Death Does Not Kill The Tranquil One - 9

Sage Vasishtha

VASISHTHA asked:

O Bhushunda, how is it that your body has not been consumed by death?

BHUSHUNDA replied:

O sage, you know everything, yet you ask this question in order to cultivate eloquence of your servant. I shall answer your question; for obedience is the best form of worshipping saints.

Death does not wish to kill one who does not have raga-dvesha (attraction-aversion) nor false notions and mental health habits. Death does not wish to kill one who does not suffer from mental illness, who does not entertain desires and hopes which give rise to anxieties and worry, who is not poisoned by greed, whose body and mind are not burnt by the fire of anger and hate, who is not churned and ground by the mill of lust, who is firmly established in the pure awareness of Brahman the absolute and whose mind is not distracted like a monkey.

O sage, these evils do not even approach one whose heart has found the state of utter quiescence and tranquility. Nor do illnesses of the body and the mind affect him. His awareness neither rises nor sets either in deep sleep or in the waking state. He whose mind and heart are established in supreme peace is not touched by the blinding evils born of lust and hate. He neither seeks nor does he spurn, neither gives up nor gathers, though he is constantly engaged in appropriate action. None of the evil forces afflict him. All joy and happiness and all auspicious qualities flow towards him.

Hence, o sage, one should remain firmly established in the imperishable and eternal self which is free from nescience and from all seeking. One should slay the ghost of duality or division and fix the heart on the one truth, which alone is sweet in the beginning, in the middle and in the end.

Neither in the company of the gods and demons, nor of the celestial artistes nor heavenly damsels, is there to be found permanent joy. one cannot find what is eternally good either in the heaven or on earth or even in the netherworld - nowhere in this creation. All activities are beset with physical and mental illness and many forms of unhappiness; the eternal good is not found in them. Such eternal good is not to be found in any of the activities of any of the senses, for their experiences are tainted by a beginning and thus an end.

Neither in the sovereignty of the whole world nor the attainment of the form of a god, neither the study of scriptures nor engaging oneself in the work of others, neither listening to nor reciting stories, neither longevity nor death, neither heaven nor hell is comparable to the state of the mind of a holy one.