In the serene expanse of pure consciousness, there is no inherent nature of the great elements, nor any fixed essence of cause anywhere. The cycles of seasons are not measured, and the very notions of existence and nonexistence have no true foundation. There is no essential nature of ‘you’ or ‘I’, no separate self, no ‘that’, no existence or nonexistence; nowhere is there any calculation of difference, nor is there any coloring or tainting by the ideas of being or not-being. All is utterly peaceful—unsupported, pure, clear consciousness, eternal and auspicious, free from affliction, without appearance, nameless, and without cause. It is not existence, nor non-existence, neither a middle nor an end; it is not all, and yet it is wholly all. Mind and speech cannot grasp it; it is neither void nor non-void, and it is supremely eternal. O great Brahman, I have now realized all this. Yet, tell me again—what is it that is seen as creation? The supreme peace, the highest, remains as ‘this’ and ‘that’, but here, there is never any real creation, nor even the notion of creation at any time. Just as water remains in the ocean, so too in the supreme state; though water, by its nature, seems to move, the supreme state is ever unmoving. As light shines in itself, so that state neither shines nor does not shine; what shines is called ‘shining’, but the supreme is known as non-shining. Leaving aside above and below, just as water stirs within the ocean, so, from supreme consciousness, this manifold world appears—yet it is nothing but that supreme. By a mere slight movement, consciousness appears as if it is other; this alone is known as creation, and from peace it subsides into the eternal. Creation is merely a designation for the highest reality—this is the conclusion; it is neither absent nor present within, just as space is within space. Through the mind, creation arises; through absence of mind, creation dissolves. In the supreme, utterly tranquil, the illusion of creation is like a bracelet imagined in gold. Though creation appears to exist, it becomes non-creation when the sense of ownership is relinquished; the unreal attains reality when self-awareness arises from itself. Awareness is the arising of the sense of ‘I’ and the confusion of creation; know that non-awareness is the supreme peace—not mere inertness. By this, creation is not manifold, nor is this manifold; the knower is one, of the nature of auspiciousness—like an army shaped from clay by craftsmen in a book or by their hands. This is complete, without beginning, infinite, and without arising; in the complete, the complete stands established from the very beginning, even with the influx of other completions. Whatever is perceived as creation, that is Brahman, abiding in Brahman; as space rests in space, peace in peace, auspiciousness in auspiciousness. Just as a city reflected in a mirror appears within the mirror to those who look, so, in the Lord, nearness and distance, this and not-this, are all established. The universe arises from the unreal, and even when it appears real, it is always merely an appearance; because it is only a semblance, it is essentially unreal. In this creation, which resembles a city reflected in a mirror, the shimmer of water in a mirage, or the illusion of seeing two moons, where is any true reality? Just as the scattering of magical powder creates the illusion of a city in the sky, so too, within consciousness, the essence and non-essence of samsara appear. As long as ignorance, with its dense branches and thickets, is not completely burned away at the root by the fire of inquiry, it continues to produce various forests of pleasure and pain. Listen, Raghava, to how the dissolution of ignorance—which is woven like a wave of gold and is false—takes place, and how the sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ fades away. That king, Lavana, having witnessed such confusion, set out on the second day to enter that great forest. The suffering he had seen in that wilderness lingered in his memory; sometimes it appeared in the mirror of his mind, sometimes it was vividly experienced. Resolving thus with his ministers, he journeyed southward, and again, for the sake of conquest, reached the Vindhya mountains. Driven by curiosity, he wandered across the entire land along the shores of the great ocean—east, south, and west—like the path of the sun in the sky. Then, in one place, he saw that wild forest looming before him, as if it were a wall, like the very threshold of the next world. Roaming everywhere, he saw and observed all those various events, and, having understood them, he was amazed. He recognized those hunters, the outcaste Pukkasas, standing before him, and with a mind overwhelmed by wonder, he wandered on, bewildered. Eventually, he reached the edge of the great forest, gray with smoke and dust, to that very village where he had once lived as a thriving Pukkasa. There he saw those people, those women, the little huts, the gardens, the streams, and those stretches of land. He saw the sudden ruin, the trees, the herds of cattle, and the very places marked by the events that had occurred there. Elsewhere, among the old women with tearful eyes, afflicted by sorrow, one friend described to another the countless griefs of losing loved ones untimely in the forest. One aged woman, greatly afflicted, her eyes bright with tears, her throat choked, her breasts dried, her body emaciated, wailed in the midst of the place scorched by the fierce fire of grief. “Alas, my son! My body, covered with wounds and weakened by three days without food, is worn out. How, where, did your life depart from your mutilated, decaying body? I remember the garland of gunja berries, the sweet laughter with your wife, the ripe fruit held between your moist teeth, and the playful swinging from the palm tree. In the groves of kadamba, jambira, clove, and gunja, where wild beasts roam, when will I again see my son's leaps and plunges into those terrifying places? Those charming marks are not found on the lips of women who delight in chewing betel; they were on the blue cheek of my son, left by the meat he had eaten. My daughter too was taken away by her husband, and will go to Yama, the lord of death, just as the Yamuna river joins the Yamuna, like a forest wanderer with a cluster of flowers carried by the breeze.” Thus, in that place of memory and illusion, Lavana witnessed the play of sorrow and longing, the ephemeral nature of all experience, and the subtle truth that what is seen as creation is but a passing appearance within the one eternal, peaceful consciousness.