THE GERMINATING SEED. Vasishtha resumed:—The supreme Deity is the all-pervading spirit and the great God and Lord of all. He is without beginning and end, and is self-same with the infinite bliss of his translucent self-cogitation. 2. It is this supreme felicity and purely intellectual substance, whence the living soul and mind have their rise, prior to their production of the Universe. (_i.e._ The eternal and inert bliss called Brahma, became the living soul—anima, of and the active mind—mens, which created the world). 3. Ráma asked:—How could the self-cogitation of Brahma, as the infinite spirit and one without a second, conceive in it a finite living soul other than itself, and which was not in Being. (The inactive and active souls, are not the one and the same thing, nor can the immutable and infinite be changed to one of a finite and changeful nature; nor was there a secondary being co-existent with the unity of the self-existent God). 4. Vasishtha replied:—The immense and transparent Spirit of Brahma, remained in a state of _asat_—non-existence, a state of ineffable bliss as seen by the adept Yogi; but of formidable vastness as conceived by the uninitiated novice. (_i.e._ The meditation of the Infinite is a delight to the spiritualist, but it is a horror to the gross idolator, whose mind knows nothing beyond matter and material forms). 5. This state of supreme bliss, which is ever tranquil, and full with the pure essence of God, is altogether undefinable, and incomprehensible, even by the most proficient in divine knowledge. (God is unknowable, is the motto of the wise Athenians and modern Agnostics). 6. Thence sprang a power (an hypostasis) like the germ of a seed, and possessed of consciousness and energy, that is called the living and conscious soul, and which must last until its final liberation. (This is the Demiurge, an emanation from God, and the source and soul of the world). 7. The clear mirror of the mind of this being, reflected in its vast vacuous sphere, the images of innumerable worlds set above one another, like statues engraved upon it. 8. Know Ráma! the living soul to be an inflation of Divine Spirit, like the swelling of the sea and the burning of a candle, when its flame is unshaken by the wind. (The _psyche_ or _anima_ is the energy of the universal soul, or the finite rising from the Infinite). 9. The living soul is possessed of a finite cognoscence as distinguished from the clear and calm consciousness of the Divine Spirit. Its vitality is a flash of the vacuous intellect of Brahma and appertaining to the nature of the living God. _Divina particula aurae._ The Lord says: ‘_Aham asmi_—I am that I am’; but the living soul knows itself to be ‘_Soham asmi_’—I am He or of Him.