Rāma listened attentively as the sage unfolded the mysteries of the mind and creation. “Is this mind truly what it seems, or is it something else?” the sage mused. “How does it come to be, and how do the myriad forms arise—or fail to arise—from it in just an instant?” He explained that each mind possesses its own power to conjure appearances. For every individual, distinct illusions of the world arise, shaped by the mind’s capacity. These worlds—whether lasting a fleeting moment or spanning an entire epoch—come together and dissolve; for some, the cycle completes in the blink of an eye, for others, it stretches across ages. This sequence, the sage said, unfolds immediately after death or from the depths of great delusion. The state emerges swiftly or slowly, depending on the being. The stupor that comes with death and similar conditions is experienced by each individually, marking the path to the great dissolution. Once dissolution occurs, each being separately unfolds its own creation, much like the movements of innate dreams, imaginations, and confusions. At the end of the night of the great dissolution, the cosmic self—whose form is mind—manifests the world anew; similarly, after death, each individual creates their own world. Creation after death is experienced as memory, just as the cosmic self experiences it. Thus, the universe never arises without a cause. “O Rāma,” the sage continued, “at the time of the great dissolution, all beings—including Viṣṇu and Śiva—attain disembodied liberation. How could memory possibly exist then?” One whose self is awakened, like the sage’s own, is necessarily liberated. How then could beings like Brahmā and others, who are disembodied, not be liberated? For those living beings who exist now, memory becomes the cause in the cycles of death and birth, due to the absence of liberation. When a living being, at the end of the stupor of death, seems to awaken within but remains unawakened, that is called the primary state. This state is known as space, as primordial nature, as the unmanifest, both inert and conscious. It marks the sequence of transmigration and forgetfulness at the arising of the world. When that great principle inclines toward awakening and becomes awakened, from that space arise the subtle elements, the directions, time, action, being, and all that follows. The undifferentiated state, not yet awakened, becomes the five senses; when awakened, it becomes the body—this is known as the subtle body. Due to impressions accumulated over a long time, filled with imagination, the subtle body then assumes awareness of physical embodiment. This is how it is for all beings. At the very moment a being dies, it swiftly perceives the entire world-experience as it is, right there. By space alone, it experiences the clear illusion: “I am this world.” The living being, of the nature of space, seems to be born as a self shaped by space. Cities, towns, mountains, suns, clusters of stars—all filled with the signs of old age, death, weakness, and the caverns of disease and distress—rush together with being and non-being, gross and subtle, moving and unmoving. Mountains, earth, rivers, regions, days and nights, the rise and fall of aeons—all are woven into this tapestry. With the conviction, “I was born from this father, in this lineage; this is my mother, this is my wealth,” and the arising of such tendencies, the being is further bound. With notions of good and bad deeds, the fabrications of “mine,” and the play of thoughts—“I was a child, now I am young”—the heart becomes entangled. Thus, in each instance, the thicket of worldly existence arises, blossoming with stars and flowers, trembling leaves like dark clouds, roaming with herds of men and beasts, with gods, demons, and birds. It is a grove dense with the pollen of worlds, the illusion of Māyā, thick with magical bowers. Within this oceanic lotus-pond, with the peaks of Meru and other mountains as mere clods, the seed of the lotus of the mind hides the sprout of experience. Wherever the living being dies, there in an instant he perceives thus; in each world-egg that arises, this happens again and again. Myriads of Brahmas, Rudras, Indras, Maruts, Vishnus, and Suns, along with Meru, oceans, continents, and worlds, have been seen and gone. These visions have gone, will go, and are going, in the undestroyed Reality. Who can count those enriched by Brahman? Thus, this world made of walls does not truly exist apart from thought; and thought itself is only space. That which is consciousness-space alone is regarded as supreme; thought, too, is consciousness-space, and that alone is the highest state. Just as a whirlpool is only water and not a separate substance, so too, the seen exists only as perception, not as an independent reality. In the sky of consciousness, in the space of elements, what appears is like a reflection in a jewel; the world shines as the many-faceted gem of the Self, like a cloud in the sky. The word “world” exists only with reference to my understanding—it is the supreme state. But with reference to your understanding, neither the words “you” nor “I” exist at all. Therefore, O sinless one, Lila and Sarasvati, having assumed forms of space, remain everywhere, unimpeded, from the all-pervading Supreme Self. Wherever and whenever, in that space, as they wish, they manifest themselves; by that, they enter into that house and abide there. Everywhere, the sky of consciousness arises; within it are perception, thought, recollection, and expansion. This is called the supernatural body here, which is not obstructed. So tell me, how, by whom, and in what way could it ever be hindered? As those two goddesses entered, that lotus-mansion appeared before them, beautiful with a pure interior, radiant with the rising of two moons. It was gentle, spotless, fragrant, with a soft, mild breeze; by its influence, the battlefield where kings slept seemed transformed. The mansion was like a garden of fortune and joy, free from disease and pain, a blossoming forest in spring, or a lotus opening at dawn. By the streams of radiance from their bodies, cool as moonlight, he was delighted and awakened—like a king anointed with nectar.