Such a man, departing from this
life, ascends to heaven, and has never to take birth among the
intermediate animals or birds. This was said even by the puissant Vyasa,
the son of Parasara.'"
SECTION CCLXXXVI
"Yudhishthira said, 'Tell me, O grandsire, what is Adhyatma with respect
to man and whence it arises.'
"Bhishma said, 'Aided by the science of Adhyatma one may know everything.
It is, again, superior to all things. I shall, with the help of my
intelligence, explain to thee that Adhyatma about which thou askest me.
Listen, O son, to my explanation. Earth, Wind, Space, Water, and Light
forming the fifth, are the great essences. These are (the causes of) the
origin and the destruction of all creatures. The bodies of living
creatures (both subtile and gross), O bull of Bharata's race, are the
result of the combination of the virtues of these five. Those virtues
(whose combinations produce the bodies of creatures) repeatedly start
into existence and repeatedly merge into the original cause of all
things, viz., the Supreme Soul.[1442] From those five primal essences are
created all creatures, and into those five great elements all creatures
resolve themselves, repeatedly, like the infinite waves of the Ocean
rising from the Ocean and subsiding into that which causes them. As a
tortoise stretches forth its legs and withdraws them again into itself,
even so the infinite number of creatures spring from (and enter) these
five great fixed essences.
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