The Answer

Then Śuka set out for perfection, leaving the worlds behind. He left darkness in its eight kinds, and then passion in its five, and then he left even goodness, the purest of the three strands of nature, and it was a wonder. He came to rest in Brahman, the eternal state beyond all the strands of nature and without marks, blazing like a fire without smoke.

Meteors fell, the quarters burned and the earth shook. Trees let fall their branches and mountains their peaks, and the Himālaya roared as if it would split. The sun did not shine and fire did not burn, the lakes and rivers and oceans were stirred, Indra rained sweet fragrant water, and a pure wind blew, carrying the scents of heaven.

In the north Śuka saw two peaks, sprung from the Himālaya and from Meru, joined together, one white and one yellow, silver and gold, a hundred yojanas wide. He flew at them without a moment's doubt, and the two peaks were suddenly split apart, and he passed between them, and the mountain did not stop him. A great shout of Well done! went up from the gods and the gandharvas and the sages and those who live on the mountains, and the sky was filled with flowers. Then, passing over the lovely Mandākinī, he saw the apsaras bathing and playing in its waters, without their clothes; and when they saw Śuka, they did not cover themselves, for he had become empty of all form, and they felt no shame before him.

His father, full of love, knew that he was setting out, and followed after him by the highest power of yoga. But Śuka had already risen above the wind into the sky, shown his power, and become one with all beings. Vyāsa, by his great yoga, reached in the blink of an eye the place where Śuka had risen. He saw that Śuka had split the peak of the mountain in two as he went, and the seers told him what his son had done.

Then Vyāsa cried out, Śuka! in a long cry that filled the three worlds. And Śuka, who had become everything and was everywhere, answered him with the one syllable a man gives in answer when he is called, Bho! and the whole world, moving and unmoving, called it back. From that day, when a word is spoken aloud in the hollows and on the slopes of the mountains, the echo answers for Śuka. And Śuka vanished, leaving behind sound and every quality, and reached the highest state.

Vyāsa sat down on the mountainside, thinking of his son. When the apsaras playing in the Mandākinī saw him, they hid in the water and among the bushes and snatched up their clothes. The sage saw how free his son was, and how bound he himself still was, and he was both glad and ashamed.

Then Śiva came to him, surrounded by gods and gandharvas, and comforted him in his grief for his son. You chose from me a son with the strength of fire and earth, water and wind and sky, he said, and such a son was born to you, pure, and made of the light of Brahman. He has reached the highest state, hard to reach for those who have not mastered their senses, even for the gods. Why do you grieve for him? As long as the mountains stand and the oceans last, your fame and your son's will not fade. And by my grace you will always see, at your side in this world, a shadow like your son. So Vyāsa, comforted by Śiva himself, went home, seeing his son's shadow, and was glad.