In that afflicted village, battered and wounded in every limb, a heavy sorrow hung in the air. The people, gaunt from fasting and wracked with pitiful cries, stood in misery, their minds fixed on death itself. Each day, the trees wept—hot, dew-like tears fell from their clustered eyes, the heat drawing out their suffering as if the very land mourned. The streets, once alive with peaceful folk, now lay deserted and white with salt, as if the very ground wept. Joyless and emptied of heart, the village was as a widow, stripped of all that gave it life. The vines, too, suffered: their bodies lashed by burning winds and battered by rain and tears, they trembled and shuddered, their leafy hands striking themselves as cuckoos and bees cried out in lament. From the mountains, waterfalls, their bodies scorched by relentless heat, plunged from high crevices onto the rocks below, as though eager to shatter themselves into a hundred pieces. The houses, once filled with conversation and fortune, now stood mute and dark, their intentions scattered, dense and impenetrable as blind night. In the gardens, the clusters of flowers, once fragrant, now released a foul odor as the bees’ cries of lament filled the air; their former sweetness was but a memory, now called by another name. The vines, companions to the mango trees, lost their savor day by day. Slender creepers, their bud-like eyes shrinking, faded away. The streams, restless and longing to cast themselves into the ocean, murmured as they flowed, eager to depart from the parched earth. In contrast, the ponds remained utterly still, counting even the faintest tremor from a falling gnat as excessive, delighting in their own deep silence. Yet, amid this sorrow, it seemed as if the sky itself was transformed, filled with the songs of kinnaras, gandharvas, vidyadharas, and celestial maidens, all adorned by the arrival of their father. Thus, hope flickered: “Let these goddesses now bring us relief from our sorrow,” they prayed, “for the sight of the great is never without its blessing.” A mother, speaking thus to her son, gently touched his head with her hand, tender as a lotus bending to caress its root with a soft leaf. By her touch, the son cast off his distress and misfortune, as a mountain sheds the heat of summer at the coming of monsoon clouds. Then, when those two goddesses appeared, all in the household were filled with prosperity and freed from sorrow, as if they had drunk the nectar of immortality. Yet, by her playful act, the mother did not grant her son, Jyeṣṭhaśarma, even a meeting or mention—why was this withheld? In truth, one who perceives the elements—earth and the rest—assumes individuality from that aggregate, just as space, though formless, appears as something else. The unreal appears real because of our awareness, just as a child does not perceive a ghost because he knows nothing of it. The states of earth and the other elements arise and vanish in an instant, both in dreams and in waking life. When awareness is awakened by space, only space is experienced; when the elements are agitated, even a wall seems to move like space. In dreams, one may see a city or land as empty, or a dream-woman acting meaningfully, though she is not real. Space, when perceived as earth and the rest, becomes those elements for a moment; by delusion, even the other world is experienced as real. A child may see the sky as a goblin, a dying man as a forest; one sees hair as a ball, another sees the sky as something else, or even a pearl. The frightened, the half-asleep, or those on a boat see trees and other things in the sky, like goblins—their forms shaped by habitual imagination. What appears through repeated impression seems real, but in truth, not a single thing truly exists. For one who knows reality, earth and the rest do not exist as they seem; only space, arising from consciousness, is spoken of as real. For the sage who knows the expanse of consciousness as Brahman and the Self, where can there be sons, friends, or wives? Even the playful act of Jyeṣṭhaśarman placing his hand on his head is the result of the mind’s awareness of the flow of experience. Awareness appears exactly as it conceives, subtler than space and pure; everywhere, this network of objects is experienced, just as in dream-cities conjured by the mind. Upon that mountain slope, in that sorrowful village, within the pavilion, those two women remained—and then, they attained disappearance, as if vanishing from sight. It seemed as though the forest goddesses had bestowed their favor, for the household, its sorrows calmed, now stood established in supreme merit. Within the open pavilion, Sarasvati, merged in her surroundings, spoke playfully to her companion, who, with a sky-like form, smiled silently. Their conversation turned to the futility of actions in imagination and dream, pondering how, just as actions in this world are performed for real purposes, so too are actions in dreams and imagination ultimately empty. Even without earth, channels, or vital airs, their mutual discourse arose—this awareness of conversation was just like that found in dreams and imaginations. All that is to be known has been known; the seer’s awareness has seen what is to be seen. Such is the reality of Brahman—what more is there to ask? Yet a question lingered: “The life-force of my deceased husband, where he rules a kingdom—why am I not seen there by them, and why am I seen here by my son?” The answer came: “Without practice, dear one, your conviction in duality did not subside, just as a season does not end at the junction of seasons. One who has not attained nonduality—how can the actions of nonduality suit him? For one established in asceticism, how could there be experience of shadow or limbs?” “Without practice, O Lila, there was no dissolution there; when the state arose, the power of true resolve was not yet yours. Even now, by the experience of truth, those intentions have reached me; your wish, ‘let there be direct perception,’ O beautiful one, has come to fruition.” Thus, the story flows from deep sorrow and illusion to the subtle realization of truth, where all appearances are but the play of awareness, and fulfillment comes through knowledge of the Self.