CHAPTER XXIX. BALI’S RESUSCITATION TO SENSIBILITY.
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Valmiki and Mitra, Viharilala
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).
10. Why should I desire my emancipation, when I am not confined by or attached to anything here: it is but a childish freak to seek for liberation, when I am not bound or bound to anything below. (The soul is perfectly free of itself, but it is the mind that enchains it to earth).
11. I have no desire of enfranchisement nor fear for incarceration, since the disappearance of my ignorance; what need have I then of meditation, and of what good is meditation to me?
12. Meditation and want of meditation are both mistakes of the mind (there being no efficacy or inefficacy of either). We must depend on our manliness, and hail all that comes to pass on us without rejoicing or shrinking (since all good and evil proceed from God).
13. I require neither thoughtfulness nor thoughtlessness, nor enjoyments nor their privation, but must remain unmoved and firm as one sane and sound.
14. I have no longing for the spiritual, nor craving for temporal things; I have neither to remain in the meditative mood, nor in the state of giddy worldliness.
15. I am not dead (because my soul is immortal); nor can I be living (because the soul is not connected with life). I am not a reality (as the body), nor an unreality (composed of spiritual essence only); nor I am a material or aerial body (being neither this body nor Vital air). Neither am I of this world or any other, but self-same ego—the Great.
16. When I am in this world, I will remain here in quiet; I am not here, I abide calmly in the solace of my soul.
17. What shall I do with my meditation, and what with all my royalty; let any thing come to pass as it may; I am nothing for this or that, nor is anything mine.
18. Though I have nothing to do (because I am not a free agent; nor master of my actions); yet I must do the duties appertaining to my station in society. (Doing the duties of one’s station in life, is reckoned by some as the only obligation of man here below. So says the poet: “Act well thy part, there all the honor lies.”).
19. After ascertaining so in his mind, Bali the wisest of the wise, looked upon the demons with complacence, as the sun looketh upon the lotuses.
20. With the nods and glancings of his eyes, he received their homages; as the passing winds bear the odours of the flowers along with them (meaning to say: His cursory glances bore their regards, as the fleet winds bear the fragrance of flowers the rose).
21. Then Bali ceasing to think on the object of his meditation; accosted them concerning their respective offices under him.
22. He honoured the devas and his gurus with due respect, and saluted his friends and officers with his best regards.
23. He honoured with his largesse, all his servants and suitors; and he pleased the attendant maidens with various persons.
24. So he continued to prosper in every department of his government, until he made up his mind to perform a great sacrifice (yajna) at one time.
25. He satisfied all beings with his great gifts, and gratified the great gods and sages with due honour and veneration. He then commenced the ceremony of the sacrifice under the guidance of Sukra and the chief gurus and priests.
26. Then Vishnu the lord of Lakshmí, came to know that Bali had no desire of earthly fruition; and appeared at his sacrifice to crown him with the success of his undertaking, and confer upon him his desired blessing.
27. He cunningly persuaded him, to make a gift of the world to Indra his elder brother, who was insatiably fond of all kinds of enjoyment. (Indra was elder to Vishnu, who was thence called Upendra or the junior Indra).
28. Having deceived Bali by his artifices of dispossessing him of the three worlds, he shut him in the nether world, as they confine a monkey in a cave under the ground. (This was by Vishnu’s incarnation in the form of a dwarf or puny man, who ＜was＞ considered to be the most cunning among men; multum in parvo; or a man in miniature).
29. Thus Bali continues to remain in his confinement to this day, with his mind fixed in meditation, for the purpose of his attainment of Indraship again in a future state of life.
30. The living liberated Bali, being thus restrained in the infernal cave, looks upon his former prosperity and present adversity in the same light.
31. There is no rising or setting of his intelligence, in the states of his pleasure or pain; but it remained one and the same in its full brightness, like the disk of the sun in a painting.
32. He saw the repeated flux and reflux of worldly enjoyments, and thence settled his mind in an utter indifference about them.
33. He overcame multitudes of the vicissitudes of life for myriads of years, in all his transmigrations, in the three worlds, and found at last, his rest in his utter disregard of all mortal things.
34. He felt thousands of comforts and disquiets, and hundreds of pleasures and privations of life, and after his long experience of these, he found his repose in his perfect quiescence.
35. Bali having forsaken his desire of enjoyments, enjoyed the fulness of his mind in the privation of his wants; and rejoiced in self-sufficiency of his soul, in the loneliness of his subterranean cave.
36. After a course of many years, Bali regained his sovereignty of the world, and governed it for a long time to his heart’s content.
37. But he was neither elated by his elevation to the dignity of Indra—the lord of gods; nor was he depressed at this prostration from prosperity.
38. He was one and the same person in every state of his life, and enjoyed the equanimity of his soul, resembling the serenity of the etherial sphere.
39. I have related to you the whole story of Bali’s attainment of true wisdom, and advise you now, O Ráma! to imitate his example for your elevation, to the same state of perfection.