Endowed with the vast and fearsome fullness of water, earth, space, and sky, I stand here, complete—my being is made of all consciousness, like a single, infinite ocean. In deep contemplation of this state, within the golden cave of a mountain, he sat and uttered the sacred syllable Om, letting it rise and fade gradually, resonant like the ringing of a bell. He knew well that one should not dwell upon the subtle, tender western half of Om—either within or without—even in the supreme heart. With his mind purified of all subtle taints, and his breath merged seamlessly into the heart, he remained still, clear and open as the autumn sky free from clouds, steadfast as a mountain of stone. Thus was Kaca, absorbed in this state. Now, apart from food, drink, and contact with women, there is nothing here; what truly great, auspicious, or unfailing thing should one desire? How can the virtuous find delight in pleasures that satisfy only beasts, the ignorant, and the wicked? Those who place their trust in such pleasures—miserable, fleeting, and perishable from beginning to end—are fit only for the company of donkeys in hell. What is this body of a woman but hair and blood? Dogs may find satisfaction in such things, but not the wise. Clay is earth, wood is trees, the body is flesh, stone is mountain; below is ground, above is sky—what, then, is truly new or brings happiness in this world? All worldly experiences, arising from sense contact, are unstable in the light of discernment; they are grasped only for the sake of delusion. At the end of everything, even the most auspicious existence, impurity and suffering remain—just as soot lingers after a flame. The actions of the mind and the six senses are impermanent, arising and passing away; like a creeping vine unable to support a great serpent, they do not uphold the path of truth. With affection, one calls a mass of blood and flesh “my beloved daughter,” but what logic is there in clinging to a pile of bones named “my own body”? O Rama, all this appears real and stable only to satisfy the ignorant; for the wise, the world is unstable and unreal, offering no true satisfaction. Even without being consumed, this world intoxicates like poison; abandon attachment to it, and attain the knowledge of the oneness of the Self. When the mind mistakes the non-self for the self and comes to rest there, the web of the world—woven of unreality—arises. By the force of latent impressions, the mind of Brahman imagines a body; just as a wall coated with gold appears golden, so does the Self seem thus. O wise Brahman, having attained the state of the Creator, how does the mind gradually bring about the apparent solidity of this world? Rising from the womb-bed, the first child, born from the lotus, uttered the word “Brahma”—thus, he is known as Brahmā. For the mind, whose nature is a web of imagination, he established an abode for the fortune of imagination, in another realm. There, he first imagined a radiant light of great splendor, shining like a circle of blazing fire, turning all directions golden. This light was filled with clusters of harsh fire-sparks, woven like constellations, its sky tinged pale at the edges, adorned with golden forests. Its mass was a tangle of golden flames and blazing fire, adorned with wildly spreading, shining golden earrings. Within that brilliant light, the mind, embodying itself in that form, imagined the sun, shaped like the self. From that light, the sun arose, dwelling in the midst of a circle of flames, wearing blazing golden earrings. He bore flame-locks, exhaling and expanding fire, his limbs playing with flames, filling the entire sphere of the sky. Then Brahma, of great intellect, suddenly, by a flash of insight, fashioned those other particles of light into beautiful aerial vehicles. In an instant, he conceived them and saw them just as he had imagined; as one perceives groups of sounds, so did the wise one perceive the arising of these creations. This, O mighty-armed one, is the process by which the self-born creates anew; each day and for each world, the gods and demons are conjured by his thought. He imagined time, its divisions, the stars and planets, rivers, oceans, islands, directions, mountains, and the earth itself. This Brahma imagined gods, demons, humans, serpents, gandharvas, yakshas, and rakshasas, just as the ocean produces waves. He devised their regions, their mountains, their splendid aerial vehicles, and assigned their various actions; the lotus-born arranged all these. They too, having attained perfection through thought and possessing all powers, instantly saw before them whatever they had conceived. Then they imagined many other groups of beings; those beings, in turn, imagined others, and those yet more, of various kinds. Recalling the Vedas and the qualities of the sacrificial rituals, Brahma established the boundaries for the world, as one would for a housewife. Assuming the divine form, the mind-created vast body produces this creation, teeming with the succession of beings. He made worlds adorned with oceans, mountains, and trees, with realms stretching between worlds, and regions marked by the peaks of Meru, the earth’s seat, directions, forests, and tangled masses. This creation is struck by pleasure and pain, old age, birth, death, and disease; pierced by passion, aversion, and fear; its very essence composed of the three qualities. Whatever was imagined by those minds, arisen from Brahma in the past, so it was seen in its entirety—and even now it is perceived through illusion. Thus, in all creations, the unborn one, in some cases or perhaps in all, imagines the cycle of existence and perceives it as stable.