19. He was thus engulfed by Maya. Then the Lord of all beings caught him in his possession.
20. Then five other persons came there and surrounded him.
21. All these hid themselves within the king’s person when the serpents came united to attack.
22. The king then appeared highly resplendent and all his sins disappeared.
23. In him were unified earth, water, fire, air and ether and all their qualities.
Gross Elements (Mahabhutas) are the products of the five subtle elements (tanmatras). They are Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space. According to the Vedantic tradition, out of the subtle element of ether, gross ether comes; out of gross ether, subtle air; out of subtle air, gross air; out of gross air, subtle fire; out of subtle fire, gross fire; out of gross fire, subtle water; out of subtle water, gross water; out of gross water, subtle earth; and out of subtle earth, gross earth. Although the Cosmic gross elements are created thus out of one another, every object in the world is considered to contain all the five elements, but in different proportions. This doctrine of every object containing five elements is called Quintuplication. It is doubtful whether this doctrine can have a scientific basis. Even the doctrine of the five elements being based on the five senses may not be scientific in the modern sense of the term.
The gross elements are symbolic of solid matter, liquid matter, energy matter, and gaseous matter in relation to the first four elements, space remaining as such. They are the transformations of the subtle elements. Otherwise, the correlativity like that between hearing and sound cannot be explained. Reversely the correlativity points to the unitary origin in the ego and finally in the ‘I’ consciousness.
24. Thus Pasupala unified all these that stood around him.
25. Seeing the king then, the tri-coloured person said to him:
26-27. ‘Oh king! I am your son; please command me to do what you wish. We decided to bind you, but were defeated and bound by you, and we now remain hidden in your body. When I have become your son, everything else will arise of its own’.
28. Told thus, the king spoke to the man.
29. ‘You (say you) are my son, and, as a result, other things arise. But I don’t desire to have attachment to any of the pleasures men may have’.
The divine Ground reveals itself only to those in whom there is no ego-centredness or alter-ego-centredness either of will, imagination, feeling or intellect. It is the state of imagelessness in contemplation and, in active life, the state of total non-attachment in which eternity can be apprehended within time; samsara becomes one with nirvana.
The bliss into which the enlightened soul is delivered is something quite different from pleasure associated with the body. Blessedness depends on non-attachment and selflessness. It can, therefore, be enjoyed without satiety and revulsion. It is a participation in eternity and, therefore, remains itself without diminution or fluctuation. The liberated soul attains to bliss eternal and immeasurable, and abides in the Brahman.
30. So saying he released the son, and with him others also. And freed from them, he stood alone.
Agastya said:
1. The king made himself into a tri-coloured being and produced a tri-coloured son named Aham (ego).
Ego is the sense of the ‘I’ in experiences such as ‘I know X’, ‘This is mine’. Its function is to appropriate all experiences to itself. Otherwise, the experiences become impersonal. This is to say that all objective experiences fall within personal experiences and cognitions. Otherwise, there will be no door open even from initial or tentative subjectivism to reach the objective World.
The ego is of three kinds, depending on which of the three attributes is dominant – the transparent ego, the active ego and the static ego. In fact, the three are aspects or phases of the same ego. All the other non-physical categories such as the mind, the five senses, the five organs of action, the five subtle elements and the five gross elements, all of which constitute the world of experience issue out of the ego. It comprehends and covers the entire world. It is not merely related to any one point of reference.
There is no experience that is not the experience of the ego. Neither the mind nor the senses work in the absence of the ego such as ‘I see’, ‘I do’, etc. They work only in unison with the ego. If the ego is not present, the mind does not think, nor do the senses perceive. Yet the Ego is a product of Prakrti or Nature.
The ego is the thought ‘I’. Of all the thoughts that arise in the mind, the ‘I’ thought Is the first. Other thoughts arise later. Holding a form, it comes into being. It stays on as the form is held. It breeds on it and grows strong. It changes form as suddenly as it assumes form.
All suffering revolves around egotism. Egotism is the sole cause of mental distress. Spreading the net of worldly objects of pleasure, it is the egotism that traps the living beings.
Indeed all the terrible calamities in this world are born of egotism. Egotism eclipses self-control, destroys virtue and dissipates equanimity. When one is under the influence of egotism, one is unhappy. Free from egotism, one is ever happy.
Egotism is but an idea based on a false association of the self with the physical elements.
