Chapter LXXII: Section II: State of the Soul

18. Know, O Death! that this air-born seer has no acts whatever; for as he is born of empty air so his doings are all null and void. (_i.e._ The bodiless spirit or mind is devoid of acts requiring physical means and appliances).

19. Whoso is born of air, is as pure as air itself, and has no combination of cause or acts like all embodied (beings).

20. He has no relation with acts of his prior existence. He is _nil_ as the child of an unprolific woman, and as one unborn, uncreated and unbegotten.

21. Want of causes has made him a pure vacuous being, and the privation of prior acts has made him as _nil_ as an etherial arbor.

22. His mind is not ruffled as those of others, by reason of the privation of his former acts; nor is there any such act of his present state, whereby he may become a morsel to death.

23. Such is the soul seated in the sheath of vacuity, and remaining for ever as the simple form of its own causality (_káranadeha_), and not guided by any extraneous causation whatever.

24. It has no prior deed, nor does it do any thing at present; (_i.e._ neither led by predestination, nor actuated by present efforts); but continues as something in the shape of aeriform intelligence.

25. Our inference of the actions of breathing and motion by the agency of the soul, is a mere supposition; because the soul is devoid of every thought of or tendency to action.

26. It sits meditating on itself as inseparable from the Supreme Intelligence, just as the images (in painting and statuary), are inseparable from the mind of the painter and sculptor.

27. The self-born Bráhman is as intimately connected with the objects of his thought, as fluidity is associated with water and vacuity with the firmament.

28. His soul is as immanent in the supreme, as motion is inherent in the winds. It has neither the accumulated acts of past lives, nor those of its present state. (_i.e._ It is neither a passive nor active agent of prior or present acts; but is an indifferent witness of the acts of the body and mind).

29. It is produced without the co-operation of accompanying causes, and being free from prior motives, it is not subjected to the vicissitudes concomitant with human life.

30. It is found to be no other than its own cause; and having no other cause for itself, it is said to be self-produced.

31. Say, how can you lay hold on that being that has done no act before, nor is in the act of doing any thing at present? It is then only subjected to thee when it thinks itself mortal. (But he that knows his soul to be immortal is not subject to death).

32. Whoso believes his soul to be of this earth, and thinks himself to be an earthly being, he may be easily overtaken by thee (whose power extends over earth-born mortals only).

33. This Bráhman is a formless being, by reason of his disowning the material body. Hence it is as hard for thee to enthral him, as to entwine the air with a rope.

34. Death rejoined saying:—Tell me my lord! how may the unborn _Aja_ or the self-born _swayambhu_, be produced out of vacuum, and how can an earthly or other elemental body be and not be (at the same time).

35. Yama replied:—This Bráhman is neither born nor is _nil_ at any time; but remains for ever the same, as the light of intelligence of which there is no decay.

36. There remains nothing at the event of the great Doomsday, except the tranquil, imperishable and infinite Bráhman himself in his spiritual form.

37. This is the nature of the everlasting vacuum, too subtile in its essence, and devoid of all attributes; but viewing present before its mind, the stupendous cosmos in the form of a huge mountain in the beginning of recreation. (The mind is the noumenon—Brahma, and the phenomena of the world is the gigantic macrocosm known as _Virájmúrti_).

38. Being of the nature of intelligence it is imperishable; but those who view the spirit in the form of any phenomenal body, are liable to perish with it like all embodied beings.

39. Thus this Bráhman remained in the womb of vacuity in the beginning, in his state of unalterable, vacuous intelligence.

40. It is purely of the nature of the inane understanding, and of the form of a vast expanse of omniscience; having neither body nor organism; no acts nor agency, nor desire of any kind in itself.

41. That which is simply of the form of vacuum and pure light, is never beset by the snare of pristine desires, as a corporeal being.

42. It has nothing to know or see without itself (_i.e._ beyond its self-consciousness). The only conception that we have of it, is what resembles an extended intelligence (_i.e._ an all-diffusive omniscience).

43. Under these circumstances, how is it susceptible of any earthly or other external form? Therefore O Death! desist from thy attempt to lay hold on the same.

44. Hearing these words of Yama, Death thought upon the impracticability of laying hold on empty vacuity by any body, and sorrowfully returned to his own abode.

45. Ráma said: you said sir, that Brahmá is your great grand-sire; I think it is he that you mean to say as the unborn, self-born, universal soul and intelligence.

46. So is this Brahmá, Ráma! as I have spoken to you, and it was with regard to the same, that the aforesaid discussion was held of yore between Death and Yama (Pluto).

47. Again when Death had made an end of all living beings at the interval of a _manwantará_, he thought himself strong enough to make an attempt to bear down upon the lotus-born Brahmá also.

48. It was then that he was admonished by Yama, saying:—It is your habit that makes you go on your wonted course of killing.

49. But the super-etherial form of Brahmá too is beyond your reach: it being simply of the nature of the mind having connection with its thoughts only, and no concern with the actual forms of things.

50. It is of the form of the wonderfully vacuous intellect, having the faculty of cognition in it. Thus the intellect being but vacuum, has neither any cause for it, nor any effect produced by it.

51. As the aeriform volitive principle in men, manifests itself without being connected with material forms, so is the self-born (Brahmá) manifest to all in his own immaterial nature.

52. Like strings of pearl appearing to view in the clear firmament, and forms of cities seen in a dream, the self-born (Brahmá) is manifest of himself without relation to external objects.

53. As there is no beholder nor any thing beholden of the solitary Supreme spirit which is the intellect itself; so is the mind manifest of itself (without its looking at or being looked upon by any body).

54. It is the volitive mind which is called Brahmá and volition being a spiritual faculty, has no connection with any material substance.

55. As the mind of the painter is fraught with images of various things, so is the mind of Brahmá full of figures of all created beings.

56. The self-born Brahmá is manifest in his own mind as Brahmá is manifested in the vacuous sphere of his intellect. He is without beginning, middle and end, and appears to have a figure like that of a male being, while in reality he has no body, as the offspring of a barren woman.