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Goddess Saraswati continues...
In reality you were neither born nor dead at anytime or any place, but ever remain as pure consciousness in the tranquility of your own soul. You seem to see all things about you, but you are seeing nothing real in them. Your all-seeing soul sees everything in itself.
The soul shines by its own light like a brilliant gem. Nothing that appears beside it, whether this earth or yourself or anything else, is a reality.
These hills and cities, these people and things, and ourselves also, are all unreal and mere phantoms, appearing in the hollow vault of the brahmin of the hilly district.
The kingdom of Leela’s husband was only a picture of this earth, and his palace with all its grandeur is contained within the sphere of the same hollow shrine. The known world is contained within the empty sphere of that shrine, and it is in one corner of this mundane house that all of us here are situated.
The sphere of this vaulted shrine is as clear as emptiness itself, which has no earth or house in it.
It is without any forest, hill, sea or river, and yet all beings are found to rove about in this empty and homeless abode. Here there are no kings, no royal retinue, and nothing else that kings have on earth.
Viduratha asked, “If it is so, then tell me goddess, how did I happen to have these dependents here? A man is rich in his own mind and spirit. Is it not so ordained by Divine Mind and spirit?
If not, then the world must appear as a mere dream, and all these men and things are only creatures of our dreams. Tell me goddess, what things are spiritually true and false? How are we to distinguish the one from the other?”
Saraswati answered:— Know prince that those who have known the only knowable One and are assimilated in the nature of pure understanding view nothing as real in the world except the empty consciousness within themselves.
The misconception of the serpent in a rope being removed, the fallacy of the rope is removed also. The unreality of the world being known, the error of its existence also ceases to exist. Knowing the falsity of water in a mirage, no one thirsts after it anymore.
Knowing the falsehood of dreams, no one thinks himself dead as he had dreamt. The fear of dreaming death may overtake the dying, but it can never assail the living in his dream.
He whose soul is enlightened with the clear light of his pure consciousness is never misled into believing his own existence, or that of others, by the false application of the terms “I”, “you”, “this” or the like.
Valmiki speaking:—
As the sage was lecturing in this manner, the day departed to its evening service with the setting sun. The assembly broke with mutual greetings to perform their evening rituals, and it met again with the rising sun, after dispersion of the gloom of night.
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