September 4, 2026
nedaṁ nedaṁ sadityeva vicārānubhave sthitaṁ
tathā ‘pīdamidaṁ ceti durdṛṣṭirna nivartate (17)
BHĀSA continued:
Once I was asleep with a celestial nymph in a garden. Suddenly I woke up to find myself floating downstream like a blade of grass. Surprised, I asked the nymph: “What is this?” She explained to me: “There is a moon- stone mountain nearby. When the moon rises, the springs that issue from that mountain swell and there is a sudden flood. In the supreme delight I experienced in your company I forgot to warn you of this.”
Having said this, the nymph took me with her and flew into space without any difficulty. For a period of seven years from then I lived with her on the top of the mount Mandara.
After this I roamed other worlds in which the people were self-luminous. I saw a world in which there were no directions like east and west, no days and nights, no scriptures and no polemics, no distinctions between gods and demons. Then I became a celestial by name Amarasoma and lived for fourteen years as an ascetic.
Endowed with the boon granted to me by the fire-god, I moved in space with extraordinary speed. Somewhere I fell into a great ocean and somewhere I experienced the sensation of falling through space. Moving about in space was my only occupation. I became fatigued and I slept for a considerable time.
While asleep, I entered into the world of dreams. There again I experienced various worlds and various objects and there was great restlessness in me. Whatever my eyes saw, I was there in a moment. From there I saw something else and there I was again in an instant, regardless of the distance.
Thus wandering from one world to another with great speed, I spent many years. But I had not seen the end of the manifestation of ignorance known as “the objective universe”: for it was an illusion which had somehow got itself firmly rooted in my heart, just as the fear of a ghost gets hold of the heart of a child. However well I realise “This is not real”, “This is not real” after intense enquiry, the feeling “This is” does not cease. From moment to moment, new experiences of pleasure and pain arise and cease, like the flowing stream of a river.
I also remember a great mountain peak which shone by its own light though there was neither the sun nor the moon there. It was so beautiful that it charmed the heart of those sages who love to live in solitude.