(96) That is, they climb either upward or downward, backward or forward, or crossways, and so the Heart of God is always in the midst or centre, and fitteth itself to every qualifying or fountain spirit.

(33) As assigned, they ascend. After silence, they descend from the third. They praise the second, and afterward the first. The way of ascent is the way of descent.

(2) In a descending line, the hiṅkâra is heaven, the prastâva the sun, the udgîtha the sky, the pratihâra the fire, the nidhana the earth.

(146) Stoop not down, for a precipice lieth beneath the Earth, reached by a descending Ladder which hath Seven Steps, and therein is established the Throne of an evil and fatal force.

(11) is above is generally considered superior in dignity and power, in reality that which is in the center is superior and anterior to both that which is said to be above and that which is said to be below. Therefore, it must be said that the first--which is considered as being above--is actually in the center, while both of the others (which are said to be either above or below) are actually beneath. This point can be further simplified if the reader will consider above as indicating degree of proximity to source and below as indicating degree of distance from source, source being posited in the actual center and relative distance being the various points along the radii from the center toward the circumference. In matters pertaining to philosophy and theology, up may be considered as toward the center and down as toward the circumference. Center is spirit; circumference is matter. Therefore, up is toward spirit along an ascending scale of spirituality; down is toward matter along an ascending scale of materiality. The latter concept is partly expressed by the apex of a cone which, when viewed from above, is seen as a point in the exact center of the circumference formed by the base of the cone.

(6) Verily, Svetaketu Aruneya went up to an assembly of Pancalas. He went up to Pravahana Jaibali while the latter was having himself waited upon. He, looking up, said unto him, f Young man! ' ' Sir!' he replied. f Yes/ said he. a. ' Know you how people here, on deceasing, separate in different directions? ** ' No/ said he. ' Know you how they come back again to this world? ' c No/ said he. 'Know you why yonder world is not filled up with the many who continually thus go hence? ' ' No/ said he. 1 A parallel account is found in Chand. 5. 3-10. 1 6 < Know you in which oblation that is offered the water be- comes the voice of a person, rises up, and speaks? ' ' No,' said he. ' Know you the access of the path leading to the gods, or of the one leading to the fathers? by doing what, people go to the path of the gods or of the fathers? for we have heard the word of the seer: — Two paths, I've heard — the one that leads to fathers, And one that leads to gods — belong to moitals. By these two, every moving thing here travels, That is between the Father and the Mother.'

(24) Further, this Bodhisattva can take from the nadir a Buddha land separated from him by worlds as countless as the sand grains in the Ganges and lift it up to the zenith, which is separated from him by worlds as countless as there are sand grains in the Ganges, with the same case as he picks up a leaf of the date tree with the point of a needle.

(17) Various considerations explain why the Souls going forth from the Intellectual proceed first to the heavenly regions. The heavens, as the noblest portion of sensible space, would border with the least exalted of the Intellectual, and will, therefore, be first ensouled first to participate as most apt; while what is of earth is at the very extremity of progression, least endowed towards participation, remotest from the unembodied.

All the souls, then, shine down upon the heavens and spend there the main of themselves and the best; only their lower phases illuminate the lower realms; and those souls which descend deepest show their light furthest down- not themselves the better for the depth to which they have penetrated.

There is, we may put it, something that is centre; about it, a circle of light shed from it; round centre and first circle alike, another circle, light from light; outside that again, not another circle of light but one which, lacking light of its own, must borrow.

The last we may figure to ourselves as a revolving circle, or rather a sphere, of a nature to receive light from that third realm, its next higher, in proportion to the light which that itself receives. Thus all begins with the great light, shining self-centred; in accordance with the reigning plan this gives forth its brilliance; the later existents add their radiation- some of them remaining above, while there are some that are drawn further downward, attracted by the splendour of the object they illuminate. These last find that their charges need more and more care: the steersman of a storm-tossed ship is so intent on saving it that he forgets his own interest and never thinks that he is recurrently in peril of being dragged down with the vessel; similarly the souls are intent upon contriving for their charges and finally come to be pulled down by them; they are fettered in bonds of sorcery, gripped and held by their concern for the realm of Nature.

If every living being were of the character of the All-perfect, self-sufficing, in peril from no outside influence the soul now spoken of as indwelling would not occupy the body; it would infuse life while clinging, entire, within the Supreme.

(4) Afterwards, about that wonderful shaking out from the earth, they say that a great mountain is the knot of lands; and the passage for the waters within the mountains is the root which is below the mountains; they forsake the upper parts so that they may flow into it, just as the roots of trees pass into the earth; a counterpart (ângunî-aîtak) of the blood in the arteries of men, which gives strength to the whole body.

(255) There is no path through the air, a man is not a Samana by outward acts. No creatures are eternal; but the awakened (Buddha) are never shaken.

(2) They enter into that (red) colour, and they rise from that colour .

(3) The worlds in an ascending and in a descending line belong to him who knowing this meditates on the fivefold Sâman as the worlds .

(4) Now the Line of Tradition (vainsa). — (We [received this teaching] from Pautimashya), Pautimashya from Gaupavana, Gaupavana from Pautimashya, Pautimashya from Gaupavana, Gaupavana from Kausika, Kausika from Kaundinya, Kaundinya from Sandilya, Sandilya from Kausika and Gautama, Gautama [2] from Agnive^ya, Agnivesya from Gargya, Gargya from Gargya, G§rgya from Gautama, Gautama from Saitava, Saitava from Parasaryayana, Parasaryayana from Gargyayana, Gargyayana from Uddalakayana, Uddalakayana from Jabalayana, Jabalayana from Madhyamdinayana, Madhyamdinayana from Saukarayana, Saukarayana from Kashayana, Kashayana from Sayakayana, Sayakayana from Kausikayani, Kau^ikayani [3] from Ghritakausika, Ghritakausika from Parasaryayana, Parasaryayana from Parasarya, Parasarya from Jatukarnya, Jatukarnya from Asurayana and Yaska, Asurayana from Traivani, Traivani from Aupajandhani^ Aupajandhani from Asuri, Asuri from Bharadvaja, Bharadvaja from Atreya, Atreya from Manti, Manti from Gautama, Gautama from Gautama, Gautama from Vatsya, Vatsya from Sandilya, Sandilya from Kaisorya Kapya, Kai^orya Kapya from Kumaraharita, Kumaraharita from Galava, Galava from Vidarbhikaundinya, Vidarbhlkaundinya from Vatsanapat Babhrava, Vatsanapat Babhrava from Pathin Saubhara, Pathin Saubhara from Ayasya Angirasa, Ayasya Angirasa from Abhuti Tvashtra, Abhuti Tvashtra from Vi^varupa Tvashtra, Vi^varupa Tvashtra from the two A^vlns, the two A^vins from Dadhyanc Atharvana, Dadhyanc Atharvana from Atharvan Daiva, Atharvan Daiva from Mrityu Pradhvarhsana, Mrityu Pradhvarhsana from Pradhvarhsana, Pradhvarhsana from Eka Rishi, Eka Rishi from Vipracitti, Vipracitti from Vyashti, Vyashti from Sanaru, Sanaru from Sanatana, Sanatana from Sanaga, Sanaga from Parameshthin, Parameshthin from Brahma. Brahma is the Self-existent (svayam-bhu). Adoration to Brahma!

(4) The lower heart moves like a strong, powerful commander who despises the Heavenly ruler because of his weakness, and has seized for himself the leadership of the affairs of state. But when the primordial castle can be forti ied and defended, then it is as if a strong and wise ruler sat upon the throne. The two eyes start the Light circulating like two ministers at the right and the left who support the ruler with all their might. When the ruler in the centre is thus in order, all those rebellious heroes will present themselves with lances reversed ready to take orders.

(1) When from thence he has risen upwards, he neither rises nor sets. He is alone, standing in the centre. And on this there is this verse:

(1) 'These rivers, my son, run, the eastern (like the Gangâ) toward the east, the western (like the Sindhu) toward the west. They go from sea to sea (i. e. the clouds lift up the water from the sea to the sky, and send it back as rain to the sea). They become indeed sea. And as those rivers, when they are in the sea, do not know, I am this or that river,

(2) According to one's good or bad karma, the vital-force floweth down into either the right or left nerve and goeth out through any of the apertures [of the body]. Then cometh a lucid condition of the mind.

(9) It ascends from ye earth to ye heaven & again it desends to ye earth and receives ye force of things superior & inferior.

(41) By the reading of these properly, those devotees [or yogis] who are advanced in understanding can make the best use of the Transference at the moment of death. They need not traverse the Intermediate State, but will depart by the Great Straight-Upward [Path]. Others who are a little less practiced [in things spiritual], recognizing the Clear Light in the Chonyid Bardo, at the moment of death, will go by the upward [course]. Those lower than these will be liberated — in accordance with their particular abilities and karmic connexions — when one or other of the Peaceful and Wrathful Deities dawneth upon them, during the succeeding [two] weeks, while in the Chonyid Bardo.

(1) All human beings from birth onward live to the realm of sense more than to the Intellectual.

Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make its concerns their first and their last; the sweet and the bitter of sense are their good and evil; they feel they have done all if they live along pursuing the one and barring the doors to the other. And those of them that pretend to reasoning have adopted this as their philosophy; they are like the heavier birds which have incorporated much from the earth and are so weighted down that they cannot fly high for all the wings Nature has given them.

Others do indeed lift themselves a little above the earth; the better in their soul urges them from the pleasant to the nobler, but they are not of power to see the highest and so, in despair of any surer ground, they fall back in virtue's name, upon those actions and options of the lower from which they sought to escape.

But there is a third order- those godlike men who, in their mightier power, in the keenness of their sight, have clear vision of the splendour above and rise to it from among the cloud and fog of earth and hold firmly to that other world, looking beyond all here, delighted in the place of reality, their native land, like a man returning after long wanderings to the pleasant ways of his own country.