36. There having performed my holy ablution, I came down under the vault of heaven, and then entered the celestial region of the sages, which is situated in the midway sky. 37. Now I have related to you, Ráma, this story of Dásúra, that you may learn from his instance the unreality of the apparent world, and as it is but a shadow of the ideal one (in the Divine mind). 38. It was for this reason, that I have given you the narrations of Dásúra, by way of explanation of the phenomenal world, as a shadow of the noumenal. 39. Now therefore know the Spirit like Dásúra, and imitate his example in the magnanimity of your soul. Forsake the unreal, and pursue the reality for your permanent delight. 40. Rub out the dirt of desire from your mind, and see the image of truth in it as in a mirror; you will thus attain to the highest state of knowledge, and be honoured in all worlds as a perfect being. CHAPTER LVI. ON THE SOUL AND ITS INERTNESS. Argument. Consideration of the activity and inactivity of the Soul, and the Vanity of the Visibles. Vasishtha continued:—Knowing the world as a nihility, you must cease to take any delight in it; for what reasonable being is there in it that would delight in its unreality. 2. If you take the phenomenal world for a reality, you may continue to enslave yourself to the unreal material; and lose the spiritual nature of your soul. 3. Or if you know it to be a temporary existence, why then should you take any interest in what is so frail and unstable, rather than care for your immortal soul? 4. The world is no substantial existence, nor are you a being of its unsubstantiality; it is only a clear reflection of the divine mind, and extending over all infinity. (And which is refracted into all individual minds as in prismatic glasses). 5. The world is neither an agent itself, nor is it the act of any agent at all; it is simply the reflexion of the noumenal, without any agency of its own. 6. Whether the world is with or without an agent, or has a maker or not, yet you can not tell it as a real substance, except that it appears so to your mind. 7. The soul is devoid of all organs of action, and with all its activity, it remains motionless and without action, as anything that is inactive and immovable. 8. The world is the production of a fortuitous chance (Kákatáliya Sanyoga), and none but boys place any reliance in it. (The world here means our existence in it, which is an act of chance). 9. The world is neither stable nor fragile, but it is mutable from one state to another, as it is known by its repeated reproductions and visibility to us. 10. It is neither everlasting, nor is it a momenting thing; its constant mutability contradicts its firmness; and its nihility, (as stated before) is opposed to its temporarity. (The dictum of the Veda of the eternity of _asat_—nullity, nullifies its temporariness).