And this was their being, filled with all the fullness of the Brahma, their community with the highest god, their blessedness, their prayerfulness, their bliss.
But if they had in Brahma the central point about which everything else was collected, yet this Brahma-world was also, though boundless, nevertheless, in a sense, limited. As the prescient eye of man, even in far-distant ages, discovered a “zodiac” in the dome of heaven, so the gods of the stars here saw untold zodiacs described in and about one another, weaving throughout the spheres pictures in which the most distant groups of stars resolved themselves into luminous figures. Now intertwined so that one star shone as an inherent part of several pictures, again flashing in lonely exclusiveness, objects appeared there, astral forms of all the beings that live and move on the worlds, or between these, abiding pictures of the original forms of all that, wrapping itself in the great elements, ceaselessly comes into being and passes away in the changeful river of life.
And this beholding of the original forms was their knowledge of the worlds.
But because, being all-seeing, they were able without having to look away from this in order to see that, and, without even the flutter of an eyelid, to behold at one glance the unity of God and the multiplicity of the world-beings—the knowledge of God and the knowledge of the worlds became for them one and the same thing. If, however, a human being turns his gaze upon the divine unity, then the many forms of the changing universe would escape him; and, on the other hand, were he to look upon these, he could no longer hold in view the unity of God. They, however, saw, at one and the same moment, centre and circle; and, for that reason, their knowledge was unified knowledge, never unstable, and a prey to no doubt.
Throughout this whole luminous Brahma-world, time now flowed on silently and imperceptibly. As in a perfectly clear stream, which glides quietly and smoothly along, and whose waters are neither obstructed nor broken by any resistance, there is not the least movement to be perceived, so here, the passage of time was just as imperceptible, because it experienced no resistance from the rise or fall of thought and feeling.
This imperceptible passage of time was their eternity. And this eternity was a delusion. So also was all that it embraced—their knowledge, their godliness, their joy in existence, their world-life, their love-life, and their own individual life—all was steeped in delusion—was overlaid with the colour of delusion.
XXXIX
The Dusk of the Worlds
There came a day when a feeling of discomfort, the consciousness of a void, arose in Kamanita.
And involuntarily his thoughts turned to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma, as the source of all fullness. But the feeling was not thereby removed. On the contrary, it increased almost perceptibly with the passing of the years, from one decade of thousands to another.
For from that awakened feeling, the tranquil stream of time, which had hitherto flowed imperceptibly by, encountered resistance as from an island suddenly risen in its midst, on whose rocky cliffs it began to break in foam as it flowed past. And at once there arose a “before” and an “after” the rapids.
And it seemed to Kamanita as though the hundred-thousandfold Brahma did not now shine quite as brightly as formerly.
After he had observed the Brahma, however, for five millions of years, it seemed to Kamanita as though he had now observed him for a long time without reaching any certainty.
And he turned his attention to Vasitthi.
Upon which he became aware that she also was observing the Brahma attentively.
Which filled him with dismay. And with dismay came feeling; with feeling, came thought; with thought, the speech for its utterance.
And he spoke.
“Vasitthi, dost thou also see it? What is happening to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma?”
After a hundred thousand years, Vasitthi answered—
“What is happening to the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is that his brightness is diminishing.”
“It seems so to me also,” said Kamanita, after the passage of a like period of time. “True, that can be but a passing phenomenon. And yet I must confess that I am astonished at the possibility of any change whatever in the hundred-thousandfold Brahma.”
After a considerable time—after several millions of years—Kamanita spoke again—
“I do not know that I am not perhaps dazzled by the light. Dost thou, Vasitthi, notice that the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is again increasing?”
After five hundred thousand years, Vasitthi answered—
“The brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma does not increase, but steadily decreases.”
As a piece of iron that, taken white-hot from the smithy fire, very soon after becomes red-hot, so the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma had now taken on a red shimmer.
“I wonder what that may signify,” said Kamanita.
“That signifies, my friend, that the brightness of the hundred-thousandfold Brahma is in process of being extinguished.”
“Impossible, Vasitthi, impossible! What would then become of all the brightness and the splendour of this whole Brahma-world?”
“He had that in mind when he said—
“ ‘Upward to heaven’s sublimest light, life presses—and decays.
Know, that the future will even quench the glow of Brahma’s rays.’ ”
After the short space of but a few thousand years came Kamanita’s anxious and breathless question—
“Who ever uttered that frightful, that world-crushing sentence?”
“Who other than he, the Master, the Knower of Men, the Perfect One, the Buddha.”
Then Kamanita became thoughtful. For a considerable length of time he pondered upon these words, and recalled many things. Then he spoke—
“Once already, Vasitthi, in Sukhavati, in the Paradise of the West, thou didst repeat a saying of the Buddha which was fulfilled before our eyes. And I remember that thou didst then faithfully report to me a whole speech of the Master’s in which that saying occurred. This world-crushing utterance was not, however, contained in it. So thou hast then, Vasitthi, heard yet other speeches by the Master?”
“Many, my friend, for I saw him daily for more than half a year; yes, I even heard the last words
