28. It comes to know its subjection to decay, decrepitude and death, and of its wanderings on all sides of the wide sphere of this globe; it gets the knowledge of the knower and known, and also of the beginning, middle and of all acts and things. 29. And thus the primordial spirit, being transformed to the living soul, comes to know the elementary bodies of earth, air, and water &c, and the varieties of created beings and conduct of men and finds itself as contained and confined within the limits of its body and of this earth, after its having been the container of all bodies and space before. (The difference here spoken of, is that of the personal soul of the jíva or living being, and that of the impersonal soul of Brahma--the universal spirit). CHAPTER CLXXXIX. ON THE UNITY OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT. Argument:--Unity of the impersonal and personal _spirit treated_; and the materiality of the living soul refuted. Vasishtha continued:--This spiritual body (or the personal spirit), as that of Brahma--the primeval creator of all; being possessed of its volition, comes as by an act of chance and of its own motion, to think and brood on its thoughts; (which it had derived from the eternal spirit of Brahma). 2. It continues to remain in the same state, as it is ever conscious of in itself; and sees of its own nature, this universe exposed before it as it had in his mind, nor is there and wonder in this. 3. Now this viewer--Brahma, and his viewing and the view of the world, must either all be false (as there is no duality in nature); or they must all be true, having the spirit of Brahma at the bottom. 4. Ráma rejoined:--Now sir, please to tell me, how this spiritual and shadowy sight of the primeval Lord of creation, could be realized in its solidified state, and reality can there be in the vision of a dream. 5. Vasishtha replied:--The spiritual view is ever apparent by itself within ourselves; and our continuous and ceaseless sight of it, gives it the appearance of a solid reality. 6. As the visionary sights of our dreams, come to be realized in times, by our continuous poring upon them; so doth the spiritual appear as real, by our constant habit of thinking them as such. (So it is recorded in the case of King Harischandra of old). 7. The constant thought of the reality of our spiritual body, makes appear as a real object to our sight; as the constant craving of deer after water, makes it appear in the mirage of the parched desert before them. 8. So the vision of this world, has like every other fallacy, misled us like the poor and parching deer, to the misconception of water in the mirage; and does this and all other unrealities appear as real ones in our ignorance. 9. Many spiritual and intellectual objects, like a great many unreal things, are taken for the material and real, by the avidity of their desires and ignorant admirers.