86. As a man sees in his mind, both the dream of moving bodies as well as immovable rocks in his sleep; so does the Lord perceive the ideas, both of the stable and unstable in his intellectual tranquility. (_i.e._ It is possible for the intellect to conceive the ideas of gross bodies also). 87. As a man of absent mind, has no heed of the dust flying on any part of his body; so the divine spirit is not polluted, by his entertaining the ideas of gross bodies within itself. 88. As the air and water and stones, are possessed of the consciousness of their airy, watery and solid bodies, so are we conscious of our material, intellectual and spiritual bodies likewise. 89. As the mind that is freed from seeing the objects of sight, and liberated from entertaining all their thoughts and desires also, flows along like a stream of limpid waters; so doth the current of the divine spirit glide on eternally, with the waves and eddies of creation and dissolution, perpetually rolling on and whirling therein. CHAPTER CLXXXVII. OF THE LIVING CREATION. Argument:--Description of nature and destiny, and of creation and its teeming with vitality. Ráma rejoined:--Tell me sir, how can one paramount destiny, guide the fates of these endless chains and varieties of beings; and how can one uniform nature, be the predominant feature of all these various kinds of beings. 2. Say why is the sun so very shining among the myriads of gods, and cause is it that lengthens and shortens, the durations of days and nights (in summer and winter). 3. Vasishtha replied:--Whatever the Lord has ordained at first of himself (_i.e._ of his own will and wisdom); the same appearing as the fortuitous formation of chance, is called the very system of the universe. 4. All that is manifested in any manner by omnipotence, is and continues as real in the same manner; because what is made of the pith of divine will and intelligence, can never be unreal; nor is it possible for the manifest and obvious to be evanescent. 5. All that is situated or appears to us in any manner, being composed of the divine intellect, must continue to remain for ever in the same manner; this appearance of creation and its disappearance in its dissolution, are both attributed to the unseen power of its destiny. 6. To say this one is such and that is otherwise, is to attribute them to the manifestation of Brahma as so and so; and these formations of theirs, together with their ultimate dissolution, are called the acts of their destiny. 7. The three states of waking, sleeping and dreaming, appearing to the nature of the soul, are no way separated from it; as the fluidity and motion of water, are not otherwise than properties of the same limpid liquid. 8. As vacuity is the property of air, and warmth of the sunshine, and as odour is the quality of camphor; so the states of waking, sleeping and dreaming, appertain to the very nature of the soul, and are inseparable from it.