Tale 19 · The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
Upaśama · Dissolution · Mitra V.22–29 · 11,401 words
A thousand years of trance, and a drum to return.
Bali, king of the demons in the underworld, has ruled the three worlds for ages and grown weary of the repetition of every pleasure. Sitting at a jewelled window on Meru he falls into a trance and, coming out of it, remembers his father Virocana’s teaching: a parable of a king, the soul, and his invincible minister, the mind, who is subdued by withdrawing reliance from external things. Bali summons his preceptor Śukra by thought; Śukra says only that all is intellect and leaves. Bali reasons, meditates on the half-mantra of Om, loses the sense of meditator and meditated, and sits like a statue. Mitra titles the next chapters ‘Bali’s Anaesthesia’ and ‘Bali’s Resuscitation to Sensibility’: Śukra tells the anxious court he will wake in a thousand years, and when celestial drums rouse him Bali feels it was ‘a short time’. He then sees meditation and its absence as both mistakes of the mind, returns to rule, and stays the same through exile and restoration.
Satiety, not suffering, can open the door: Bali turns inward because every pleasure has become repetition, ‘the mastication of his grinded meat’ (V.22.26–36).
A teaching heard long ago can lie dormant until a trance retrieves it: Bali remembers his father’s words only after ‘coming then to himself’ (V.22.41–42; V.25.1).
The mind is a minister to be served less and less while the king is approached by degrees, two practices begun together and made easy only by habit (V.24.5–8, 24.19–20).
Inside deep absorption a thousand years can be felt as ‘a short time’: time is a property of the mind that the trance suspends (V.28.19; V.29.1–4).
Mature return means not clinging even to the trance: ‘Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind’; Bali goes back to his duties and stays the same through exile and restoration (V.29.12, 29.30–38).
The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
Bali’s endless pleasures have become ‘the mastication of his grinded meat’ (V.22.26–36): defended positivity curdled into indifference, the Denial wound with Repression’s numbness beneath it. The tale dramatises the moment the cost is seen, ‘what can our actions bring forth… anything that is imperishable?’ (V.22.41), and its Ease ripens when he finds that ‘meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind’ (V.29.12).
Through exile and restoration Bali remains ‘one and the same person in every state of his life’ (V.29.30–38), the coherence of a single self across opposite conditions.
Patañjali’s twofold means, practice and dispassion, mirrors Virocana’s two exercises begun together, approaching the king by degrees while slighting the minister’s authority (V.24.8); both texts make steadiness the fruit of long habit.
Kṛṣṇa’s counsel to hold pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as equal describes Bali’s later life: dethroned and restored, he looks on prosperity and adversity ‘in the same light’ (V.29.30–38).
Bali meditates on the half-measure of Oṃ until meditator, meditation and object vanish (V.27.33); the Māṇḍūkya’s twelfth verse names the measureless fourth of Oṃ, beyond all usage, in which the world comes to rest.
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.
Below the earth lies Pātāla, peopled by demons, serpents and mines of gems. There reigned Bali, son of Virocana. Gods, serpents and Indra himself served at his feet; he ruled for myriads of years and watched generations of gods, demons and men come and go. At last he felt a distaste for every enjoyment he had tasted to the full. He withdrew to a pinnacle of Meru and asked himself: how long must I go on ruling and roaming? The same days and nights, the same embraces, the same food, the same acts repeated like a boy conjugating a verb or chewing what is already chewed. What act, once done, never needs doing again? ‘Saying so, Bali fell in a trance of his profound meditation.’
Coming to himself, he remembered what he had once asked his father, sitting beneath the kalpa tree: what is that final state where pain and pleasure end? Virocana had answered with a parable. There is a vast country with no seas, mountains, suns or gods. Its sovereign is full of light and quiet in all things; he has a minister who does everything for him and is otherwise inert as stone. No god or demon can defeat this minister; he overthrew Bali’s forefathers and arms Kāma against the three worlds. The king is the soul, the minister the mind. One must do two things at once: approach the king by degrees and slight the minister by degrees. The means is to lose reliance on external things and the desire for possessions, a habit easy for one used to it and hard for one who is not. Destiny is only what the mind decrees; distaste for pleasure and clear reasoning feed each other.
Remembering all this, Bali felt the cool of tranquillity rising in him like the full moon. He resolved to consult Śukra, closed his eyes and thought of him. Śukra, absorbed in the all-pervading spirit, knew he was being remembered and descended at once to Bali’s jewelled window. Asked what Bali, he and all these people really are, he said briefly that there is only the intellect: mind, I, you and these people are all intellect; behold the spirit in your spirit; and while you are in the body, do not abandon your duties. Then he flew back to the sky.
Bali reflected: it is the intellect that knows sun from darkness, earth from water; this body is inert as wood; I am the intellect in the sun and in all beings. Then he fell into deep meditation on the half-mantra of Om, the dot alone, suppressed his thoughts, and lost the consciousness of meditating, of being the meditator and of the object meditated. He sat at the jewelled window like a lamp unshaken by wind, as still as a statue carved in stone.
His ministers, generals and vassal gods came anxiously to his chamber and found him with his crowned head hanging and his arms hanging loose. They called for Śukra, who appeared ‘quick as thought’, saw in silent meditation the state of Bali’s mind, and smiled: Bali has become an adept; let him rest; do not disturb one who is now ‘as cold as ice’. He will wake in a thousand years, as a seed sprouts in its season. Go back to your duties. Night fell over the three worlds.
After a thousand celestial years, the beating of heavenly drums roused Bali to his senses. He longed to return to the ‘cooling rapture’ in which his soul had been rapt ‘for a short time’, and was closing his eyes again when his courtiers crowded round him. Then he reasoned: since I am not bound, why seek release? Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind. He greeted his court with nods and glances and took up the affairs of state.
In time he held a great sacrifice. Viṣṇu came and cunningly persuaded him to give the world to Indra, and shut him in the nether world. There Bali, liberated in life, regarded prosperity and adversity alike, and when after many years he regained the sovereignty of the world, he was neither elated by it nor changed.
Passages from Mitra’s translation (1891–99), cited by book, chapter and verse.
“What can our actions bring forth, beside the objects of sensible gratification? They cannot bring about anything that is imperishable. Saying so, Bali fell in a trance of his profound meditation.”“Therefore must we begin with the practice of both these exercises at once; namely, approaching by degrees to the sight of the king, and slighting gradually the authority of the minister.”“He sat undaunted, by suppressing his thoughts and his thinking powers within him; and remained with his subdued desires, after having lost the consciousness of his meditation, and of his being the meditator and also of meditated object.”“While Bali was entranced in this manner at the window which was decked with gems, he became illumined in his mind as a lighted lamp flaming unshaken by the wind. And he remained long in his steady posture as a statue carved of a stone.”“Go ye leaders of the demons from here, and perform your respective duties assigned to you by your master; for it will take a thousand years, for Bali to wake from his trance (as a moment’s sleep makes a myriad of years in a dream).”“After the thousand years of the celestials, had rolled on in Bali’s unconsciousness; he was roused to his sensibility, at the beating of heavenly drums by the gods above (the loud peal of clouds).”“Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind (there being no efficacy or inefficacy of either).”“so you advance by degrees in gaining your knowledge, in cherishing your resignation, in destroying your defects, in imbibing the bliss of ecstacy, in wandering with exultation, and in elevating your soul to the sixth sphere.”In the textBali ‘closed his eyes, and thought upon the lotus-eyed Sukra’; later he ‘fell to a deep meditation’ on ‘the half mantra of Om (_i.e._ the dot only)’.
In the clinicEye closure with fixation on a single fading sound, the repeated focal word of Benson’s relaxation response (1975) narrowed to its vanishing point, the nasal tail of Om.
In the textGraded descent: deep meditation, then the half-mantra, then thoughts suppressed, then loss of ‘the consciousness of his meditation, and of his being the meditator and also of meditated object’, then statue-stillness and inner light.
In the clinicDeepening by successive subtraction, ending where Tart’s deep-hypnosis subjects reported loss of personal identity and a sense of oneness (Tart 1970, ‘Transpersonal potentialities of deep hypnosis’).
In the text‘He remained long in his steady posture as a statue carved of a stone’; the court finds him ‘with his head hanging down with the crown upon it, and his arms hanging loosely’.
In the clinicProlonged immobility in deep trance; the drooping head and loose arms show a flaccid rather than rigid catalepsy, the profound relaxation of very deep states.
In the textMitra titles the chapter ‘Description of Bali’s Anaesthesia’; the court is impatient at ‘this numbness of their king’; Śukra calls him ‘as cold as ice’; Bali later speaks of ‘the entranced state of my insensibility’.
In the clinicHypnotic or mesmeric anaesthesia; Mitra, translating in Calcutta, uses the vocabulary of the mesmeric anaesthesia Esdaile reported from Bengal in Mesmerism in India (1846).
In the textAfter his first trance Bali says: ‘Ah! I now come to remember, what I had heard from my father’, and recalls the scene under the kalpa tree and Virocana’s long discourse; later: ‘which I fortunately remember at the present moment’.
In the clinicHypermnesia for meaningful past instruction, with revivification of the scene in which it was given; clinically useful for retrieving resources, with the usual caution about confabulation (Dywan & Bowers 1983).
In the textVirocana’s parable of a featureless country whose quiet sovereign is served by an invincible minister, decoded as soul and mind: ‘The king of that place is the soul… it is the mind which is appointed by that soul as its wise minister.’
In the clinicTherapeutic metaphor (Gordon 1978) that personifies the mind as a powerful servant, giving the client a stance (approach the king, slight the minister) rather than a fight.
In the textŚukra ‘saw in his silent meditation, the state of the mind of the king of demons’, declares him ‘an adept’, forbids disturbance and predicts waking after a thousand years.
In the clinicAssessment and ratification of trance by the operator (Erickson & Rossi’s ratification), including protecting the subject from interruption and setting the expected duration for observers.
In the textŚukra says it will take ‘a thousand years… (as a moment’s sleep makes a myriad of years in a dream)’; after a thousand celestial years Bali speaks of the rapture in which his soul was ‘enrapt for a short time’.
In the clinicTime distortion, the condensation of long objective durations into brief subjective ones (Cooper & Erickson 1954, Time Distortion in Hypnosis).
In the textRoused ‘to his sensibility, at the beating of heavenly drums’; he longs to resume the state and begins to close his eyes again, is interrupted, reasons it through, then receives his court ‘with the nods and glancings of his eyes’ and resumes his offices.
In the clinicEmergence by an external sound cue, with the trance-reluctance that follows very deep states; re-orientation proceeds in stages, from glances to speech to duties.
In the textConfined by Viṣṇu in the nether world, ‘the living liberated Bali’ looks on prosperity and adversity ‘in the same light’; regaining sovereignty, he is ‘neither elated… nor… depressed’ and stays ‘one and the same person in every state of his life’.
In the clinicPost-hypnotic carry-over of a state into later life events, tested by reversal of fortune; in modern terms, durable change in affective reactivity after a single profound experience.
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 6 · Padārthābhāvanī
In samādhi Bali loses the consciousness of meditation, meditator and meditated (V.27.33): subject and object melt. On waking he holds neither meditation nor its absence (V.29.12–14). Vasiṣṭha names the sapta bhūmikā and the ‘sixth sphere’ at the tale’s close (V.29.64).
Zone · Plenary
Statue-like immobility for a thousand celestial years, insensibility that Mitra calls ‘anaesthesia’, and no response until heavenly drums sound (V.27.34; V.28; V.29.1). This is beyond somnambulism, which implies eyes-open function.
In Calcutta in the 1890s, the translator chose the vocabulary of hypnotism to name these states. More →
Saying so, Bali fell in a trance of his profound meditation.V.22.41ON THE HEALING AND IMPROVEMENT OF THE MIND.V.24 (title)Son! It is by employment of proper means that he may be easily brought under subjection, and by neglect of which he will have the upper hand of you like the snake poison, if it is not repelled in time by means of efficacious mantras and incantations.V.24.3Life or the living soul is spread out in the hollow sphere of the world, like air in vacuum. The psychic fluid circulates through all space.V.24.33HEBETUDE OF BALI.V.27 (title)Bali attains to his state of Ecstacy, by his observance of Sukra’s precepts.V.27 (argument)While Bali was entranced in this manner at the window which was decked with gems, he became illumined in his mind as a lighted lamp flaming unshaken by the wind.V.27.34DESCRIPTION OF BALI’S ANAESTHESIA.V.28 (title)Anxiety of the demons at the supineness of Bali, and the Appearance of Sukra with them before him.V.28 (argument)The servile demons of Bali (being impatient at this numbness of their king), ascended hastily to his high crystal palace, and stood at the door of his chamber.V.28.1Let him alone, ye good demons, remain in this position, resting in himself and beholding the imperishable one within himself in his reverie.V.28.15He will in time wake from his trance, and rise like the germ of a seed, sprouting from the seed vessel in its proper season.V.28.18for it will take a thousand years, for Bali to wake from his trance (as a moment’s sleep makes a myriad of years in a dream).V.28.19BALI’S RESUSCITATION TO SENSIBILITY.V.29 (title)After the thousand years of the celestials, had rolled on in Bali’s unconsciousness; he was roused to his sensibility, at the beating of heavenly drums by the gods above (the loud peal of clouds).V.29.1Bali not finding the demons before him after he was awaked, fell to the reflecting of the reveries during his state of entrancement (Samádhi).V.29.3O how charming! said he, was that cooling rapture of spiritual delight, in which my soul had been enrapt for a short time.V.29.4I do not find the waves of those delights even in the orb of the moon, as I felt in the raptures which undulated in my soul, during the entranced state of my insensibility.V.29.6Bali was again attempting to resume his state of inexcitability, when he was interrupted by the attendant demons, as the moon is intercepted by the surrounding clouds.V.29.7By forsaking your views of the desirables and undesirables, you will contract a habit of hebetude; which when it takes a deep root in your heart, you have no more to be reborn in the world.V.29.53You are now freed from your mental maladies, and have become sane and sound by abandonment of your desires, by removal of your doubts and errors, and by forsaking the mist of your fondness for external objects.V.29.63These are called the _Sapta bhúmiká_ or seven stages of the practice of Yoga).V.29.64Indications. Hedonic exhaustion in successful people: the executive, artist or athlete for whom every pleasure has become repetition. Brickman and Campbell (1971) called it the hedonic treadmill; Bali calls it chewing what is already chewed (V.22.34). As a teaching model for deep-trance work, including hypnotic anaesthesia, and for training clinicians in emergence: signals, reorientation, and the client who wants to stay. Equanimity in loss of status: retirement, demotion, exile, bankruptcy, illness that takes away a role (V.29.28–38). Retrieving dormant teachings of a parent or mentor as inner resources (V.22.42; V.25.1).
As metaphor. For the client at war with his own mind, Virocana's parable reframes the war as a court: "The minister is very good at his job. Can you see him a little less, and the king a little more?" For the client who fears that letting go of striving means losing everything: Bali loses everything, and is the same person. For the meditator who has had one extraordinary sitting and chases it: "Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind" (V.29.12).
As protocol. The practice below follows the tale: naming the satiety, agreeing a signal, calling a guide to mind, recovering an old teaching, meeting the minister and the king, resting on the fading Om, the guardian holding the space, the drum, the wish to stay acknowledged, and a staged return.
Cautions.
Practise with a qualified professional if you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis.
The Long Sitting and the Drum
About twenty-five minutes. Best guided by a companion who reads slowly, keeps others away, and sounds the signal. If you practise alone, record the script, or set a timer to sound a drum or bell after twenty minutes; the signal must come from outside you.
Before you begin. This practice follows Bali's sequence: satiety named, a signal agreed, a guide called to mind, an old teaching recovered, the minister and the king, the fading Om, a long stillness, the drum, and the return. It invites a deep, still state. Do not use it if you have, or have had, a dissociative disorder, episodes of depersonalisation, a psychotic illness or uncontrolled epilepsy, except with a clinician who knows your history. If you are depressed, use it with a clinician. Never practise while driving, operating anything, or in or near water. Sit upright, as Bali sat at his window; do not lie down. Before you begin, choose your signal (a drum, a bell, your companion's spoken word return) and hear it once, so that you know it.
How to return at any moment. If anything becomes uncomfortable, open your eyes, press your feet into the floor, move your hands, say your name and today's date aloud, and name three things you can see. Nothing in the practice requires you to stay.
Sit as a king sits at a high window: upright, easy, the hands resting.
Before you close your eyes, think of one pleasure that has worn thin. Something you have tasted many times, that now repeats without taste. Name it to yourself. You need not judge it. It is only finished.
Now hear the signal once more in your mind: the drum, or the bell, or the word. When it sounds, you will come back. That is agreed.
Close your eyes.
Think of someone who has taught you well. A parent, a teacher, a friend, living or not. You do not need to see them clearly. Only think of them, and let them know, in whatever way they can know it, that they are remembered. Let them come and sit nearby.
Breathe out.
Somewhere in your memory there is a thing they once told you. Perhaps you did not need it then. Perhaps you did not understand it. Let it come back now, if it will: the place where they said it, the light, the words. If nothing comes, that is well. Something has been heard all the same.
Breathe out.
Now notice the mind at work. It is a minister: clever, busy, loyal, tireless. It plans, it remembers, it manages your whole kingdom. Thank it. It has done its work well.
And notice that behind it, very quiet, there is a king. Full of light, doing nothing, wanting nothing. You may not see him. You may only feel that there is a stillness somewhere behind the busy one.
Now do both at once, a little. Serve the minister a little less. When a thought comes, let it pass without answering. And step a little closer to the king.
A little less. A little closer.
A little less. A little closer.
Breathe in, and on the out-breath let a quiet sound come: Om. Let the O be short, and the m long, humming, fading. Follow the hum to its very end, until it is a thread, until it is the dot, until it is gone.
Again. Om… and follow the m down into silence.
Once more, silently. Imagine the sound and follow only its tail, the last of the hum, into the quiet.
Now there is nothing to do. Let the thoughts lie dormant, like seeds. Let even the sense of meditating go. There is no one meditating and nothing to meditate on. There is only this.
Still, as a lamp where no wind comes.
Still, as a statue carved of stone.
Clear, as an autumn sky.
Your guide is near, keeping the door. No one will disturb you. You can rest for a thousand years, and it will be a short time.
(Silence: ten to fifteen minutes, until the signal.)
(The signal sounds.)
There is the drum. Hear it. Let it reach you.
Notice, before anything else, how long it seemed. A moment? Longer? Only notice.
Notice, too, if there is a wish to go back. That is natural. Bali felt it. You can let the wish be there without obeying it. The stillness was never yours to keep or to lose; it is not a place you leave.
Now let the breath deepen. Feel the air come in fully.
Feel your weight on the seat. Feel the soles of your feet on the floor; press them down a little.
Move your fingers. Move your toes. Let your head rise, if it has dropped, and the shoulders settle.
Let the eyelids flicker, and let the brows lift, as his did when he came to himself.
I will count from one to five, and on five your eyes will open, clear and awake.
One. The breath is full and easy.
Two. The hands and feet are warm and your own.
Three. The sounds of the room return.
Four. One deep breath in, and let the shoulders move.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Look around the room. If someone is with you, greet them first with your eyes, then with a nod, then with a word, as the king greeted his court. Say aloud your name, the date, the time, and where you are. 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 at least fifteen minutes.
Then take up the next small duty in front of you.
Meta Pets World · Your ally · Meta Pet 16
My genius awakens through play and wonder.
Bali has tasted every pleasure for ages until all of it is chewed and rechewed: the Indifference that is Magical Genius’s Shadow. His turning is Versatility, the freedom to enter the long stillness and to come back to the court, holding neither meditation nor its absence. His arrival is Mastery: through exile and restoration he stays ‘one and the same person in every state of his life’.
Indifference is satiety: the same days, caresses and meals repeated, ‘the mastication of his grinded meat’ (V.22.26–36), until he asks what act ‘once done’ needs no repeating, and falls into a trance (V.22.41).
Versatility is his return from the thousand-year sitting without clinging to either side: ‘Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind’ (V.29.12). He greets his court with a nod and takes up the affairs of state.
Mastery is Bali in exile and restored, looking on prosperity and adversity ‘in the same light’, ‘one and the same person in every state of his life’ (V.29.30–38).
Bored of your own favourite things? Lovely. That is where Bali’s magic began. Close the door for a moment, then come back when the drum sounds, and notice who comes back.
If Bali’s genius was to rest in the stillness and still return to the court unchanged, what magic have you been hiding behind your boredom?
Tonight, write one honest sentence about a pleasure that has become repetition, and what you are really hungry for.
Light trance, eyes open if you prefer. For the full, deeper script, see “The practice” above and its cautions.
Bali woke at the drum and ruled unchanged: what magic have you been hiding in the pause between stillness and duty?
Quechua · Cusco, Peru · Pachamama, Mama
Visit Nayaraq, the Quechua master weaver of Cusco, whose cloth needs the thread to pass over and under, as Bali passes between trance and rule; her mantra ‘Pachamama, Mama’ keeps both close to the earth.
Guided Meditation
#16 · Magical Genius
Aim. To turn hedonic boredom into curiosity about stillness, and to practise a clean, chosen return so that inner rest strengthens rather than replaces ordinary duties.
ITM 5 Transcendent Integration. Bali’s lesson is Transcendent Integration: holding neither meditation nor its absence (V.29.12) and staying the same in exile and in sovereignty (V.29.30–38).
In a circle, a real drum is the best ally: show it at the start and agree that its beat will mark the return. Tell the tale, let each person name silently one tasteless pleasure, then guide a short sitting at light depth, ten to twelve minutes at most, with the facilitator holding the space as Śukra did. After the drum, ask everyone to nod to one another before speaking. Share in pairs how long it seemed and what they will take back to their ‘court’, and close with the affirmation 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 — Bali, king of the demons, son of Virocana and pupil of Śukra, at his jewelled window on Meru.
Where in the text — Book V (Upaśama-prakaraṇa), Mitra chapters 22–29 (Mitra's own titles for 27–29: "Hebetude of Bali", "Description of Bali's Anaesthesia", "Bali's Resuscitation to Sensibility").
Hypnotic phenomenon the song enacts — DEEP into TD, resolved in EMG: each verse is lower and slower than the last, the bridge narrows Om to its nasal dot and then to near-silence that holds "a thousand years" in a few bars, and the drums of the gods wake him into an outro where he calls it "a short time" and goes back to his court.
Mantra — Oṃ, sung down to its half-measure (ॐ); in the coda, Oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya (ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय). Sources: the praṇava as Bali uses it, "the half mantra of Om (i.e. the dot only)" (V.27.32), the measureless part beyond A-U-M that the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad (v. 12) calls amātra; the coda mantra is the twelve-syllable mantra of Viṣṇu that opens the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (1.1.1). Meaning: "Om", the whole, sung down to the last dot of its sound; then "Om, homage to the blessed Vāsudeva", sung without rancour to the god who comes to Bali's sacrifice and takes the world.
Performance: a descent in four steps. Verse 1 is high and bright over a sitar riff that repeats until it palls and stops in mid-phrase. Verse 2 is lower; the father's voice comes from far off, the king's line and the minister's line never sounding together. Verse 3 is lower again. The bridge is the floor: Om narrowed to its hum, the court whispering, then near-silence held for as long as the band dares; this is the thousand years. Then the drums of the gods, loud, from above, and the outro back at the opening register, slower and calm.
Verse 1 (high, the riff repeating) Ages I have ruled the three worlds. Now, at a jewelled window on Meru: same days, same nights, same embrace, the meat already chewed, a boy saying one verb over and over (the riff stops) and I fall into a trance.
Verse 2 (lower; the father far off) I come to myself; I remember my father under the kalpa tree: a country with no seas, no suns, a quiet king, full of light, his minister, the mind, never beaten. "Go near the king by degrees; slight the minister by degrees."
Chorus At the jewelled window, down, and down: a lamp the wind does not reach, a statue carved of stone, the crowned head bowed, the arms hanging loose.
Verse 3 (lower still) I close my eyes and think of Śukra; he comes down to the window: "There is only intellect. While embodied, do your work," and is gone into the sky. I take the half of Om, the dot alone, and lose the meditator and the meditated.
Chorus (repeat, lower; the court at the door)
Bridge (mantra) (the floor of the song) Oṃ…… (the whole syllable) …ṃ…… (only the dot) (the court, whispering, far away) Let him alone; he is cold as ice. He wakes in a thousand years, a seed in its season. (night over the three worlds; the hum holds; then almost nothing)
Outro (the drums of the gods, from above; then the opening register, slower) The drums of heaven, and I am awake: how cool that rapture, and only a short time. I start to close my eyes; my court stands round. Meditation, no meditation: both mistakes of the mind. I greet them with nods; my city opens like lotuses at sunrise. (coda) Oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya (Om, homage to the blessed Vāsudeva) A god at my sacrifice took the world; shut underground, I was the same; the world came back, and I was the same.
Interpretación: un descenso en cuatro peldaños. El verso 1, alto y luminoso sobre un riff de sitar que se repite hasta empalagar y se corta a mitad de frase. El verso 2, más grave; la voz del padre llega de lejos, y la línea del rey y la del ministro nunca suenan juntas. El verso 3, más grave aún. El puente es el suelo: el Om reducido a su zumbido, la corte susurrando, y luego un casi silencio sostenido tanto como se atreva la banda: son los mil años. Después, los tambores de los dioses, fuertes, desde arriba, y el final de vuelta al registro del comienzo, más lento y en calma.
Verso 1 (alto, el riff repitiéndose) Siglos he reinado los tres mundos. Ahora, en una ventana de joyas en lo alto del Meru: mismos días, mismas noches, mismo abrazo, la carne ya mascada, un niño que repite un verbo una y otra vez (se corta el riff) y caigo en trance.
Verso 2 (más grave; el padre, lejos) Vuelvo en mí, y recuerdo a mi padre bajo el árbol kalpa: un país sin mares, sin soles, un rey quieto, lleno de luz, su ministro, la mente, nunca vencido. «Acércate al rey poco a poco; desaira al ministro poco a poco.»
Estribillo En la ventana de joyas, abajo, y abajo: una lámpara a la que no llega el viento, una estatua tallada en piedra, la cabeza coronada inclinada, los brazos sueltos.
Verso 3 (más grave aún) Cierro los ojos y pienso en Śukra; baja a la ventana: «No hay más que intelecto. Mientras tengas cuerpo, haz tu trabajo», y se va por el cielo. Tomo la mitad del Om, solo el punto, y pierdo al que medita y lo meditado.
Estribillo (se repite, más grave; la corte a la puerta)
Puente (mantra) (el suelo de la canción) Oṃ…… (la sílaba entera) …ṃ…… (solo el punto) (la corte, en susurros, lejos) Dejadlo; está frío como el hielo. Despertará en mil años, semilla en su estación. (la noche sobre los tres mundos; el zumbido se sostiene; luego casi nada)
Final (los tambores de los dioses, desde arriba; luego el registro del comienzo, más lento) Los tambores del cielo, y estoy despierto: qué fresco aquel arrobo, y solo un rato. Empiezo a cerrar los ojos; mi corte me rodea. Meditar, no meditar: dos errores de la mente. Los saludo con la cabeza; mi ciudad se abre como lotos al alba. (coda) Oṃ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya (Om, homenaje al bendito Vāsudeva) Un dios, en mi sacrificio, se llevó el mundo; encerrado bajo tierra, yo era el mismo; volvió el mundo, y yo era el mismo.
EN: A thousand years of trance, and a drum to return. ES: Mil años de trance y un tambor para volver.
The deepest descent in the album, and the clearest return. Bali has ruled the three worlds for ages and tires of the same days, the same embrace, the meat already chewed. A short trance gives back his father's parable: the quiet king is the soul, the tireless minister the mind. Śukra, called by thought, says one thing: there is only intellect. Bali takes the half of Om, the dot alone, and sits like a statue; Śukra tells the frightened court he will wake in a thousand years. Each verse lower, a hum, near-silence. Then the drums of the gods, and Bali calls it "a short time", greets his court, and stays the same through exile and return.
Source: Vihari-Lala Mitra, The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki (1891–99), public domain.
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