Yoga Vasishta - Post 35

Vasishta continued:

O Rama, the second Lila who had obtain husband the king was. The girl thereupon flew away with her mother.

 

First, they passed through the region of the clouds, then they passed through the region of air. Beyond that they went through the orbit of the sun into the starry heaven. 

 

They proceeded still further to the realms of Brahma the creator, Vishnu, and Siva, and after all that into the summit of the universe. They were able to do all this even as the coolness of ice is able to radiate from the ice­jar without breaking it. Of course, Lila who had an ethereal body composed of materialised thought, experienced all this within herself.

 

Passing beyond even this universe, Lila crossed over the oceans and other elements that envelop this universe, and entered into the infinite consciousness. In that infinite consciousness there are countless universes which do not know of one another's existence.

 

Lila entered one of those universes in which lay the body of king Padma covered with a heap of flowers. She again passed through the regions of the gods (Brahma, etc.), entered the city and the palace in which the body lay.

 

But, alas, when she looked around she could not see her daughter—who had disappeared mysteriously. 

 

She recognized the king as her husband and thought that having died a warrior's glorious death on the battlefield he had ascended to the hero's heaven. She thought "By the grace of Sarasvati, I have physically reached this place. I am the most blessed among persons." She began to fan the king's body.

 

She could not go in her own physical body to the new realm because light cannot co­exist with darkness, and as long as there is in oneself the blind notion of ignorance, wisdom does not arise. When the wisdom concerning one's ethereal body arises, the physical body ceases to be recognized as true. 

 

This is the fruit of the boon that I granted her. The recipient of the boon thinks, "Just as you have made me think by your boon, so I am". Therefore, she thinks she has reached her husband's abode in her physical body.

 

One may ignorantly see a snake in the rope; but the rope cannot behave like a snake.

 

Love.