26. Know, O chief of sages! that wise men always adore this god whom we serve also, and unto when we return as the best and ultimate states of all. (Siva is a _hypostasis_ of the infinite deity). 27. Vasishtha said:--Please Lord! explain to me in short, how the ever existent Deity remains as non-existent, and could it come to existence from its prior state of nihility? 28. The god replied:--Know the meaning of the words Brahmá &c. to bear relation to our consciousness only, and this though it is as clear as the sky, and as minute as an atom, has the great bulk of the mount Meru contained in it. 29. Although this is unintelligible to us, and far beyond our conception and comprehension of it; yet it becomes intelligible to us when we take it the form of our intellect. 30. By taking it objectively, it becomes intelligible to us in the manner of our Egoism; and by thinking on its personality we have the same idea of it, as one has of a wild elephant from its sight in a dream. 31. These ideas of its egoism and personality, being limited by time and space, give rise to many aerial forms as attendants upon it. (These aerial forms are the different attributes of God). 32. Accompanied with these, there proceeds the entity called the _Jíva_ or living spirit, which is conversant with its oscillation and respiration, in the form of a pencil of air. 33. After the power of vitality is established and has come in force; there follows the faculty of understanding; which remains in utter ignorance at first. 34. It is followed by the faculties of bearing, action and perceptions; all of which operate inward by without their development in outward organs. 35. All these powers uniting together, conduce to the excitement of memory, which exhibits itself soon in the form of the mind; which is the tree of desires. 36. Hear now what is called the spiritual body by the learned, it is the inward power of God of the form of the conscious soul, and seeing the divine soul in itself. 37. There rise afterwards the following powers in the mind; which develop themselves in the outer organs, although their powers may be wanting in them. (Such as the blind eyes, deaf ears &c.). 38. These are the essences of air and motion, and of feeling also, together with the senses of touch and heat emitted by the eyes. 39. There are the essences of colour, water and taste also, and likewise the essences of smell and flavour too. 40. There are the essences of earth and gold, and the essences of thick mass; and also the essences of time and space, all of which are without form and shape. 41. The spiritual body contains all these essences in itself as its component parts, as the seed of a fruit contains the leaves and germ of the future tree in its cell. 42. Know this to be _ativáhika_ or spiritual body, and containing the eight elementary senses, wherefore it is called the _puryashtaka_ also; and these are developed afterwards in the organs of sense.