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| and drugs; secretly, he used his father’s money for his own advantage. Z forges Y's check for a large amount, and Y comes to know about it. Instead of protecting his son, Y imprisons him. The merchant's wife, X, loves Z and sorrows deeply. Gradually she pines away. Soon Y, the merchant, becomes disgusted with the world, and he too dies. Z suffers much in prison, and after being freed, he leads a good life and repents, then eventually dies. |
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| Fourth Life | |||
| X: (The Chinese merchant's wife becomes) A reigning prince in India. | |||
| Y: (The Chinese merchant becomes) The princes wife | |||
| Z: (The rakish son becomes) The prince's spiritually minded slave | |||
| Scenario: | X is now a reigning prince in India, with Y as his wife. Z is his slave who is very spiritually minded and who daily goes to sit at the feet of a great Yogi who sits under a tree in Benares. The prince and princess love each other dearly. One day, the slave loses his wife to death, but remains calm throughout it all. The prince wonders and asks him, "How can you be serene now?" Z replies, "My Master has made me understand the secret of life and death." When he hears this, X longs to see the master, and the slave takes him. On seeing the master, the prince is deeply impressed and says, "O Master, I surrender myself to you and will obey you implicitly." The master replies, "Leave all and come to me." Prince X renounces his kingdom and everything in it, dons the yellow robe, and goes with his wife Y to the master's retreat to await his order. The master orders X to beg from his own subjects, and the prince obeys. Next, the master orders X to wander through the jungle for one year. X and Y go together; they live on fruits and nuts and continually meditate on the master. One day, a tiger approaches them, but X merely looks at him and utters the Master's name. Immediately the tiger is transformed into the Master who blesses them and disappears. After the blessing, the prince enters a trance and passes through the following cosmic planes unto the fifth: |
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The prince in the first plane finds his gross body disconnected and set apart, through his subtle body (which is exactly like the gross body in every detail, except that it is smoke-like, vapory and transparent) gets the subtle experience. Into his subtle ears are poured forth steams of sweet melodious, enchanting, thrilling and exquisite sound rhythms and beautiful tunes, the like which he never had dreamt of; his subtle nose smells such a sweet, refreshing scent that he feels rejuvenated completely. His subtle eyes see different luminous ultra colors and innumerable small circles of steady light, with his Master's figure looming large in the circles. He now finds his gross body attached to him and so comes to the gross consciousness. But the tremendous impressions of the subtle experiences had such an effect on him as to leave him in a dazed condition.
In the second plane the prince, as in the first plane, sees his gross body lying aloof, and gets more subtle experiences through his subtle body. He sees the
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