6.4    THE STORY OF SILĀ, A GRANITE

Summary. In this story it is sought to exemplify the fact that all things, though appearing different, are no other than Brahmic Light.

Vasiṣṭha continued: “O Rāma of exquisite beauty, again listen to another story. There is a glorious huge granite rock which is impartite, strong, soft and endless in its dimensions. Out of it, lotuses beyond number have risen and bloomed. Their leaves are tacked on, one to another and close-set. Some are visible and some invisible; some became the higher ones and some, the lower. Some are firm in their own state. Innumerable are the shells cropping up in the middle of these lotuses having no root. Discuses also grow up in great numbers between the lotuses. Here Rāma remarked that he observed one such huge granite in the rock of Śālagrāma1 whereon Viṣṇu stood. The Muni continued: “The granite I referred to is not one that you have ever witnessed. I applied the word granite to the Chit in the heart in which are the different states of all the worlds. The granite is no other than the Jñāna in the heart containing the worlds which are one and yet many. In this non-dual and obdurate Jñāna-rock are the hosts of universes like the air pervading the Ākāśa. Earth, Ākāśa, Vāyu, mountains and the quarters even when combined, will not make up even an infinitesimal small particle of this rock. In this beautiful one are to be found the sacred marks of lotus, discus and conch2. It may be said to be in the Suṣupti state. All the universes are but Jñāna itself, like parts of a rock which are no other than the rock itself. The wise say it will ever be as it was before. Though, like the granite rock, there are absorbed in the heart heterogeneous universes with their various marks, yet Chit is non-dual without any differences. Like the analogy of a forest of lotuses appearing (at a distance) like one stone, all the universes without being differentiated in Jñāna are one replete Chit. Have you ever seen lotuses and the like hatched or generated out of a big rock? Similarly are the three worlds (not born out of and absorbed into Jñāna) but the light of Jñāna only. As in the afore-mentioned illustration of the marrow of the Bilva fruit, the many mundane eggs that have differentiated merge into the one Chit. But you should not conclude therefrom that it is many. The Sat-aspect of Brahman manifests itself as this grand varied universe of forms which are like lotuses in a granite. Then they will reach the state of Ātma conquered through Suṣupti, quiescence and equality of mind and Jñāna. All these ephemeral creations are of no avail and will not ever be composed of these diverse forms.”