Yoga Vasishta - Post 12

 

The goddess replied to Leela's question as to how can we be the brahmin couple when they died only eight days before and we have been reigning here for so many years?” 

 

Goddess said, "In reality, there is neither any limit of space or time, nor any distance of place or length of time. Hear me now tell you the reason why.

 

As the universe is the reflection of the Divine Mind, so are infinity and eternity but representations of Himself.  As soon as one feels the lack of senses after his death, he forgets his former nature and thinks himself to be another being. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, he assumes an empty form in the womb of emptiness and in that container he thinks within himself, “This is my body with its hands and feet.” 

 

Thinking about body, he finds it presented before him.  Then he thinks in himself, “I am the son of this father and am so many years old. These are my dear friends and this is my pleasant home. I was born and became a boy, and then grew up to this age. There are all my friends and in the same course of their lives.”  

 

Thus the compact density of the sphere of his soul presents him with many other images that appear to arise in it as in some part of the world. But they neither rise nor remain in the soul itself, which is as transparent as empty as air. They appear to consciousness like a vision seen in a dream.

Everything in the other world appears equally real, just like in his dream. The unreality of the world of dreaming and the reality of this physical world are alike. 

 

But in reality, the appearance is nothing but a reflection of consciousness which, apart from the intelligible spirit, is merely an empty void. Although presided over by the intelligible spirit, creation itself is a mere void, its only substance being the intelligible soul, like water is to waves.

 

After the visible outer world has disappeared from sight, the soul, in its inner world of the mind, reflects on its memories of creation according to the proper time and place of everything. It remembers its birth, its parents, its age and its residence, with its learning and all other pursuits in their exact manner and order.  

 

It thinks of its friends and servants, and of the success and failure of its attempts. The uncreated and incorporeal soul, in its intellectual form, reflects on the events of its created and corporeal state.

 

However, it does not remain in this state for long. Soon after death it enters a new body to which the properties of the mind and senses are added afterwards in their proper times. It then becomes a baby, finds a new father and mother, and begins to grow. 

 

Thus whether one may perceive it or not, it is all the product of his former memories.  Then upon waking from this state of trance, like a fruit from the cell of a flower, it comes to find that a single moment appeared to it as the period of an age.

 

The vision of Leela, called samadhi in yoga and clairvoyance of spiritualism, was the abstract meditation of her lord in her memory that presented her with a full view of everything imprinted on it. Memory is taken for the whole consciousness (chit), which is identified with God in whose essence the images of all things are said to be eternally present.

 

Continued…

 

Love.