Whatever the jiva sees, that the jiva experiences. For in this empty space of infinite consciousness there is nothing known as time, action, etc. Then the jiva fancies, 'The god of death has sent me to heaven (or hell)' and 'I have enjoyed (or suffered) the pleasures (or tortures) of heaven (or hell)', and 'I am born as animal, etc., as ordained by the god of death'.
At that moment, the jiva enters into the body of the male through the food eaten; it is then transferred to the female and delivered into this world, where it undergoes life again in accordance with the fruition of past actions. There it grows and wanes like the moon. Once again it undergoes senility and death. This goes on again and again till the jiva is enlightened by selfknowledge.
THE ENLIGHTENED LILA asked:
O Goddess, but please tell me how all this began in the very beginning.
SARASVATI replied:
The mountains, the forests, the earth and the sky—all these are but infinite consciousness. That alone is the very being of all, the reality in all; and hence that pure infinite consciousness appeared to become whatever form it took whenever it manifested itself. Till now it continues to be so. When the lifebreath enters into the bodies and begins to vibrate the various parts of the bodies, it is said that those bodies are living. Such living bodies existed right in the beginning of creation.
When those bodies into which the lifebreath had entered did not vibrate, they were known as trees and plants. It is indeed a small part of the infinite consciousness that becomes the intelligence in these bodies. This intelligence, entering into the bodies, brings into being the different organs like the eyes.
Whatever this consciousness thinks it is, it takes that form. Thus, this self of all exists in all bodies, with motion as the characteristic of moving bodies, immovability as the characteristic of the immovable bodies. Thus do all these bodies continue to be even now.
SARASVATI continued:
When that intelligence, which is part of the infinite consciousness, fancied itself to be a tree, it became a tree; or a rock, it became a rock; or grass, it became grass.
There is no distinction between the sentient and the insentient, between inert and intelligent: there is no difference at all in the essence of substances, for the infinite consciousness is present everywhere equally. The differences are only due to the intelligence identifying itself as different substances. The same infinite consciousness is known by different names in these different substances. In the same way, it is the same infinite consciousness that the intelligence identifies as the worms, ants and birds. In it there is no comparison, nor a sense of difference: just as the people living in the north pole do not know (and therefore do not contrast themselves with) the people of the south pole. Each independent substance identified as such by this intelligence exists by itself, without distinction from the other substances. Ascribing distinctions to them as 'sentient' and 'insentient' is like a frog born in a rock and a frog born outside it considering themselves different, one insentient and the other sentient!
Continued..
Love.
