February 17, 2026
VASIṢṬHA continued:
That is known as mokṣa or liberation when ignorance ceases through self-enquiry, when the jīva becomes no-jīva instantly and when the mind becomes no-mind. Since the egosense etc., are but like water in the mirage, they cease when the light of enquiry is directed to them. In this connection, O Rāma, listen to the following inspiring and enlightening questions asked by a vampire.
There lives a vampire in the Vindhya forests. Once it entered a certain territory, desirous of appeasing its hunger. However, it would not kill anyone even when it was hungry unless the victim deserved such treatment. Finding no such person in the forest, it entered a city and met the king.
The VAMPIRE said to the king:
O king, I shall not kill you and eat you unless you deserve it. You are the ruler and you fulfil the wishes of the needy. Pray, fulfil my desire. I shall ask you a few questions, give me the correct answers to them.
What is that sun the particles of whose rays are these universes? In what mighty wind does this mighty space manifest? One goes from one dream to another dream ad infinitum, yet one does not abandon the self, though constantly abandoning the dream-reality. What is the self? The stem of a banana tree, when it is opened, reveals layer after layer until you reach the pith. What is that subtle essence when this world-appearance is similarly enquired into? Of which atom are the universes themselves minuter atoms? In what formless “rock” are the three worlds hidden (like an unsculpted figure in a rock)? Answer these questions. If you do not you certainly deserve to be eaten by me!
The KING answered:
O vampire! This universe was once enveloped by a series of coverings, even as a fruit is enveloped by its skin. There was a branch on which there were thousands of such fruits. There was a tree with thousands of such branches, a forest with thousands of such trees, a hill with thousands of such forests, a country with thousands of such hills, a continent with thousands of such countries, a sphere with thousands of such continents, an ocean with thousands of such spheres, a being with thousands of such oceans within him and a supreme person who wears thousands of such beings as a garland. There is a sun in whose rays thousands of such supreme persons are found: that sun illumines all. That sun is the sun of consciousness, O vampire. In that light of the sun, these universes are but minutest atomic particles. It is because of the light of that sun that all these other things enumerated appear to be real.