Final Instructions to Mahârâja Parîkchit
(1) S'rî S'uka said: 'In this [narration] I have elaborately described the Supreme Lord Hari, the Soul of the Universe, from whose grace Lord Brahmâ was born [3.8] from whose anger Lord S'iva [3.12: 7] took birth. (2) Oh King, you who think 'I am going to die', have to give up this animalistic mentality; it is not so that you - just like the body - [as a soul] have been born while you before were non-existent. You likewise neither shall die today [see also B.G. 2: 12 & 2: 20]. (3) You will not get a new life as a child of yours or in the form of a grandchild, the way a plant sprouts from its own seed; you differ from the body and that what belongs to it as much as fire [differs from the wood it is burning *].
(4) The way one in a dream can witness one's own head being cut off [while staying alive] one also witnesses the physical body composed of the five elements and so on. That is why the soul of the body is of an unborn and eternal nature [see also B.G. 2: 22]. (5) When a pot is broken the air in the pot again will be as the air before; so too the individual regains his original spiritual state when the body is dead. (6) The material bodies, qualities and actions of the spirit soul result from a materially oriented mind; and it is mâyâ, the illusory potency of the Lord, that brings about the material mind and the consequent [repeated] material existence of the individual living being [through ahankâra, see also 2.5: 25, 3.26: 31-32, 3.27: 2-5]. (7) The combination of oil, a vessel, a wick and fire is what one sees together with the burning of a lamp. Likewise one sees how because of the interaction of the modes of passion, goodness and ignorance the material existence of the physical body develops and finds destruction. (8) The soul differing from the gross [deha] and the subtle [linga] body, is self-luminous, and constitutes, because it is as unchanging as the sky, the foundation [âdhâra] that is eternal and beyond comparison. (9) Oh prabhu, engaging your intelligence thus with logical inferences in meditation upon Lord Vâsudeva, you should carefully consider your essence, your true self, that is covered by your physical frame. (10) Takshaka [the snake-bird] sent by the words of the brahmin [1.18] will not burn you; the messengers of death cannot supersede you [your soul] who [now] have mastered the causes of death and death itself [see also 11.31: 12]. (11-12) With the consideration 'I am the Original Supreme Spirit, the Abode of the Absolute and the Supreme Destination' you should place yourself within the Supreme Self that is free from material designations. [Having done this] you will, with the entire world thus set apart from the self, not even notice Takshaka or your own body when he, licking his lips and with his mouth full of poison, bites your foot. (13) Dear soul, is there anything more you want to know, oh King, after all that I in response to your questions told you about the activities of the Lord?'
