Vishnupurana 2.12.p6

2.12.p6

From the waters which constitute the person of Vishnu originated the lotus-shaped earth with its seas and mountains. The stars are Vishnu, the words are Vishnu: forests, mountains, regions, streams, seas are Vishnu—all that is, all that shall be—all that is not are Vishnu. The glorious Vishnu is identical with knowledge. He has got endless forms but is not a substance. All the mountains, oceans and the various divisions of the earth you must consider to be the illusions of the apprehension. When knowledge is pure, real, universal, independent of actions, freed from defect then the varieties of substance, which are the fruits of the tree of desire, cease to exist in matter. What is substance? What thing is that which has got no beginning, no middle and no end? And which is of one uniform nature? How can that object be called real which is subject to change and which reassumes no more its original character? The earth is seen as a jar; the jar is divided into two halves which are again broken into pieces: they again become dust and the dust is again reduced into atoms. Is this reality? And although it is considered so by man it is because his self-knowledge is obstructed by his own acts. Therefore, O Brahman, there is nothing anywhere, or anything real at any time save discriminative knowledge. On account of the diversity of their actions, people, having diverse temperaments, consider that one knowledge as manifold. Knowledge perfect and pure, freed from pains and renouncing attachments towards all these which cause affliction—knowledge, single and eternal is the supreme Vāsudeva, besides whom there is nothing. I have thus communicated to you the truth—the knowledge which is truth; and all that differs from it is false. That which is seen by the knowledge is but illusion of a temporal and worldly nature. I have also described to you the sacrifice, the victim, the fire, the priests, the acid, juce, the celestials, the desire for heaven, the path followed by acts of devotion and the worlds that are their outcome. In this universe which I have described to you only those people travel who are subject to the influence of actions. But he, who knows Vasudeva to be eternal, immutable, and of one unchanging, universal form, should so perform them that he may enter into the deity.