Yoga Vasishta - Post 6

There was, in ancient times, a king called Padma. He had a queen called Lila, and ruled a large kingdom extending thousands of miles. The queen was so attached to her husband that she did not want him ever to die. With grief in her mind as to how the death of her husband could be averted, she consulted the courtiers, ministers and learned pundits of the king’s assembly.

 

“Is there any way to prevent the death of my husband?” the queen asked.

 

They all said, “There is nobody who can prevent the death of your husband. There is no remedy for that. Everybody who is born must die.”

 

Shocked to the core, weeping, striking her breast with grief, the queen went inside her room and burst forth in agony, deeply praying to the goddess of learning, Saraswati. Many days passed in the queen’s great austere prayer to have a blessing from the goddess of knowledge.

 

The goddess appeared and asked Lila, “What do you want?”

 

“I do not want my husband to die. Please bless me,” Lila cried. “Bless me with this boon.”

 

The goddess did not answer the question. She simply said, “When he dies, cover his body with a cloth, and remember me.”

 

After many years, the king died in a room of the palace. The queen was at her wits’ end. She again wept and cried, and called Saraswati, “Please come and bless me. I have lost everything.”

 

Again Saraswati, the great goddess, appeared. “What are you asking for?”

 

“I want to see my husband, wherever he is,” the queen replied.

 

“Oh, I see,” Saraswati said. “I shall take you to the place where your husband is living.”

 

Saraswati touched the queen’s head, and they were transported to another order of space and time where her husband had reincarnated and was ruling another empire.

 

The queen looked around. “Where am I?”

 

Saraswati, who was beside her, said, “This is the empire of your own husband who has reincarnated into another space-time.”

 

“Where is my husband? He was an old man, seventy-two years old,” the queen said. “And this husband is seventy-two years old though he died only yesterday.”

 

“Don’t ask questions. Just listen to whatever I say,” said Saraswati.

 

“No, it is not possible,” Lila cried. “What are you saying? A person who died yesterday has been reborn and is now seventy-two years old? Are you saying that he was born in this world seventy-two years ago, having died only yesterday? I cannot believe this. Don’t confuse my mind. Oh, Goddess, bless me. What are you saying?”

 

Saraswati said, “I will confuse you further. Somewhere in another space-time there was a Brahmin couple who were very poor, living in a little room. Poverty was their only property, misery was their fate. One day they saw a large procession in which the king of the country was being carried on a palanquin. ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘What a glory! If only we too could have that experience of being king and queen.’ With this deep thought, they died.”

 

Continuing her story, the goddess Saraswati said, “Listen to me carefully. This Brahmin couple who died eight days ago were reborn as yourself and your husband in another space-time, where your king ruled for fifty years, and died.”

 

“What are you saying?” the queen said. “People who died eight days ago have been reborn in a kingdom where the husband ruled for fifty years? What is the connection between eight days and the fifty years of our lives?”

 

“Keep quiet and listen to me further. This old man is your own husband, born again in another space-time. He is seventy-two years old.”

 

Again Lila was shocked. “How is it possible?”

 

Saraswati continued. “Don’t utter these words, ‘How is it possible?’ Yesterday can become tomorrow; tomorrow can become the present. There is no systematic arrangement of the order of space and time existing permanently everywhere in the cosmos. This idea of past, present and future is connected with the way in which the consciousness perceives the operation of space-time outside; and in the operational process of any individual observer being conditioned by space-time there is an interaction of relativity between seeing and the nature of the object, so that you cannot know what is actually happening. 

 

But if this relationship of the observer and the observed phenomena of space and time changes during the process of evolution, then immediately today becomes tomorrow, and a person can come tomorrow and leave yesterday. In this circumstance of there being an infinite number of space-time relations on the basis of infinite types of connection between the seer and the seen, there are infinite universes, and infinite gods are ruling these infinite universes.”

 

“Where is my husband now?” asked Lila.

 

Saraswati replied, “Here he is, a seventy-two-year-old man.”

 

As they were speaking, the empire of this seventy-two-year-old man was invaded by inimical forces. Suddenly war broke out, and the old king rushed with this military force and entered the barrage of military operations. In the Yoga Vasishtha this war is described in very great detail. Every little thing that happened in the war is described. Sometimes the invader appeared to win; sometimes the king appeared to win. Finally, the old king died.

 

Lila cried, “You tell me this is my husband, and now he has died a second time. Oh, I am going crazy. I don’t want to hear anything more.”

 

Saraswati said, “No, you cannot be crazy because of my grace. I am only enlightening you. Now, what do you want?”

 

Contd......

Love.