43. Error being the false representation of something, flies away before a critical insight into it; and all things being but productions of our error, like our conception of the horns of hare, they all vanish before the light of true knowledge, which leaves the entity of Brahma only at the end. 44. Therefore give up all your errors and delusions, and thereby get rid of the burden of your diseases and decay; and meditate only on the One, that has no beginning, middle, or end, is always clear and the same, and full of bliss and felicity, and assimilate yourself to the nature of the clear firmament: (which according to Vasishtha is the nature and form of God). CHAPTER XXXIV. SERMON ON THE PRACTICE OF SPIRITUAL YOGA OR INTELLECTUAL MEDITATION. Argument:—Elucidation of the doctrine that, the best way of avoiding worldly affairs, is to refrain from mixing with them. Vasishtha continued:—The man who is lost in the pleasure or under the pains, which fall to his share in this life, is lost for ever for the future; but he who is not thus lost (by keeping his soul aloof from the vicissitudes of life), is pronounced to be imperishable by the verdict of the sástras. 2. He who has his desires always rising in his mind, is ever subject to the changes of his fortune; therefore it is proper to give up desire at first, in order to prevent the alternation of pain and pleasure. 3. The error that this is I and that the world, does not attach to immortal soul; which is tranquil and unsupported, quite dispassionate and undecaying in itself. 4. That this is I, that is Brahma, and the other is the world, are verbal distinctions that breed error in the mind; by attributing different appellations, to one uniform and invariable void that is ever calm and quiet (This is the eternal vacuum of Vasishtha, beside which there is nothing else in existence). 5. Here there is no ego nor world, nor the fictitious names of Brahma and others; the all pervading One being quite calm and all in all, there is no active or passive agent at all in this place (or vacuity). 6. The multiplicity of doctrines and the plurality of epithets, which are used to explain the true spirit and inexplicable One, are null and refutable, and among them the word ego in particular, is altogether false and futile. 7. The man absorbed in meditation does not see the visibles, as the thoughtless person has no perception of the ghost standing in his presence; and as one sleeping man does not perceive the dreams, occurring to another sleeping by his side, nor hear the loud roar of clouds, in the insensible state of his sound sleep. 8. In this manner the courses of the spirits are imperceptible to us, though they be continually moving all about us; because it is our nature to perceive what you know of, and never know anything, which is without or beyond our knowledge.