37. In this stage the player boy—time is also seen to play his part, of producing and destroying by turns an infinity of worlds, in the continued course of Kalpa and Mahákalpa ages, and in the rotation of the parts of time. 38. This playful time remains firm in his post, notwithstanding the repeated entrances and exits of worlds in the theatre of the universe; just as a fixed mirror ever remains the same, though shadows and appearance in it, are continually shifting and gliding through it. 39. The Lord God is the causal seed of the worlds, whether existing at present or to come into existence in future; just in the same manner as the five elemental principles are causes of the present creation. (Here Brahma is represented, as in all other passages, as the material cause of the world). 40. The twinklings of his eye cause the appearance and disappearance of the world, with all its beauty and brightness; but the Supreme soul having no outward eye or its twinkling, is confined in his spirit only. (The physical actions which are attributed to God, are always taken in their figurative sense). 41. The very many great, and very great creations and dissolutions of worlds, and the incessant births and deaths of livings, which are continually going on in the course of the nature; are all the various forms of the One unvaried spirit, whose breath, like the inflation of air, produces and reduces all from and into itself. Know this and be quiet and still. CHAPTER XXXVI. SERMON ON THE SEED OR SOURCE OF THE WORLD. Argument:—Description of Avarice as the great Bondage of life and harmlessness of the common blessing of life obtained without avarice. _i.e._ Prohibition of avariciousness and not of ordinary enjoyments. Vasishtha continued:—The false varieties of the world take us by surprise, as the eddies attract to them the passing vessels; but they are all found to be of the same nature, as the various waves of the sea. (As all the waves are but water, so all worldly appearances are mere enticing delusions). 2. The nature of the whole world, is as unknowably known to us; as that of the universal vacuum which rests in God alone, is imperceptibly perceptible to our eyes. (All we see of the sky, is but a blank which is nothing). 3. As I find nothing in the fancied cities of boys in the air, (which they think to abound with ghosts etc.); so doth this really ideal world, appear to be in real existence to boys alone. (But the wise know it as unreal). 4. The sight and thought of visible appearances, are as the visions and remembrances of objects in dream; and so is this world but an appearance to the sight, and a phantom and phantasy in the mind. 5. The phenomenal and the fancy, have no pith nor place except in the intellect; beside which there is nothing to be had save an unbounded vacuity only. Where then is the substantiality of the world?