THE WORLD-ILLUSION AND THE REAL SELF 79

Primal Consciousness shall last. It makes what are our space
and time and basic elements. It makes them what they are
out of Asat(1). That Destiny has also fixed the spans of
human life, varying" in various Yugas, AgeSy Epochs, with
variations in the grades of sin and merit."

Lila : .^Tell me more of Death, 0 Mother !"
Saras vati : (-Three are the kinds of men at time of death :

(a) the ignorant ; (b) the man of practised DhSrana (concen-
tration); [c) the man of Yukti (developed reason, or Yoga).
The latter two. after abandoning the body, go as they please.
The first suffers. Tied to desires and longings unsatisfied,
his condition is truly pitiable. With intelligence unpurified by
Shastras(2), or by association with the good, he burns intern-
ally with terror and confusion, even as one fallen into the fire.
After passing through the pains of dissolution he has memory
of the past, and experiencing the swoon of death he beholds
himself in another body, in another world, with sky, and moon,
and day-light ; and then is called Pr6ta.(8) Six degrees are
there of the Pr6tas, with many further sub-divisions. The
lowest, grossest, and most evil undergo a swoon, and imprison-
ment of consciousness as in the heart of a rock, for a whole
Vatsara(4!). Others have pleasant times. And so each kind and
grade of Pr^ta has its own appropriate experience. And when
their time is ripe, then on the shoulders of the wind and ether
are they borne into the fruits and grains of cereals and plants,
thence into the hearts of men., and finally into the wombs of
mothers, whence they take their birth again as human beings,
And all this process is repeated many times, till all shall pass
into the final Peace, unswervingly;, in the vast course planned

(1) Unreality, non-being.

(2) Scriptures, Soienoes.

(3) IProm pra, beyond, and ita, gone; *gone away', 'departed'.

(4) Year.