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.
