38. Ráma said:—Oh how wonderful is this world, which presents its unreality as a reality in all its endless forms unto us; and though situated in the Divine self, appears to be quite apart from it. O how it makes its minuteness seem so very immense to us. (What are these worlds but as particles subsisting in the divine essence, when they are compared with the immensity of the Divine spirit and mind—the finite with the Infinite). 39. I see how this shadowy scene of the world appearing in the Divine soul, and becoming as an orb, by virtue of the ideal _tanmátras_ or particles of the divine essence in it. I find it as a snow ball or icicle made of frozen frost. 40. Now tell me Sir, how the spiritual particles increase in bulk, and in what manner the body of the self born Brahmá was produced from Brahma. Say also in what manner do these objects in nature come to existence in their material forms. (Brahmá the Demiurgus was an emanation of God according to Gnostics; and Vaishwánara was the same as the soul of the world according to Plotinus). 41. Vasishtha replied:—Too incredible is this form and without a parallel, which sprang of itself from its own essence. It is altogether inconceivable how some thing is produced of its own conception. 42. Just fancy, O Ráma! how the unexpanded phantom of a Vetála or ghost, swells in bigness to the sight of fearful children; and conceive in the same manner the appearance of the living spirit from the entity of Brahma. (Evolution of the Living God from the inert Brahma, is as the springing of the moving spirit from the dormant soul). 43. This living spirit was a development of Brahma—the universal soul; it was holy and a commensurable and finite being, and having a personality of its own; it remained as an impersonal unreality in the essence of the selfexistent God. Being separated afterwards from its source, it had a different appellation given to it. (This is the Holy spirit or ghost in one sense, as also the Divine _Logos_ in another, and in whom there was life). 44. As Brahma the all extended and infinite soul, became the definite living soul at will; so the living spirit, became the mind by its volition afterwards. (There is a trinity or triple division of the soul into _soma_ or the universal soul, the _pneuma_ or anima or the living spirit, and the _nous_ or mens or mind). 45. The mind which was the principle of intellection, took a form of its own; and so likewise the life assumed an airy form in the midst of vacuity. (The mind is the state of the impersonal soul with a sense of its personality, and life is animation or the vital principle in the form of the vital breath). 46. The wakeful living god (who had no twinkling of his eyes), whereby we measure time was yet conscious of its course by means of his thoughts; and had the notion of a brilliant icicle of the form of the future mundane egg in his mind. See Manu’s Genesis of the World. I.