THE WORLD-ILLUSION AND THE REAL SELF 77

his thought. Then she worshipped me as thou hast done, and
prayed not to be widowed any time. I granted her that
prayer, and so she had to die before Viduratha and now she
has passed on to the Padma-world, and there her form is even
as it was here. After quitting' this body she went forth into
space, and there she met a virgin whom I sent to guide her,
and who led her through the stretches of this Brahmanda,.
through its elemental shells, into that other Brahmanda,
where the Padma-world is situate. There she saw her husband^
believing she still retains the body she was wearing here ; and
Padma, too, reviving, beholds her, and she and they and all
the retinue about the palace regard each other as before the
death-swoon of king Padma."

Lila : ^Why did she not go on in this same body ? Such
was thy boon to her."

Sarasvati: "Unenlightened beings may not go to Siddha-
worlds in their own bodies, even as shadows may not go into
the sunshine. Such are the laws fixed at the first creation, and
they may not be transgressed. While the man believes, t! am
composed of earth and cannot fly in space,' truly he cannot
do so. It is enough that she believes that she has retained her
own old body, this is all that can be done by boon or curse."

Sarasvati continued : "They that know what it is most
worth while to know, and also give themselves up to the

imagination" "becomes intelligible. There was one Jiva called Lila»
using the vehicles created by the imagination of the Jiva called Padma,
in the astral, Vidnratha in the manasic, world; so the vehicles Padma
and Yiduratha were created by the imagination of the Jiva called Lila in
both worlds; the relation between the Jivas was enduring, the vehicles
were merely the reflections, in the outer space, of the action in the
consciousness of each due to that relation.

The worship of Sarasvati by the "two" Lilas, and. the prayer utiered
by each, are interesting as showing the identity of the Jiva manife&ted
in both. A.B.]