October 15, 2026
abuddhipūrvamevā ‘go yathā śākhāvicitratāṁ
karotyevamajaścitraḥ sargābhāsaḥ kha eva khaṁ (1)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
Just as a tree brings forth diverse beautiful branches without mental activity or volition (intention), even so the unborn and uncreated infinite consciousness gives rise to diverse and colourful world-appearance (creation). It is like space giving rise to space. Just as the ocean gives rise to whirlpools without mental activity or intention even so without intending to do so, consciousness gives rise to every kind of experience, because it is the lord of all. To those very experiences the same consciousness gives various “names” like “mind”, “buddhi”, “egosense”, etc. Again without mental activity and intention, the infinite consciousness has given rise within itself to the notion of an object with all the sequence of buddhi, etc. Even the world order (niyati), which includes the fundamental characteristic of the objects, arises in the infinite consciousness without any intention or mental activity whatsoever.
Moreover, it is all one: the tree includes the trunk, the branches, the leaves and the flowers, the distinction being verbal. Even so the infinite consciousness includes everything, the distinction being verbal. If you still ask, “Why then is this futile experience of the objects?”, it is good to remind yourself that all this is but a long dream. Who will resort to the non-existent or the hidden thing? Just as we have formed in our mind an image “This is a tree”, in the infinite consciousness there exist images of space, etc. Just as space (distance) is indistinguishably one with space and movement with air, even so the buddhi (intelligence) etc., are with the supreme being or the infinite consciousness. This creation is non-different from the infinite consciousness.
This creation appears right from the beginning in the infinite consciousness as if in a dream. This appearance, moreover, has no cause. How then can it be other than the infinite consciousness? It is analogous to the dream which is a daily universal experience: hence one should investigate it. What is the essence or the reality in the dream except the pure intelligence or consciousness which creates it and in which it exists?
This creation does not arise as a “memory” in the infinite consciousness. It arises in the consciousness without any reason or cause whatsoever (it is a coincidence like the ripe cocoanut falling when a crow alights on it); dreaming, conceptualisation, etc., follow later. Once this creation has arisen without any cause in the infinite consciousness, its “existence” follows later. Therefore, even though this creation seems to have been created, it has not been created; when thus it has not been created at all, surely it does not exist.
In the pure space of the infinite consciousness these countless world-appearances exist. They come into being and they dissolve, though they are all essentially void (śūnya) in their nature. They react upon one another and thus create this world-appearance though they are essentially void (śūnya). This creation is void, and the void grows and the void alone ceases to be (void because it is devoid of the notion of a “self”).