13. Let there be a mind in us, or let it remain or perish for ever; yet I have nothing to discuss about it, when I see everything to be situated in the soul. 14. I considered myself as a limited and embodied being, as long as I was unable to reason about these abstruse subjects; and now I have come to know my unlimited form of the spirit; but what is this that I call “myself” is what I have not yet been able to know, since the whole is full with the one supreme spirit. 15. But the mind being granted as dead, it is useless to dubitate about it; and we gain nothing by bringing the demon of the mind to life again. 16. I at once repudiate the mind, the source of false desires and fancies; and betake myself to the meditation of the mystic syllable “Om” with the quietness of my soul, resting quiescent in the Divine spirit. 17. With my best intelligence, I continue always to inquire of my God, both when I am eating or sleeping or sitting or walking about. 18. So do the saints conduct their temporal affairs, with a calm and careless mind, meditating all along on the Divine soul in their becalmed spirits. 19. So do all great minded men gladly pass their lives, in the discharge of their respective duties, without being elated by pride or the giddiness of vanity; but manage themselves with a cheerfulness resembling the gentle beams of the autumnal moon. CHAPTER LXXXII. INVESTIGATION INTO THE NATURE OF THE SENSUOUS MIND. Argument. Story of Vítahavya, materialist becomes a spiritualist. Vasishtha continued:—It was in this manner that the learned Samvarta, who had the knowledge of the soul reasoned with himself, and which he communicated to me on the Vindhyan mountain. (Samvarta is said to have been the brother of Vrihaspati, both of whom have transmitted to us two distinct treatises on law, which are still extant). 2. Shut out the world, said he, from your sight, and employ your understanding to abstract reasoning, in order to get over the vast ocean of this world. 3. Hear me tell you Ráma of another view of things, whereby the great sage Vítahavya gave up the practice of making his offerings to fire, and remained dauntless in his spiritualistic faith. 4. The illustrious Vítahavya wandered about the forests in former times, and then resided in a cave of the Vindhya mount, which was as spacious as a cave of Meru under the sun’s passage. (The cave of mount Meru is the Polar circle about which the sun is said to turn; but Sumeru is the meridian circle on which the sun passes). 5. He grew in course of time dissatisfied with the ritual acts, which serve only to bewilder men, and are causes of diseases and difficulties to man (rather than those of their removal). 6. He fixed his aim to the highest object of unalterable ecstasis—_samádhi_, and abandoned his cares for the rotten world, in the course of his conduct in life.