Sri Rama
O Lord, you are like sun for the day called Self-knowledge. You are like fire for my tender grass leaf called doubt. You are like moon to the heat called ignorance. Please tell me : What is 'satta samanya' (generic or pure existence)?
Sri Vasista
When 'citta' (the thinking mind) declines, all imaginations, thoughts and ideas cease/disappear. Such a state of basic consciousness is called 'satta samanya' (pure/generic existence).
When consciousness is relieved of all its aspects and parts and dissolves into Self, that unmanifest existence is called pure state of existence.
When all that is in this world, which consists of external and internal things, is withdrawn into consciousness, that consciousness is said to be in a state of pure existence.
When all phenomena exist with a knowledge of their real nature and form, such state of existence is called state of pure existence.
When all phenomena dissolve themselves into the Self-like a tortoise withdrawing its limbs into a shell- then that state is called state of pure existence. But this withdrawal should be not in imagination.
This is the perfect perception. Such people, whether they are with or without body, are always liberated. This is similar to/equal to the state beyond 'turya' (the three states).
Such a state can occur to a person in 'samadhi' state. For jnanis only this state persists even after awakening from 'samadhi'. This state will never occur to an ignorant person.
All great liberated souls abide in such a state and live in this world unaffected and untouched by the happenings in the world. They are like mercury on the ground or like sky untouched by the winds blowing in it.
-11 . O Raghava, people like me, Brahma, Vishnu, Iswara, Narada and such live in this world and abide with this perception. Uddalaka lived in this world- home adopting this attitude.
In course of time, he developed a desire to leave his body and exist as one liberated after life.
-14 . Having decided so, he sat in the lotus porture on a leaf-bed in the mountain cave. His eyes were half shut. He closed all the nine holes (of senses) in the body by keeping his heel on the anus. He stifled all senses and started imagining that he was that dense luminous consciousness.
-16 . He restrained the vital airs, put his neck in a straight position, and folded the tongue to reach the root of the palate. His face became luminous and shining. He kept his upper and lower portions of the teeth slightly apart. His mind was not united with anything outside, inside, up or down.
-18 . With such restraint on breathing and flow of vital airs, his mind and body became tranquil and his face looked pure and shining. Every part of his body became conscious and the hairs stood on end. Because of constant practice of making every limb conscious, he attained the state of pure consciousness existence. This resulted in perfect bliss.
-23 . His face revealed perfect repose and manifested a delicate, soft and suffused luminousness. In that state of cestasy all thoughts and illusious about and of the world completely declined/subsided. He became a man of inmense peace, poise and harmony. (In that posture and state) he appeared to be a still painting/ sculpture. He was like full moon on an autumn day. In few days life left his body.
Relieved of all mutabilities and deformations, liberated from all impurities, the body sat unperturbed. He was established in that supreme happiness before which even Indrahood was trivial.
He became that infinite, boundless space, which holds all the universes, on which everything survived, which is beyond all qualities, that blissful truth, that infinite and perfect happiness.
His (lifeless) body stayed thus for six months. In that state his body was like a 'veena' responding to the flowing winds with soulful tunes.
After sometime a group of 'matru' women arrived there to bless a devotee.
-29 . Among them, there was one angel called 'Khinkini'. She looked at the beautiful, lifeless body of Uddalaka, and made it part of her crown.
Thus the mental activity of Uddalaka blossomed into a boquet of blissful flowers due to discrimination, engenderd in him. Anyone whose heart becomes vast with discrimination, he shall attain liberation.
