It Is Reborn; It Lives And Dies In New
Lokas Or Spheres, Which Gradually Become Purer And More Subjective.
At Last, Having Got Rid Of Every Shadow Of Earthly Thoughts And
Desires, It Becomes Nothing From A Material Point Of View.
It is
extinguished like a flame, and, having become one with Parabrahm,
it lives the life of spirit, of which neither our material conception
nor our language can give any idea.
But the eternity of Parabrahm
is not the eternity of the soul. The latter, according to a Vedanta
expression, is an eternity in eternity. However holy, the life of
a soul had its beginning and its end, and, consequently, no sins
and no good actions can be punished or rewarded in the eternity of
Parabrahm. This would be contrary to justice, disproportionate,
to use an expression of Vedanta philosophy. Spirit alone lives in
eternity, and has neither beginning nor end, neither limits nor
central point. The Deva lives in Parabrahm, as a drop lives in
the ocean, till the next regeneration of the universe from Pralaya;
a periodical chaos, a disappearance of the worlds from the region
of objectivity. With every new Maha-yuga (great cycle) the Deva
separates from that which is eternal, attracted by existence in
objective worlds, like a drop of water first drawn up by the sun,
then starting again downwards, passing from one region to another,
and returning at last to the dirt of our planet. Then, having
dwelt there whilst a small cycle lasted, it proceeds again upwards
on the other side of the circle. So it gravitates in the eternity
of Parabrahm, passing from one minor eternity to another. Each
of these "human," that is to say conceivable, eternities consists
of 4,320,000,000 years of objective life and of as many years of
subjective life in Parabrahm, altogether 8,640,000,000 years,
which are enough, in the eyes of the Vedantins, to redeem any
mortal sin, and also to reap the fruit of any good actions
performed in such a short period as human life. The individuality
of the soul, teaches the Vedanta, is not lost when plunged in
Parabrahm, as is supposed by some of the European Orientalists.
Only the souls of bhutas - when the last spark of repentance and
of tendency to improvement are extin-guished in them - will evaporate
for ever. Then their divine spirit, the undying part of them,
separates from the soul and returns to its primitive source; the
soul is reduced to its primordial atoms, and the monad plunges into
the darkness of eternal unconsciousness. This is the only case of
total destruction of personality.
Such is the Vedanta teaching concerning the spiritual man. And
this is why no true Hindu believes in the disembodied souls
voluntarily returning to earth, except in the case of bhutas.
Jubblepore
Leaving Malva and Indore, the quasi-independent country of Holkar,
we found ourselves once more on strictly British territory. We
were going to Jubblepore by railway.
This town is situated in the district of Saugor and Nerbudda;
once it belonged to the Mahrattis, but, in 1817, the English army
took possession of it. We stopped in the town only for a short
time, being anxious to see the celebrated Marble Rocks. As it
would have been a pity to lose a whole day, we hired a boat and
started at 2 A.M., which gave us the double advantage of avoiding
the heat, and enjoying a splendid bit of the river ten miles from
the town.
The neighborhood of Jubblepore is charming; and besides, both a
geologist and a mineralogist would find here the richest field for
scientific researches. The geological formation of the rocks offers
an infinite variety of granites; and the long chains of mountains
might keep a hundred of Cuviers busy for life. The limestone caves
of Jubblepore are a true ossuary of antediluvian India; they are
full of skeletons of mon-strous animals, now disappeared for ever.
At a considerable distance from the rest of the mountain ridges,
and perfectly separate, stand the Marble Rocks, a most wonderful
natural phenomenon, not very rare, though, in India. On the
flattish banks of the Nerbudda, overgrown with thick bushes, you
suddenly perceive a long row of strangely-shaped white cliffs.
They are there without any apparent reason, as if they were a wart
on the smooth cheek of mother nature. White and pure, they are
heaped up on each other as if after some plan, and look exactly
like a huge paperweight from the writing-table of a Titan. We
saw them when we were half-way from the town. They appeared and
disappeared with the sudden capricious turnings of the river;
trembling in the early morning mist like a distant, deceitful
mirage of the desert. Then we lost sight of them altogether.
But just before sunrise they stood out once more before our
charmed eyes, floating above their reflected image in the water.
As if called forth by the wand of a sorcerer, they stood there on
the green bank of the Nerbudda, mirroring their virgin beauty on
the calm surface of the lazy stream, and promising us a cool and
welcome shelter.... And as to the preciousness of every moment of
the cool hours before sunrise, it can be appreciated only by those
who have lived and traveled in this fiery land.
Alas! in spite of all our precautions, and our unusually early
start, our enjoyment of this cool retreat was very short-lived.
Our project was to have prosaic tea amid these poetic surroundings;
but as soon as we landed, the sun leaped above the horizon, and
began shooting his fiery arrows at the boat, and at our unfortunate
heads. Persecuting us from one place to another, he banished us,
at last, even from under a huge rock hanging over the water. There
was literally no place where we could seek salvation. The snow-white
marble beauties became golden red, pouring fire-sparks into the river,
heating the sand and blinding our eyes.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 89 of 95
Words from 89437 to 90449
of 96531
