38. At last I found out in my mind, what it had been long searching after in earnest; and at last the breath of my expectation returned into my nostrils. (Parting breath of longing returns with the longed for object). 39. The seed of knowledge which I had sown in the field of my mind, came to sprout forth of itself from the midst of it, after the lapse of a whole century. 40. My life or living soul, is now awakened to its intuitive knowledge (of truth); as a tree left withered by the dewy season, becomes revivified by the moisture of the renovating spring. 41. The hundred years which I passed in my meditation here, glided away as quickly as a single moment before me; because a long period of time appears a very short space, to one who is intensively intent upon a single object. (Whereas the succession of thoughts be an unchanging duration of the same moment to him who is fixed in his mind). 42. Now my outward senses had their expansion, from their contracted state (in my meditative mind); just as the withered arbors expand themselves into flowers and foliage, by the enlivening influence of the vernal season. 43. Then the vital airs filled the organs of my body, and restored my consciousness of their sensations; soon after I was seized upon by the demon of my egoism, accompanied by its consort of desire; and these began to move to and fro, just as the strong winds shake the sturdy oaks. CHAPTER LVII. ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE KNOWN AND UNKNOWN. Argument:—Difference of Egoism in wise and in common people, and Disappearance of visibles. Ráma rejoined:—Tell me, O most sapient sage, how it is possible for the demon of ego to take hold of you, that are extinct in the deity, and dissipate my doubts there. 2. Vasishtha replied:—It is impossible, O Ráma, for any being whether knowing or unknown to live here without the sense of his egoism; as it is not possible for the contained to subsist without its container. 3. But there is a difference of this which you must know, that the demoniac egoism of the quiet minded man, is capable of control by means of his knowledge of and attention to the _srutis_. 4. It is the infantine ignorance which raises up this idol of egoism, though it is found to exist no where; just as little children make dolls and images of gods and men, that have no existence at all. 5. This ignorance also (which is the cause of egoism), is nothing positive of itself; since it is dispelled by knowledge and reason, as darkness is driven away by the light of a lamp. (Ignorance and darkness are but negative terms). 6. Ignorance is a demon that dances about in the dark, and a fiend that flies afar before the light of reason. (Hence the disappearance of ignorance causes our egoism to disappear also).