27. Ráma rejoined:—If it be so, O great sage! (That there is no ego or tu as you say), then tell me, why are we conscious of ourselves, and how are you sitting here under the name of the sage Vasishtha. 28. Valmíki said:—Being thus interrogated by Ráma, Vasishtha the best of speakers, remained silent for a moment, pondering on the answer he should make. 29. This silence of his created some anxiety in the royal audience, and Ráma too being perplexed in his mind, repeated his question to the sage and said:— 30. Why sir, are you silent like myself? I see there is no such argument in the world, which sages like yourself are unable to solve and expound:— 31. Vasishtha replied:—It is not owing to my inability to speak, nor want of argument on my part that made me hold my tongue; but it is the wide scope of your question that withheld me from giving its answer. (Or from answering to it). 32. Ráma! There are two kinds of querists, namely, the ignorant inquisitor and the intelligent investigator; and so there are two modes of argumentation also for them respectively: the simple mode for simpletons, and the rational form for intelligent and reasonable men. 33. You had been so long, Ráma, ignorant of superior knowledge, and fit to be taught in ordinary equivocal language. 34. But now you have become a connoisseur of superior truth, and found your rest in the state of supreme felicity; and are no longer to benefit by the ambiguous language of common speech. 35. Whenever a good speaker wishes to deliver an eloquent speech, whether it be a long or short one, or relate to some abstruse or spiritual subject (he must satisfy himself first). 36. The ego being the counterpart or privation of all representation, is inexpressible by representative sounds and words; and being beyond the predicaments of number and other categories, is not predicable by any of them or other fiction of fancy. It is the totality of all, as light is composed of innumerable particles of ray. 37. It is not right, O Ráma, that one who has known the truth (the gnostic), should give an imperfect or defective answer to a question (proposed to him). But what can he do, when no language is perfect or free from defect, as you know it well. 38. It is right, O Ráma, that I who know the truth, should declare it as it is to my pupils; and the knower of abstract truth is known to remain as mute as a block of wood, and the soundness of whose mind is hard to sound. (So says the Persian mystic:—He who has known the unknowable, has become unknown to himself and others). 39. It is want of self-cogitation that causes one to speak, (_i.e._ unsoundness of thought sounds in high sounding words); but they hold their silence who know the Supreme excellence; and this is the best answer that is given thy inquiry into this truth.