Argument. Self-confinement of the Living-liberated Bali in the Infernal Regions.
Vasishtha related:—After the thousand years of the celestials, had rolled on in Bali’s unconsciousness; he was roused to his sensibility, at the beating of heavenly drums by the gods above (the loud peal of clouds).
2. Bali being awake, his city (Mavalipura) was renovated with fresh beauty, as the lotus-bed is revivified by the rising sun in the eastern horizon (Vairincha or Brahma-loka, placed at the sunrising points).
3. Bali not finding the demons before him after he was awaked, fell to the reflecting of the reveries during his state of entrancement (Samádhi).
4. O how charming! said he, was that cooling rapture of spiritual delight, in which my soul had been enrapt for a short time.
5. O how I long to resume that state of felicity! because these outward enjoyments which I have relished to my fill, have ceased to please me any more.
6. I do not find the waves of those delights even in the orb of the moon, as I felt in the raptures which undulated in my soul, during the entranced state of my insensibility.
7. Bali was again attempting to resume his state of inexcitability, when he was interrupted by the attendant demons, as the moon is intercepted by the surrounding clouds.
8. He cast a glancing look upon them, and was going to close his eyes in meditation; after making his prostration on the ground; but was instantly obtruded upon by their gigantic statures standing all around him.
9. He then reflected in himself and said: The intellect being devoid of its option, there is nothing for me to desire; but the mind being fond of pleasures vainly pursues after them: (which it cannot fully gain, enjoy or long retain).