pushing plants, all see their way unerringly, and which yet is
the very depth and density of Darkness, too ; a flashing- Moment
longer than the endless Kalpas ; and endless Kalpa, though
but a flashing Moment ; which, Evident to the senses, is yet
Nought; and which, again, is verily Everything, though
Unperceived of any sense; which, present Everywhere, Is
always Ungrasped by hands that search through myriad births;.
which thrusts itself into those very hands insistently, when
they have ceased from search ; a Thing with million hands and
feet and eyes, and yet Devoid of limbs ; a Thing De-void of
hands which Paints all sorts of living forms on the blank sheet of
Emptiness ;. which acts and moves and lives without a cause or
motive ; which makes a Multifarious Spectacle of its Sole Self;
which carries all the past, the present, and the future of all
worlds, concentred in a single point within It-Self ? What is
That which has spread out this giant Panorama of the Universe?
What is That, essenced with which, thou playest, slayest,
guardest ? What is That, by sight of which thou art Annihilated
into Deathless Being ? What is That, which is both Being and
Non-Being ? Resolve this little doubt of mine, 0 king and
minister ! They only are the wise who can supply solution of
the doubts of those who question them. They are the foolish
who have made themselves the slaves of sense. Are ye the
latter, or are ye the former ? If the latter, then, without a
doubt, I swallow you, and all your people, too, thereafter.
Unhappy, undeserving, unpossessed of acts of past good.
karma, vacant of acts of merit, are the people that are governed
by a foolish vicious king and foolish vicious ministers and
servants of such king."
CHAPTER XI
The Answer
As the great sounds of the Rakshasfs great speech subsided