June 29, 2026
iṣṭavastvarthināṁ tajjñasūpadiṣṭena karmaṇā
paunaḥpuṇyena karaṇānnetaraccharaṇaṁ mune (67/23)
When asked by Vasiṣṭha how she lived in the rock, the CELESTIAL said:
O sage, that world of ours within that rock is just like your world out here! In our world, too, there are heaven and hell, gods and demons, the sun and the moon, the firmament and the stars, the mobile and the immobile creatures, hills and oceans, and the particles of dust that are known as living beings. Come, why don’t you bless that rock with a visit: sages are always interested in wonders. (This earth is also a pebble in the vast space! – S.V.)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
Accompanied by her I coursed the space and reached the Lokāloka and saw the rock. I saw it was but a rock and there was no world in it. I questioned her: where is your world with all its gods and demons, mountains and oceans, the world which you described so graphically?
The CELESTIAL replied:
Truly, O sage, I now see that what I previously saw in the rock is only in me. It was by repeatedly projecting that vision and experiencing it in the rock that I thought that I saw it: now that I do not so experience it, that vision has gone. In you the sense of duality had ceased long ago: hence you do not entertain any false notions. Even in me the long-standing illusion has been dispelled by right perception: hence I do not see that world clearly. The present realisation of the truth being stronger than the past illusory notion, the latter has become dim.
O sage, this is the only path to salvation: one should be totally devoted to the one desirable cause, one should be instructed in the right effort for its attainment and one should again and again engage oneself in such right action. By the right effort (abhyāsa) ignorance is dispelled and the ignorant become enlightened. It is by right effort that even bitter things are relished. It is by repeated practice that a stranger becomes a friend and when a close relation is separated from oneself it is through the absence of such repeated contemplation that the relationship is lost. It is by repetition that the subtle body becomes the physical body. By persistent effort, the impossible becomes possible. False relationships have been forged by persistent effort; they should also be resolutely abandoned by persistent effort till the end of one’s life. By persistent effort one brings the desired object close to himself. Such effort enables him to attain it without obstacle.
Persistent and repeated effort is known as abhyāsa. That alone is the greatest goal of man (puruṣārtha) and there is no other path. Only by persistent and determined self-effort and by one’s own direct experience is perfection attained, not by any other means. It is by such abhyāsa that one becomes utterly fearless everywhere in the world.
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Note: The description in chapter 66 of the world-within-the-rock is elaborate and highly interesting.