31. As a wise man going from one country to another, finds his body to be ever situated in the midst of this globe; so the universe with all its remotest worlds, is situated in the vacuity of the divine spirit. 32. As fluctuation is innate in the air, and fluidity is inherent in water, and vacuity is essential to vacuum; so is this world intrinsic in the divine soul, without anything concomitant with it. 33. The vacuous phantom of the world, is in the vacuum of divine consciousness or intellect; and being thus situated in the Supreme soul, it has no rising nor setting as that of the sun. Therefore knowing all these to be included in that vacuum, and there is nothing visible beside the same, cease from viewing the phantoms of imagination, and be as the very vacuity yourself. CHAPTER LV THE SPIRITUAL SENSE OF THE WORLD. Argument:—The ignorance of self shows the world, but the knowledge of self disperses it to nothing. Vasishtha continued:—It is the thought and its absence, that produce the gross and subtile ideas of the world; which in reality was never created in the beginning for want of a creator of it (_i.e._ The identity of the world with Brahma himself, precludes the supposition of its creation). 2. The essence of the intellect being of an incorporeal nature, cannot be the cause of a corporeal thing. The soul cannot produce an embodied being, as the seed brings forth the plants on earth. 3. It is the nature of man to think of things, by his own nature, and hence the intelligent of mankind view the world in an intellectual light, while the ignorant take in a gross material sense. The intellect being capable of conceiving everything in itself (whether the concrete or discrete). 4. The etherial soul relishes things according to its taste, and the intellect entertains the idea of whatever it thinks upon; the ignorant soul begets the idea of creation, as a giddy man sees many shapes in his intoxication. 5. Whenever the shape of a thing, which is neither produced nor existent, presents itself to our sight; it is to be known as a picture of the ideal figure, which lies quietly in the divine mind. 6. The vacuous Intellect dwelling in the vacuity of the intellect, as fluidity resides in water; shows itself in the form of the world, as the fluid water displays itself in the form of waves upon its surface. So the world is the self-same Brahma, as the wave is the very water. (But the world is intellectual display and not material as the wave). 7. The worlds shining in the empty air, are as the clear visions of things in a dream, or like the false appearances appearing to a dim-sighted man in the open sky. 8. The mirror of the intellect perceives the pageant of the world, in the same manner, as the mind sees the sights of things in dream. Hence what is termed the world, is but void and vacuity. (A something of nothing).