35. Liberation is a thing neither confined in this earth or in heaven above or _pátála_ below; but resides in the hearts of the wise, in their pure souls and enlightened understandings. 36. The tenuity of the mind, by its expurgation from gross desires, is said to be its liberation by them that know the truth, and look into the workings of their souls. 37. As long as the pure light of the intellect does not shine forth in the sphere of the mind, so long does it long for liberation as its chief good. Liberation or freedom from all feelings, is less meritorious than the knowledge of all things. Here the sage gives preference to knowledge (jnána) above liberation (moksha). 38. After the mind has got the fulness of its intellectual powers, and the intellect has been fully enlightened; it would not care for all the tenfold blessings of liberation, and far less desire its salvation also. 39. Cease O Ráma, to think about the distinctions of the bondage and liberation of the soul; and believe its essence to be exempted from both. 40. So be freed from your thoughts of the duality (of worldly bondage and liberty), and remain steadfast to your duty of ruling the earth to its utmost limit of the sea, dug by the sons of Sagara (now called Sagara or the Bay of Bengal). CHAPTER LXXIV. LECTURE ON APATHY OR STOICISM. Argument. Error is the cause of the misconception of the World, and Right Reason is the means of deliverance from it. Vasishtha continued:—It is a pleasure to look at the outer world, and painful to turn the sight to the inner soul; as it is pleasant to see the delightful prospects abroad, and bitterness of the heart to be without them. (All men court pleasure, but fly from pain). 2. It is by the fascination of these delightsome objects, that we are subjected to all our errors and blunders; as the taste of spirituous liquors, fills the brain with giddiness. 3. It is this intoxication, that drives the knowledge of sober truth from our minds, and introduces the delirium of the phenomenal world in its stead; as the heat of the sun (like the heat of the brain), produces the false mirage in the desert. 4. It is then that the deep ocean of the soul boils in its various aspects of the mind, understanding, egoism, sensation and volition; as the sea when moved by the hot winds, bursts in the forms of foaming froths, waves and surges. 5. The duality of the mind and its egoism, is only a verbal distinction and not distinct in reality; for egoism is but a thought _chitta_, and the thought is no other than the mind or _manas_. 6. As it is in vain to conceive the snow apart from its whiteness, so it is false to suppose the mind as distinct from egoism (because the ego is a conception of the mind only).