36. Finding this wretched man not rising above the pit for a long time, I advanced to raise him up, when I saw another man following his footsteps. 37. Seeing him of the same form, and hastening to his impending fall in the doleful pit, I ran to stop his fate, by the same query I made to the others before. 38. But O lotus-eyed Ráma! the man paid no heed to my question and only said, you must be a fool to know nothing of me. 39. You wicked Bráhman! he said to me, and went on in his course; while I kept wandering in that dreadful desert in my own way. 40. I saw many such men coming one after the other to their unavoidable ruin, and though I addressed to all and every one of them, yet they softly glided away by me, like phantoms in a dream. 41. Some of them gave no heed to my saying, as a man pays no attention to a dead body; and some among the pit-fallen had the good fortune of rising again. 42. Some among these had no egress from the plantain grove for a long while, and some were lost forever, amidst the thorns and thistles of _Karanja_ thickets. 43. There were some pious persons among them, that had no place for their abode; though that great desert was so very extensive as I have told you already (and capable of affording habitations for all and many more of them). 44. This vast desert is still in existence, together with these sorts of men therein; and that place is well known to you, Ráma, as the common range of mankind. Don’t you remember it now, with all the culture of your mind from your early youth? 45. O that dreadful desert is this world, filled with thorns and dangers on all sides. It is a dark desert amidst a thick spread darkness, and no body that comes herein, finds the peace and quiet of his heart, except such as have acquired the divine knowledge, which makes it a rose garden to them. (See the pit-falls in the bridge of Addison’s Vision of Mirza). CHAPTER LXXXXIX. HISTORY OF THE HEART CONTINUED. Argument. Explanation of the preceding Allegory. Ráma said:—What is that great desert, Sir, and when was it seen by me, and how came it to be known to me? What were those men there, and what were they about? 2. Vasishtha replied:—Attend O great-armed Ráma! and I will tell you all:— That great desert is not distant nor different from this wilderness of the world. 3. That which bears the name of the world, is a deep and dark abyss in itself. Its hollowness is unfathomable and unfordable; and its un-reality appearing as reality to the ignorant, is to be known as the great desert spoken of before. 4. The true reality is obtainable by the light of reason only, and by the knowledge of one object alone. This one is full without its union with any other, it is one and only by itself. 5. The big bodied men, that you beheld wandering therein, know them to be the minds of men, and bound to the miseries of the world.