THE ADVENT AND PSALMODY OF A SIDDHA IN THE AERIAL
ABODE OF VASISHTHA.
Argument:—The appearance of the spirit of a siddha in the aerial
cell of Vasishtha, and his heavenly canticle.
Vasishtha continued:—As my mind was turned from the sight of
phenomenals, and employed in the meditation of the only One; I found
myself to be suddenly transported to my holy cell in the air.
2. There I lost the sight of my own body, and knew not where I was
seated; when all of a sudden the sacred person of a siddha or aerial
saint, appeared in view, and to be seated before me.
3. He sat in his mood of deep meditation, and was entranced in his
thought of the supreme spirit; his appearance was as bright as the sun,
and his person was as shining as the flaming fire.
4. He sat quiet and steadily in his posture of _padmásana_ between his
two knees and heels; and remained absorbed in meditation, having no
motion of his body, nor any thought of anything in his mind.
5. His body was besmeared with ashes, and his head was borne erect upon
his shoulders; he sat quiet and quite at ease, with his bright
countenance and in sedate posture.
6. The palms of both his hands were lifted up, and were set open below
his navel; and their brightness caused his lotiform heart to be as
full-blown, as the sun-beam expands the lotuses in lakes.
7. His eyelids were closed, and his eyesight was as weak, as to view all
the visibles in one light of whiteness, and they seemed to be as sleepy,
as the closing petals of the lotus of the close of the day.
8. His mind was as calm in all its closets (_i.e._ thoughts), as the
sides of the horizon in their stillness; and his soul was as
unperturbed, as the serene sky freed from a tempest (calm after storm).
9. I who did not see my own person, could yet plainly perceive that of
the saint thus placed before me; and then I reflected in my mind, with
the perspicacity of my discernment.
10. I find this great and perfect _siddha_ or saint in this solitary
part of the firmament; and I believe him to be as absorbed in his
meditation, as I am at my ease in this lonely spot.
11. It is very likely that this saint, being earnest in his desire of
deep meditation, and finding this retired cell of mine most favourable
to it, has called here of his own accord.
12. He thought I had cast off my mortal coil, and could not perceive by
his deep attention that I had returned to it; so he threw away my dead
body as he thought it, and made his residence in that cell of mine.
13. Seeing thus the loss of my body here, I thought of repairing to my
own abode (in the constellation of Pleiades सप्तर्षि मण्डलं) and as I
was attempting to proceed thereto, I resigned my attachment to my lone
cell (which was now held by another).
14. This cell was dilapidated also in time, and there remained an empty
void only in lieu of it; and the saint that had taken my place therein,
lost his stay also for want of the cell, and fell downward in his
meditative mood.
15. Thus that lonely cell was lost to me, together with the loss of my
fond desire for it, just as a visionary and imaginary city vanishes with
the dream and desire, which presented it to our view.
16. The meditative saint then fell down from it, as the rain falls down
from the cloud; and as a spot of cloud is blown away to the winds in
empty air, like the disc of the moon traversing in the sky.
17. He felt as a heavenly spirit falls to earth, after fruition of the
reward of his meritorious acts; and as a tree falls headlong being
uprooted from the ground, so he fell down upon the earth.
18. So when wish for stability of our dwelling, with the continuance
of our lives; we see on a sudden the termination of both, as it happened
to the falling Siddha.
19. Seeing the falling Siddha, I felt a kind concern for him; and in the
flight of my mind, came down from heaven in my spiritual form, to that
spot on earth where he had fallen.
20. He fell on the wings of the current air, which conveyed him whirling
as in a whirlwind, beyond the limits of the seven continents and their
seven fold oceans, to a place known as the land of gold and the paradise
of the gods.
21. He fell from the sky in his very posture of _padmásana_ as he had
been sitting there before; and sat with his head and upper part of the
body erect, owing to the ascension or upward motion of the _prána_ and
_apána_ breaths that were inhaled by him. (The rising breath like the
rope of a pitcher, keeps the body from sinking downward).
22. Though hurled from such height, and carried to such distance; yet he
did not wake from the torpor of his _samádhi_—meditation, (to which he
sat fixed and intent); but fell down insensible as a stone, and as
lightly as a bale of cotton.
23. I was then much concerned for his sake, and from my great anxiety to
waken him; I roared aloud like a cloud from my place in the sky, and
showered a flood of rain-water also upon him.
24. I went on darting hail stones, and flashing as lightnings in order
to waken him; and I succeeded to bring him to sense, as the clouds rouse
the peacock in the rainy season.
25. His body flushed and his eyes opened, as a blooming blossom and full
blown flowers; and the drizzling rains enlivened his soul, as the
driving rain, gives the lotuses of lakes to bloom.
26. Finding him awake, and seated in my presence, I cast my complacent
look upon him; and asked him very politely, about the prosperity of his
spiritual concerns.
27. I said, tell me, O great sage, who you are, and where is your abode,
and what to do; and how is it that you are so insensible of your state,
notwithstanding your fall from so great a distance. (It is a pity that
men are so insensible of the fall of their heavenly souls to this
miserable earth).
28. Being addressed by me in this manner, he looked steadfastly upon me,
and then remembering his visit at mine, he replied to me in a voice, as
sweet as that of the _chátaka_—swallow to the sonorous clouds.
29. The sagely siddha said:—You sir, shall have to wait awhile until I
can recollect myself and my former state; and then I will relate to you
the latter incidents of my life.
30. So saying he fell to the recollection of his past incidents, and
then having got them in his remembrance, he related the particulars to
me without any reserve, and as if they were the occurrence of his
present day.
31. He then spoke to me in a voice, as soft and cooling as the sandal
paste and moonbeams; and the words were as blameless and well spoken, as
they were pleased to my ears and ravishing of my soul.
32. The siddha said:—I now come to know you sir, and greet you with
reverence; and beg you to pardon my intrusion upon you, as it is the
nature of the good to forgive the faults of others. (Because to err is
human, to forgive divine).
33. Know me, O sage, to have long enjoyed (in one of my former births),
the sweets of the garden of paradise in the form of butterfly; as a bee
sucks the honey of lotus-flowers in the lake.
34. I fluttered over a running stream, and found it swelling with
sounding waves at pleasure; and then seeing it whirling with its horrid
whirlpools, I began to reflect with sorrow in my mind (in the following
manner).
35. Such is the sight of the troubles in this ocean of the world, which
overwhelms me quite in sorrow and grief; and I have become like a
parching and plaintive swallow, that wails aloud at a draught of rain
water.
36. I find my chief delight to consist in intelligence, and perceive no
pleasure in worldly enjoyments, therefore I must rely only in my
intellectual speculations, and abide without any anxiety, in the
unclouded sphere of my spiritual felicity.
37. I see there is no real pleasure here, but what is derived from our
sensations of the sensible objects (of figure, sound, taste, touch and
smell); I find no lasting delight in these, that I should depend on
them.
38. All this is either the vacuity of the intellect, or representations
of the intellect itself; when then should I be deluded with these false
appearances, as a madman or one of a deluded mind is apt to do.
39. The sensibles are causes of our insensibility as poison, and women
are deluders of men and provokers of their passions; all sweets are but
gall, and all pleasures are only a sort of pleasing pain.
40. And this body which is subject to sickness and decay, with its mind
as fickle as a shrimp fish, is hourly watched upon by inexorable death,
as the old crane lurks after the skimming fish for his prey.
41. The frail body being subject to instant extinction, likens a bubble
of water in the ocean of eternity; it resembles also the flame of lamp,
which is put out in a moment, while it burns vividly before us.
42. What is the life any more than a stream of water, running between
its two shores of birth and death; flowing on with the currents of
passing joys and griefs, swelling with the waves of incidents, and
whirling with the whirlpools of dangers and difficulties?
43. It is muddied with the pleasures of youth, and blanched with the
hoary froths of old age; and emits but casually a few bursting bubbles
of glee and gladness, which are afloat for and flitting in a moment.
44. It runs with the rapid torrent of custom, sounding with the hoarse
noise of current opinions; it is overcast by the roaring clouds of envy
and anger, and overflows the earth in its liquid form (of evanescent
bodies).
45. The word stream of life, is as pleasing to hear and pleasant to the
ear, as the term stream of water is soothing to the soul; but its waters
are ever boiling with heat of _tritápa_, and abounding with whirlpools
of illusion and avarice, that carry us up and down for ever more.
46. The course of the world is as that of the waters of a river, which
bears away the present things on its back, and brings with its current,
what was unforeseen and unexpected before. It is thus full with these
events.
47. All that was present before us, is lost to and borne away from us,
and it is in vain to repine at their loss; and whatever was never
thought of before, come to pass upon us, but what reliance can there be
in any one of them.
48. All the rivers on earth, have their waters continually passing away,
and filling them by turns from their sources; but life which the water
of the river of the body, being once gone, is never supplied to it from
any source.
49. The vicissitudes of fortune, are incessantly turning like a potter’s
wheel, over the destinies of people, and are entailing some person or
other every moment, in this ocean of the world.
50. A thousand thieves and enemies of our estate, are constantly
wandering about to rob us of our properties, and nothing avails whether
we sleep or wake to ward them off.
51. The particles of our lives, are wasting and falling off every
moment; and yet it is a wonder that, nobody is aware of the loss of the
days of his life, as long as he has but a little while to live.
52. The present day is reckoned as ours, but it is as soon passed as the
past ones; and thus ignorant of the flight of days, nobody knows the
loss of the duration of his life, until he comes to meet with his death.
53. We have lived long to eat and drink, and to move about from place to
place, and to rove in foreign lands and woods; we have felt and seen all
sorts of weal and woe; say what more is there that we can expect to have
for our share.
54. Having wellknown the pain and pleasure of grief and joy, and
experienced their changes and the reverses of fortune, I am fully
imprest with the idea of the transitoriness of all things, and therefore
kept afar from seeking any thing.
55. I have enjoyed all enjoyments, and seen their transitoriness every
where; and yet I found no satisfaction with or distaste to anything, nor
felt my cool inappetency for them any where.
56. I wandered on the tops of high hills, and roved in the airy regions
on the summits of the Meru mountains; I travelled to the cities of many
a ruler of men, but met with nothing of any real good to me any where.
57. I saw the same woody trees, the same kind of earthly cities, and the
same sort of fleshy animal bodies every where; I found them all frail
and transitory, and full of pain and misery as never to be liked.
58. I saw no riches nor friends, no relatives nor enjoyments of life,
were able to preserve any one from the clutches of death.
59. Man passes away as soon, as the rain-water glides down the mountain
glades; and is carried away by the hand of death as quickly, as a heap
of hollow ashes is blown away by the wind.
60. No enjoyment is desirable to me, nor has the gaudiness of prosperity
any charm for me; when I find my life to be as transient, as the
transitory glance from the side long look of an amorous woman.
61. How and where and whose help shall we seek, when O sage; we see a
hundred evils and imminent death hanging every day over our heads.
(_i.e._ Naught can save us from death and distress).
62. Our lives are as frail as falling leaves, upon the withered woods of
our bodies; and the moisture which they used to derive from them, is
soon dried up and exhausted at the end.
63. I passed my life in vain desires and expectations, and derived
nothing therefrom, that is of any intrinsic good or profit to me.
64. My delusion is at last removed from me, and I see it useless to bear
the burthen of my body here any longer; I find it better to place no
reliance in it, than bemean ourselves by our dependence to it.
65. All prosperity is but adversity, owing to its transitory and
illusive nature; therefore the wise accounting it as such, place no
reliance on the vanities of this world.
66. Men are sometimes led by the directions of the sástras, and at other
by their prohibitions also; as the movables are carried up and by the
rising and falling waters (_i.e._ running in right or wrong directions).
67. The poisonous air of worldliness, contaminates the sweet odour of
reason in the mind of man; and makes it noxious to the person, as the
canker in the bosom of the bud, corrodes the future flowers.
68. The vanities of the world, are as usually taken for realities, as
all other unrealities in nature are commonly taken for actualities. (The
world is unreal, and all seeming realities are unreal also).
69. Men are moving about with their bodies upon earth, with as much
haste as the rivers are running to the seas; thus the great mass of
mankind here, are seen to be in pursuit of the sensible objects of their
desire.
70. The desires of our hearts run to their objects, with as much speed
as the arrow’s fly from the archer’s bow; but they never return to their
seat in the heart or bow string, as our ungrateful friends that forsake
us in our adversity.
71. Our friends are our enemies, as the blasts of wind that blow us away
with their breath; all our relations are our bonds and fetters, and our
riches are but causes of our poverty.
72. Our pleasures are (causes of) our pains, and prosperity the source
of adversity; all enjoyments are sufferings (as leading to maladies),
and all fondness tends at last to distaste and dislike.
73. All prosperity and adversity, tend only to our temporary joy and
misery; and our life is but a prologue or prelude to our extinction or
_quietus_ (nirvána). All these are the display of our unavoidable
delusion.
74. As time glides along on any man, shewing him the various sights of
joy and misery; the poor creature lives only to see the loss of his
friends, and to repine at his hapless and helpless longevity.
75. The enjoyment of pleasures, is as playing with the fangs of a deadly
serpent; they kill you no sooner you touch them, and they disappear from
your sight, whenever you look after them.
76. The life is spent without any attempt, to attain that perfect state,
which is obtained without any pain or toil; while it is employed every
day in hardships of acquiring the perishable trifling pleasures.
77. Men who are bound to their desire of carnal enjoyment, are exposed
to shame and the contumely of the rich every moment; and are as wild
elephants, tied with strong fetters at their feet.
78. Our fortunes and favourites, are not only as frail and fickle, as
the transitory waves and bubbles; but they are as pernicious as the
fangs of a snake; and who is there so silly enough, as to take his rest
under the shadow of the hood of enraged serpent.
79. Granting the objects of desire to be pleasing, and the gifts of
prosperity to be very charming; still what are they and this life also
any more, than the fickle glances of a mistress’ eyes.
80. Those who enjoy the pleasures of the present time with so much zest;
must come to feel them quite insipid at the end, and fall into the
hell-pit at last.
81. I take no delight in riches, which are worshipped by the vulgar
only; which are ever subject to disputes, earned with labour, kept with
great care, and are yet as unstable as the winged winds in air.
82. Fortune which is so favorable for a while, turns to misfortune in a
trice; she is very charming to her possessor, but is as fickle in her
nature, as the fleeting flash of lightning.
83. Riches like flatterers, are very flattering at first and as long as
they last; but they are as fleeting as those deceitful cheats, who mock
at us upon their loss.
84. The blessings of health, wealth and youth, are as evanescent as the
fleeting shadow of autumnal clouds; and the enjoyments of sensual
pleasures, are pernicious at the end.
85. Say who has remained the same even among the great, to the end of
his journey in this world, the lives of men are as fleeting, as the
trickling dew drops at the end of the leaves of trees.
86. Our bodies are decaying in time, and our hairs are turning grey with
age, and the teeth are falling off; thus all things are worn out in the
world, except our desires, which know no decrease or decay.
87. The carnal enjoyments like wild beasts, come to decay in the forest
of the body; but the poison plant of our desire which grows in it, is
ever on its increase.
88. Our boyhood passes as quickly as our infancy, and our youth passes
as soon as our boyish days; and here there is an equal transience, to be
seen in both the comparison and the object compared with.
89. Life melts away as quickly, as the water oozes out of the hold of
our palms; and like the current of a river, it never returns to its
receptacle.
90. The body also passes away as hurriedly, as a hurricane sweeps in the
air; and it vanishes even before our sight of it, like a wave or cloud,
or as fast as the flame of a lamp.
91. I have found unpleasantness in what I thought to be very pleasant,
and found the unsteadiness of what I believed to be steady; I have known
the unreality of what I took to be real, and hence have I become
distrustful and disgustful of the world.
92. The ease and rest that attend on the soul, upon the cool
indifference of the mind; are never to be obtained in any enjoyment,
that the upper or nether worlds, can ever afford to any body.
93. I find the pleasurable objects of my senses, are still alluring me
to their trap, as a fruit and flower entices the foolish bee to fall
upon them.
94. Now after the lapse of a long time, I am quite released from my
selfish egoism; and my mind has become indifferent to the desire of
future rewards and heavenly felicity.
95. I have long found my rest in my solitary bliss of vacuity, and have
come here as thyself, and met with this etherial cell. (The aerial cell
is a creation of the saint’s imagination).
96. I came to learn afterwards that this cell belonged to thee; but I
never thought that thou shalt ever return to it.
97. I saw there a lifeless body, and thought it to be the frame of a
siddha or holy saint, who having quitted his mortal coil, has become
extinct in his nirvána.
98. This sir, is my narrative as I have related to you; and am seated
here as I am, and you can do unto me as you may like.
99. Until a siddha sees all things in his mind, and considers them well
in his clear judgment, he is incapable of seeing the past, present and
future in his clairvoyance, even though he be as perfect as the nature
of the lotus-born Brahmá himself.