Then the Buddha likeness smiled an illuminating smile.
“Now I am able to see the face,” said Kamanita. “Like a reflection in flowing water I recognise it vaguely. Oh, hold it fast, steady it, Vasitthi.”
Vasitthi looked around her in space.
Space was empty.
Then Vasitthi flung her own corporal substance into the astral mass of the vision.
Kamanita observed that Vasitthi had disappeared. But as one who is dying leaves a legacy, so had Vasitthi left to Kamanita the Buddha likeness, which remained alone with him in space and which he now clearly recognised.
“That old ascetic with whom I spent the night in Rajagriha and whom I blamed for his foolishness, that was the Perfect One! Oh fool that I was! Was there ever a greater fool than I? What I have been longing for as the highest happiness, as salvation itself, that I have already been in possession of for milliards of years.”
Then the vision of the Buddha drew near like an oncoming cloud and enveloped him in a luminous mist.
XLV
Night and Morning in the Spheres
As in a banquet hall, when all the torches and lamps are extinguished, one little lamp is left burning before a sacred picture in a corner, so Kamanita was left behind, alone, in universal night.
For just as his body was enfolded by the astral substance of that Buddha likeness, so his soul was completely absorbed by the Buddha thought; and that was the oil which fed the flame of this little lamp.
The whole conversation he had had with the Master in the outer hall of the potter’s house at Rajagriha rose up before him from beginning to end, sentence by sentence, word by word. But after he had gone quite through it, he began again at the beginning. And every sentence was to him like a gate that stood at the head of the way to new avenues of thought which, in their turn, led to others. And he explored them all with measured step, and there was nothing which remained dark to him.
And while his spirit, in such fashion, wove the Buddha thought into its own fabric until its last strand was exhausted, his body absorbed ever more of the astral matter which surrounded it, until what remained at last became transparent. And the darkness of universal night began to appear as a delicate blue that became ever darker.
Whereupon Kamanita thought—
“Out there reigns the vast darkness of universal night. But a time will come when morning shall dawn and a new Brahma world come into existence. If my thoughts and acts were but to be directed towards becoming the hundred-thousandfold Brahma whose office it will be to call the new world into existence, I do not see who would be likely to outrival me. For while all the beings of this Brahma world have sunk into helplessness and nonexistence, I am here at my post, watchful, and in full possession of my faculties. Yes, I could if I so wished, at this instant, summon all those beings into life, each in his place, and begin the new world day. But one thing I could not do—I could never again call Vasitthi into being. Vasitthi has gone, in that passing away which leaves no seed of existence behind; neither god nor Brahma can find her. But what can life be to me without Vasitthi, who was its fairest and best? And what to me can a Brahma existence be, a life beyond which one is able to pass? And what the temporal, when there is an eternal?
“There is an eternal and a way to the eternal.
“An old forest Brahman once taught me that round about the heart a hundred fine arteries are spun, by means of which the soul is able to range throughout the whole body; that there is, however, but one which leads to the crown of the head—that one by which the soul leaves the body. So there are also a hundred, yes, a thousand and a hundred thousand ways which lead hither and thither in this world, through many scenes of suffering, both where the probation is of long, and where it is of short, duration, where all is beautifully appointed and where all is hatefully appointed, through divine and human worlds, through animal kingdoms and underworlds. But there is only one way which leads absolutely out of this universe. That is the way to the eternal, the way to the untraversed land. I am now on that road. Well, then, I shall tread it to its end.”
And he continued to dwell on the Buddha thought, of the way which leads to the end of all suffering.
And ever darker became the blue of the diaphanous universal night.
But when it began to grow almost black, the new Brahma flashed into existence, the hundred-thousandfold Brahma, who illumines and preserves a hundred thousand worlds.
And the Brahma sent forth a joyous summons to awake.
“Wake up, ye beings, all who have rested throughout the whole of creation’s night in the lap of nothingness! Hither, to form the new Brahma universe, to enjoy the new world day, each one in his place, each one according to his strength!”
And the beings and worlds came forth from the darkness of the void, star by star, and the jubilant shouts of a hundred thousand voices and the sound as of a hundred thousand drums and conch-horns rang in the answer—
“Hail! the hundred-thousandfold Brahma who calls us to the new universe and the new day! Hail to us who are called to share the new day with him, and to reflect in bliss his divine glory!”
When Kamanita saw and heard all this he was filled with deep pity.
“These beings and these worlds, these stellar gods, and the hundred-thousandfold Brahma himself shout for joy to welcome the world day—rejoice in life. And why?
