34. Thus ignorance is pictured with a visible form, in the imagination of the unenlightened; but the enlightened never attribute sensible qualities to inanimate and imaginary objects. 35. Ráma said:—Tell me sir, what is the cause of the blueness of the sky, if it is not the reflexion of the blue gems on the Meru’s peak, nor is it a collection of darkness by itself. 36. Vasishtha replied:—Ráma! the sky being but empty vacuum, cannot have the quality of blueness which is commonly attributed to it; nor is it the bluish lustre of the blue gems which are supposed to abound on the top of Meru. 37. There is neither the possibility of a body of darkness to abide in the sky, when the mundane egg is full of light (which has displaced the primeval darkness); and when the nature of light is the brightness which stretches over the extramundane regions. (This is the zodiacal light reaching to extramundane worlds). 38. O fortunate Ráma! the firmament (súnya) which is a vast vacuum, is open to a sister of ignorance (avidyá) with regard to its inward hollowness. (The sky and ignorance are twin sisters, both equally blank and hollow within, and of unlimited extent, enveloping the worlds within their unconscious wombs). 39. As one after losing his eyesight, beholds but darkness only all about him; so the want of the objects of sight in the womb of vacuity, gives the sky the appearance of a darksome scene. 40. By understanding this, as you come to the knowledge, that the apparent blackness of the sky, is no black colour of its own; so you come to learn the seeming darkness of ignorance to be no darkness in reality (but a figurative expression derived from its similitude to the other). 41. Want of desire or its indifference, is the destroyer of ignorance; and it is as easy to effect it, as to annihilate the lotus-lake in the sky (an Utopia or a castle built in the air, being but an airy nothing). 42. It is better, O good Ráma! to distrust the delusions of this world, and disbelieve the blueness of the sky, than to labour under the error of their reality. 43. The thought that ‘I am dead,’ makes one as sorrowful, as when he dreams of his death in sleep; so also the thought that ‘I am living’ makes one as cheerful, as when he wakes from the deadly dream of his death-like sleep. 44. Foolish imaginations make the mind as stolid as that of a fool; but reasonable reflexions lead it to wisdom and clearsightedness. 45. A moment’s reflexion of the reality of the world and of his own essence, casts a man into the gloom of everlasting ignorance, while his forgetfulness of these, removes all mortal thoughts from his mind. 46. Ignorance is the producer of passions and tempter to all transient objects; it is busy in destroying the knowledge of the soul, and is destroyed by knowledge of the soul only. (Ignorance leads to materialism, but it is lost under spiritual knowledge).