consciousness, and without a separate existence of its own apart or disjoined in any part, from its substance or substratum of the conscious soul, which is as calm and clear as the empty air, and the world resembles the shadow of a mountain in the bosom of water, or a surge or wave rising on the surface of the sea. ”

“ The quiet and calmly composed spirit, finds the lonely woodland, where a human being is never to be seen even in a dream, to be as lovely to it as the bosom of a family dwelling.
40. The wise man who has lost the sight of the visibles, and of the endless particulars abounding in this forest of the world, beholds on every side the silent and motionless sphere of heaven spread all around him.
41. The thoughtless ignorant, whose insatiate ambition grasps the whole universe in his heart, rolls over the surface of the earth and all its boisterous seas with as much glee as upon a bed of flowers. ”

“ From the proof of the absence of ego and the world, the operations of the mind and the sight of visibles, all come to an end, and there remains nothing for thee to care for or fear.
19. Whatever is not is a naught altogether, and the rest are as calm and quiet as nil in existence; knowing this as certain be enlightened, and fall no more to the false error which has no root in nature.
20. Being purged from the stain of fancy, you become as purified and sanctified as the holy lord Siva for ever, and then the sky will seem to thee as a huge mountain, and the vast world will dwindle to an atom. ”

“ Destructive death lurks about this tree of the body every moment, as the light-legged monkey lights upon trees to break them down; it is engulphed in the womb of sleep, as the tree is overwhelmed under the mists of winter, and the flitting dreams are as the falling leaves of trees.
15. Old age is the autumn of life, and the decaying wishes are as the withered leaves of trees, and the wife and members of the family, are as thick as grass in the wilderness of the world. ”

“ The wise soul is full of light like the cloudless sky, and is distinguished from others by its brightness; but the same soul which is alike in all, appears as dim as the evening twilight in the ignorant.
61. As a man seated in this place, sees the light of heaven (heavenly bodies) , as coming to him from a great distance, and filling the intermediate space; so the light of the Supreme soul fills and reaches to all.
62. The infinite and invisible intellect, which is as wondrous as the clear vacuum of the sky; conceives and displays this wonderful world, within the infinitude of its own vacuity. ”

“ The world is a picture painted on the airy surface of the divine mind, with the various colours derived from the intellect of God; it never rises nor sets, nor does it ever become faint, nor does it fade nor vanishes away.
70. The world is a huge wave of fluidity in the water of the Intellect, why is it so and how produced, and how and when it is subside, is what nobody can say. (The world is once compared to breath of air and here to a liquid, to mean its having no solidity in it) . ”

“ The world is a wondrous phenomenon of the intellect, which though it is as minute as a particle of fragrance borne by the wind; appears yet as big as a mountain to the sensation of the outward organs of sense. ”

“ The divine soul exhibits the wonders of its Intellect, in the variegated colours of its imaginations; and there is no body who can count the pictures of worlds, which are painted on the plane of the infinite space of vacuity. ”

“ The ego rises of itself as an uncreated thing, and in the form of consciousness in the all comprehensive intellect of God, just as the waves rise and fall in the waters of the deep, and have no difference in their nature. ”

“ As a man sees in his dream a huge stone in his house, so I beheld the vast vacuum as a crystaline globe, situate in the clear atmosphere of the intellect. (The stone is the mundane egg or sphere of the universe) .
10. A dreaming man, may think himself as another person; but after he is awakened from his sleep, he comes to know himself. (So we dream ourselves as this and that, but upon waking to reason, we find ourselves as none of these, but the pure spirit) . ”

“ This Lord has the highest heaven for his crown, and the earth and infernal regions for his footstools; the stars glisten as hairs on his person; his heart is the open space of the sky, and all material bodies, are as the bones of his body. ”

“ All things are quiet in his tranquility, and whatever is, is good by the goodness of the Great God.
26. All things are extinct in the unextinguished spirit of God, they are quiet in his quiescence, and all good in his goodness; this extinction in the inextinct or ever existent soul of God, is no annihilation of any; it is understood as the sky, but is not the sky itself.
27. Men may bear the strokes of weapons and suffer under the pain of diseases; and yet how is it that no body can tolerate the thought of his unegoism or extinction. ”

“ The sense of the existence of the external world, together with that of one’s ego or self-existence, is all unreal and inane, it is consciousness alone that shows everything in itself and by the fluctuation of its erroneous; as the motion of winds displays the variegated clouds in the empty air. ”

“ As the soul becomes conscious of holy light in itself, it loses the sense of its meditation and is wholly lost in that light; as a drop of clarified butter offered in sacred oblation, is burnt away in the sacrificial fire. ”

“ All sorts of beings living in the fourteen spheres of the world, are carried away as dust and ashes by the gust of death, to the hollow womb of air, where they disappear as empty clouds in the autumnal sky. ”

“ Hence men who are quite certain and conscious, of the entirety and pure unity of the soul, can never find the feelings of sorrow or grief, to rise in or overwhelm it in any way than the dust of earth rising to the sky, and filling its sphere with foulness. ”

“ As one has no knowledge of the dream of another sleeping by his side, and as the adult man has no fear of yaksha like timid boy; and as a giant knows no Pisacha or demon, so the wise sees no insensible world before him (but all full of the Intellect of God) .
47. The ignorant think the wise as fools, and the old barren woman thinks of her conception; so one unacquainted with the meaning of a word, attempts to explain its sense (all which is absurd) .
48. The understanding is ever existent, and without having its beginning and end; and nature is known to exist ever since creation has began. ”

“ The world is the changeless form of the unchanging essence of One, and know to be as unchangeable and undecaying as One, himself, who is without beginning and end.
42. The divine soul is replete with its innate will, whereby it produces and destroys the world out of and into itself; this form of unity and duality, is as the appearance and disappearance of an imaginary city. ”

“ So the world is a dream, and the dream a phantasm of air; they are the same void with but different names; the phantom of the waking day time, being called the world, and of sleeping night time a dream. ”

“ No weapon can wound the self-possest man, nor fire can chafe his soul; no moisture can damp the spirit, nor the hot winds can dry it up. (No elemental influence can prevail on the spiritual soul) .
15. Lay hold on the firm pillar of your soul, which is unborn or increate, undecaying and immortal; adhere steadfastly to thy soul, as one clings to the prop or column of his house.
16. The world is an arbor, and all things in it are as the flowers of this tree; our knowledge of all things, is as the fragrance of these flowers; but our self-consciousness is the essence of them all ”

“ It is the desire of the heart and the false fancy of the mind, that leads out within us and brings forth the fruit of the world; just as the dirty water at the bottom of the earth, moistens the seed that produces a big tree in time.
23. The wise man that forgets his egoism, becomes one with the Supreme spirit; and by reducing himself like a bit of rotten straw, becomes an anima or a minimum particle of the divine soul.
18424. I find no one among the gods, demigods and mankind in the three worlds, who wishes to approach to that Great Spirit, who has the whole world as a hair upon his body. ”

“ Bhusunda said:—The unintelligible objects of thought are phenomena of the intellect; they lie as calmly in the great mass or inert body of the intellect, as the sunbeams shine in the bosom of a clear basin of water (where they retain their light without their heat) .
2. The unintelligent world subsists in the intelligent intellect, by its power of intellection; and remains alike with the unlike (i.e. matter with the mind) , as the submarine fire resides in the water, and the latent heat with cold. ”

“ The world bears the same relation to the supreme soul, as the fluctuation of the winds bear to air, and as the radiation of rays bears to light, which have no other causality except in themselves.
4. The world is inherent in the Supreme, as fluidity is connate with water, and vacuity is connatural with air. But why and how they are so intimately connected with one another, is quite inconceivable to us.
5. The world which is thus immanent in the vast vacuity of the great intellect, is manifest to our minds as brilliancy in a gem. ”

“ Ráma fear not for this world—the mere creation of thy error, and without its real existence whatsoever, know this transcendent truth, O thou best amongst the inquirers of truth, that this world is a nullity and void. ”

“ Vasishtha continued:—The Intellect conceives the form of the world, of its own intrinsic nature; and fancies itself in that very form, as it were in a dream. (The subjective Intellect, sees itself in the form of the objective world) .
2. It feigns itself as asleep while it is waking, and views the world either as a solid stone, or as a void as the empty air.
3. The world is compared to a dream, exhibiting a country embellished with a great many cities; and as is no reality in the objects of dream, so there is no actuality in any thing appearing in this world. ”