5. Vasishtha replied:—That endless great vacuum, is known as the great and solid intellect itself; but this is not to be known any more, than as a tranquil and self-existent unity. 6. The Gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva and others, are reduced to their origin at the last dissolution of the world; and there remains only that pure source whence they have sprung. 7. There is however no cause to be assigned in this prime cause of all, who is also the seed of matter and form, as well as of delusion, ignorance and error. (These being but counterparts of spirit and knowledge, are all mingled in Him). 8. The original cause is quite transparent and tranquil, and having neither its beginning nor end, and the subtile ether itself is dense and solid, in comparison with the rarity of the other. 9. It is not proper to call it a nullity, when it is possessed of an intellectual body; nor can it with propriety styled as an existent being, when it is altogether calm and quiet (and nothing imaginable). 10. The form of that being is as inconceivable, as the idea of that little space of time which lies in midst of our thought of the length of a thousand miles, which the mind’s eye sees in a moment. (Its flash is quicker than that of a lightning and the flight of imagination). 11. The yogi who is insensible of the false and delusive desires and sights of objects, that intrude upon internal mind and external vision, sees the transient flash of that light in his meditation, as he wakes amidst the gloom of midnight. 12. The man that sits with the quiet calmness of his mind, and without any of joy or grief; comes to feel the pulsation of that spirit in himself, as he perceives the fluctuation of his mind within him. 13. That which is the spring of creation, as the sprout is the source of all vegetable productions; the very same is the form of the Lord (That he is the vegetative seed or germ of the arbour of the world. _Sansára Briksa Brijánkura_). 14. He is the cause of the world, which is seen to exist in Him; and which is a manifestation of himself, in all its varieties of fearful forms and shapes (All which is the act of his illusion). 15. These therefore having no actual or real cause, are no real productions nor actual existences; because there is no formal world (in its natural form), nor a duality co-existent with the spiritual unity. 16. That which has no cause, can have no possible existence; the eternal ideas of God cannot be otherwise than mere ideal shapes. 17. The vacuum which has no beginning nor end, is yet no cause of the world; because Brahma is formless, but the vacuous sky, which presents a visible appearance, cannot be the form of the formless and invisible Brahma. 18. Therefore he is that, in which the form of the world appears to exist; hence the lord himself appears as that which is situated in the vacuity of his intellect.