Vishnupurana 6.7.p5

6.7.p5

Khāndikya then said to Kesidhwaja "Illustrious sage, inform me what is that perfect asylum of the mind resting on which it destroys all the products of human infirmity". To this Keshidhwaja replied. "The asylum of mind is Brahma, which, of its own nature, is two-fold; as being with or without form; and each of these, is supreme and secondary. Apprehension of Brahma or spirit is again three-fold. I will explain the different kinds to you, they are that which is called Brahma, that which is named from works, and that which comprehends both is the third. So that mental apprehension is three-fold. Sanandana and other were endowed with the apprehension of the nature of Brahma. The celestials and others whether animate or inanimate are possessed of that which regards acts. The apprehension, that comprehends both works and spirit, exists in Hiranyagarbha and others, who are possessed of contemplative knowledge of their own nature and who also exercise certain active functions as creation and the rest. Until all acts, which are the causes of notions of individuality, are discontinued, spirit is one thing and universe is another, to those who contemplate objects as distinct and various; but that is called true knowledge or knowledge of Brahma which recognises no distinctions, which contemplates only simple existence which is undefinable by words and is to be discovered solely in one's own spirit. That is the supreme unborn, imperishable form of Vishnu, who is without form and characterised as a condition of the supreme soul, which is variously modified from the condition of universal form. The sages, in the early stage, cannot perceive this form so they must direct their minds to the gross form of Hari, which is of universal perceptibility. They must meditate upon him as Hiranyagarbha, as the glorious Vāsava, as Prajāpati, as the winds, the Vasus, the Rudras, the suns, stars, planets, Gandharvas, Yakshas, Daityas, all the celestials, and their progenitors, men, animals, mountains, oceans, rivers, trees, all beings and all sources of beings, all modifications of natures, and its products, whether sentient of unconscious, one-footed, two-footed, or many-footed; all these are the sensible form of Hari, to be apprehended by three kinds of apprehension. All this universal world, this world of moving and stationary beings is pervaded by the energy of Vishnu, who is of the nature of supreme Brahma. This energy is supreme, or when it is that of conscious embodied spirit it is secondary. Ignorance, or that which is denominated from works, is a third energy; by which the omnipresent energy of embodied spirit is ever excited and whence it suffers all the pains of repeated worldly existence. Obscured by that energy, the energy that is denominated from embodied spirit, is characterised by different degrees of perfection in all created beings. In inanimate things it exists in a very small degree; it is more in things that have life, but are (without motion); in insects it is still more abundant, and still more in birds: it is more in wild animals and in domestic animals the faculty is still greater: men have more of this faculty than animals, and thence arises their authority over them; the faculty exists in a supreme degree in Nāgas, Gandharvas, Yakshas, celestials, Sakra, Prajāpati and Hiranyagarbha; and is above ail predominant in that male (Vishnu) of whom all these various creatures are but the diversified forms, permeated universally by his energy, as all-pervading as the other.