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. CHAPTER III. CAUSES OF BONDAGE IN THE BODY. Ráma said:—It is even so as you have said, that the mind is a pure essence, and has no connection with the earth and other material substances; and that it is verily Brahmá itself. 2. Now tell me, O Bráhman! Why the remembrance of his former states (in the past and previous Kalpas), is not (to be reckoned as) the cause of his birth, as it is in the case of mine and yours and of all other beings. 3. Vasishtha replied:—Whoever had a former body, accompanied with the acts of his prior existence, retains of course its reminiscence, which is the cause of his being (reborn on earth). 4. But when Brahmá is known to have no prior acts, how is it possible for him to have his reminiscence of any thing? 5. Therefore he exists without any other cause except the causation of his own mind. It is by his own causality that the Divine spirit is self-born, and is himself his own spirit. 6. He is everlasting, and his body is born of itself from the self-existent Brahma. This unborn or self-born Brahmá has no material body whatever, except his subtile _átiváhika_ or _linga deha_. 7. Ráma said:—The everlasting body is one thing (called the _Súkshma saríra_ or subtile or immaterial body), and the mortal body is another (called the _sthúladeha_ or the gross and material frame). Now tell me sir, whether all created beings have a subtile body also as that of Brahmá? 8. Vasishtha replied:—All created beings that are produced of a cause, have two bodies (the _súkshma_ and the _sthúla_ or the subtile and the gross). But the unborn being which is without a cause, has one body only (which is called the _átiváhika_ or the everlasting spiritual body). 9. The increate Brahmá is the cause of all created beings, but the uncreated spirit having no cause for itself, has one body for it. 10. The prime lord of creatures has no material body; but manifests himself in the vacuous form of his spiritual body.