Through Sattwa, people ascend to
the regions of the deities and become sharers of great felicity. By
adhering to sin continuously one sinks into the intermediate order of
beings. By acting both righteously and sinfully one attains to the status
of the deities. In this way the twenty-fifth, viz., Akshara (the
Indestructible), the wise say, by union with the unmanifest (Prakriti),
becomes transformed into Kshara (destructible). By means of knowledge
however, the Indestructible becomes displayed in His true nature--"
SECTION CCCIV
"'Vasishtha said, 'Thus in consequence of his forgetfulness the Soul
follows ignorance and obtains thousands of bodies one after another. He
attains to thousands of births among the intermediate orders and
sometimes among the very gods in consequence of his union with
(particular) attributes and the puissance of attributes.[1615] From the
status of humanity, he goes to heaven and from heaven he comes back to
humanity, and from humanity he sinks into hell for many long years. As
the worm that fabricates the cocoon shuts itself, completely on every
side by means of the threads it weaves itself, even so the Soul, though
in reality transcending all attributes, invests himself on every side
with attributes (and deprives himself of liberty).[1616] Though
transcending (in his real nature) both happiness and misery, it is thus
that he subjects himself to happiness and misery. It is thus also that,
though transcending all diseases, the Soul regards himself to be
afflicted by headache and opthalmia and toothache and affections of the
throat and abdominal dropsy, and burning thirst, and enlargement of
glands, and cholera, and vitiligo, and leprosy, and burns, and asthma and
phthisis, and epilepsy, and whatever other diseases of diverse kinds are
seen in the bodies of embodied creatures.
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