Tale 12 · The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
Sthiti · Existence · Mitra IV.5–17 · 16,106 words
One glance, countless lives; one full recall, and he is free.
On Mount Mandara the young ascetic Śukra glimpses an apsarā crossing the sky, closes his eyes and follows her in imagination to Indra's heaven. There, forgetting his former nature, he lives with her for ages, falls when their merit is spent, and descends through moonbeam, rain, grain and seed into a long chain of births, among them brahmin, king, hunter, swan, ass, bamboo and magician, until he sits as the ascetic Vāsudeva by the river Samaṅgā. Meanwhile his first body withers on the mountain beside his father Bhṛgu, himself absorbed in a thousand-year trance. Bhṛgu wakes, finds a skeleton and is about to curse Death; Death appears, calms him and lets him see his son's mind from within. Together they wake Śukra, who at his father's prompting recalls all his lives at once, weeps over his old body, re-enters it at Death's word and lives on liberated. One fixation of desire generates whole lifetimes; their complete recollection ends them.
One unguarded fixation can organise an entire inner world: a single glance at the apsarā, held with closed eyes, generated heaven, fall and a long chain of births (IV.5.19; IV.6.1); trying to check the impulse did not stop the absorption.
The absorbed mind keeps its own clock: kalpas of lives were lived 'at a moment's thought' (IV.13.15) while the body lay withering for a thousand years, so inner and outer time must be tracked separately in any long trance.
Complete recall from a calm witness seat ends compulsion: once Śukra saw all his births at once he could say he had rested after his toils and passed beyond error (IV.14.38–43).
Grief is not a failure of wisdom: even the liberated Śukra weeps over his former body, and Vasiṣṭha calls mourning the way of all flesh, wise or unwise, asking only that it be kept within bounds (IV.15.34–41).
Anger at a loss is best met before it is corrected: Death first calms Bhṛgu with gentle speech, then lets him see his son's mind from within, and only then does the father's rage turn to a smile (IV.10.23; IV.11.4–7).
The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
One glance at an apsarā carries Śukra away from his father and from his own nature (IV.5.19; IV.7.1) through a long chain of births, while his first body withers beside Bhṛgu, who wakes to a skeleton and is ready to curse Death. Care reunites them: Death calms the grieving father and lets him see into his son's mind (IV.11.4), Śukra recalls every life at once (IV.14.35), weeps over his old body and re-enters it to live on beside Bhṛgu.
Having tasted the pleasure and pain of every state (IV.13.15) and seen them all at once, 'naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted' (IV.14.42), Śukra holds the whole range of his self-states in one coherent awareness.
Arjuna asks what becomes of a yogī whose mind strays from yoga, and Kṛṣṇa answers that he dwells long in the worlds of the virtuous and is then reborn into a good house; Śukra, drifting from meditation into Indra's heaven and down through births until he sits again as an ascetic (IV.13.15), is that answer told as a life.
Patañjali says that direct perception of latent impressions brings knowledge of former births; Śukra's instant recall 'by the clairvoyance of his inward sight' (IV.14.35) is that knowledge, and it frees rather than binds him.
On the night of his awakening, as the Mahāsaccaka Sutta tells it, the Bodhisatta recollects his many former lives and then turns to their causes; Śukra's recollection likewise ends the chain rather than prolonging it (IV.14.42).
IEAF: Integrative Emotional Alchemy Framework (Gallardo, Frontiers in Psychology, 2026). FP20: the Fundamental Peace Scale. ITM: the Integrative Transformation Model. Parallels in other yogas are contemplative correspondences, not claims of influence.
On a tableland of Mount Mandara, under tamāla trees, the sage Bhṛgu practised austerities, and his radiant son Śukra came to practise beside him. One day he saw an apsarā passing through the air, garlanded, her trinkets ringing. She saw him too. He tried to check the impulse of his mind, but lost all power over himself and became absorbed in the thought of her.
With closed eyelids he followed her in reverie. He saw Indra's paradise: gods crowned with mandāra blossoms, the heavenly Gaṅgā, the elephant Airāvata, musicians and dancing nymphs. In his mind he bowed to Indra, and Indra lifted him and seated him at his side. There Śukra 'forgot his former nature, without his passing through the pangs of death.' He found the apsarā in Indra's garden; at nightfall they met in a white hall, and the pair 'fell into their trance of love.'
Ages passed in the reverie: sixty years by Mandara, half a yuga by the milky ocean, cycles of yugas in Indra's heaven. When their merit was spent they fell. Their disembodied minds entered the moonbeams, came down as rain, grew in plants, and were eaten by a brahmin of Daśārṇa, whose son Śukra became. That son, an ascetic on Meru, fathered a boy by a doe and doted on him so anxiously that he forsook his devotion and died; he was reborn as heir to the king of the Madras, reigned and grew old, longed for austerity, and was reborn as an ascetic's son by the Ganges. Life followed life. Death later lists a king of Kosala, a hunter, a swan, an ass at Trigarta, a bamboo in Kerala, a deer, a serpent, a cock, a Vidyādhara magician, and a spirit drifting through a dissolved universe, until Śukra sat as Vāsudeva, a brahmin ascetic on the bank of the Samaṅgā.
All this while his first body lay on Mandara. Sun and rain dried it to a skeleton, yet no beast devoured it.
After a thousand years Bhṛgu rose from his own trance. No son bowed before him; he saw only a corpse. Believing Death had taken the boy before his time, he was about to pronounce a curse. At once Death appeared in armour, six-armed and six-faced, and calmed the raging sage with gentle words: Death only serves destiny; every being has two bodies, and it is the mind that travels. Your son's mind, he said, wandered where its desires led it while you sat absorbed.
Death then made Bhṛgu 'dive into the thoughts of his son with his intellectual eye.' Bhṛgu saw his son's whole history as if in the mirror of his own mind, returned to his seated body, and smiled; he admitted that even those who know the course of things are moved to anger and grief. Death took his hand and they went together to the Samaṅgā.
There sat Śukra in his new body, limbs stiff, senses stilled, smiling at the pursuits of mankind. Death said to him, 'Awake.' Śukra opened his eyes, rose, bowed, and said the darkness that no study or austerity had removed was gone at their sight. Bhṛgu asked him to remember his former births, and he remembered them 'instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight,' smiled with wonder, and said there was no good or evil he had not tasted.
The three went back to Mandara. Seeing his withered first body under the leaves, Śukra lamented over it: the body his father had fed and nymphs had caressed, now crawling with ants, yet sleeping happily, free of the mind's demon. Vasiṣṭha tells Rāma that such grief is the way of all flesh, wise or unwise. Death told Śukra to enter that body, practise austerity and become preceptor of the Daityas, and vanished. Śukra entered the corpse; his Samaṅgā body fell; Bhṛgu sprinkled water with mantras, blood filled the veins, and Śukra rose breathing and bowed. Father and son embraced in tears, cremated the Samaṅgā body as custom required, and lived on as liberated guides.
Passages from Mitra’s translation (1891–99), cited by book, chapter and verse.
“Sukra then checked the impulse of his mind, which the god of love had raised after her; but losing all his power over himself, he became absorbed in the thought of his beloved object.”“Henceforth Sukra continued to think of the nymph with his closed eye-lids, and indulge himself in his reverie of an imaginary kingdom.”“Thus Sukra being got among the gods in the celestial city, forgot his former nature, without his passing through the pangs of death.”“Now the disembodied spirit of Sukra, remained to reflect on his past transmigrations, in all the real and ideal forms of his imagination.”“After the lapse of a thousand years, the great Bhrigu rose from his holy trance (anaesthesia); and was disengaged in his mind from its meditation of God, as in a state of suspension or syncope of his holy meditations.”“Thus the mind of your son, wandered from your presence, as you sat absorbed in meditation, to regions far and wide in the ways of its various desires.”“Saying so, Yama the lord of world, who sees all at one view, made the Muni to dive into the thoughts of his son with his intellectual eye.”“He (Sukra) having tasted the pleasure and pain of all these states at a moment’s thought of his mind, is now seated as a devotee on the bank of Samangá, under the spreading beams of the moon.”“Bhrigu made him acquainted with the state of his former birth, and he remembered it instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight.”“There is naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted or felt or done myself; nor is there anything, which I have not seen and felt and known in my past lives.”“Ráma! the other bodies of Sukra were merely the creations of his imagination; but that of Bhárgava or as the son of Bhrigu, was the actual one, as produced by the merit of his pristine acts.”“The mind gradually moulds itself into the form, which it constantly thinks upon in itself; and it derives from within itself, the power to be what it wishes to become.”In the textHe beholds the apsarā "with the eyes of Hari, fixed upon his Lakshmí", tries to check the impulse, "but losing all his power over himself, he became absorbed", then continues "with his closed eye-lids" in reverie.
In the clinicSpontaneous trance from fixed attention on an emotionally charged image, the 'common everyday trance' (Erickson & Rossi); the failed effort to suppress the thought deepens it, as in ironic mental control (Wegner 1994).
In the textA multisensory heaven: the hum of bees, choirs, fragrance carried by the winds, golden lotuses; Indra lifts him by the hand and seats him beside him; the lovers 'fell into their trance of love'.
In the clinicHigh absorption (Tellegen & Atkinson 1974): total sensory engagement in an imagined scene, with interaction and touch, the profile of highly hypnotisable subjects.
In the textHe "forgot his former nature, without his passing through the pangs of death".
In the clinicSpontaneous amnesia for the waking identity inside an absorbed role; here it is lifted only by guided recall at the end (IV.14.34–35).
In the textHe believes he spent sixty years, then half a yuga, then eight cycles of the four yugas (IV.10.54); Death says he tasted all these states 'at a moment's thought of his mind', while Bhṛgu's trance lasts a thousand years of outer time.
In the clinicTime distortion (Cooper & Erickson 1954) at its extreme: condensation of whole lifetimes into a moment of inner time, with an independent outer clock.
In the textHis first body lies 'prostrate on the bed of stones' until it is a skeleton; Bhṛgu sits a thousand years in 'suspension or syncope'; the Samaṅgā ascetic's 'limbs were stiff, and his sense at a stand still'.
In the clinicCatalepsy and suspended animation, the body left immobile while the mind is elsewhere; Mitra's 'syncope' names the clinical picture.
In the text"He having left this body of his behind him, in the mountain cave of Mandara, fled to the celestial region, as a bird flies from his nest"; Bhṛgu's mind enters his son's thoughts and 'returned from the bank of Samangá to his own body on mount Mandara, where it was left in its sitting posture'.
In the clinicOut-of-body experience and dissociated perspective in trance; Bhṛgu's guided visit to another's inner world resembles a therapist-led shared imagery exercise.
In the textBetween births 'the disembodied spirit of Sukra, remained to reflect on his past transmigrations'; later 'Bhrigu desired him to remember his prior births' and he 'remembered it instantly'.
In the clinicGuided past-life regression (Weiss 1988) and the interlife review of Life Between Lives work (Newton 1994; 2004): the prompt comes from a trusted guide, and the recall is held as the text frames it, as imaginative creation (IV.15.29).
In the text"I see my countless and unknown births, and the innumerable accidents to which they were subject"; "There is naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted."
In the clinicHypermnesia across lives, integrated by one waking witness; clinically valuable as integration, not as factual record.
In the textDeath's 'Awake' startles him 'as the roaring of a cloud, rouses the slumbering peacock'; later he re-enters the corpse, 'the veins and arteries ... were again supplied with their circulating blood', and he rises 'breathing the breath of life'.
In the clinicTwo emergences: an abrupt verbal command, and a slow re-association into the body with returning circulation and breath, the model for a gradual, somatic re-alerting.
In the text"What your son had thought of in his mental body ... the same he found"; the life imagined at the Samaṅgā leaves an actual body that falls when he leaves it and must be cremated.
In the clinicCarry-over of trance-made identity into the waking world, so that a closing ritual is needed to release the role; compare formal termination of ego states or symbolic burning in grief work.
In the textBhṛgu, thinking his son dead, turns to anger and a curse; Śukra laments his old body ('This is that body of mine ...'); Vasiṣṭha calls such mourning the way of all flesh, wise or unwise.
In the clinicAnger in bereavement (Kübler-Ross 1969) met first by calming and then by new information; mourning a former self or body after illness or ageing, and keeping a bond with it (Klass, Silverman & Nickman 1996).
Read upward — stage 1 at the bottom, stage 7 at the top
Integration zone
Pure-awareness trance and silent presence — not another state to enter but the ground recognised in every state. Jīvanmukti; Fundamental Peace.
Integration zone
Perceptual shift — the boundaries of things soften; consciousness expands past its usual partitions.
Integration zone
Post-trance integration — sustained non-reactivity carried into behaviour; what was seen in depth becomes how one lives.
Integration zone
Hypnotic absorption meets direct knowing — identity deconstruction at full depth. This is YVH's primary therapeutic zone, and the model's central testable hypothesis.
Integration zone
Progressive relaxation and deepening — the habitual self loosens enough for new pattern to take.
Integration zone
Self-inquiry joined to guided suggestion — narrative reframing and Socratic dialogue inside a gently focused state.
Integration zone
Therapeutic motivation — disillusionment with suffering becomes readiness for change. The first honest wish to be free is itself the induction.
A note on what this map claims. The alignment between stages of knowledge and trance depths is a clinical map — a heuristic correspondence proposed for research, not a claim of identity between contemplative attainment and hypnotic depth.
Bhūmikā 5 · Asaṃsakti
After recall Śukra says he has no desire to stay or go anywhere of his own will (IV.14.45) and lives as a liberated guide (IV.16.24), which is asaṃsakti; his lament for the old body (IV.15.1–26) shows that objects have not yet melted (6).
Zone · Plenary
The body is abandoned for ages and withers while the mind lives whole lifetimes with complete identity amnesia (IV.7.1; IV.9.1–2; IV.10.3–5), and the subject must be woken and re-embodied by others: deeper and longer than Lavaṇa's somnambulistic two hours.
In Calcutta in the 1890s, the translator chose the vocabulary of hypnotism to name these states. More →
Henceforth Sukra continued to think of the nymph with his closed eye-lids, and indulge himself in his reverie of an imaginary kingdom.IV.6.1The loving pair fell into their trance of love in that happy grove, as a couple of playful bees creeps into the lotus cup, under the fair filaments of the flower, shaking by the gentle breeze.IV.7.30Thus the son of Bhrigu, believed himself to be in the enjoyment of heavenly pleasures, in his ideal reveries.IV.8.1As Sukra was indulging his reveries in this manner, he passed insensibly under the flight of a series of years, which glided upon him in the presence of his father.IV.9.1After the lapse of a thousand years, the great Bhrigu rose from his holy trance (anaesthesia); and was disengaged in his mind from its meditation of God, as in a state of suspension or syncope of his holy meditations.IV.10.1If you wish, O venerable sage! to know the reveries in his mind, you shall have to open your intellectual eye, in order to pry into the thoughts of others.IV.11.3Bhrigu made him acquainted with the state of his former birth, and he remembered it instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight.IV.14.35Sukra laments on seeing his former body, and his consolation at its ultimate anaesthesia.IV.15 (argument)It seems to be emaciating itself like an ascetic, in his supine hypnotism on the mountain, dead to the perceptions of colour and sound, and of touch and taste, and freed from all its desires and passions.IV.15.18so the appearance of thousands of such worlds in the mind, is mere ideal; and as false as the show of a magic-lantern.IV.17.9So the creation of the world, and all created things, are situated (pictured) in the mind of Brahmá; and make their repeated appearance, as the phantoms of a phantasmagoria before him.IV.17.14Indications. Compulsive romantic or fantasy absorption and maladaptive daydreaming, where the image of the body withering while the mind is in paradise speaks without accusing, and Mitra's gloss offers relief from shame: "We are responsible for every act of the body; but not so for the thoughts or reveries of the mind" (IV.13.10). Repeating life patterns, seen as a "chain of lives" from one witness seat (IV.14.38–43). Past-life and between-lives regression, framed as the text frames it, imaginative creation with real consequences (IV.15.29; IV.17.24). Bereavement that comes as anger at death, doctors or God. Grief for a former body or self after illness, injury, amputation, mastectomy or ageing. Parents of an adult child "lost" to another world (an addiction, a relationship, a long illness), using Bhṛgu's guided entry into his son's mind as a structured empathy exercise.
As metaphor. For the daydreamer: "Who is watching the body on the mountain?" For the angry mourner: "Before you curse, may I show you where he went?" For the patient ashamed of a lost decade: Śukra's lives were spent in imagination, and the text still calls him liberated. For the patient afraid of the changed body in the mirror: "This is that body of mine", spoken as a list, then a step back inside it.
As protocol. The practice below follows the tale. In a medium trance the client follows one image of longing, passes through three to five chapters, rests by the river, reviews them together, returns to the body with tenderness, and closes the role no longer needed. The therapist is Bhṛgu on the same mountain, awake this time, keeping the outer clock.
Cautions.
Practise with a qualified professional if you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis.
The Chain of Lives
Read slowly, aloud, with a pause between lines; about twenty-five minutes. Best done with a therapist or trusted companion reading, who stays present and keeps the time. If you practise alone, set a soft alarm for thirty minutes before you begin.
Before you begin. This practice follows Śukra's sequence: a seat on the mountain, an image followed, scenes passed through, a rest by the river, a review, a return to the body, and a closing. The "lives" are chapters of your own life; if you work with a trained regression or Life Between Lives facilitator they may be imagined lives, held, as the text holds them, as creations of the mind. Do not use this practice if you have, or have had, a psychotic illness, a dissociative disorder, or trauma that still produces flashbacks, except with a clinician who knows your history. Do not use it if you are having thoughts of ending your life, or have an eating disorder; speak to your clinician instead. Never practise while driving, operating anything, or in or near water. Sit in a chair with your feet on the floor; do not lie down.
How to return at any moment. If anything becomes uncomfortable, open your eyes, press your feet into the floor, say aloud your name and today's date, and name three things you can see. That is the whole of it. Nothing in the practice requires you to stay.
Sit, and let the chair hold you.
This is the mountain. The rock behind you is warm. Someone you trust sits nearby, on the same mountain, keeping watch. You do not need to look at them. They are there.
Let your eyes rest on one point in front of you. Let them grow heavy. When they want to close, let them close.
Breathe out, slowly.
Somewhere in you there is a longing. For a person, a place, a time, a life you did not live. You do not have to choose it. Let it arrive.
You may want to check it, to say not that. You can try. And if it stays, let it stay. Follow it with your eyes closed, the way he followed her across the sky.
Where does it go? Let a scene open. Notice the light there. One sound. One scent. Notice what your hands touch. Let someone there greet you.
Stay as long as the scene wants you.
And notice, at some point, that the scene begins to end of itself. Nothing is wrong; it is only finished. Let it fade like a garland in the evening.
Breathe out.
Now, like moonlight becoming rain, like rain becoming a seed, come down softly into the next place. Another chapter of your life. A house, a school, a city, a work, a love. Let it come without forcing.
Give it one line, as Death named the lives: I was the one who…
Let it end when it ends. Rain into the next.
I was the one who…
And the next.
I was the one who…
Three or four are enough. Let them pass like birds across a window.
Now let the movement slow, as a wheel slows after a long turning. There is a river. Moonlight on it. A bank strewn with flowers. Sit on a seat of leaves by that river. Your limbs are still. Your senses are quiet. You have been travelling a long time, and you are resting now.
From this seat, let all the chapters be seen at once. Not one after another: all together, in one wide look, as if laid out on the water in the moonlight. The one who longed. The one who fell. The one who was proud. The one who was afraid. The one who loved too anxiously.
You were in each of them. You are not held by any of them.
If you can smile at them, smile. If not, simply look.
Rest here. Your companion keeps the time.
(Silence: one to two minutes.)
Now, slowly, rise from the river and go back up the mountain.
There is a body there, the one you left. The one that waited while you were away. Look at it with kindness. It was fed and held, and it carried you. Perhaps it is tired, or thinner, or older, or marked by what happened to it. Say to it, in your own words, This is that body of mine.
If there is grief, let it come. The wise grieve too. Let the tears be as large or as small as they are.
When you are ready, step back in. As spring enters a bare plant. Feel the breath come into it. Feel the blood fill the veins like dry riverbeds filling in the rains. Feel warmth return, one part at a time: the feet, the legs, the hands, the arms, the face.
One thing remains. One of the chapters you passed through may no longer be needed: a role you played, an old self you need not carry. Picture it lying gently on the river bank. Thank it. Let a small, clean fire take it, as the ascetic's body on the Samaṅgā was given its due. Watch the smoke rise and go.
Breathe in, fully.
(Pause.)
Now begin to come all the way back.
Feel your weight in the chair, your back against it. Feel the soles of your feet on the floor; press them down a little.
Feel the warmth of your hands. Move the fingers. Move the toes.
Notice the sounds of the room, near and far.
I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes will open, clear and rested.
One. The breath is full and ordinary.
Two. The body is warm and your own.
Three. The sounds of the room are clear.
Four. Take a deep breath in, and let the shoulders move.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Sit a moment before you stand. Say aloud your name, today's date, and where you are. If a companion is with you, look at them and greet them. Name three things you can see. If you feel slow or far away, repeat the count from one to five, stand, walk a few steps, and drink some water. Do not drive for ten minutes.
Then, as father and son did, sit a while, and rise to the duties at hand.
Meta Pets World · Your ally · Meta Pet 33
The final revelation unfolds within me now.
The Final Revelation walks with Śukra because his predicament is Forgetting: one glance at a nymph, followed with closed eyes, carries him through heaven and a long chain of births in which he loses his own nature. His turning is Mindfulness, the still seat by the river Samaṅgā, and his arrival is Revelation, all his lives seen at once, after which he simply steps back into his body and lives free.
Forgetting: Śukra tries to check the impulse but becomes 'absorbed in the thought of his beloved object' (IV.5.19), and in Indra's heaven he 'forgot his former nature' (IV.7.1).
Mindfulness: after lives of pleasure and pain he is 'now seated as a devotee on the bank of Samangá, under the spreading beams of the moon' (IV.13.15), a calm seat from which the past can be seen without being lived again.
Revelation: prompted by Bhṛgu, he remembers 'instantly by the clairvoyance of his inward sight' (IV.14.35) and says, 'There is naught of good or evil, which I have not tasted' (IV.14.42); then he re-enters his first body and lives on.
The Final Revelation, and a young ascetic who followed one glance through a chain of lives. You needn't chase. Sit by the river; what you've forgotten comes back on its own.
When Śukra remembered all his lives at once and then simply stepped back into his body, what was revealed, and what have you been forgetting that a calm seat would let you see?
Tonight, write one honest sentence about a single glance or wish that carried you away today, and what you forgot on the way.
Light trance, eyes open if you prefer. For the full, deeper script, see “The practice” above and its cautions.
The final revelation reveals there is no final revelation: today, sit by the river once, recall what you had forgotten, and come back to your body.
Kyrgyz · Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan · Allāhu Akbar
Visit Aigerim, the Kyrgyz Sufi pilgrim of Bishkek, who walks from station to station as Śukra passed from life to life; her Allāhu Akbar, 'greater still', fits a revelation that never claims to be the last.
Guided Meditation
#33 · The Final Revelation
Aim. To help the person review the chapters a single fixation has generated, from a calm witness seat, and return fully to their own body and present life.
ITM 4 Essence Embodiment. Śukra's revelation is completed only when he re-enters his first body and lives it, the move from insight to Essence Embodiment.
In a circle, tell the tale and then work only with chapters of this life, never past lives. Lead a light-depth version of The Chain of Lives: one image of longing followed briefly, then the calm seat by the river, from which each person reviews three or four chapters of their life, naming each in a single line. Bring everyone slowly back into the body, feeling blood, breath and warmth return. Invite each person to write their chapter titles, and in pairs share only the one thing they keep forgetting. Close with a moment in which each person places a hand on their own chest, as Śukra returned to his body, before saying the date aloud together.
Training and certification in the Meta Pets Method: metapetsworld.org/facilitators ↗
The correspondence between tales and Meta Pets is contemplative: the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha does not contain the Meta Pets; each tale enacts its ally’s arc. Felicia is an artificial-intelligence companion; her words are contemplative reflections, not clinical advice.
From the cycle The Sixty-Four Tales
Figure — Śukra, son of the sage Bhṛgu, who followed a glance through a thousand lives; his father; and Kāla, Death, who brings him home.
Where in the text — Book IV (Sthiti Prakaraṇa), Mitra chapters 5–17.
Hypnotic phenomenon the song enacts — TD and EMG: whole lifetimes pass as one soft litany over a slowing heartbeat while the body lies a thousand years on the mountain, and the song ends in a slow, somatic re-entry, blood and breath and the drum's full pulse coming back.
Mantra — Oṃ yamāya namaḥ (ॐ यमाय नमः). Source: traditional nāma-mantra of Yama, the homage spoken to him as guardian (dikpāla) of the southern quarter. Meaning: "Om, homage to Yama." In this tale Death is the gentlest voice: he calms the raging father, takes his hand, says "Awake", and sends the son back into his own body. The homage is to the one who brings us home.
Performance: three voices, Śukra (tenor), Kāla (a soft bass) and Bhṛgu (baritone), over a heartbeat drum. A rising figure opens it: the glance. The drum slows as the lives pass, and Kāla sings the births as a gentle litany, one line each, down to the river. A long held chord is the still seat on the Samaṅgā; "Awake" is sung, not shouted. On the bridge the father's voice enters beneath. In the outro the drum returns to its full pulse, and father and son end in unison.
Verse 1 — Śukra Under the tamāla trees on Mandara a nymph went through the air, her trinkets ringing. I tried to check my mind, and lost it; I closed my eyes and followed her to Indra's heaven, and forgot what I had been, without the pangs of death.
Verse 2 — Kāla, a litany Ages there; then he fell like ripened fruit, into the moonbeams, down as rain, into the grain: a brahmin, a king, a hunter, a swan on the Ganges, an ass, a bamboo, a serpent on a palm, now Vāsudeva on the Samaṅgā, under the moon. All in a moment's thought.
Chorus — Śukra This is that body of mine on the mountain, anointed with camphor and sandal, asleep on beds of mandara flowers; sun and rain have dried it to the bone, and no beast will touch it.
Verse 3 — Bhṛgu, Kāla, Śukra My father woke from a thousand years to bones, and raised a curse. Death came, six-faced, calmed him like a sea after storm, and led him down to the river. "Awake." I opened my eyes. "Remember." I saw them all at once.
Chorus — Śukra, standing over it This is that body of mine on the mountain, anointed with camphor and sandal; ants walk on the breast where the necklace lay, sunlight in the hollow of the belly.
Bridge (mantra) (the father's voice beneath) Oṃ yamāya namaḥ (Om, homage to Death, who takes our hand) Oṃ yamāya namaḥ
Outro (the full drum returns; father and son end in unison) "Go in," said Death, "as a prince goes into his palace." I went in as spring goes into a faded plant; blood filled the veins like rain in dry riverbeds, and I rose breathing the breath of life, and my father held me, weeping.
Interpretación: tres voces, Śukra (tenor), Kāla (un bajo suave) y Bhṛgu (barítono), sobre un tambor que late como un corazón. Abre una figura que sube: la mirada. El tambor se hace más lento mientras pasan las vidas, y Kāla canta los nacimientos como una letanía suave, uno por verso, hasta el río. Un acorde largo y sostenido es el asiento quieto junto al Samaṅgā; "Despierta" se canta, no se grita. En el puente entra debajo la voz del padre. En el final el tambor recupera su pulso pleno, y padre e hijo terminan al unísono.
Verso 1 — Śukra Bajo los árboles tamāla del Mandara pasó una ninfa por el aire, tintineando sus joyas. Quise frenar mi mente, y la perdí; cerré los ojos y la seguí hasta el cielo de Indra, olvidé lo que había sido, sin el trance de la muerte.
Verso 2 — Kāla, una letanía Eras allí; luego cayó como fruta madura, a los rayos de la luna, abajo con la lluvia, al grano: un brahmán, un rey, un cazador, un cisne en el Ganges, un asno, un bambú, una serpiente en la palmera, ahora Vāsudeva junto al Samaṅgā, bajo la luna. Todo en un instante de pensamiento.
Estribillo — Śukra Este es aquel cuerpo mío en la montaña, ungido con alcanfor y sándalo, dormido en lechos de flores de mandara; el sol y la lluvia lo han secado hasta el hueso, y ninguna fiera lo toca.
Verso 3 — Bhṛgu, Kāla, Śukra Mi padre despertó de mil años ante unos huesos, y alzó una maldición. Vino la Muerte, seis caras, lo calmó como al mar tras la tormenta, y lo llevó hasta el río. "Despierta." Abrí los ojos. "Recuerda." Las vi todas a la vez.
Estribillo — Śukra, de pie ante él Este es aquel cuerpo mío en la montaña, ungido con alcanfor y sándalo; las hormigas cruzan el pecho donde estuvo el collar, la luz del sol en el hueco del vientre.
Puente (mantra) (debajo, la voz del padre) Oṃ yamāya namaḥ (Om, homenaje a la Muerte, que nos toma la mano) Oṃ yamāya namaḥ
Final (vuelve el tambor pleno; padre e hijo al unísono) "Entra", dijo la Muerte, "como entra un príncipe en su palacio." Entré como entra la primavera en una planta marchita; la sangre llenó las venas como la lluvia los cauces secos, y me levanté respirando el aliento de la vida, y mi padre me abrazó, llorando.
EN: One glance, a thousand lives; remember them, then come back in. ES: Una mirada, mil vidas; recuérdalas, y vuelve a entrar.
A young ascetic on Mandara glances at a nymph crossing the sky, closes his eyes, and follows her: into Indra's heaven, down with the rain into the grain, through brahmin, king, hunter, swan, ass and bamboo, to a riverbank where he sits as someone else. On the mountain his first body dries to bone beside his father's thousand-year trance. Death, the gentlest voice in the tale, calms the father's curse, takes his hand and says "Awake". The clinician hears time distortion at its extreme, and the rule it teaches: every long trance needs a way back into the body. A soft litany of lives over a slowing heartbeat; a lament; then blood filling the veins like rivers in the rains.
Source: Vihari-Lala Mitra, The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki (1891–99), public domain.
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