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" 88 MAYA — DIVINE ENERGY. "They agree well enough," answered Vidydch^a; "for the Bauddhas, in taking away the substantial existence of ex- ternal objects, are not careful to put in their place the visible Mdyd. Now we do not so much annihilate external appearances, or the results of our perceptions, as resolve them into Mdy^. You will perhaps understand me better if I tell you what I once saw on the esplanade at Calcutta. Some Italian stranger, who had come to India by one of your vessels, took whoever chose of the passers by into a darkened chamber. In the middle was a plain white table, and upon this table we were made to see the figures of men, horses, and carriages moving to and fro, as if they had possessed a real life. Yet all this was Mdy£; for though the figures moved regularly, yet the table was a plain white surface. Something of the kind again takes place in what you call a magic lantern. There, too, the beholder sees pictures, which if he is simple he may take for realities. Now I do not say that the pictures of the visible world do not exist in some sense, but that they are simply pictures." " But pray does it not occur to you," again asked Blan- combe, " that in the darkened chamber the figures which you saw were reflexions of persons outside, who were actually moving, as you saw their reflected shadows move ? So that the Md,y£ there had a substantial something which it represented." " Similarly, I doubt not," answered Vidydchdrya, " has the MdyA of the world." " What, then, is that?" asked Blancombe. "What can it be," answered the other, "but the picturing energy of the Divine Being?" " Then if I understand you aright," remarked Blancombe, " all this world is a sort of pictured reflexion of the thought of the supreme Iswara^ " You probably are not far wrong," assented Vidydchfiiya. " But, then, why call it MAyd?" asked Blancombe; "for if the Divine Bemg is Truth, the reflexion of His thought must be true." RELATIONS AND IMPRESSIONS. 89 " So far," answered Vidydch^a, " as men apprehend it for what it really is, the manifestation of the Divine energy, it is tme enough ; but so far as they take it for a reality in itself, it becomes illusion. In fact, it is appearance caused by God ; and this meaning is properly expressed by Md,y£. Now if I pro- ceeded to say that the world is a sort of dream, I should do violence to the sacred power of sleep : for really in sleep the soul is free from many external illusions, and being undisturbed by the external world, rests in the quiet of the supreme ^Spirit. But since perhaps you apprehend, as many men do, that sleep is less real than a waking state, you may understand the matter better if I compare the life of an unthinking man to a person dreaming. Just as a dreamer sees things which you would say were only pictures, so the ignorant man awake sees a world of appearances^ which he fancies to have some real existence of their own.*' *' Perhaps I understand you," said Blancombe, ^^ though the very explanation is difficult to me ; so that I almost begin to doubt what you mean by existing, and what by appearing. I suppose, however, you admit the same things cannot both exist and not exist ; which then ought we to affirm of the world?" "On the contrary," answered Vidy4ch6iya, "we hold that things may both be in a way, and not be in a way. What, for example, are we to say of a thing pictured ; or again, of a whole series of things ever fluctuating and changing? But of the world this much is clear; so far as any thing truly exists, it does so by virtue of the Divine energy manifesting it; and so far as it does not partake of the Divinity, it is at best mere appear- ance." "In the next place, then," asked Blancombe, "are we to gay that the world is created on the whole by intellect, or by ignorance?" " By both in a way," answered Vidy&ch6iya. " Pray explain that to me," said the other. " We have already seen," proceeded Vidy&ch&iya, " that all appearance, or M&y&, is made up of three kinds of impressions ; 90 MATTEB — INTELLECT — HUMANITY — DEITY — SPIRIT. now to apprehend these impressions requires a certain kind of intel- lect; but to mistake the impressions for substance is again a kind of ignorance. The mere human intelligence, then (jn-djna) , being very defective in each individual, both apprehends the impressions and unduly substantiates them, so that it both understands and is ignorant. Now it is evident that, as a wood is not different from the trees which constitute it, so any whole whatsoever is not distinct from all the parts which it contains: therefore all the intelligences of individual men make up one intelligence, and all their ignorances make up one ignorance : again, the higher intellect {Ghaitanya) of the Divine Being which presents the impressions above spoken of, may be called Iswara, but still is 80 mixed up with its representations that they become its sheath or its covering; the aggregate then of impressions or ignorances may be called the body of Chaitanya; but now farther, just as a wood occupies space, and all spaces require an absolute space, or illimitable expanse, which comprehends them, so even this Chaitanya is intelligent only in virtue of that which I despair of expressing in words. It is what we call the Fourth. Possibly you may rise to a conception of it in this way. A very ignorant person will say when burnt by a mass of ignited iron, that the hot iron bums him ; but he means that the heat in the iron bums him. Thus then Intellect, when associated with Mdyd, — that is, external impressions in general (or when considered together with the or- ganisations which produce those impressions) — ^is indeed Iswara, and him we address as Brahmd. He is the Creator and the Ruler; but then as heat would not be in the iron, if there were not absolute heat apart from the iron, so neither could Intellect have created objects, or have become associated with Mdyd, unless it had for its ground an absolute and pure Intel- lect, which is Brahm, or eternal Spirit, the blessed, the tranquil, the single without duality, and the unutterable Gk>d. But again, beware of understanding me as if I thought the trees or the water were distinct from the wood or the pool which contains the aggregate of each; or as if there could be any intelligence dis- DEITT — SPIBIT — LIBERATION. 91 tinct from, and not in virtae of, the One and indivisible, even that beyond the supreme Soul. That then is Brahm, but our sacred books wisely call it That {Tad)y because of the difficulty of expressing it in words. It is the unseen and ungrasped, ther^ fore inexpressible. In your language probably you would attempt to expound our doctrine in some such way as this : There are the impressions of the natural world, which make up one ignorance ; there is the individual intelligence of man, which is overpowered by those impressions ; there is also the creative or representing intelligence of God, which being possessed of omniscience, om* nipotence, and superintendence over all, imperceptible, and all* pervading, is rightly called the Lord (Iswara) ; this is Brahm& ; and beyond these, but containing these, or dwelling in these, is the potential or the prss-creative, (and if such a thing may be said in your language,) the prae-etemal Spirit, before all thought, and itself the possibility of any thinking. That is Brahm. Again, to invert the process, consider it in this way. Out of Brahm comes Brahm&. By Brahm4, associating himself as Chai' tanya with organisation, and throwing before himself various modifications of M&y4, some grosser, and some finer, aU things and beings whatsoever there are, consist. Existing by Brahmd^ and also his offspring, the human soul shines more faintly, like a spark detached from a fire over which there is a veil, and hence it even supposes in its ignorance that the clothing of organisation given it is something more than an appearance thrown around himself by Brahm&, or the reflexion, as we have already said, of his thought. Otherwise, if the immortal soul within us were mindful of the Being from whom it comes and to whom it is kindred, all earthly actions, and their consequences which are connected with earth, would perish from it ; alike its past sins would be blotted out, and its future offences would be prevented.