48. The world as it is now visible to us, lies for ever in the mind of God in the same vacuous state, as it was before its creation; and as it is to be reduced to nothing upon its final destruction. It is the twinkling, or the opening and closing of the intellectual eye, that this empty shadow of the world, appears and disappears amidst the universal vacuum of the Divine Mind. 49. Whoever views this world in any light, it appears to him in the same manner (as some thinking it a solid plenum, and others as an empty vacuum). And as it depends upon the Intellect alone, it is exhibited in various forms according to the caprice of its observers. 50. The minds of the intelligent, are as pure as the clear sphere of the summer sky; and the pure hearted and holy people, think themselves as nothing else, beside their intellects or as intellectual beings only. 51. These pious and holy people, are free from ignorance and the faults of society; they share the gifts of fortune, as it falls to them by the common lot of mankind; and they continue in the conduct of their worldly affairs, like some working machine (acting externally and without taking any thing to mind). CHAPTER CI. A SERMON ON SPIRITUALITY. Argument:—That self-consciousness is same with the pure soul, whose presence is preventive of the causes of all human woes and fears. (Here consciousness is synonymous with conscientiousness). Vasishtha continued:—Thus it is the Intellect only which is the soul of the body also, and which is situated every where in the manner as said before; and there is nothing which is so self-evident as the Intellect (or self-consciousness). 2. This is the clear expanse of the sky and, it is the medium of the vision of the viewer and visibles; it composes and encompasses the whole world, and therefore there is nothing to be had or lost without it. 3. The doctrinaires of the atheistic school of Brihaspati, that disbelieve the future state because of their ignorance of it; are believers of the present from their knowledge hereof. Thus knowledge or consciousness being the basis of their belief, we bear no favour nor disfavour to their doctrine. (We neither favor nor hate). 4. The world being but a name for the dream, which is produced in the vacuum of our hidden knowledge; say what cause is there for the debate of disputants, in their one sided view of the question. 5. Our consciousness knows well in itself, what is good or bad, and therefore acceptable or not. The pure soul is manifest in the clear vacuity of air, where there is neither this nor that view of it, exhibited to anyone. 6. The conscious soul is immortal, O Ráma, and is not of the form of a rock or tree or any animal; consciousness is a mere vacuum, and all being and not being (_i.e._ our birth and deaths are as the waves and curling waters, in its ocean of eternity).