44. This world is an apparition of our ignorance, like the spectres that are seen amidst deep darkness; but know that it is the transparent intellect of God which represents it so, and will ever do the same. 45. And as the dark sight of the gross world, as well as the clear light of its transparency, do both of them proceed alike from the selfsame mind of God; it is impossible to conceive, whether it is the one or the other, or both alike. 46. Hence, O Ráma, this prince being uncertain of the transparency of the Divine spirit has been wandering for ever more, in the dark maze of his preconceived worlds; as a stray deer, roves amidst the tangled wilderness. CHAPTER CXXIX. VIPASCHIT’S BECOMING A STAG. Argument:--The fates of the four Vipaschitas, and the transformation of one to a stag. I have heard of the liberation of two Vipaschitas, by grace of Vishnu; and want now to know what became of the two brothers, that have <been> wandering all about. 2. Vasishtha replied:--One of these two, learnt by long habit to subdue his desires, and by his wandering in many islands, had at last settled in one of them, and obtained his rest in God. 3. Having relinquished the sight, of the outward livery of the world, he saw millions of orbs rolling in the vacuity and is still enrapt with the view. 4. The second one (or other) of them, was released from his personal wanderings, by his continuance in the contiguity of the moon, where his constant association with the stag-like mark on the disc of that luminary, changed his form to that of that animal, which he still retains in his situation upon a hill. 5. Ráma asked:--How is it sir, that the four persons of Vipaschit, having but one mind, and the same desire and aim in view, could differ so much in their acts, that brought upon them such different results of good and evil? 6. Vasishtha replied:--The habitual desire of a person, becomes varied according to the various states of his life, in course of time and in different places; it becomes weaker and stronger in degree, though it is never changed in its nature. 7. It is according to circumstances that the selfsame desire or object of a person, is modified in different forms; and whatever of these is greater in its intensity, the very same takes the precedence of others, and comes to pass in a short time. 8. In this divided state of their desires, the four persons of the prince, arrived to four different states in their modes in life; so that two of them were immerged in their ignorance, the third became a deer, and the last gained his liberation at last. 9. The two former have not yet arrived at the end of their nescience, but have been grovelling in darkness by their blindness to the light of truth; which can hardly dispel the darkness, that is continually spread by ignorance.