Tale 31 · The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
Nirvāṇa · first half · Mitra VI.1.62–66 · 8,853 words
A hundred dreamers wake, see one another, and go home.
A mendicant whose mind has been emptied by samādhi lets one idle thought cross it — to taste how ordinary people live — and at once becomes Jīvaṭa, a carefree man in a city of his own imagining. Jīvaṭa dreams he is a brahman; the brahman, in deep trance, a chieftain; the chieftain a king; the king a celestial nymph; she a deer, the deer a creeper, the creeper a bee; crushed with its lotus, the bee becomes an elephant, a bee again, a goose, and at last Brahmā's swan, which on seeing Rudra becomes Rudra. Now clairvoyant, Rudra recalls his “hundred different forms”, wakes the mendicant's corpse-still body, and with him visits each dreamer in turn, waking each with their own intelligence. The many gaze at one another in astonishment and become “the one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons”. Then Rudra sends each back to finish its own life. Integration here is recognition and return, not fusion.
Every identity in the chain is entered through the same door: an intense longing for, or fascination with, the next form (VI.1.63.13–20). The hinge of a parts system is what each part desires.
Each state “buried all his former thoughts in oblivion” (VI.1.63.11–12): amnesia between states is what keeps the system trapped, and recollection is what begins its release (VI.1.63.5–8).
The integrator enters each world on its own terms — Rudra lays aside his celestial form to enter Jīvaṭa's house (VI.1.63.43) — and wakes each part with its own intelligence rather than replacing it (VI.1.63.44, 49, 54).
Integration does not abolish the parts: they become “parts and compositions” of Rudra and are then sent home to complete their lives (VI.1.64.2–7). The model is co-consciousness and cooperation, not erasure.
Multiplicity becomes suffering only through mutual ignorance: the unawakened “are ignorant of the identity of one another” (VI.1.63.60), whereas wise minds “unite with one another” like waves of one water (VI.1.63.62).
The Vāsiṣṭha Atlas
One stray wish scatters a single mind into a chain of lives, each form burying the last ‘in oblivion’ (VI.1.63.11), until the selves stand side by side, ‘ignorant of one another… in mute astonishment’ (VI.1.63.45): Separation within one being, kept in place by Denial’s forgetting. Rudra’s Care wakes each with its own intelligence and they become ‘the one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons’ (VI.1.63.56), then are sent home to finish their lives (VI.1.64.4): the essence embodied as a unity that erases no one.
Many self-states recognise one another and act in concert without being fused (VI.1.63.56; VI.1.64.4), emotional coherence across self-states made literal.
Patañjali says created minds arise from the I-sense alone, and that one mind directs the many in their different activities; Rudra’s recognition of his ‘hundred different forms’ (VI.1.63.21) and his waking council read as a narrative of these sūtras.
Arjuna sees the whole universe, divided in many ways, standing as one in the body of the god of gods; the hundred dreamers gazing at one another and finding one Rudra among them is that vision seen from inside the many.
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.
Vasiṣṭha tells Rāma of a mendicant who fostered one desire and so wandered through many births. He was a true ascetic: in the intensity of samādhi his mind was purged of desire and became one with its object, as sea water becomes waves. One day, after meditation, as he prepared his rites, a thought passed over his clear mind like a cloud's shadow: he would like to know the lives of common people. His calm was stirred like a sea by a whirlwind. He thought of becoming such a man, and in an instant he was the imagined person Jīvaṭa.
Jīvaṭa roamed his self-made city like a dreamer, drank his fill and slept without care. He saw himself in a dream as a brahman devoted to study and ritual, and became one. The brahman fell one day “into a deep trance” and dreamt himself a chieftain; the chieftain dreamt he was a king ruling to the horizon. Sleeping at ease, the king saw his soul take the form of a heavenly nymph; the nymph, weary, slept and became a deer; the deer slept and became the creeper she loved to browse; the creeper, tired of its dullness, thought of the bee that visited it and became a bee. In love with a lotus, the bee was crushed with it under an elephant's tusk; having envied the elephant's might, it became an elephant. The elephant fell into a pit, served a prince in war and died under enemy swords; having long watched bees on elephants' temples, it became a bee again, was trampled again, and by long association with geese became a goose. After many lives as a gander it heard itself called by the name of Brahmā's swan, fostered the idea, and at death was born as that swan, living among the wise.
Carrying Brahmā to Rudra's city, the swan saw Rudra face to face, thought himself Rudra, and Rudra's form was stamped on his mind like an image in a mirror; he left the bird's body as fragrance leaves a flower. “Gifted with clear sightedness and clairvoyance”, this Rudra looked back on his almost countless lives. He remembered the pure intellect becoming mind; the mendicant who “buried all his former thoughts in oblivion”; each passage driven by desire, “a hundred different forms”, until he became Rudra. Habit, he said, breaks out at last; what one dwells on constantly appears real “in his waking state of day dream”. He still looks at the varieties for pleasure, but discerns the unity apart from them.
Rudra went to the mendicant's body, lying “as a dead corpse” on the bare ground, and woke it by infusing his intelligence. The mendicant understood his wanderings as “hallucinations of his mind”, recognised himself in Rudra and in all the forms he remembered, and wondered how he could be one and so many. Together they travelled to the house of Jīvaṭa, who lay “asleep and insensible as a dead body”; Rudra laid aside his celestial form to enter. They gave him a portion of their spirit, and the one soul stood in three forms, which marvelled at each other in mute astonishment like figures in a painting. They woke the brahman, his wife's arms about his neck; the chief on his golden bed among his mistresses; then the prince. Reaching Brahmā's swan and knowing “I am he”, “they all became the one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons.”
Rāma asks what became of them. They remained with Rudra as parts of himself, enlightened, until he dismissed them: go to your own places, enjoy your families, and return when your course of joys and sufferings is complete. They went home, and at their deaths would join his train.
Rāma asks whether the mendicant still lives. That night Vasiṣṭha searches the three worlds in samādhi. Before dawn he finds, in the city of Vihāra in the land of Jina beyond Balkh, an old mendicant named Dīrghadṛk, who shuts his door for three weeks at a time and has meditated so for a thousand years; and, piercing into future creations, he sees a third such one, and the sages of the present assembly born again.
Passages from Mitra’s translation (1891–99), cited by book, chapter and verse.
“Then he thought in himself to become an ideal man of his own accord, and became in an instant the imagined person Jivátá by name.”“He buried all his former thoughts in oblivion, and thought only of the object that he was employed to reflect upon; and this thought so engrossed and worked upon his mind, that it prevented the rise of any other thought in it.”“Being thus led into a hundred different forms, said he, I am at last become the self-same Rudra; and it is because of the capriciousness of my erratic mind in this changeful world.”“He awakened the mendicant and raised his prostrate body, by infusing his intelligence into it; when the resuscitated Bhikshu came to understand, that all his wanderings were but hallucinations of his mind.”“They with all their intelligence, remained ignorant of one another, and they marvelled to look on each other in mute astonishment, as if they were the figures in painting.”“They came at last to the hansa of Brahmá, and being all transformed to that form in their minds (i.e. having come to know the ahamsa I am he or their self-identity); They all became the one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons.”“Go you now to your own places, and there enjoy your fill with your family; and return to me after some time, having completed the course of your enjoyments and sufferings in the world.”In the textMendicant → Jīvaṭa → brahman (who “fell asleep one day into a deep trance”) → chieftain → king → nymph → deer → creeper → bee → elephant → bee → goose → Brahmā's swan → Rudra; most passages are a sleep within the previous dream.
In the clinicNested trance and multiple embedded metaphor (Lankton & Lankton, The Answer Within, 1983): stories or dreams opened one inside another and closed in reverse order.
In the text“This one soul exhibited in the triple forms of Rudra, Jivátá and the mendicant”; finally “the one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons”, who “remained with Rudra, as parts and compositions of himself.”
In the clinicEgo-state therapy (Watkins & Watkins 1997) and Internal Family Systems (Schwartz 1995), where a central Self meets and harmonizes the parts rather than eliminating them.
In the text“So it is the case with all living beings, to look on their past lives and actions apart from themselves, and in the persons of other men… and all persons appear as distinct figures in the dream.”
In the clinicCompartmentalized autobiographical memory, in which one's own past is experienced as belonging to someone else, as in depersonalized recall and dissociative identity presentations.
In the textThe mendicant “buried all his former thoughts in oblivion”; the awakened forms “remained ignorant of one another”; they “did not know or look on one another, but had all their thoughts and sights fixed on Rudra alone.”
In the clinicInter-identity amnesia, and Morton Prince's distinction between amnesic and co-conscious personalities (The Dissociation of a Personality, 1906).
In the textRudra “looked back in his understanding into the passed accounts of his prior lives, that were almost incalculable”, remembering even “my primary state of the pure intellect”.
In the clinicHypermnesia and life review in regression work, close to the review of lives in Newton's Life Between Lives hypnotherapy (2004); hypnotic recall can also increase confident error (Dywan & Bowers 1983).
In the textThe mendicant's body is found “lying as a dead corpse on the barren ground”; Jīvaṭa lies “asleep and insensible as a dead body”.
In the clinicFull-body catalepsy and apparent lifelessness in somnambulistic trance: the body left immobile while the subject lives elsewhere in imagination.
In the textThe resuscitated mendicant understands “that all his wanderings were but hallucinations of his mind”; the gloss adds that “all these journeys, places and persons, were but reveries of the mind”.
In the clinicPositive hallucination of complete, inhabited environments, characteristic of highly hypnotizable (somnambulistic) subjects.
In the text“Many a day and night and season and century, glided on imperceptibly”; after the lecture “the night passed as short as a moment with some, and as long as an age with others”.
In the clinicTime distortion (Cooper & Erickson 1954): subjective time expanded or condensed according to absorption, here observed even in the listening audience.
In the text“I rise now and then to look into all these varieties in nature, for the sake of my pleasure and curiosity; but I have the true light of reason in me, whereby I discern the one unity quite apart from all varieties.”
In the clinicThe hidden observer (Hilgard 1977), and the Self of Internal Family Systems (Schwartz 1995), which can witness every part without being captured by any.
In the text“Rudra laid aside his bright celestial form, in order to enter into the earthly abode” of Jīvaṭa; they revive him “by imparting to him portion of their spirit and intellect.”
In the clinicPacing and leading, and Erickson's utilization approach (1959): the therapist enters the part's world in its own terms before leading it toward change.
In the textEach sleeper is woken in turn — the mendicant, the brahman (“they awakened his drowsy intelligence, by means of their own intelligence”), the chief, the prince.
In the clinicStructured re-alerting of each ego state before closing a session, so that no part is left “asleep” in the trance.
In the text“Being enlightened by him, they wandered all about the world, and rested contented with themselves”; then they return “to their respective residences” and families for their allotted time.
In the clinicPost-session integration: the recognition achieved in trance persists after each part resumes its everyday role.
In the textThe swan-Rudra “quitted his body of the bird”; Vasiṣṭha searches with “the all seeing eye of my intellectual vision” and “ran in my mind at the last watch of the night, and passed over the regions on the north”.
In the clinicImaginal travel in somnambulistic trance, as used in transpersonal regression work; to be framed as experience, without claims about external verification.
In the text“I passed beyond the limit of the present world, and pierced through the mist of future creations”, seeing Nārada, Vyāsa, Śuka and the present sages reborn “with their very same natures and characters”.
In the clinicAge progression and Erickson's pseudo-orientation in time (1954): the future visited in trance as if already lived.
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
Rudra sees all the forms as “visible thought” and discerns “the one unity quite apart from all varieties” (VI.1.63.34–37); separateness of persons melts into one intellect “represented in different forms” (VI.1.63.57) — padārthābhāvanī.
Zone · Somnambulistic
Whole lives are hallucinated in full detail, with amnesia between them (VI.1.63.11–12), while the body lies cataleptic “as a dead corpse” (VI.1.63.38): the classic triad of somnambulism.
In Calcutta in the 1890s, the translator chose the vocabulary of hypnotism to name these states. More →
In the intensity of his Samádhi devotion, his mind was purged of all its desires; and it became assimilated to the object of its meditation, as the sea water, is changed to the form of waves. (Samádhi is defined by Patanjali, as the forgetting of one's self in the object of his meditation).VI.1.62.3The good Brahman who was observant of his daily ritual, fell asleep one day into a deep trance, and dreamt himself doing the duties of the day, as the seed hid in shell, performs inwardly its act of vegetation.VI.1.62.11Being then gifted with clear sightedness and clairvoyance, he was astonished at the view of naked truths, that appeared to him as sights in a dream, which he recounted to him as follows.VI.1.63.6Whatever a man is accustomed to do or think upon constantly, in this life or in the next state of his being; the same appears as a reality to him in his waking state of day dream, as unreality appears as real in the sleeping or night dream of a man.VI.1.63.31He awakened the mendicant and raised his prostrate body, by infusing his intelligence into it; when the resuscitated Bhikshu came to understand, that all his wanderings were but hallucinations of his mind.VI.1.63.39They saw Jivátá lying asleep and insensible as a dead body, when Rudra laid aside his bright celestial form, in order to enter into the earthly abode of the deceased.VI.1.63.43(It means to say, that all these journeys, places and persons, were but reveries of the mind, and creations of fancy).VI.1.63.50I will explore into the regions of the three worlds in my samádhi meditation this night, and tell you tomorrow morning, whether the mendicant is living or not, and where he may be at present.VI.1.65.13O. Ráma! that art the moon in the sphere of Raghu's family, I have yesternight came to see the mendicant, with the all seeing eye of my intellectual vision after a long time.VI.1.66.4Indications. Ego-state and parts work, for which the tale is a complete map: how parts arise (each through a longing, VI.1.63.13–20), what keeps them apart (amnesia, VI.1.63.11, 45), how they are met (on their own ground, VI.1.63.43) and what integration looks like (cooperation and return, VI.1.64.2–7). It is the natural text for phase five of the YVH protocol, the Cūḍālā dialogues. Identity confusion at transitions, when a person has "become" a series of roles and lost the thread between them. Compulsive and addictive patterns understood as serial desire: the bee that returns to the lotus knowing the elephant will come (VI.1.62.32; VI.1.63.20) is the relapse cycle drawn exactly. Integration after past-life or between-lives regression, to gather what was recalled into one person who goes home.
As metaphor. Told in trance, the chain is itself a deepening and the waking an emergence. For many clients the story is enough: they recognise their own sleepers without being asked to name them.
As protocol. Work with three forms, never a hundred: the practice below asks for one role, one age, one mood. Visit one part per session. Always end by sending each part home and re-alerting fully.
Cautions. Screen for dissociative disorder before any parts work; the Dissociative Experiences Scale (Bernstein & Putnam 1986) is a reasonable first step, and a positive screen means specialist referral, not this practice. Dissociative identity disorder requires phase-oriented, trauma-informed treatment in which safety and stabilisation come before any uncovering or integration (Herman 1992; ISSTD 2011). Suggestion can create or harden parts in suggestible clients (Spanos 1994): speak of roles, ages and moods, not of "selves" or "entities", and never suggest a number. Recalled "prior lives" are framed as meaningful imagery, in Vasiṣṭha's own terms (VI.1.64.10). Avoid with clients prone to psychosis, derealisation or depersonalisation unless grounding is secure and a treating clinician agrees. Watch for the warning signs during practice: lost time, a part that does not answer to the name it was given, fear on meeting another part. Stop, ground, and refer.
Practise with a qualified professional if you have a history of dissociation, trauma or psychosis.
The Hundred Selves: Recognition and Return
Read slowly, aloud, in your own voice, leaving a breath between lines; twenty-five minutes. Record it and play it back if you wish.
Before you begin. This practice follows the tale's own order: stillness, the chain of forms, the vantage of Rudra, a visit, a waking, a gathering, a sending home, a return. It works with roles, ages and moods you already know you have. It does not ask you to find hidden selves, and you should not try to. Do not practise it unsupervised if you have, or have had, a dissociative disorder, a psychotic illness, or trauma that still produces flashbacks or lost time; practise only with a clinician who knows your history. If at any point you lose track of time, meet something that frightens you, or something does not answer when you speak to it, stop and return as below. Never practise while driving, operating anything, standing, or in or near water. Sit, do not lie down.
How to return at any moment. Say aloud, "Everyone home." Press your feet into the floor, take one full breath, count from one to five, and open your eyes on five. Nothing in the practice requires you to stay.
Sit down, and let the seat hold you.
Let the hands rest. Let the feet rest. Let the members of the body be still, as the mendicant sat, controlling nothing, simply not moving.
Breathe out.
Choose one thing to attend to: the breath at the nostrils, or the word one. Think only of that. When other thoughts come, let them pass like the shadow of a cloud over the midday sky.
Breathe out. A little deeper.
Now notice that you have been many. Not a hundred. Three will do.
Let one role come to mind: something you are at work, or at home, a function people know you by. See yourself in it. Notice the wish by which you entered it, the longing that made you want to be this. Every form in the tale was entered through a longing. Name yours, quietly. Then let the picture rest.
Let one age come to mind: yourself at some earlier time, a child, a young adult. See that one. Notice what that one wanted. Name it. Let the picture rest.
Let one mood come to mind: a familiar weather of yours, worry, or hurry, or longing, or anger. See yourself in it. Notice what it wants. Name it. Let the picture rest.
Breathe out.
Three sleepers. Each in its own house. Each forgets the others when it is awake. That is all the trouble there is.
Now rise, as the swan rose, to where you can see all three at once. Not above them in judgment; above them as one looks down from a hill at the houses of a town one loves. You can look at them with pleasure and with curiosity, and feel, under the three, one awareness that is looking.
Rest here a moment. Breathe.
Now choose one of the three to visit. Only one today.
Lay aside the height, as Rudra laid aside his bright form to enter an earthly house. Go down to its level. Find it where it is. Perhaps it is lying down with a sword in its hand. Perhaps someone's arms are about its neck. Perhaps it is ringed with lamps.
Greet it in its own language. Not in yours.
And offer it a little of your awareness, as one would offer a light to a sleeper, not to blind it, only so that it can wake.
Ask it, gently: What do you know?
Listen. Let it answer in words or images or a feeling.
Ask it: What do you want?
Listen.
Thank it.
Now let it see the other two. Let the three stand together for a moment, looking at one another. They may be astonished. They may be still, like figures in a painting. That is how meeting begins. Nobody has to become anybody else.
Breathe out.
Now let all three turn, together, towards the one awareness under them, the swan, the one who says I am. Let each of them feel it in its own way. One awareness. Three persons. Nothing lost.
Rest here.
(Silence: one to three minutes.)
Now send them home.
Say to each, silently, in your own words, what Rudra said: Go now to your own place. Live your life there, with those who are yours. Do what is yours to do. You know the others now.
Watch the role go back to its work. Watch the age go back to its year. Watch the mood go back to its weather, a little lighter.
They are home. You are coming home.
Come back now to the body that has been sitting here all along, on its seat, on the bare ground. Feel its weight. Feel the breath coming in through the nose, and going out. Feel the pulse, in the chest or the wrists or the fingers.
Move the fingers. Move the toes. Press the feet into the floor. Let the shoulders roll once.
I will count from one to five, and on five the eyes open, clear and rested, and you will be fully here.
One. The breath is full and ordinary.
Two. The hands and feet are warm and your own.
Three. The sounds of the room are clear.
Four. Take one deep breath in and let it go.
Five. Eyes open. Here. Now. Fully alert.
Sit a moment. Say your name aloud, and today's date, and where you are. Name three things you can see and two you can hear. If you feel at all slow or far away, repeat the count, stand, walk a few steps, drink some water, and do not drive or operate anything for ten minutes. If anything during the practice troubled you, write it down and bring it to your clinician rather than going back alone.
Then do what the mendicant did when Rudra woke him. Get up from your seat, and go about your day.
Meta Pets World · Your ally · Meta Pet 44
I transmute interference into harmony.
One stray wish sends a mendicant through a chain of lives, each form forgetting the last, until the selves stand side by side and stare at one another like strangers: the mutual ignorance that is Interference, the card’s Shadow. Rudra wakes each one with its own intelligence and they travel together, the Gift of Teamwork. They become ‘one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons’, then return home to live their lives: Synarchy, many acting as one without erasing any.
Interference is parts that cannot see one another: ‘They with all their intelligence, remained ignorant of one another, and they marvelled to look on each other in mute astonishment, as if they were the figures in painting’ (VI.1.63.45).
Teamwork begins when Rudra wakes the mendicant ‘by infusing his intelligence into it’ (VI.1.63.39), and the awakened travel together, entering each world on its own terms to wake Jīvaṭa, the brahman, the chief and the prince (VI.1.63.43–54).
Synarchy is ‘the one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons’ (VI.1.63.56), who are then sent home: ‘Go you now to your own places… and return to me’ (VI.1.64.4). Unity that keeps every life.
Is your inner committee arguing again? Lovely, they’re all here, then. Let’s light a lamp so they can finally see each other’s faces. You might be surprised who smiles first.
Interference from where, from whom? Look closer: which two parts of you are working against each other only because, like Jīvaṭa’s selves, they have never met?
Tonight, write one honest sentence about two things you wanted today that pulled against each other.
Light trance, eyes open if you prefer. For the full, deeper script, see “The practice” above and its cautions.
Interference from where, from whom? Look closer: which of my selves has not yet been introduced to the others today?
Filipino (Tagalog) · Mount Makiling, Philippines · Bathala, Bathala, Bathala
Visit Lakambini, the Tagalog babaylan of Mount Makiling, a mediator between worlds whose ‘Bathala, Bathala, Bathala’ calls one name three times, a fitting sound for many selves remembering they are one.
Guided Meditation
#44 · Interference
Aim. To help the client recognise conflicting parts or roles, let them meet and understand one another, and move from interference towards cooperation without erasing any of them.
ITM 5 Transcendent Integration. The tale models Transcendent Integration as co-consciousness: ‘one Rudra Personality in a hundred persons’ (VI.1.63.56) that still sends each part home to its own life (VI.1.64.4).
In a circle, the tale becomes a lesson in teams as well as in selves. After the Umbral and the tale, invite each person to write privately two inner roles that interfere. Guide the shared-table image at light depth, keeping to familiar roles. Then, as a group exercise, form small ‘councils’ of four where each person speaks for one part of their own for a minute while the others simply listen, as the hundred finally saw one another. Close by sending every role home together, and with the affirmation.
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 — The mendicant and his hundred dreamers (Jīvaṭa, the brahmin, the chief, the king, the nymph, the deer, the creeper, the bee, the swan of Brahmā) and Rudra, who wakes them.
Where in the text — Book VI (first half, Nirvāṇa-prakaraṇa), Mitra chapters 62–66.
Hypnotic phenomenon the song enacts — NEST and PARTS, resolved in EMG: the song descends through nested trances, each dreamer an ego state that has never heard of the others, until a bass voice wakes them all into one chord and sends them home.
Mantra — Om namo bhagavate rudrāya (ॐ नमो भगवते रुद्राय). Source: opening invocation of the Śrī Rudram (Rudrādhyāya), Taittirīya Saṃhitā 4.5 of the Kṛṣṇa Yajur Veda. Meaning: "Om — homage to the blessed Rudra" (the god who, in this story, wakes the sleepers).
Performance: a canon. Each new dreamer enters on the last line of the dreamer before, repeats it, then sings on. Rudra is the bass; at his entrance the canon stops layering and every voice holds its note until there is one chord.
Verse 1 A beggar let one thought go wandering and woke a man called Jīvaṭa, who drank his fill, slept sound, and sleeping was a brahmin at his prayers; the brahmin dreamed himself a chieftain, the chieftain dreamed a king.
Verse 2 The king lay down and rose a maiden; the maiden, tired, became a deer; the deer with restless eyes, a creeper; the creeper dreamed the bee she fed. The bee sat silent on a lotus where the elephants come through.
Chorus One sleeps with a sword still in his hand, one sleeps in his wife's arms, one sleeps in a belt of burning lamps on a lotus bed of gold — a hundred asleep inside each other, not one has heard of the rest.
Verse 3 (bass enters) A goose grew into Brahmā's swan; the swan saw Rudra, and was Rudra. Rudra, remembering every birth, knelt by the beggar on the bare ground, poured his own mind in him, and said: "Come. We have a hundred to wake."
Chorus They woke the one with the sword in his hand, they woke the one in his wife's arms, they woke the one in the belt of lamps, and stood like figures in a painting, a hundred awake inside each other, each one looking at the rest.
Bridge (mantra) (all voices, one chord) Om namo bhagavate rudrāya (Om — homage to the blessed Rudra) Om namo bhagavate rudrāya
Outro "Go home," he said, "to your own houses, eat your fill among your families, and when your years are done, come back as stars." Jīvaṭa went home; the brahmin went home; and the beggar, where he sat, opened his eyes.
Interpretación: un canon. Cada soñador entra en el último verso del anterior, lo repite y sigue. Rudra es el bajo; a su entrada las voces dejan de superponerse y sostienen su nota hasta que queda un solo acorde.
Verso 1 Un mendigo dejó vagar un pensamiento y despertó en un hombre: Jīvaṭa, que bebió hasta saciarse, durmió hondo, y durmiendo fue un brahmán entregado a sus plegarias; el brahmán se soñó jefe de guerreros, y el jefe se soñó rey.
Verso 2 El rey se echó a dormir y fue una ninfa; la ninfa, fatigada, fue una cierva; la cierva de ojos inquietos, la enredadera; la enredadera soñó la abeja que alimentaba. La abeja se posó callada en el loto por donde pasan los elefantes.
Estribillo Uno duerme con la espada aún en la mano, uno duerme en los brazos de su esposa, uno duerme en un cerco de lámparas sobre un lecho de loto y de oro; cien dormidos uno dentro de otro, ninguno ha oído hablar del resto.
Verso 3 (entra el bajo) Un ganso creció hasta ser el cisne de Brahmā; el cisne vio a Rudra, y fue Rudra. Rudra, recordando cada nacimiento, se arrodilló junto al mendigo en el suelo yermo, le sopló su propia mente, y le dijo: "Ven. Hay cien que despertar."
Estribillo Despertaron al de la espada en la mano, despertaron al de los brazos de su esposa, despertaron al del cerco de lámparas, y quedaron como figuras de un cuadro; cien despiertos uno dentro de otro, y cada uno mirando a los demás.
Puente (mantra) (todas las voces, un acorde) Om namo bhagavate rudrāya (Om — homenaje al bendito Rudra) Om namo bhagavate rudrāya
Final "Volved a casa", dijo, "a vuestras propias casas, comed hasta saciaros junto a los vuestros, y cuando acaben vuestros años, volved como estrellas." Jīvaṭa volvió a casa; el brahmán volvió a casa; y el mendigo, donde estaba sentado, abrió los ojos.
EN: One mind, a hundred sleepers: wake them, then go home. ES: Una mente, cien durmientes: despiértalos, y vuelve a casa.
The steepest of the dream-stories, and the kindest. A mendicant lets one thought go and becomes Jīvaṭa, who sleeps and becomes a brahmin, a chieftain, a king, a nymph, a deer, a creeper, a bee, a goose, the swan of Brahmā — until the swan looks at Rudra and is Rudra. Then the god walks back down through every sleeper, waking each with a share of his own mind, until a hundred stand looking at one another like figures in a painting. The clinician knows these rooms: the parts that have never met. A canon, each voice entering on the line before it; a bass gathers them into one chord. Then Rudra sends them home to their families.
Source: Vihari-Lala Mitra, The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki (1891–99), public domain.
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