The Story of the Space-born

Hear thou the story of the Space-born.

Somewhere there dwells a Brahmana named Akasha-ja (Space-born). Ever intent is he on meditating for the good of all beings. He had lived thus so long that Mrtyu (Death) grew jealous, and thought to himself, 'All created things I overpower and devour resistlessly. Why do I not thus with this Spaceborn Brahmana? My power is blunted against him as the edge of the strongest keenest sword on the face of the rock.' And so he went against him once again. He met a wall of fire surrounding his abode. With difficulty he broke through it, and beheld the Brahmana, and endevoured to grasp him with his hundred hands; but failed, even as one fails with physical hands to seize a thing of fancy. Then Mrtyu went to his lord and master Yama, and asked him why, and Yama spoke: 'Thou art unable by thyself, O Death!, to master any living thing. It is the actions of thy prey that make him fall into thy ruthless hands. Go thou again, and seek for those acts of this Brahmana that shall help thee defeat him.' And Mrtyu wandered long though distant countries, lakes, rivers, and forests, mountains, seas and shores, and towns and cities, searching for those acts, but never found he any. Then he came again to Yama, in his helplessness, and asked him where those acts lay hidden. Yama pondered long and then replied: 'Oh Death!, the Brahmana born of Space has done no acts. Out of pure Space alone he took his birth and therefore is not different from Space. No karma lies behind him, nor is he making any now. No limitations, no desires, are there in his nature to manfest themselves in any action, and to be seized upon by thee and broken through. That we see the play of life-vibrations, breath-movements, (Pranaspanda), in him, is the fault of our own eyes; it is as if all possible infinite shapes and figures that lie embedded in the vast rock of Consciousness - and could be carved as separate statues out of and apart from it, if such an 'out of and apart from' it were possible - should, each of them, imagine itself as having an existence separate from and independent of that rock. But he whom thou art vainly jealous of, O Death!, doth ever hold on to his identity with the Supreme, and so may not be singled out and separated and attacked by thee. A Being that arises from its Cause, without the help of instruments, can in no way be different from that Cause. And so this Brahmana, born of Space alone, and one with it, falls not within the sway, unless he should, of his own wish, harbour thought of death. Thou must perforce confine thy operations to those that join themselves to limitations, thinking, 'I am this piece of earth, this mass of matter, or this.' 'But tell me, Master!, how may there be any birth from Vacancy alone? How are born, earth, and air, and fire, and all the others?' So Death asked of Yama, and he made answer: 'He is not born at all, never was He unborn, nor ever shall cease to be. All possible things are but parts of His Consciousness, downwards from that Mount of Light, which to our sight arises first after the sleep of Maha-pralaya. And as a part may not overpower the whole, so canst thou not conquer Him.' Mrtyu heard this with surprise, and, smileless, went to his abode. Rama said: 'It seems to me, O Sage !, that thou hast been describing unto me Brahma Himself, the Great Father of all things, the Cosmic Mind, the Self-born and the Unborn.' Truly so, O Rama !, and about Him Mrtyu disputed with Yama at the end of a Manvantara, and was thus instructed by him. "As the castle in the air, as the city of dream-fancies, so verily is the Seen. The Seer and the Seen have no true being of their own, apart from being of Param-atma. Imagination is the Mind and the Mind, is Brahma."