13. Want of a secondary agency, produces the equality of effects with their cause (as the fruits and flowers of trees, are of the same kind with the parent tree, unless there rises a difference in them by cause of engraftments). Hence the uniformity of created things, proves the conception of their creation by a secondary cause, to be wholly erroneous. 14. Brahma himself is the prime soul of Viráj and self-same with him, and Viráj is the soul of creation and identical with it. He is the vacuous vitality of all; and it is from him that the unreal earth and other things have their rise. (Viráj is the spirit of God diffused in nature). 15. Ráma said:—Tell me, whether the living soul, is a limited thing or an unlimited mass of life; or does the unbounded spirit of God, exist in the shape of a mountainous heap of living souls: (_i.e._ whether it is to be taken in a collective or integral sense, and whether it forms a totality—_samashti_ existent in the Divinity, of which all individual souls are either as parts _vyashti_ or separate existences). 16. Are these living souls like showers of rain-water falling from above, or as the drizzling drops of waves in the vast ocean of creation, or as the sparks of fire struck out of a red-hot iron, and from whence they flow, and by whom they are emitted. 17. Tell me sir, the truth concerning the profusion of living souls, and though I have a partial knowledge of it, I require it to be more fully and clearly explained by you. 18. Vasishtha replied:—There being but one living soul of the universe, you can not call it a multitude. Your question therefore is quite out of place, as the query about the horns of hares (which do not exist in nature). 19. There are no detached living souls, O Ráma, nor are they to be found in multitudes any where, nor was there a mountainous heap of souls known to have existed at any time. 20. Living soul is but a fictitious word, and it is heaped with many fictions, all of which, you must know for certain, do not apply to the soul. 21. There is but one pure and immaculate Brahma, who is mere Intellect (_chinmátram_) and all pervasive. He assumes to himself all attributes by his almighty power. (Here Brahma is represented not only as Omniscient and Omnipotent; but as _saguna_ also by his assumption of all attributes). 22. The living soul is viewed by many to evolve itself from the intellect into many visible and invisible forms (_múrta-mútam_); just as a plant is seen to develope itself into its fruits and flowers. 23. They add to their knowledge of the soul the attributes of the living principle, understanding, action, motion, mind and unity and duality, as if these appertain to its nature. 24. But all this is caused by ignorance, while right understanding assigns them to Brahma. The ignorant are bewildered by these distinct views (of the soul), and will not be awakened to sense.