A DIALOGUE WITH DEATH; PRESENTED BY SWAMI ISHWARANANDA

To add further credence, impetus, and weight, 
although not in its essence needful, 
on the most profound soteriology 
ever solemnly inculcated in the 
“Vaivasvata Gita,” 
the author additionally begets an audience 
to the readers the following example of the 
dialogue between the 
Sage Bhrigu and Lord Vaivasvata:

Sage Bhrigu grieves at seeing the dead body of his son, Sukra, and makes a request to the Lord of Death, Vaivasvata, to return “life” back into the 
the emaciated carcass of his son.

What follows is another incredible, profound, delight-ful, and majestic discourse by Lord Vaivasvata.

These precepts were duly communicated by 
Lord Vasishtha to Prince Rama in the 
“Maharamayana” of Sage Valmiki.

This is a simile of the souls of Sukra and Nachiketas, for there is no difference in the essence of either 
Uddalaka-Nachiketas conference with Lord Vaivasvata or that of Bhrigu-Sukra, 
for the one who sees any difference, sees not.

Lord Vasishtha: After the lapse of a thousand years, the great Bhrigu rose from his holy trance, and was disen-gaged in his mind from its meditation of God, as in a state of suspension of syncope of his holy meditation. He did not find his son lowly bending down his head before him; the son who was the leader of the army of virtues, and who was the personified figure of all mer-its. He only beheld his body, lying as a skeleton before him, as it was wretchedness or poverty personified in that shape. 
The skin of his body was dried by the Sun, and his nos-trils snoring as a hooping bird, and the inner entrails of his belly were sounding as dry leather-pipes with the croaking of frogs. The sockets of his eyes were filled with new-born worms grown in them, and the bones of his ribs had become like bars of a cage, with the thin skin over them resembling a spider’s web. The dry and white skeleton of the body resembled the desire of frui-tion, which bends it to the Earth, to undergo all the favourable and unfavourable accidents of life. The crown of the head had become as white and smooth as a phallus of Shiva anointed with camphor at an Indu-Varcha ceremony in honour of the moon. 
The withered head erected on a bony neckbone likened the soul supported by the body. The nose had shrivelled to a dry stalk for want of its flesh, and the nose bone stood like a post, dividing the two halves of the face. The face, standing erect on the protruded shoulders on both sides, was looking forward in the womb of the vacuous sky, whither the vital breath had fled from the body. The two legs, thighs, knees, and the two arms had been doubled in their length and lay slackened with the fatigue of a long journey. The leanness of the belly like a lath, showed by its shrivelled flesh and skin, the empty inside of the ignorant. 
Bhrigu seeing the withered skeleton of his son, lying like a worn-out post, made his reflection as said before and rose from his seat. He then began to dubitate in his mind, at the sight of the dead body, as to whether it could be the lifeless carcass of his son or any other. Thinking it no other than the dead body of his son, he became so angry upon the God of death. He was pre-pared to pronounce his imprecation against the God of fate in vengeance of his snatching his son so prema-turely from him. 
At this, Vaivasvata, the Regent of Death and devourer of living beings, assumed his figurative form of a mate-rial body and appeared in an instant before the enraged father. He appeared in armour with six arms and as many faces, accompanied by an army of his adherents, and holding the noose and sword and other weapons in his hands. The rays of light radiating from his body, giving it the appearance of a hill, filled with heaps of crimson Kinsuka flowers, growing in mountain forests. The rays of living fire flashing from his trident gave it the glare of golden ringlets, fastened to the ears of all sides of the sky. The breath of his host hurled down the ridges of mountains, which hung about them, like swinging cradles on Earth. His sable sword flashing with sombre light, darkened the disc of the Sun, as it were by the smoke of the final conflagration of the Earth. 
Having appeared before the great Sage, who was en-raged as the raging sea, he soothed him to calmness, as after a storm, by the gentle breath of his speech. 
Lord Vaivasvata: The Sages, said he, are acquainted with the laws of nature and know the past and future as present before them. They are never moved even with a motive to anything and are far from being moved with-out a cause. You Sages are observers of the multifarious rules of religious austerities, and we are observant of the endless and immutable laws of destiny; we honour you, therefore, for your holiness, and not from any oth-er desire. 
Do not belittle your righteousness by your rage, nor think to do us any harm, who are spared unhurt by the flames of final dissolution and cannot be consumed by your curses. We have destroyed the spheres of the uni-verse and devoured legions of Rudras, millions of Brahmas, and myriads of Vishnus; what is it therefore that we cannot do? 
We are appointed as devourers of all beings, and you are destined to be devoured by us. This is ordained by des-tiny herself, and not by any act of our own will. It is the nature of flame to ascend upwards and that of fluids to flow downwards; it is destined for the food to be fed upon by its eaters, and that creation must come under its destruction by us. 
Know this form of mine to be that of the Supreme Be-ing, whose Universal Spirit acts in various forms all over the Universe. To the unstained sight, there is no other agent or object here, except the Supreme, but the stained sight views many agents and objects. Agency and objectivity are terms coined only by the short-sighted, but they disappear before the enlarged view of the wise. As flowers grow upon trees, so are animals born on Earth; their growth and birth, as also their fall and death, are of their own spontaneity and miscalled as their causality. As the motion of the moon is caused by no casual cause, though they falsely attribute causal-ity to it; such is the course of death in the world of its own spontaneous nature. 
The mind is falsely said to be the agent of all its en-joyments in life, though it is no agent of itself. It is a misbelief like the false conception of a serpent in the rope, where there is no serpent at all. Therefore, O’ Sage! Allow not yourself to be so angry for your sor-row, but consider in its true light, the course of events that befall on humankind. We are neither actuated by the desire of fame nor influenced by pride or passion to any act but are ourselves subject to destiny, which pre-dominates over all our actions. Knowing that the course of our conduct, is subject to destiny appointed by Divine will, the wise never allow themselves to be subjected under the darkness of pride or passion, at our doings. That our duties only should always be done, is the rule laid down by the wise creator, and you cannot attempt to remove it by subjection to ignorance and idleness. 
Where is that enlightened sight, that gravity and that patience of yours that you grovel in this manner in the dark like the blind, and slide from the broad and beaten path laid open for everybody? Why don’t you consider your case as the sequence of your own acts, and why then do you, who is a wise man, falsely accuse me like the ignorant? 
You know that all living beings have two bodies here, of which, one is known as the intellectual or spiritual body or mind. The other is the inert or corporeal frame, which is fragile and perishable. But, the minute thing of the mind, which lasts until its liberation, is what leads all to their good or evil desires. As a skilful chari-oteer guides his chariot with care, so is this body con-ducted by the intelligent mind, with equal attention and fondness. But, the ignorant mind, which is prone to evil, destroys the good body, as little children break their dolls of clay in sport. 
The mind is hence called the Purusha or regent of the body, and the working of the mind is taken for the act of the man. The mind is bound to the Earth by its de-sires and freed by its freedom from Earthly attractions and expectations. That is called the mind, which thinks in itself, “This is my body, which is so situated here, and these are the members of my body, and this my head.” The mind is called life, for having the living principle in it, and the same is one and identic with the understanding. It becomes egotistic by its conscious-ness, and so the same mind passes under various desig-nations, according to its different functions. It has the name of the heart from the affection of the body, and so it takes many other names at will. But the Earthly bodies are all perishable. 
When the mind receives the Light of Truth, it is called an enlightened Intellect, which, being freed from its thoughts relating to the body, is set to its supreme fe-licity. Thus, the mind of your son, wandered from your presence, as you sat absorbed in meditation, to regions far and wide in the ways of its various desires. He, hav-ing left his body behind him in the mountain cave of Mandara, he fled to the celestial region, as a bird flies from his nest to the open air. 
This mind got into the city of the tutelar gods and re-mained in a part of the garden of Nandana (Eden), in the happy groves of Mandara, and under the bower of Parijata flowers. There he thought he passed a revolu-tion of eight cycles of the four yugas, in company with Visvaci, a beauteous Apsara damsel, unto whom he clung, as the hexapod bee clings to the blooming lotus. 
But, as his strong desire led him to the happy regions of his imagination, so he had his fall from them at the end of his desert, like nightly dew falling from heaven. He faded away in his body, and all his limbs, like a flower attached to the ear or head ornament, and fell together with his beloved one, like the ripened fruits of trees. Being bereft of his aerial and celestial body, he passed through the atmospheric air and was born again on Earth in a human figure. He became a Brahmana in the land of Dasarna, and then a king of the city of Kosala. 
He became a hunter in a great forest, and then a swan on the banks of Ganges. He became a king of the Solar race, and then a Raja of the Pundras, and afterwards a missionary among the Sauras and Salvas. He next be-came a Vidyadhara, and lastly the son of a Sage or Mu-ni. He had become a ruler in Madras, and then the son of a devotee, bearing the name of Vasudeva, and living on the bank of river Samanga. 
Your son has also passed many other births, which he was led to by his desire, and he had likewise to undergo some, itara-janmna, heterogeneous births in lower ani-mals. He had repeatedly been a Kirata-huntsman in the Vindhya Hills and at Kaikatav. He was a chieftain in Sauvira and had become an ass at Trigarta. He grew as a bamboo tree in the land of Keralas, and as a deer in the outskirts of China. He became a serpent on a palm tree and a cock on the Tamala tree. 
This son of yours had been skilled in incantations-mantras and propagated them in the land of Vidy-adharas. Then he became a Vidyadhara (Jadugar) or magician himself and plied his jugglery of abstracting ornaments from the persons of females. He became a favourite of females, as the Sun is dear to lotus-flowers, and being as handsome as Kama (Cupid) in his person, he became a favourite amongst Vidyadhara damsels in the land of Gandharvas. 
At the end of the kalpa age (of universal destruction), he beheld the twelve Suns of the zodiac shining at once before him, and he was reduced to ashes by their warmth, as a grasshopper is burnt up by its falling on fire. Finding neither other world nor body where he could enter (upon the extinction of the universe), his spirit roved about in empty air, as a bird soars on high without its nest. 
After the lapse of a long time, as Brahma awoke again from his long night of repose and commenced anew his creation of the world in all its various forms. 
The roving spirit of your son was led by its desire, as if it was propelled by a gust of wind, to become a Brah-mana again, and to be reborn as such on this Earth. He was born as the boy of a Brahmana, under the name of Vasudeva, and was taught in all the Shrutis, among the intelligent and learned men of the place. 
It is in this kalpa age that he has become a Vidyadhara again and betaken himself to the performance of his devotion on the bank of Samanga, where he is sitting still in his yoga meditation. Thus, his desire for the va-rieties of worldly appearances has led him to various births, amidst the woods and forests in the womb of this Earth, covered with jungles of the thorny Khadira, Karanja, and other bushes and brambles. 

CAUSE OF THE PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD

Vaivasvata’s narration of Sukra’s meditation 
and his inclination to worldliness.

Lord Vaivasvata: Your son is still engaged in his rigor-ous austerities on the bank of the rivulet, rolling with its loud waves on the beach, and the winds blowing and howling from all sides. He has been sitting still in his firm devotion, with matted braids of hair on his head, and beads of rudraksha seeds in his hand, and control-ling the members of his body from their going astray. If you wish, O’ venerable Sage! To know the reveries in his mind, you shall have to open your intellectual eye, in order to pry into the thoughts of others. 
Lord Vasishtha: Saying so, Vaivasvata, the Lord of World, who sees all at one view, made the Muni to dive into the thoughts of his son with his intellectual eye. The Sage immediately saw by his percipience, all the excogitations of his son’s mind as if they were reflected in the mirror of his own mind. Having seen the mind of his son in his own mind, the Muni returned from the bank of Samanga to his own body on Mount Mandara, where it was left in its sitting posture, in the presence of Vaivasvata. Surprised at what he saw, the Sage looked upon Vaivasvata with a smile, and dispassionate as he was, he spoke to the god in the following soft and dispassionate words. 
Sage Bhrigu: O’ God that are the Lord of the past and future! We are but ignorant striplings before you, whose brilliant insight views at once the three times presented before it. The knowledge of the existence of the world, whether it is a real entity or not, is the source of all errors of the wisest of men, by its varying forms and fluctuations.  It is you, O’ potent God! That knowest what is inside this world, while to us it pre-sents its outward figure, in the shape of a magic scene only. 
I knew very well that my son is not subject to death, and therefore, I was struck with wonder, to behold him lying as a dead body. Thinking the imperishable soul of my son to be snatched by death, I was led to the vile desire of cursing you, on his untimely demise. For though we know the course of things in the world, yet we are subjected to impulses of joy and grief, owing to the causalities of prosperity and adversity. Moreover, to be angry with wrongdoers, and to be pleased with those that act rightly, have become the general rule in the course of the world. 
So long do we labour under the sense of what is our duty, and what we must refrain from, as we are subject to the error of the reality of the world, but deliverance from this error removes all such responsibilities from us. 
When we fret at death, without understanding its in-tention, we are of course blameable for it. I am now made to be acquainted by you, regarding the thoughts of my son, and am enabled also to see the whole scene on the bank of Samanga. Of the two bodies of men, the mind alone is ubiquitous, and the leader of the outer body of animated beings. The mind, therefore, is the true body, which reflects and makes us conscious of the existence of ourselves, as also of the exterior world.
Lord Vaivasvata: You have rightly said, O’ Brahmana! That the mind is the true body of a man. It is the mind that moulds the body according to its will, as the potter makes a pot ad-libitum (as he desires). It frames a form and gives a feature to the person that it did not have before and destroys one in existence in a moment. It is the imagination that gives an image to airy nothing, as children see ghosts before them in the dark. Its power to create apparent realities out of absolute unreality, is well known to everybody in his dream and delirium, in his misconceptions and fallacies, and all kinds of error, as the sight of magic cities and talismans. 
It is from reliance in visual sight that men consider it as the principal body and conceive the mind as a second-ary or supplementary part. It was the mind that formed the world from its thought, wherefore, the phenomenal is neither a substance by itself nor is it nothing. The mind is part of the body and spreads itself in its thoughts and desires into many forms, as the branch of a tree shoots forth in its blossoms and leaves. And as we see two moons by optical deception, so does one mind appear as many in many individuals. 
It is from the variety of its desires that the mind per-ceives and produces varieties of things, as pots and pic-tures and the like. The same mind thinks itself as many by the diversity of its thoughts, such as, “I am weak, I am poor, I am ignorant, and the like.” 
The thought that I am none of the fancied forms, which I feign to myself, but of that form from whence I am, causes the mind to be one with the everlasting Brahman, by divesting it of the thoughts of all other things. 
All things springing from Brahman sink at last in him, as the huge waves of the wide and billowy ocean, rise but to subside in its calm and undisturbed waters be-low. They sink in the Supreme Spirit, resembling one vast body of pure and transparent, cold and sweet wa-ter, and like a vast mine of brilliant gems of unfailing effulgence. 
One thinking himself to be a little billow diminishes his soul to littleness. But one believing himself to be a large wave enlarges his spirit to greatness. 
He who thinks of himself as a little being, fallen from above to suffer in the nether world, is born upon Earth in the form he took for his pattern. But he who thinks himself to be born to greatness soon rises by his energy and becomes as big as a hill and shines with the lustre of rich gems growing upon it. 
He rests in peace, who thinks himself to be in the cool-ing orb of the moon, otherwise, the body is consumed with cares, as a tree on the bank is burnt down by the fire. Others like forest trees are fixed and silent and shudder for fear of being burnt down by the wildfire of the world, though they are situated at ease, as besides the running streams of limpid water, and as high as on mountain tops of inaccessible height. 
Those who think themselves to be surrounded by worldly affairs are as wide-stretching trees, awaiting their fall by impending blasts of wind. Those who wail aloud for being broken to pieces under the pressure of their misery are like the noisy waves of the sea breaking against the shore and shedding their tears in the form of water spray. But the waves are neither of one kind nor are they altogether entities or nullities in nature; they are neither small nor large nor high nor low nor do these qualities abide in them. The waves do not abide in the sea, nor are they without the sea or the sea with-out them; they are of the nature of desires in the soul, rising and setting at their own accord. 
The dead are undying, and the living are not living. 
Thus, is the law of their mutual succession, which nothing can forefend or alter. As water is universally the same and transparent in its nature, so is the all-pervading Spirit of God, pure and holy in every place. It is this One and the same Spirit, which is the body of God that is called the transparent Brahman. It is om-nipotent and everlasting and constitutes the whole world appearing as distinct from it. The many wonder-ful powers that it contains, are all active in their various ways. The several powers productive of several ends are all contained in that same body. 
All the natural and material forces have the divine Spir-it for their focus. Brahma was produced in Brahman, as the billow is produced in water, and the male and fe-male are produced from the neuter Brahma, changed to and forming both. 
That which is called the world is only an attribute of Brahman, and there is not the slightest difference be-tween Brahman and the world. Verily, this plenitude is Brahman, and the world is no other than Brahman himself. Think intently upon this truth and shun all other false beliefs. 
There is one eternal law that presides over all things, and this one law branches forth into many, bringing forth a hundred varieties of effects. The world is a con-geries of laws, which are but manifestations of the Al-mighty power and omniscience. Both the inert and ac-tive proceed from the same, and the mind proceeds from the intelligence-cit of God. 
The various desires are evolved, by the power of the mind, from their exact prototypes in the Supreme Soul. It is Brahman, therefore, O’ sinless Bhrigu, that mani-fests itself in the visible world and is full of various forms, as the sea with all its billows and surges. It as-sumes to itself all varieties of forms by its volition of evolution or the will of becoming many, and it is the Spirit that displays itself in itself and by itself, as the seawater displays its waves in its own water and by it-self. 
As the various waves are no other than the seawater, so all these phenomena are not different from the essence of the Lord of the world. 
As the same seed develops itself in the various forms of its branches and buds, its twigs and leaves, and its fruits and flowers, so the same Almighty Seed evolves itself in the multifarious varieties of creation. 
As the strong Sunlight displays itself in variegated col-ours in different bodies, so does Omnipotence display itself in various vivid colours, all of which are unreal shades. 
As the colourless cloud receives in its bosom the variety of transient hues displayed in the rainbow, so the in-scrutable spirit of the Almighty reflects and refracts the various colours displayed in creation. 
From the active agent, proceed the inert matter and inactivity without a secondary cause, as the active spi-der produces the passive thread, and the living man brings upon him his dull torpor in sleep. 
Again, the Lord makes the mind produce matter for its own bondage only, as He makes the silkworm weave its own sheathing for its confinement alone. 
The mind forgets it’s spiritual nature of its own will and makes for itself a strong prison house, as the silk-worm weaves its own coating. But, when the mind in-clines to think of its spiritual nature by its own free will, it gets its release from the prison-house of the body and bondage in the world, as a bird or beast is re-leased from its cage, and the big elephant let loose from his fetters and the tying post. 
The mind gradually moulds itself into the form, which it constantly thinks upon in itself, and it derives from within itself the power to be what it wishes to become. The long-sought power, when acquired, becomes as familiar to the soul as the dark clouds that attend the sky in the rainy season. The newly obtained power is assimilated with its recipient, as the virtue of every sea-son is manifested in its effect upon the trees. 
There is neither bondage nor liberation of the human soul nor of the divine Spirit. We cannot account for the use of these words among mankind. There is neither liberation nor bondage of the Soul, which is the same as the Divine. It is this delusive world, which shows the immortal Soul under the veil of mortality, or as eclipsed by and under the shadow of temporary affairs. 
It is the unsteady mind, which has enwrapped the steady soul under the sheath of error, as the coverlet of the silkworm, covers the dormant worm. All other bondages, which bind the embodied soul to Earth, are the works of the mind, which is the root of all worldly ties and affections. 
All human affections and attachments to the visible world are born in and remain in the mind, although they are as distinct from it, as the waves of the sea or as the beams of the moon are produced from and con-tained in their receptacles. 
It is the Supreme Spirit, which is stretched out as one universal ocean, agitated into myriads of its waves and billows. The Intellect itself is spread out as the water of the universal ocean, containing everything that is aqueous and terrene in its infinite bosom. All those that appear as Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudras, and also they who have become as gods, and those that are called men and male creatures, are all like the waves of the sea, raised spontaneously by the underlying Spirit, and so are Vaivasvata, Indra, the Sun, Fire, Kubera, and the other deities. So too are the Gandharvas and Kinnaras, the Vidyadharas and the other gods and demigods that rise and fall or remain for a while like the breakers of the sea. They rise and fall as waves on every side, though some continue for a longer duration, as the lo-tus-born Brahma and others.
Some are born to die in a moment, as the petty gods and men, and others are dead no sooner they are born as the ephemerides and some worms. Worms and in-sects, gnats and flies, and serpents and huge snakes, rise in the great ocean of the Divine Spirit, like drops of water scattered about by waves of the sea. There are other moving animals as men and deer, and vultures and jackals, which are produced on land and moun-tains, in woods and forests, and in marshy grounds. 
Some are long-lived, and others live for a short dura-tion; some living with higher aims and ambitions, and others with no other care than that of their contempti-ble bodies or self-preservation only. 
Some think of their stability in this world of dreams, and others are betrayed by their false hope of the stabil-ity of worldly affairs, which are quite unstable. 
Some that are subjected to penury and poverty, have little to effect in their lives, and always torment them-selves with the thoughts that they are poor and misera-ble, weak and ignorant. 
Some are born as trees, and others have become like gods and demigods, and while some are furnished with moving bodies, others are dissolved as water in the sea. 
Some are no less durable than many kalpas, and others return to the Supreme Spirit by the moonlike purity of their souls. 
All things have risen from the ocean like the Spirit of Brahma as its moving undulations. It is the intellectual consciousness of everybody that is termed his mind. 

DETAILED ACCOUNT OF THE GENE-SIS OF THE WORLD

Confutation of the instance of the sea and its 
fluctuations regarding the immutable Spirit of God, 
and resolution of the phenomenal world, 
to our erroneous conception and visual deception.

Lord Vaivasvata: The consciousness of gods, demigods, and men as distinct beings is quite wrong since they are no way distinct from the infinite ocean of Divine Spirit, of which, they are all as undulations. It is owing to our erroneous conceptions that we make these distinctions in ourselves and the Supreme Soul. The thought of be-ing separate and apart from the Supreme Spirit is the cause of our degradation from our pristine holiness, and the imagination of God in which man was made at first and was infused with his holy Spirit. 
Remaining within the depth of the Divine Spirit, and yet thinking ourselves to live without it, is the cause of keeping us in darkness on the surface of the Earth. 
Our consciousness of ourselves as Brahman, being viti-ated by the various thoughts in our minds, becomes the root of our activities, while to pure Consciousness of the Egoism “I Am,” is free from all actions and ener-gies. 
It is the inward desire of the heart and mind that be-comes the seed of Earthly actions, which sprouts forth in thorny plants like the Karanja, a handful of which fills the ground with rankest weeds. Those living bodies that lie scattered as pebbles on Earth are seen to roll about or lie down with their temporary joy and grief in continued succession, owing to their ignorance of themselves. 
From the highest empyrean of Brahman, down to the lowest deep, there is an incessant undulation of the Di-vine Spirit, as the oscillation of the wind, which keeps all beings in their successive wailing and rejoicing, and in their incessant births and deaths. 
There are some of the pure and enlightened souls, as the Gods Hari, Hara, and others, and some of the somewhat darkened understandings such as men and the inferior demigods. 
Some are placed in greater darkness, as the worms and insects, and others are situated in utter darkness, as trees and vegetables. 
Some grow far away from the great ocean of the Divine Spirit, as the grass and weeds of the Earth, which are ever degraded, owing to their being the emblems of sin, and others are barred from elevation, as dull stones and heinous snakes. 
Some have come to being only with their bodies, and they know not that death has been undermining the fabric of their bodies, as a mouse burrows a house. 
Some have gone through the ocean of Divine knowledge, and have become as divinities, in their liv-ing bodies as Brahma, Hari, and Hara. 
Some, having a little understanding, have gone down the depth of holy knowledge, without ever reaching the bottom or finding its other shore. 
Some beings that have undergone many births, and have yet to pass through many more, have ever remain abortive and benighted without the Light of Truth. 
Some are tossed up and down, like fruit flung from the hand; those flying upward have gone higher still and those going down have fallen still lower and lower. 
It is forgetfulness of Supreme felicity that causes one to rove in various births of weal or woe, but the knowledge of the Supreme, causes the cessation of transmigration, as the remembrance of Garuda destroys the power of the most destructive poison. 

CONSOLATION OF BHRIGU

Bhrigu, being acquainted with the power of the mind and Death, rose to repair to the spot where the body of Sukra was lying.

Lord Vaivasvata: Among these various species of living creatures, which resemble the waves of the ocean, and are as numerous as the plants and creepers of spring; there are some among persons among the Yakshas, Gandharvas, and Kinnaras, who have overcome the er-rors of their minds, and have well-considered every-thing before and after them, thus, have become perfect in their lives and passing as the living liberated persons in this world. 
Others there are among the moving and unmoving that are as unconscious of themselves as wood or stone, and many that are worn out with error, and are incapable of judging for themselves. But those that are awakened to sense, have the rich mine of the Sastras, framed by the enlightened for the guidance of their souls. 
Those who are awakened to sense, and whose sins are washed off, have their understanding purified by the light of the Sastras. The study of good works (philomath) destroys the errors of the mind, as the course of the Sun in the sky, destroys the darkness of the night. Those who have not succeeded to dispel the errors of their minds have darkened their understand-ings by a mist of ignorance, like the frosty sky of win-ter, and they find the phantoms of their error dancing like demons before their eyes. 
All living bodies are subject to pain and pleasure, but it is the mind, which constitutes the body, and not the flesh. The body that is seen to be composed of flesh and bones and the five elemental parts, is a creation of the imagination of the mind and has no substantiality in it. 
What your son had thought of in his mental body, the same he found in the same body and was not accounta-ble to anybody for aught or whatever passed in his mind. Whatever acts a man wills to do in his own mind, the same comes to take place in a short time, and there is no other agency of anybody else required to bring them about. Whatever the mind does in a mo-ment and of its own accord, and actuated by its own will or desire, there is nobody in the world, who has the power to do or undo the same at any time. 
The suffering of hell torments and enjoyment of heav-enly bliss, and the thoughts of birth and death, are all fabrications of the mind, which labours under these thoughts. 
What needs me to tell more in the manner of verbose writers, than go together at once to the place where your son is situated? 
He, having tasted the pleasure and pain of all these states at a moment’s thought of his mind, is now seat-ed as a devotee on the bank of Samanga, under the spreading beams of the moon. His vital breath having fled from his heart, became as the moonbeam sparkling in a dewdrop, which entered the uterus in the form of semen-virilis. 
Saying so, the Lord of death smiled to think of the course of nature, and taking hold of Bhrigu’s hand in his own, they both departed as the Sun and Moon to-gether. 
O’ wonderful is the law of nature! said Bhrigu slowly to himself, and then rose higher and higher, as the Sun ascends rising above a mountain. With their luminous bodies, they arrived at the spot of Samanga and shone on high above the Tamala trees below. 
Their simultaneous rising in the clear firmament, made them appear as the Sun rising with the full moon over a cloudy horizon.

SUKRA’S REMINISCENCE OF HIS ME-TEMPSYCHOSIS

Bhrigu and Vaivasvata expostulate with Sukra and 
desiring him to return to his former state.

Lord Vasishtha: Now as Vaivasvata and Bhrigu depart-ed from the cavern of the Mandara mountain, and pro-ceeded towards the bank of Samanga River, they beheld upon their descending from the mountain, a great light below, proceeding from the bodies of the celestials, sleeping in the arbours of laureate creepers. The birds were sporting in their sprays, formed by cradling creepers under the canopy of heaven, and the lovely antelopes looking face to face with their eyes that re-semble blue lotuses. 
They beheld the Siddhas, sitting on their stony seats upon the elevated rocks, their bodies full of vigour and their eyes looking on the spheres with defiance. They saw the lords of the elephantine tribe, with their big trunks as large as palm trees, and plunging in lakes covered with flowers, falling incessantly from the beaching boughs, and branches of flowering trees. They saw the mountain bulls dozing in their giddiness, and sitting as ebriety in person, while their bodies were red-dened by the red dust of flowers, and their tails flushed with the crimson farina blown by the breeze. There were the brisk and beautiful Camaras deer serving as flappers of the mountain king and dousing in the pools filled with the falling flowers. 
They saw the Kinnara lads sitting on the tops of straight and stately date trees, and sporting with pelting the date fruits upon one another, which stuck to the reeds below as their fruits. They beheld big monkeys, jumping about with their hideous reddish cheeks, and hiding in the coverts of wide spreading creepers. They saw the Siddhas, to be hit by the celestial damsels with blossoms of Mandara flowers and clad with vests of the tawny clouds by which they were shrouded. The unin-habited skirts of the mountain were as the solitary walks of Buddhist vagrants, and the rivulets at its foot were gliding with their currents covered under the Kunda and Mandara flowers as if they were running to meet the sea, mantled in their yellow vests of the spring season. The trees decorated with wreaths of flowers and shaken by the breeze, seemed as bacchanals giddy with the honey of flowers and rolling their dizzy eyes formed of the fluttering bees. 
They walked about here and there and looked at and admired the grandeur of the mountain, till at last, they alighted on the nether Earth, decorated with its cities and human habitations. They arrived in a moment at the bank of Samanga, flowing with the loosened flow-ers of all kinds, as if it were a bed of flowers by itself. 
Bhrigu beheld his son on one of its banks, with his body changed to another form, and his features quite altered from his former state. His limbs were stiff, and his sense at a standstill, as he sat with his mind fixed on steady meditation. He seemed to be a long time to rest, in order to get his rest from the turmoil of the world. He thought upon the course of the currents of the world, which are continually gliding with succes-sive joy and sorrow to man, who gets rid of them after his long trial. He became motionless as a wheel, after its long-winded motion, and found his rest after his prolonged whirling, in the whirlpool of the ocean of the world. He sat retired as a lover, solely reclined on the thought of his beloved object in his retirement, and his mind was at rest, after its long wanderings. He sat in a state of uniform meditation, without a shadow of bi-plicity in it, and was smiling with a cold apathy at all the pursuits of mankind. 
Liberated from all concerns, and released from the en-joyments of life, and disenthralled from the snare of desires and fancies, he rested in the supreme bliss of the Soul. His soul was at rest, in the everlasting rest of God, as the pure crystal catches the colour of the gem, which is contiguous to it. 
Bhrigu beheld his son in the calmly composed and awakened state of his mind, and freed alike both from his thoughts of what was desirable, as also from his hatred of what was disgusting. 
Vaivasvata, seeing the son of Bhrigu, said to the father in a voice hoarse as the sounding sea, ‘Lo, there your son.’  “Awake,” said he to Bhargava, which startled him from his meditation, as the roaring of a cloud, rouses the slumbering peacock from his summer sleep. 
Upon opening and lifting his eyes, he beheld the God standing with his father on one side, who, being pleased at his sight, glowed in their countenances like the discs of the Sun and Moon. 
He rose from his seat of Kadamba leaves and made his obeisance to them, who appeared to have come to him like the Gods Hari and Hara in the disguise of a couple of Brahmanas. After their mutual salutations, they were seated on a slab of stone and appeared as the ven-erable Gods Vishnu and Shiva seated on the pinnacle of Meru. 
The Brahmana boy, having ended the mutterings of his mantras on the bank of Samanga, accosted them with a voice distilling as the sweet nectarine juice of ambrosia Amrta or water of life. 
I am emancipated, my Lords, at your sight this day, as you have blessed me by your sights, resembling those of the Sun and Moon, appearing together to view. The darkness, which reigned in my mind, and which neither light of the Sastras nor spiritual or temporal knowledge nor even my austerities could remove, is dispelled today by the Light of your presence. A kind look of the great, gives as much joy to the mind, as draughts of pure am-brosia, serve to satisfy the heart. 
Tell me who are you, whose feet have sanctified this place, as the glorious orbs of the day and night, en-lighten the firmament. 
Being addressed in this manner, Bhrigu desired him to remember his prior births, which he could well do, by his enlightened understanding. Bhrigu made him ac-quainted with the state of his former birth, and he re-membered it instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight. He was struck with wonder at the remembrance of his former state, and smiled with a joyous face and gladsome heart, to ponder on what he had been; and then uttered as follows.
Sukra: Blessed is the law of the Supreme Being, which is without its beginning and end and is known as desti-ny here below, and by whose power the world is revolv-ing as a curricle. 
I see my countless and unknown birth, and the innu-merable accidents to which they were subject, for the period of a whole kalpa or duration of the world from first to last. 
I have undergone great hardships, and known prosperity also, with the toil of earning. 
I have had my wanderings also in different lives and remember to have roamed for a long time over the mountainous regions of Meru. 
I drank the water reddened with the pollen of Mandara flowers and roved along the bank of the heavenly stream of Mandakini (Milky-Way) filled with lotuses. 
I wandered about the Mandara groves filled with flow-ering creepers like gold, and under the shade of the kal-pa arbours of Meru, and in the flowery plains above and about it. 
There is nought of good or evil, which I have not tasted or felt or done myself, nor is there anything, which I have not seen and felt and known in my past lives. 
I have now known the knowable and seen the imper-ishable One in whom I have my repose. 
I have now rested after my toils were over and have passed beyond the domain of error and darkness. 
Now, rise O’ father, and let us go to see that body, ly-ing on the Mandara mount, and which is now dried as a withered plant. 
I have neither the desire to remain in this place nor go anywhere of my own will; it is only to see the works of fate that we wander all about. 
I will follow you, with my firm belief in the one adored Deity of the learned. Let that be the desirable object of my mind, and I will act exactly in conformity with my belief. 
LAMENTATION AND EXPOSTULATIONS OF SUKRA
Sukra laments on seeing his former body, and his
consolation at its ultimate anaesthesia.

Lord Vasishtha: Thus, contemplating on the course of nature, these Philomath’s moved with their spiritual bodies from the bank of the Samanga. They ascended into the sky and passed through the pores of the clouds to the region of the Siddhas, whence they descended to the lower world, and arrived at the valley of Mandara. There, Sukra saw on a cliff of that mountain, the dried body of his former birth, lying covered under the dark and dewy leaves of trees.
Sukra: Here is that shrivelled body, O’ father, which you had nourished with many a dainty food before. There is that body of mine, which was so fondly anointed with camphor, agallochum, and sandal paste, by my wet-nurse before. 
This is that body of mine, which was used to repose on cooling beds, made with heaps of Mandara flowers, in the airy spots of Meru. 
This is that body of mine, which used to be so fondly caressed by heavenly dames of yore, and which is now lying, to be bitten by creeping insects and worms, on the bare ground below. 
This is that body of mine, which wanted of yore to ramble in the parterres of Sandalwood, now lying as a dried skeleton on the naked place. 
This is that body of mine, now lying impassive of the feelings of delight in the company of heavenly nymphs and withering away unconscious of the actions and pas-sions of its mind. 
Ah,’ my pitiable body! How do you rest here in peace, forgetful of your former delights in the different stages of life, and insensible of the thoughts of your past en-joyments and amusements of yore? 
O’ my body that has become a dead corpse and dried by sunbeams; you are now become so hideous in your frame of the skeleton, as to frighten me at this change of your form. 
I take fright to look upon this body in which I had tak-en so much delight before, and which is now reduced to a skeleton. 
I see ants now creeping over that breast of mine, which was formerly adorned with necklaces studded with star-ry gems. 
Look at the remains of my body, whose appearance of molten gold, attracted the hearts of beauteous dames, bearing now a load of dry bones only. 
Behold the stags of the forest flying with fear, at the sight of the wide-open jaws and withered skin of my carcass, which with its horrid mouth, frightens the tim-id fawns in the woods. 
I see the cavity of the belly of the withered corpse is filled with sunshine, like the mind of man enlightened by knowledge. 
This dried body of mine, lying flat on the mountain stone, resembles the mind of the wise, abased at the sense of its own unworthiness. 
It seems to be emaciating itself like an ascetic in his supine samadhi on the mountain, dead to the percep-tions of colour and sound, and of touch and taste, and free from all its desires and passions. 
It is freed from the demon of the mind and is resting in its felicity without any apprehension of the vicissitudes of fate and fortune, or fear of fall. 
The felicity, which attends on the body, upon the calmness of the demon of the mind, is not to be had from the possession of any vast dominion of the world. 
See how happily this body is sleeping in this forest by being freed from all its doubts and desires in the world, and by being liberated from the network of its fancies. 
The body is disturbed and troubled like a tall tree by the restlessness of the apish mind, and it is hurled down by its excitation like a tall tree uprooted from its bottom. 
This body, being set free from the impulses of the mis-chievous mind, is sleeping in its highest and perfect felicity and is quite released from the jarring broils of the world, clashing like the mingled roaring of lions and elephants in their mutual conflict. 
Every desire is a fever in the bosom and the group of our errors, is as the mist of autumn, and there is no release of mankind from these, save by the want of pas-sion of their minds. They have gone over the bounds of worldly enjoyments, who have had the high-mindedness to lay hold on the tranquillity of their minds. 
It is by my good fortune that I came to find this body of mine, resting in these woods without its troublesome mind, and freed from all its tribulations and feverish anxieties.
Prince Rama: Venerable Sir that are vested in all knowledge, you have already related of Sukra’s passing through many births in different shapes and feeling all their causalities of good and evil. How was it then that he regretted so much for his body begotten by Bhrigu, in disregard of all his other bodies, and the pains and pleasures, which attended upon them?
Lord Vasishtha: Rama! The other bodies of Sukra were merely the creation of his imagination, but that of Bhargava or as the son of Bhrigu, was the actual one, as produced by the merit of his pristine acts. 
This was the first body with which he was born by the will of his Maker, being first formed in the form of sub-tle air, and then changed into the shape of the wind. This wind entered the heart of Bhrigu in a flux of the vital and circulating breaths, and being joined in time with the semen, formed the germ of Sukra body. The person of Sukra received the Brahmanical sacraments, and became an associate of the father, till at last it was reduced to the form of a skeleton in course of a long time. 
Because this was the first body, which Sukra had ob-tained from Brahma the creator, it was on this account that he lamented so much for it. 
(Note: Sukra, the son of Bhrigu, was the grandson of Manu-the first human being, after the creation of the world called Kalparambha). 
Though impassionate and devoid of desire as Sukra was, yet he sorrowed for his body, according to the na-ture of all beings born of flesh (dehaja). This is the way of all flesh, whether it be the body of the wise or un-wise man. This is the custom of the world, whether the person was mighty or not. They, who are acquainted with the course of nature, as also those that are igno-rant of it as brutes and beasts, are all subject to the course of the world as if they are bound in the net of fate and liable to grief and sorrow.
The wise, as well as the unwise, are on an equal footing with respect to their nature and custom. 
It is only the difference in the desire that distinguishes the one from the other, as it is the privation of or bond-age to desire that is the cause of their liberation or en-thralment in this world. 
It is also the great aim that distinguishes the great from the mean-mindedness of the base. As long as there is the body, so long there is the feeling of pleasure in pleasure and that of pain in pain. But, the mind, which is unattached to and unaffected by them, feigns to itself the show of wisdom. 
Even great souls are seen to feel happy in pleasure and become sorrowful in matters of pain and show them-selves as the wise in their outward circumstances. As the shadow of the Sun is seen to shake in the water, but not so the fixed Sun itself, so the wise are moved in worldly matters, though they are firm in their faith in God. As the unmoved and fixed Sun seems to move in its shadow on the wave, so the wise man who has got rid of his worldly concerns still behaves himself like the unwise in it. He is free who has the freedom from his mind, although his body is enthralled in bondage, only, he labours in bondage whose mind is bethraled by error, though he is free in his body. 
The causes of happiness and misery as also those of liberty and bondage, are the feelings of the mind, as the Sunbeams and flame of fire, are the causes of light. Therefore, conform yourself with the custom of society in your outward conduct, but remain indifferent to all worldly concerns in your inward mind. Remain true to yourself, by giving up your concerns in the world, but continue to discharge all your duties in this world by the acts of your body. Take care of the inward sorrows and bodily diseases, and the dangerous whirlpools and pitfalls in the course of your life, and do not fall into the black-hole of selfishness, which gives the soul its greatest anguish. 
Mind, O’ lotus-eyed Rama, that you mix with nothing nor let anything to mix with you, but be of a purely enlightened nature, and rest content in your inward soul. 
Think in yourself the pure and holy Spirit of Brahman, the universal Soul and maker of all, the tranquil and increate All, and be happy forever.

RESUSCITATION OF SUKRA

Sukra’s revival at the word of Vaivasvata, and his 
becoming the preceptor of Daityas.

Lord Vasishtha: Then the God Vaivasvata interrupted the long lamentation of Sukra, and addressed him in words, sounding as deep as the roaring of a cloud.
Lord Vaivasvata: Now, O’ Sukra! Cast off your body of the Samanga devotee and enter this dead body in the manner of a prince entering his palace. You shalt per-form austere devotion with this your first-born body, and obtain by virtue of that, the preceptorship of the Daitya tribe. Then at the end of the great kalpa, you shall have to shuffle off your mortal coil forever, as one casts off a faded flower. 
Having attained the state of living liberation, by merit of your prior acts, you shall continue in the preceptor-ship of the leader of the great Asuras forever. Fare you well, we shall now depart to our desired habitation; know for certain that there is nothing desirable to the mind, which it cannot accomplish. Saying so, the God vanished from before the weeping father and son, and moved amidst the burning sky, like the dispenser of light, the Sun. 
After Lord Vaivasvata had gone to the place of his des-tination and gained his destined state among the Gods, the Bhrigus remained to ruminate on the inexplicable and unalterable course of destiny or divine ordinance. 
Sukra entered his withered corpse, as the season of spring enters into a faded plant, in order to adorn it again with its vernal bloom, and its re-springing blos-soms. His Brahmanical body fell immediately on the ground, staggering as when a tree is felled or falls down with its uprooted trunk, and it became disfigured in a moment in its face and limbs. The old Sage Bhrigu finding the revivification of the dead body of his son sanctified it with propitiatory mantras and a sprinkling of water from his sacerdotal water pot. The veins and arteries and all the cells and cavities of the dead body were again supplied with their circulating blood, as the dry bed of rivers are filled again with floods of water in the rainy weather. The body being filled with blood, gave the limbs to bloom, like the growth of lotuses in rainy lakes, and the bursting of new shoots and buds in vernal plants. 
Sukra then rose up from the ground, breathing the breath of life, like the cloud ascending to the sky by force of the winds. He bowed down to his father stand-ing in his holy figure before him, as the rising cloud clings to and kisses the foot of the lofty mountain. The father then embraced the revived body of his son and shed a flood of his affectionate tears upon him, as the high risen cloud washes the mountain top with show-ers. 
Bhrigu looked with affection on the new risen old body of his son and smiled at see the resuscitation of the body that was begotten by him. He was pleased to know him as his son, born of himself, and to find his features engrafted in him. Thus, the son and sire graced each other by their company, as the Sun and lotus-lake rejoice to see one another after the shade of night. They rejoiced at their reunion, like the loving pair of swans at the end of the night of their separation and as a joyous couple of peacocks at the approach of the rainy clouds. 
The worthy sire and son sat awhile on the spot, to halt after all their toils and troubles were at an end, and then they rose up to discharge the duties that were then at hand. They then set fire to the body of the Samanga Brahmana, and reduced it to ashes, for who is there among the Earth-born mortals that ought to set at nought aught of the customary usages of his country? 
Afterwards, the two devotees Bhrigu and Bhargava con-tinued to dwell in that forest, like two luminaries the Sun and the Moon, in the region of the sky. They both continued as the living liberated guides of men, by their knowledge of all that was to be known and preserving the equanimity of their minds, and the steadiness of their dispositions amidst all the vicissitudes of time and place. 
In the course of time, Sukra obtained the preceptorship of the Asuras, and Bhrigu remained in his patriarchal rank and authority among the sons of men (manavas). Thus, the son of Bhrigu, who was born as Sukra at first, was gradually led away from his holy state by his thoughts of the heavenly nymph and subjected to vari-ous states of life to which he was prone.

ATTAINMENT OF THE IDEAL REALM

Mutual sympathy of pure-hearted souls, the reciproci-ties of their affections, and their union with one anoth-er.

Prince Rama: Tell me, Sir, why the ideal reflection of others, is not attended with equal results, with that of the son of Bhrigu.
Lord Vasishtha: The reason is that the body of Sukra issued at first from the will of Brahma, and was born of the pure family of Bhrigu, without being vitiated by any other birth. The purity of mind, which follows up-on subsidence of desires, is called its coolness, and the same is known as the unsullied state of the soul (Nirmalatma). 
Whatever the man of a pure and contrite Spirit, thinks in his mind, the same comes to take place immediately, as the turning of the seawater turns into the eddy. As the errors of various wanderings occurred to the mind of Sukra, so it is with everybody, as it is instanced in the case of Bhrigu’s son. As the serum contained in the seed develops itself in the shoots and leaves, so the mind evolves in all the forms, which are contained therein. Whatever forms of things are seen to exist in this world are all false appearances, and so are their dis-appearances also. 
Nothing appears or disappears to anyone in this world, but error and aerial phantasms that show themselves to those that are bewitched by this magic scene of the world. 
As it is our notion of this part of the world, which pre-sents its form to our view, so the appearance of thou-sands of such worlds in the mind, is mere ideal, and as false as the show of a magic-lantern. As the sights in our dream, and the images of our imagination, are nev-er apart from our mind, and as they cannot show them-selves to the view of others; such is our erroneous con-ception of the world. So are all places and things but imaginary ideas and show themselves as real objects to the purblind sight of the ignorant only. So also, are the ghosts and goblins, demons and devils, but imaginary figures of the mind born in the shallow brain of men, to terrify them with their hideous shapes. 
Thus, have we all become, like the dreaming son of Bhrigu, to understand the false creations of our imagi-nations as sober realities. So, the creation of the world, and all created things, are situated in the mind of Brahma; and make their repeated appearance as the phantoms of a phantasmagoria before him. All things appearing unto us are as false as these phantoms, and they proceed from the mind of Brahma, as the varieties of trees and shrubs are produced from the same sap of the vernal season. 
Considering in a philosophical light (tattvadarshana), it will be found that it is the will or desire of everybody, which is productive of the object of his desire. Every-body beholds everything in the world according to the nature of the thoughts in his mind and then perishes with his wrong view of it. It is in its identity that any-thing appears as existent, which is, in reality, inexist-ent, though it is apparent to sight. 
The existence of the world is as that of a lengthened dream, and the visible world is a widespread snare of the mind, like fetters at the feet of an elephant. The reality of the world depends upon the reality of the mind, which causes the world to appear as real. The loss of the one destroys them both because neither of them can subsist without the other. The pure mind has the true notions of things, as the gem polished from its dross receives the right reflection of everything, or it reflects the true image of everything. 
The mind is purified by its habit of fixed attention to one particular object, and it is the mind undisturbed by desires that receive the true light and reflection of things. As the gilding of gold or any brilliant colour, cannot stand on base metal, or on a piece of dirty cloth, so it is impossible for the vitiated mind to apply itself intensely to any particular object. 
It is the pure Consciousness that entertains the notion of “I am” playfully as it were, and without ever re-nouncing its essential nature, as Consciousness experi-ences the distorted image of itself within itself. All these, the ego-sense etc., have acquired the nature of real substances though they have not been created at all. Where nothing has arisen (been created) there eve-rything is seen. Even so, the sages, gods and the per-fected ones remain in their transcendental conscious-ness, tasting the bliss of their own nature. They have abandoned the illusion of duality of the observer and the object, and the consequent movement of thought.
Prince Rama: Will you tell me, Sir, in what manner the mind of Sukra received the reflection of the shadowy world and its contemporaneous movement in itself, and how these fluctuations rose and remained in his mind.
Lord Vasishtha: In the same manner as Sukra was im-pressed with the thoughts of the world from the lec-tures of his father, so did they remain in his mind, as the future peacock resides in the egg. It is also naturally situated in the embryo of the mind of every species of a living being and is gradually evolved from it in the manner of the shoots and sprouts, and leaves and flow-ers of trees, growing out of the seed. Everybody sees in his mind, what its heart desires to possess, as it is in the case of our prolonged dreams. Know it thus, O’ Rama, that a partial view of the world rises in the mind of eve-rybody in the same manner, as it appears in the mind in a dream at night.
Prince Rama: But, tell me, Sir, whether the thought and the things thought of simultaneously meet them-selves in the mind of the thinker or is it the mind only that thinks of the objects, which is never met with it.
Lord Vasishtha: But the sullied mind cannot easily unite with the object of its thought, as a dirty and cold piece of iron cannot join with a pure red-hot one unless it is heated and purified from its dross. The pure mind and its pure thoughts are readily united with one an-other, as the pure waters mix together into one body of the same kind, which the muddied water cannot do. Want of desire constitutes the purity of the mind, which is readily united with immaterial things of the same nature as itself. The purity of the mind conduces to its enlightenment, and these being united in one, leads it to the Supreme.

Excerpted from Yoga-Vasishtha of Valmiki.