The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, Vol. 2 (of 4), Part 2 (of 2)

by Valmiki

33. There are multitudes of living beings in other worlds also, some of whom have become as the lotus-born Brahmá, and others as Hara (the Horus of the Egyptian trinity).

34. There are others who have become as gods and brute creatures in them, and there are snakes and other reptiles also in them as well as in this earth. (Astronomers have descried kine in the moon, and Hindoos have found it to abound in deer, whence the moon is called mrigánka by them. So are the constellations in the heavens).

35. There are other worlds as obvious to view as this earth (in the starry heavens), and there are many such worlds that have gone by, and are yet to appear (in the immensity of space).

36. There are various other creatures of different shapes, produced by various unknown causes in the other worlds also, which have their growths and deaths like those of this earth.

37. Some are produced as Gandharvas, and others as Yakshas (the Yakkas at Ceylon); and some are generated as Suras (Sorians); and some others as Asuras (Assyrians) and Daityas (demons).

38. The manners and modes of life of the peoples in other parts of the globe, are as those of the men living in this part of the earth.

39. All creatures move according to their own natures and mutual relations for ever more, as the waves and currents of a river move forward, following and followed by others in regular succession.

40. The whole creation moves onward in eternal progression, in its course of evolution and involution, and in its motions of ascension and descension like the waves of the ocean.

41. In this manner do the multitudes of living beings, proceed from the Supreme Spirit, who with the consciousness of their self-existence, rise from and fall at last into it. (The consciousness of the universal soul, is divided into the individual souls of beings, that are derived and detached from it).

42. All created beings are detached from their source, like the light from the lamp and the solar rays from the sun; they are like sparks of red hot iron, and the scintillation of fire.