Vasiṣṭha spoke with gentle wisdom to Rāma, saying, “Do not remain in ignorance—become a knower of the truth. Abandon the habits that bind you to worldly existence. Why do you grieve as if you were someone else, identifying with what is not your true Self? “O Rāghava, what is this inert, mute body to you, for whose sake you are helplessly tossed between pleasure and pain? Consider: just as wood and resin remain distinct, or two berry vessels, even when joined, do not truly become one, so too, there is no real unity between the body and the embodied being. The Self is not the body. “Think of the fire within a bellows—though it burns, the air inside remains unaffected. In the same way, when the body perishes, the Self does not perish. The thoughts, ‘I am unhappy, I am happy,’ are but delusions that trouble the mind, and this torment is difficult to overcome. “This false, harmful notion—this mind-inflating illusion—brings sorrow and blinds you with the impurity of delusion. Even if the moon’s disk is cool and moist with nectar, if one imagines it as the hell of Raurava, one experiences the suffering of burning, as if in a true hell. In lakes adorned with lotuses and cool waves, a mirage can seem real, and in dreams, you may build cities in the sky, fall, fly, and experience all sorts of pleasures and pains. “But if the mind’s tendency toward worldly existence is not fulfilled, then what harm can the agitations of waking and dreaming bring? Raurava, Avīci, and other hells—domains of suffering—are seen to arise even in celestial groves when false knowledge prevails. When the mind is pierced by ignorance, even the smallest thing can seem to contain the whirlpool of the entire ocean of worldly existence. When afflicted by this ignorance, even a sovereign may fall into states unfit for outcastes. “Therefore, O Rāma, abandon the tendency that binds you to worldly existence. Remain composed in all circumstances, unattached, like a crystal. While you fulfill your duties, let no coloring of attachment stain you—just as a crystal reflects many images but remains unchanged. If, with a mind free from curiosity and attachment, you act in the world playfully, with noble understanding, performing natural actions, then your greatness is beyond compare.” Hearing these words from the venerable, great-souled Vasiṣṭha, Rāma—whose eyes were like lotus petals—appeared as if awakened from a long sleep. His inner being blossomed and shone with new radiance, reassurance blooming within him as darkness fades before the sun, like a lotus opening to the morning light. With a gentle smile, born of wonder and awakening, his face shone bright, as if bathed in the moon’s nectar-beams, and he spoke: “Ah, how marvelous! Mountains may be bound by threads spun from lotus stalks, and by this ignorance, which does not truly exist, all are brought under its sway. “This ignorance, though unreal, has taken on a diamond-like hardness in the three worlds—it makes the unreal appear as real. Out of compassion, please describe again the true nature of this worldly illusion—this dancer upon the stage of the three worlds—so that true understanding may arise. “And, O great soul, another doubt arises in my heart: Did that noble Lavana truly encounter such calamity? When the body and the embodied self are joined and unharmed, O Brahman, who among them is the experiencer of worldly existence, enjoying the fruits of good and evil? “Having thus brought upon Lavana that supreme misfortune, who was it that departed, restless at the beginning—who indeed was that master of illusion? The body, O stainless one, is like a wooden wall—almost nothing at all; it is conceived by the mind, like a world seen in a dream. “But the mind, endowed with the power of consciousness, attains the state of the living being. Know, O wise one, that it is the mind that transmigrates, restless as a young monkey. Indeed, it is the mind that acts within the body, assuming various forms as the bearer of the body; it is called by the names ego, mind, and life-force. “For that mind—whether unawakened or fully awakened, O Raghava—pleasures and pains, endless in number, do not belong to the body at all. The unawakened mind, imagining various designations, follows manifold and diverse activities, taking on forms of every kind. “As long as one has not awakened, sleep persists; during that time, one perceives confusion in dreams, but never upon awakening. As long as the living being is afflicted by the sleep of ignorance and has not awakened, he perceives the bewildering and incomprehensible turmoil of worldly existence. “But when the mind is fully awakened, all darkness dissolves, just as the blindness of a lotus disappears when it opens to the daylight. Those who identify themselves with mind, ignorance, the mental being, their residence, karma, and the self—these are called embodied beings acquainted with suffering. “The inert body does not suffer; it is the living being who suffers, due to lack of discernment. Lack of discernment arises from dense ignorance, and ignorance is the cause of suffering. The living being, attached to the domains of virtuous and unvirtuous actions, through this single fault of indiscrimination, does not reach the supreme state. “The mind, bound by the disease of indiscrimination and possessing various tendencies, wanders in diverse forms of play, revolving like a wheel. It arises, cries, kills, eats, goes, leaps, rejoices; it is only the mind in this body, never the body itself. “Just as a householder is in his house, a charioteer in his chariot, or a serpent in its hole, so the mind dwells within this body. As the wind moves restlessly among unmoving trees, so the mind stirs within the body, though the body itself does not enter the mind.” Thus, in the presence of the sage, Rāma’s understanding deepened, as the nature of the mind and the illusion of worldly existence were revealed with clarity and compassion.