24. The whole scale of the earth, is as a net of birds to catch the fleeting mind; it is as false as a landscape in the dream; which represents the unreal as real ones to the mind. 25. He who looks upon the world without his attachment to it, is never subject to grief or sorrow on any account. And he who thinks all these forms as formless, sees the formless spirit. 26. The forms of the formless spirit, is the formation of ignorance, and when the blemishes of passions and mutations, do not even belong to great souls, how can these attributes relate to the greatest God. 27. The attributes given to the Supreme Spirit, are as dust thrown upon the surface of limpid water; it is our thoughts only that attribute these qualities to the inconceivable One, as we attribute certain meanings to words (that bear no relation to them). <28.> It is usage that establishes the meanings of words, which continue to be inseparably joined with them; and it is usage that determines their use in the sástras. 29. As the cloth cannot be thought of without its thread, so the soul is unintelligible without the medium of words giving its true definition. 30. It is possible to gain the knowledge of the soul from the sástras, without one’s self-consciousness of it; as it is possible to get over the sea of ignorance, by means of spiritual knowledge. 31. Ráma! it is impossible to arrive at the state of what is called imperishable life and bliss, when the soul is any how polluted by the blemishes of ignorance. 32. The existence of the world verily depends on the existence of the Supreme; know this, and do not question how and whence it came to exist. 33. Let it be for thee to think only how thou shalt get rid of this unreality; for it is upon the disappearance of the unreality, that thou canst know the real truth. 34. Leave off thinking whence is all this, how it is and how it is destroyed at last; believe it to be really nothing, but only appearing without being actually seen. 35. How can one know, how the unreality appears as reality by his mistake of it, when the error of reality, in the unreal, has taken a firm footing in his mind? 36. Try your best to destroy this prejudice of yours, and then you will know the truth. And verily such men are the greatest heroes and most learned in the world, who are freed from prejudices. 37. Strive to destroy your baneful ignorance, or it is sure to overpower on thee as upon the rest of mankind. 38. Take care, lest it should enthral thee to the pain of thy repeated transmigrations, and know ignorance to be the root of all evils and companion of every vice. It creates a man’s interest in what proves his peril. 39. Avoid quickly this false view, the baneful cause of your fears and sorrows, and of your diseases and dangers; and the germ of errors in the mind; and thereby ford over this perilous ocean of the world. CHAPTER XLII. PRODUCTION OF JÍVA OR LIVING SOULS.