Leela
said, “I have much consolation in you, and now will I console my sorrowing
heart.” So saying, she made a sign for the assembly to break and rose from her
royal seat. She entered the inner apartment and sat by the side of the
dead body of her lord, hidden under the heap of flowers, and began to reflect
within herself.
She thought, “O the
wonderful magic that presents these people of my palace situated in the same
manner outside myself as I saw them seated within me in my meditation. O
how great is the extent of this delusion that contains the same high hills and
the same spacious forests of palm and hintala trees situated both outside and
within me.
Like a mirror shows the
reflection of hills within itself as they are without it, so the reflector of
the intellect presents the whole creation inwardly as it has outside of itself.
I must now invoke the goddess of wisdom to determine which of these is illusion
and which the sober and certain reality.”
So thinking, she
worshipped and invoked the goddess, and immediately saw Saraswati in the form
of a virgin. She made the goddess sit on an elevated seat and, having
seated herself low upon the ground before her, asked that divine power to tell
her the truth.
Leela said, “Be
gracious, O goddess, and clear this doubt of your suppliant, for it is your
wisdom that first framed this beautiful system of the universe and knows the
truth.
Tell me, O great
goddess, about what I am now going to relate you, for it is by your favor alone
that I may be successful to know it.”
“I saw the pattern of
this world in the intellect, which is more transparent than the ethereal sphere
and so extensive that it contains millions and millions of miles in its small
space.
No definite words can
express what is known as the calm, cool and indescribable light. This is called
unintelligible intelligence and is without any cover or support (niravarana
nirbhitti). It exhibits the reflections of space and the course of time, and
those of the sky and its light, and the course of events concentrating in
itself. Thus the images of the worlds are to be seen both within and outside
the intellect, and it is hard to distinguish the real and unreal ones between
them.”
The goddess asked, “Tell
me fair maiden, what is the nature of the real world, and what you mean by its
unreality?”
Leela replied, “I know
the real is where I find myself sitting here and looking upon you as seated in
this place. What I mean by unreal is the state in which I saw my husband in the
ethereal region some time ago, because emptiness has no limit of time or place
in it.”
The goddess replied,
“Real creation cannot produce an unreal figure. A similar cause cannot produce
a dissimilar effect.”
Leela replied, “But O
goddess, we often see dissimilar effects produced from similar causes. The
earth and an earthen pot are similar in substance, yet one melts in water and
the other holds water.”
The goddess said, “Yes,
when an act is done by the aid of auxiliary means, there the effect is found to
be somewhat different from the primary cause.” (Thus the earthen pot being
produced by the auxiliary appliances of fire, the potter’s wheel and the like,
differs in its quality from the original clay.)
Leela said, “I think, O
goddess, that the expansion of my husband’s memory caused of his regenerations,
because it is certain that memory is the cause of the reproduction of objects
before us.” The goddess replied that memory is an aerial substance and its
productions are as unsubstantial as itself.
Leela said, “Yes I find
memory to be an airy thing, and its reproduction of my husband and all other
things within me are only empty shadows in the mind.”
The goddess replied,
“Therefore your husband and all those other things that appeared to your sight
in your reverie truly were such reproductions, my daughter. And so is the
appearance of all things I see in this world.”
Leela said, “Tell me
goddess, in order to remove my conception of the reality of the world, how the
false appearance of my formless lord was produced before me by the unreal
world.”
The goddess replied, “As
this illusionary world appeared a reality to you before you had memories of it,
so you must know that all this is unreal from what I am going to relate to
you.”
Saraswati speaking:— In
some part of the sphere of Consciousness there is the great fabric of the
world, with the glassy vault of the firmament for its roof on all sides. Mount
Meru (the polar axle or mountain) is its pillar, surrounded by the regents of
the ten sides, like statues carved upon it. The fourteen regions are like so
many apartments of it, and the hollow vault containing the three worlds is
lighted by the lamp of the luminous sun. Its corners are inhabited by
living creatures resembling ants. They are surrounded by mountains appearing as
anthills in the sight of Brahma, the prime lord of creatures and the primeval
patriarch of many races of men. All animal beings are like worms confined in
cocoons of their own making.
In a corner of this land
was a secluded piece of ground sheltered by hills and crags about it. In
this secluded spot sheltered by hills, rivers and forests, there lived a holy
brahmin man with his wife and children, free from disease and care of gain and
fear of a ruler. He passed his days in his fire-worship and hospitality with
the produce of his cattle and lands.
Love.
