The noble lady began to speak, her voice tinged with sorrow and wonder. “My eldest son, Sharma, sits weeping in the house, while our cow, wandering freely in the meadows, gives her milk somewhere in the wilderness. Within the home, my own body—dry, covered with alkaline dust, and prepared for the funeral fire—lies motionless. This body, composed of the five elements, is dense and heavy, soon to be consumed. In the kitchen, fierce gourd vines twist and climb, their grip as relentless as thirst itself. This kitchen, too, seems like another body of mine, another form bound to this world. “My relatives, their eyes swollen and red from tears, are bound to me by worldly ties. Some, adorned with rudraksha bracelets, bring wood for the funeral pyre. Outside, the riverbank is battered ceaselessly by clusters of stones and shells, its waves reaching up to brush the leaves of the shoreline creepers. The edges glisten with scattered sprays, swaying grass, and foaming water, where stones, fruits, and shells collide. The midday sun’s rays, cold and bright like frost, make the surface shimmer, while trees on the banks eagerly offer clusters of blossoms. “Kiṃśuka trees bloom with coral-red radiance, and heaps of flowers burst forth in delight. Village children, busy gathering abundant fruit, are carried along by the noisy eddies of the village stream, lost in its excitement. The banks, washed clean by swirling waters, remain ever cool beneath the dense shade of broad-leaved trees. Amidst this beauty stands a house pavilion, adorned with flowering creepers, its windows shaded by overhanging branches. “Here abides my lord, whose form is as subtle as a particle of living space, the master of the earth encircled by the four oceans. Once, he longed intensely for kingship, desiring with all his might, ‘May I swiftly become king.’ O Supreme Lady, by the force of that aspiration, he attained a prosperous kingdom in just eight days—a fortune that usually takes many years to achieve. “In this very place, the vital essence of my husband, the king, remained in my house, invisible—like the wind in the sky or fragrance in the air. Here, within a space no larger than a thumb’s breadth, his realm was established as if in the sky, yet his kingdom extended for ten million yojanas. We two are space itself, and that kingdom is also space, O Lady. Yet, it appears filled with thousands of mountains—what a marvel this illusion is! “O Goddess, I now wish to return again to my husband’s side. So come, let us go there—what distance can hinder those who are resolute?” Having spoken thus and bowed to the goddess, she swiftly entered the pavilion, and together, they soared into the sky, dark as a sword, like birds in flight. The sky stretched before them, as if split by masses of collyrium, beautiful with a gentle, single ocean, resembling the body of Narayana, shining with the pure luster of a bee’s back. Rising higher, they passed beyond the path of clouds, the region of the wind, then crossing the path of the sun and even surpassing the path of the moon. They journeyed beyond the northern path of the Pole Star, the realms of the Sādhyas, the Siddhas, and ascended beyond the sphere of heaven. They entered the inner domain of Brahma’s world, then the sphere of the Tuṣitas, surpassing the worlds of the cows, of Śiva, and of the ancestors. Beyond these, they traveled farther still, passing the distant, formless gods, until their way became somewhat obstructed. Looking back, she saw the sky she had traversed, until nothing—no moon, sun, or stars—was visible below. She beheld only darkness, deep and motionless, filled with the hollows of space, like the belly of a single ocean, dense as the heart of a mountain. She asked, “O goddess, tell me: where has the radiance of the sun and others gone? How has this darkness, unmoving and graspable as the belly of a rock, arisen?” The goddess replied, “You have reached this farthest extent, the path of the sky; even the radiance of the sun and others is no longer visible here. Just as a firefly cannot be seen from the bottom of a deep, dark well, so too, from here, the sun below is not seen at all. Indeed, we have come so far that the sun appears as a mere speck, barely visible.” She continued, “From here onward, what other path is there, and what is it like? How will our descent be?” The goddess answered, “Beyond this lies the outer shell of the cosmic egg, from which arise particles called ‘diamond dust’ and the like.” As they spoke, they reached the shell of the cosmic egg, moving like bees around a dense, circular mountain wall. Without effort, they passed through it as if through the open sky, for what is established with certainty moves like a diamond—unhindered. With unobstructed knowledge, she beheld realms beyond the watery covering, radiant and shining outside the cosmic egg. Surrounding the cosmic egg, the water element, ten times greater, enveloped it like the skin around a kernel. Beyond the water, fire was tenfold greater; beyond fire, air was tenfold greater; then space, tenfold greater; and beyond all, the supreme ether. In that supreme ether, there is no notion of middle, beginning, or end—just as there can be no story of a barren woman’s son. It is pure, tranquil, beginningless, free from confusion, and abides in the vast Self, untouched by beginning, middle, or end. If, by supreme strength, the lord of Shiva or the Garuda-bannered one were to ascend there, through meditation upon it, one attains the end of the pure ether. Likewise, the wind, with single-pointed speed, reaches it. Thus, they journeyed, witnessing the marvels of creation and the boundless expanse of the Self.