July 13, 2026
tasmātsvabhāvaḥ prathamaṁ prasphuranvetti saṁvidaṁ
vāsanākāraṇaṁ paścādbuddhvā saṁpaśyati bhramaṁ (33)
VASIṢṬHA continued:
There was no space. There were no directions. There was neither “below” nor “above”. There were no elements nor a creation. There was but one limitless ocean.
Meanwhile, I saw Brahmaloka as the sun beholds the earth at sunrise. There Brahmā the creator was seated in samādhi or meditation as if he were an unshakable mountain surrounded by the pradhāna or the first principles, the gods and the sages, the celestials and the siddhas, who were also seated in the meditation-posture deeply engrossed in meditation, as if they were without life. The twelve suns also arrived there and entered into meditation.
After a brief period, I saw Brahmā and the others as one sees one’s dream-objects on waking up. I saw them as so many manifestations of mental conditioning, not as the materialisation of the dream-objects.
I then realised that all these gods, etc., were also pure void. Without leaving that place they had vanished from sight. I realised that they, too, had attained nirvāṇa after having abandoned name and form like Brahmā the creator. When the vāsanā or self-limiting conditioning had ceased in them, they had become invisible. This body is but pure void, it seems to exist on account of the vāsanā or mental conditioning. When the latter ceases, the body ceases to be seen or experienced, just as the dream-object is not experienced on waking up. Even so neither the subtle (ātivāhika) body nor the gross (ādhibhautika) body is seen even in the waking state when the mental conditioning ceases. The example of the dream-state is given here because that is something everybody experiences. He who rejects his own experience is fit to be shunned from a great distance; who can wake up a man who pretends to sleep?
If it is argued that when the body which causes dream ceases to be, dream ceases, then in the absence of the body there is no life in the other-world. Then surely there is no creation! If it is said that the world has never been what it is not, then it does not exist even now. If it is said that consciousness is an exudation of the body, etc., then the teachings of the scriptures become utterly useless. If you decide against their authority, why have any authority at all? If you accept that delusion exists as long as the body exists, then delusion becomes a reality. If consciousness arises in the body accidentally, why should not that consciousness realise its infinite nature?
Anyhow, what consciousness becomes aware of within itself, that it experiences (whether one calls it real or unreal). Therefore, in the first instance, the self-nature knows itself as consciousness on account of its own inherent movement. Then on account of mental conditioning (vāsanā) it experiences deluded perception. Conditioned awareness is bondage; when there is no awareness of conditioning (or conditioned awareness) there is nirvāṇa.