Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha 1.25—Dance of Death Part 2
Channel: Consciousness Research Centre
Date: 2017-08-29

This series is classified Ajata-vāda | Jñāna-yoga | Turīya | Sahasrāra-cakra

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“Death dances about in the form of the five-headed Hara (Śiva the Destroyer), with the loosened braids of hair upon him, while Destiny in the form of Gauri (Śiva’s consort), her locks adorned with maṇḍara flowers, keeps her pace with him. In her war-dance, Destiny bears a large gourd representing her big belly, and her body is adorned with hundreds of hollow human skulls jingling like the alms-pots of Kapali mendicants. She has filled the sky with the emaciated skeleton of her body and her terrible, destructive figure. The various shapes of skulls of the dead adorn her body like a beautiful garland of lotuses. They sway to and fro during her dance at the end of a kalpa (age).” — 1.25.17-20

“The horrible roaring of the giddy clouds Puṣkara and Āvarta at the end of the kalpa serves to represent the beating of her damaru drum. As Death dances along, the moon appears like his earring, and the moonbeams and stars appear like his crest of peacock feathers. The snow-capped Himālayas appear like a crown of bones in the upper loop of his right ear, and Mount Meru as a golden ring in his left. Under their lobes are suspended the moon and the sun, like pendant earrings glittering over his cheeks. The mountain ranges called the Lokāloka are fastened like chains around his waist. Lightning bolts are the bracelets and armlets of Destiny, which move to and fro as she dances along. The clouds are her dressing gown that fly about her in the air.” — 1.25.21-25

“Mundane enjoyments are no other than long ropes dropped down by the hand of death that keep all mankind bound fast to the world. The great vortices of social customs, the successions of joy and grief, the excess of pride and the darkness of passions, form the streaks of hair on his body. After the end of the world, he ceases to dance and creates anew all things from the lowest animal that lives in the earth, to the highest Brahmā and Śiva. By turns, Destiny as an actress acts her parts of creation and destruction, diversified by scenes of old age, sorrow and misery. Time repeatedly creates the worlds, with the different abodes and localities teeming with population. He forms the moveable and immovable substances, establishes social customs and again dissolves them, as children make their dolls of clay and break them soon afterwards.” — 1.25.27-32

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