unity of God and the multiplicity of the world-beings—the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the worlds became for them one and the same thing. If, however, a human being turns his gaze upon the divine unity, then the many forms of the changing universe would escape him; and, on the other hand, were he to look upon these, he could no longer hold in view the unity of God. They, however, saw, at one and the same moment, centre and circle; and, for that reason, their knowledge was unified knowledge, never unstable, and a prey to no doubt.
Throughout this whole luminous Brahma-world, time now flowed on silently and imperceptibly. As in a perfectly clear stream, which glides quietly and smoothly along, and whose waters are neither obstructed nor broken by any resistance, there is not the least movement to be perceived, so here, the passage of time was just as imperceptible, because it experienced no resistance from the rise or fall of thought and feeling.
This imperceptible passage of time was their eternity. And this eternity was a delusion. So also was all that it embraced—their knowledge, their godliness, their joy in existence, their world-life, their love-life, and their own individual life—all was steeped in delusion—was overlaid with the colour of delusion.
