(383) Stop the stream valiantly, drive away the desires, O Brâhmana! When you have understood the destruction of all that was made, you will understand that which was not made.

(4) Verily, while we are here we may know this. If you have known it not, great is the destruction. Those who know this become immortal, But others go only to sorrow.

(3) Verily, O Gargi, that Imperishable is the unseen Seer, the unheard Hearer, the unthought Thinker, the ununderstood Understander. Other than It there is naught that sees. Other than It there is naught that hears. Other than It there is naught that thinks. Other than It there is naught that understands. Across this Imperishable, O Gargi, is space woven, warp and woof.'

(14) It is said, that life is in the hand of that foremost man, at the end of his years, who has constructed the most defences around this earth, until the renovation of the universe is requisite.

(6) Now a difference existed among the imperishable aeons. Let us, then, consider (it) this way: Everything that came from the perishable will perish, since it came from the perishable. Whatever came from imperishableness will not perish but will become imperishable, since it came from imperishableness. So, many men went astray because they had not known this difference; that is, they died.

(2) 'Whatever there is, the whole world, when gone forth (from the Brahman), trembles in its breath. That Brahman is a great terror, like a drawn sword. Those who know it become immortal.'

(3) Verily, O Gargi, if one pei forms sacrifices and worship and undergoes austerity in this world for many thousands of years, but without knowing that Imperishable, limited indeed is that [work] of his. Verily, 0 Gargi, he who departs from this world without knowing that Imperishable is pitiable But, O Gargi, he who departs from this world knowing that Imperishable is a Brahman.

(16) And Aûharmazd spoke thus: 'You are not omniscient and almighty, O evil spirit! so that it is not possible for thee to destroy me, and it is not possible for thee to force my creatures so that they will not return to my possession.'

(3) 'From terror of Brahman fire burns, from terror the sun burns, from terror Indra and Vâyu, and Death, as the fifth, run away.'

(4) And no passage was found by the evil spirit, who rushed back; and he beheld the annihilation of the demons and his own impotence, as Aûharmazd, did his own final triumph, producing the renovation of the universe for ever and everlasting.

(11) When one is so far advanced that every shadow and every echo has disappeared, so that one is quite quiet and firm, it is safe within the cave of power, where all that is miraculous returns to its roots. The place is not changed but divides itself. It is incorporeal space where a thousand and ten thousand places are one place. The time is not changed, but divides itself. It is immeasurable time when all the aeons are like a moment.

(11) He hath given to me that beautiful Amenta in which the living are destroyed. But strong is its possessor though he faint in it daily

(18) Know, therefore, generally, my son, that all that is in Cosmos is being moved for increase or for decrease. Now that which is kept moving, also lives; but there is no necessity that that which lives, should be all same. For being simultaneous, the Cosmos, as a whole, is not subject to change, my son, but all its parts are subject unto it; yet naught [of it] is subject to corruption, or destroyed. It is the terms employed that confuse men. For 'tis not genesis that constituteth life, but 'tis sensation; it is not change that constituteth death, but 'tis forgetfulness. Since, then, these things are so, they are immortal all - Matter, [and] Life, [and] Spirit, Mind [and] Soul, of which whatever liveth, is composed.

(4) But matters are involved here which demand specific investigation and cannot be treated as incidental merely to our present problem. We are faced with several questions: Is the heavenly system exposed to any such flux as would occasion the need of some restoration corresponding to nourishment; or do its members, once set in their due places, suffer no loss of substance, permanent by Kind? Does it consist of fire only, or is it mainly of fire with the other elements, as well, taken up and carried in the circuit by the dominant Principle?

Our doctrine of the immortality of the heavenly system rests on the firmest foundation once we have cited the sovereign agent, the soul, and considered, besides, the peculiar excellence of the bodily substance constituting the stars, a material so pure, so entirely the noblest, and chosen by the soul as, in all living beings, the determining principle appropriates to itself the choicest among their characteristic parts. No doubt Aristotle is right in speaking of flame as a turmoil, fire insolently rioting; but the celestial fire is equable, placid, docile to the purposes of the stars.

Still, the great argument remains, the Soul, moving in its marvellous might second only to the very loftiest Existents: how could anything once placed within this Soul break away from it into non-being? No one that understands this principle, the support of all things, can fail to see that, sprung from God, it is a stronger stay than any bonds.

And is it conceivable that the Soul, valid to sustain for a certain space of time, could not so sustain for ever? This would be to assume that it holds things together by violence; that there is a "natural course" at variance with what actually exists in the nature of the universe and in these exquisitely ordered beings; and that there is some power able to storm the established system and destroy its ordered coherence, some kingdom or dominion that may shatter the order founded by the Soul.

Further: The Kosmos has had no beginning- the impossibility has been shown elsewhere- and this is warrant for its continued existence. Why should there be in the future a change that has not yet occurred? The elements there are not worn away like beams and rafters: they hold sound for ever, and so the All holds sound. And even supposing these elements to be in ceaseless transmutation, yet the All persists: the ground of all the change must itself be changeless.

As to any alteration of purpose in the Soul we have already shown the emptiness of that fancy: the administration of the universe entails neither labour nor loss; and, even supposing the possibility of annihilating all that is material, the Soul would be no whit the better or the worse.

(25) In that state wherein thou art existing, there is being experienced by thee, in an unbearable intensity, voidness and Brightness inseparable — the Voidness bright by nature and the Brightness by nature void, and the Brightness inseparable from the Voidness — a state of the primordial [or unmodified] intellect, which is the Adi-Kaya. And the power of this, shining unobstructedly, will radiate everywhere; it is the Nirmana-Kaya.

(3) * Yajnavalkya/ said he, * when a man dies, what does not leave him? ' All-gods. An endless world he wins thereby.'

(5) He who knowing this loudly pronounces (pranauti) - that syllable, enters the same (imperishable) syllable, the Svara, the immortal, free from fear, and having entered it, becomes immortal, as the Devas are immortal.

(3) Having taken the Upanishad as the bow, as the great weapon, let him place on it the arrow, sharpened by devotion! Then having drawn it with a thought directed to that which is, hit the mark, O friend, viz. that which is the Indestructible!

(4) A certain thing of this kind also may take place in the harmony and crasis of the universe: for the same things may be the salvation of the whole, through the perfection of the things inherent and the recipients; but may be noxious to the parts, through their partible privation of symmetry. In the motion, therefore, of the universe, all the circulations preserve the whole world invariably the same; but some one of the parts is frequently injured by another part, which we see is sometimes the case in a dance. Again, therefore, corruptibility and mutability are passions connascent with partial natures. But it is not proper to ascribe these to wholes and first causes, either as if they existed in them, or as if they proceeded to terrestrial substances from them. Hence, through these things it is demonstrated, that neither the celestial Gods, nor their gifts, are effective of evil.

(32) He (Aûharmazd) sets the vault into which the evil spirit fled, in that metal; he brings the land of hell back for the enlargement of the world; the renovation arises in the universe by his will, and the world is immortal for ever and everlasting.