23. As vacuity is inborn in the firmament, and undulations are immanent in the air; so are these creations inherent and inseparably connected with the divine spirit, in their amorphous or formless and ideal shapes. (This passage maintains the idealistic theory of the ancients). 24. As an air drawn castle of our will or imagination, presents a substantial shape before us with all its unsubstantialness; so does this world appear as a compact frame exhibited before us, notwithstanding its situation in the formless mind of Brahma. 25. All these three worlds, that we are accustomed to believe as real ones, and as seats of our temporal as well as spiritual concerns; are all void and formless, and as unreal ones as the airy castles of our imagination. 26. As it is the thought of our minds, that creates full populous cities in them; so it is the thought of the mind of God, that creates these numerous worlds, and presents them to our minds and eyes. 27. Though ever and all along thought as a reality, this visible world bears no meaning at all; and resembles the sight of a man’s own death in his dream. 28. As a man sees the funeral of his dead body, conducted by his son in his dream; so the unreal world is seen as a reality, in as much as it is reflected as such by its supreme contriver. 29. Both the entity and non-entity of the cosmos or world, constitute the corpus of the immaculate deity; just as a fictitious name applied to a person, makes no difference in his personage. 30. Whether what I have said is true or not (that the siddhas and others are mere imaginary or spiritual beings), you have nothing to lose or gain therefrom (because we have no concern whatever with them); and as it is useless for wise men to expect any reward by casting fruits into the Phálgu river, so it is of no good to the intelligent who have known the true God, to take the pains of invoking the aid of the minor gods instead of Him. CHAPTER CCXII. ON ASCERTAINMENT OF TRUTH. Argument:--Thinking God as the Ego, Brahmá and the creation, and the description of God. Vasishtha resumed:--The man that considers himself as the Ego, from his possession of the intellect and intellectual powers in him; elevates him to the rank of Brahmá and contains the whole world in himself. 2. As the Lord Brahmá or Hiranyagarbha remained in this state (of the totality of souls) he was not then the creator of the world; but was alike the increate Brahma--the everlasting God, as he continued from all eternity. (Brahmá assimilating himself to the impersonal God, had no personality of himself, so the holy trinity was all One, before the Lord caused his coeternal son to create the world; as nothing was created but by the son). 3. It is in our consciousness, that the world appears in this manner, and is like the mirage in a desert, where its very unreality shows itself as a reality. (Hence our consciousness, is not always the test of truth).