Vitahavya's Experiences

Sage Vasishtha

After this enquiry, the sage Vitahavya remained in a state of total quiescence (samadhi) and even his prana did not move. His consciousness was neither fixed within nor did it perceive objects outside. His eyes were softly focused around the nose. With his body held erect, he appeared to be a living statue. He lived thus for three hundred years, without abandoning his body. His samadhi was undisturbed by countless natural disturbances or those caused by human and subhuman beings. Thus he spent three hundred years as if it were an hour. The body which was reflected in the consciousness was protected by it.

After this period, his mind began to move in his heart and there arose in it notions of creation. Then he spent a hundred years as a sage in mount Kailasa. For a hundred years he was a demi-god. Then he ruled as Indra, the king of heaven, for a period of five world cycles.

RAMA asked:

How was it possible to interfere with the timetable of gods like Indra, O Holy one?

VASISHTHA replied:

The energy of the infinite consciousness is omnipresent; and it manifests as whatever it likes wherever it likes.Whatever wherever and however this consciousness conceives the order, so does it become. Thus he saw all this in his own heart, which was free from all conditioning. On account of his attainment of the infinite consciousness, therefore, these notions apparently arose in it non-volitionally. After this, he served as an attendant of lord Shiva for a whole epoch. All this the liberated sage Vitahavya experienced.