A story · Yoga Vasishtha · Yoga Vasishtha — Stories of Creation

Lila: The Journey Through Space

Yoga Vasishtha 3.23

The story · English

That night, after the goddess and Lila had finished talking, they found everyone in the house fast asleep in the inner rooms. They slipped into the closed chamber where the Brahman's body lay, shut tight and sweet with heaps of flowers. They sat beside him, their faces shining like the full moon and lighting the whole room. Then they went out to the cemetery and stood there without moving, like figures carved on a marble pillar. They let go of every thought and care, closing in on themselves like lotuses at the end of the day. They grew so still that they believed in nothing at all, not themselves and not the world. The world, they saw, was as unreal as the horn of a hare, or water in a mirage.

Then they began to move, each in a new body made only of mind. The goddess took her form of pure intelligence, and Lila her meditative mood. They rose one span above the ground, then left the earth and climbed into the sky with their eyes open and bright, as if at play. Higher and higher they flew, until they reached a region millions of leagues wide. They looked about for something to see, but found nothing except each other, and so they grew even fonder of one another. Hand in hand, they came to a vast and clear ocean of emptiness, cool and soft, with a gentle breeze moving through it. They dived in, and the delight of it was purer than the company of good people.

They wandered all over the heavens under the full moon. They rested under clouds that covered the peaks of Meru like the white dome of a great hall. They passed the lands of the Siddhas and Gandharvas, breathing the scent of Mandara garlands, and went by the moon itself and breathed its sweet air. When they grew hot and tired, they bathed in lakes of falling rain, where flashes of lightning bloomed like red lotuses. They settled on mountaintops like bees, and sheltered under scattered clouds as though under showers in the air. At last their steps slowed, and they stopped in many places. Everywhere they looked, the emptiness was full of wonders they had never seen.

They saw how deep the sky is, so deep that countless worlds turning in it could not fill it. Sphere upon sphere of shining bodies moved above and around one another, dressed in stars. Great mountains like Meru drifted along, glowing red from within. There were mountains of gold, of emerald, and of sapphire hung with parijata flowers like banners. They saw Siddhas whose minds outran the wind, and heard heavenly nymphs singing. The gods and demigods moved about, each unseen by the others. Clouds roared like the wheels of heavenly chariots. Half-burnt Siddhas fled their cars, scorched by the nearness of the Sun, and sparks flew from the breath of his horses. The old text means falling meteors.

They saw Yoginis with the faces of dogs, ravens and camels crossing the sky to no purpose. They saw Siddhas and Gandharvas playing in pairs among smoky clouds, and the gods with thunderbolts and tridents in their hands. They heard Narada and Tumburu singing, and saw the milky way, the Ganges of the sky, rushing with its stars. There was a cloud as tall as the Himalaya, and others golden like the setting sun. They saw the cities of Brahma and Rudra, and the city of Maya, illusion, growing crowded. Here the sun was rising, and there night had fallen. They saw a comet with a thousand tails, eclipses of the sun and moon, and Kartikeya's peacocks dancing among clouds. At last the three worlds looked like gnats in the hollow of a fig tree, and the two ladies decided to go back to earth.

They came down and passed over the mountains until they saw people's homes. To them the world looked like a lotus growing in the heart of the first being, Brahma. Its petals were the eight directions and Meru its seed. Jambudwipa lay in the middle with its nine divisions, ringed by seas, each twice as wide as the last. There was a salt sea, then a milky one, then seas of curds, butter, wine, sugar and sweet water, with a continent in each ring. Beyond them they saw the dark cave leading down to the lower worlds. They saw the great Lokaloka mountain, the untrodden forest, the northern ocean, the flaming aurora and the fierce north wind. Around all of it lay open space, like a golden bracelet. Then Lila returned in an instant to her own land and found herself in her closet again.

The two ladies then entered the house where the Brahman had lived. Unseen, they looked at his tomb. The maids were weighed down with sorrow, and the women's faces were smeared with tears. The house had lost its joy, like a dry seabed or a garden scorched in summer. Then Lila wished that the family might see her and the goddess in ordinary human form. The family saw two radiant women, as bright as Laxmi and Gauri, wearing wreaths of flowers that never fade. Their bodies shone like melted gold, and their light fell on the house and the forest around it. The whole family, with Jyeshtha Sarma, the eldest son of the Brahman, cried out, 'Honor to the goddesses of the forest.' They threw handfuls of flowers at the visitors' feet.

Jyeshtha Sarma said, 'Be victorious, goddesses. You have come to take away our sorrow, as good people always do.' The goddesses gently asked, 'Tell us what has made you so sad.' The family told them. 'A Brahman and his wife lived here, a refuge for guests. They were our parents. They have left this house for heaven, and left us helpless.' They said that the birds, mountains, clouds and winds were mourning. The villagers were wailing, the trees were weeping and the streets stood empty. The gardens had gone sour, the creepers were dying and the ponds lay still. They said, 'Yet heaven is lit today by our parents, and the Kinnaras and Gandharvas welcome them with music. So take away our grief, goddesses, for a visit from the great is never for nothing.'

Lila gently touched her son's head. At her touch his grief was gone, as summer heat is cooled by the first rains. Everyone else in the house was as glad as a poor man given riches, or a sick man healed by nectar. Then Rama asked, 'Sir, why did Lila not show herself to her eldest son in her own form?' Vasishtha answered, 'You forget, Rama, that Lila had no material body. She was in her form of pure mind. She touched his inner spirit with her spiritual hand, not his body. Anyone who believes he is only an earthly body is shut up inside it. One who knows he is spirit is as free as air, and it was in that airy form that Lila moved about and touched her son.'

Vasishtha went on. Believing yourself to be a body is like a boy taking a shadow for a ghost. It ends when you know your spirit, as a dream ends when you wake. In dreams we see cities and lands where none exist. Boys see ghosts in the air, and a dying man sees a forest there. Each person is whatever he thinks himself to be, by habit alone. Lila knew the world to be nothing, only a mistake of the mind. One who sees Brahma filling his whole awareness has no room in it for son, friend or wife. So she did not lay her hand on Jyeshtha Sarma out of a mother's love, but to wake his understanding. When the intellect is awake, all happiness follows. It is finer than ether, and lifts a being above the air. Everything else is only an image in a dream.

कथा · हिन्दी

In this book

• Before: Lila: The Other Vasishtha · Yoga Vasishtha 3.18
• Next: Lila: Her Past Lives · Yoga Vasishtha 3.27
• All of Yoga Vasishtha · Ask Krishna about it

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