Ahaṃkāra, Transmigration,
and Ultimate Liberation

The Illusion of the Self

The journey of the jiva through endless transmigrations is fundamentally a movement driven by ahaṃkāra (the I-maker) and the ego. Ahaṃkāra is the subtle cosmic function that creates the illusion of a separate, localized identity out of undivided consciousness, while the ego is its psychological manifestation—clinging to preferences, fears, ownership, and personal desire. When consciousness mistakenly identifies with this “I-node,” it becomes bound to the law of cause and effect, projecting worlds of enjoyment and suffering to satisfy its self-created identity. Śukra’s journey illustrates this dynamic perfectly: a single moment of egoic identification triggers a vast chain reaction of births, deaths, and imagined worldly illusions across cosmic cycles—sustained entirely by the lingering momentum of the egoic mind.

The Life, Transmigration, and Awakening

“As the skilful charioteer guides his chariot with care, so is this body conducted by the intelligent mind, with equal attention and fondness.”

The Decay of the Physical Frame

At last his arboraceous body withered away with age, under the inclement sun and winds and rain; and it fell down on the ground as a tree torn from its roots. He underwent repeated births and deaths, in his wanderings in the world in search of its enjoyments; and seemed as some thing whirled about in a turning mill or wheel; till at last he found his rest in the cooling beach of the rivulet.

The Confrontation and the Cycles of Transmigration

Yama appeared in armour with six arms and as many faces, accompanied by the army of his adherents, and holding the noose and sword and other weapons in his hands:

“You sages are observers of the multifarious rules of religions austerities, and we are observant of the endless and immutable laws of destiny; we honour you therefore for your holiness, and not from any other desire.”

To the unstained (clear) sight, there is no other agent or object here, except the supreme; but the stained sight. Knowing that the course of our conduct, is subject to the destiny appointed by the Divine will, the wise never allow themselves to be subjected under the darkness of pride or passion, at our doings.

Where is that enlightened sight, that gravity and that patience of yours, that you grovel in this manner in the dark like the blind, and slide from the broad and beaten path laid open for every body? As the skilful charioteer guides his chariot with care, so is this body conducted by the intelligent mind, with equal attention and fondness.

The Multifarious Incarnations

There he thought he passed a revolution of eight cycles of the four yugas, in company with Viswāchī a beauteous Apsara damsel, unto whom he clung as the hexaped bee clings to the blooming lotus. Being bereft of his aerial and celestial body, he passed through the atmospheric air, and was born again on earth in a human figure.

• Ruler and Leader: He became a king of the solar race, and then a rāja of the Pundras.

• Preacher and Spirit: Afterwards a missionary among the Sauras and Sālwas, next a Vidyādhara, and lastly the son of a sage or muni.

• Wanderer: He had repeatedly been a Kirāta—huntsman in the Vindhyā hills and at Kaikatav. He was a chieftain in Sauvīra, and had become an ass at Trigarta.

• Illusionist: Then he became a Vidyādhara (Jadugar) or magician himself; and plied his jugglery of abstracting ornaments from the persons of females.

At the end of the kalpa age (of universal destruction), he beheld the twelve suns of the zodiac shining at once before him, and he was reduced to ashes by their warmth, as a grasshopper is burnt up by its falling on fire. 

The Nature of the Mind and Ultimate Reality

If you wish, O venerable sage! to know the reveries in his mind, you shall have to open your intellectual eye, in order to pry into the thoughts of others. The sage immediately saw by his percipience, all the excogitations of his son’s mind; as if they were reflected in the mirror of his own mind.

“The mind therefore is the true body, which reflects and makes us conscious of the existence of ourselves, as also of the exterior world.”

For though we know the course of things in the world; yet we are subjected to the impulses of joy and grief, owing to the casualties of prosperity and adversity. So long do we labour under the sense of what is our duty, and what we must refrain from, as we are subject to the error of the reality of the world; but deliverance from this error, removes all such responsibilities from us. Of the two bodies of men, the mind alone is ubiquitous, and leader of the outer body of animated beings.

The mind is part of the body, and spreads itself in its thoughts and desires into many forms; as the branch of a tree shoots forth in its blossoms and leaves. And as we see two moons by optical deception, so does one mind appear as many in many individuals. All things springing from Brahma, sink at last in him; as the huge waves of the wide and billowy ocean, rise but to subside in its calm and undisturbed waters below. He rests in peace, who thinks himself to be situated in the cooling orb of the moon; otherwise the body is consumed with cares; as a tree on the bank is burnt down by a conflagration. 

Others like forest trees are fixed and silent, and shudder for fear of being burnt down by the wild fire of the world; though they are situated at ease, as beside the running streams of limpid water, and as high as on mountain tops of inaccessible height. The dead are undying (because they die to be born again), and the living are not living (because they live but to die at last). Thus is the law of their mutual succession which nothing can forefend or alter.

The many wonderful powers that it contains, are all active in their various ways. The several powers productive of several ends, are all contained in that same body. All the natural and material forces, have the Divine spirit for their focus. Verily this plenitude is Brahma, and the world is no other than Brahma himself. Think intently upon this truth and shun all other false beliefs.

“As the various waves are no other than the sea water, so all these phenomena are not different from the essence of the lord of the world.”

As the same seed developes itself in the various forms of its branches and buds, its twigs and leaves, and its fruits and flowers; so the same almighty seed evolves itself in the multifarious varieties of creation. From the active agent, proceed the inert matter and inactivity without a secondary cause; as the active spider produces the passive thread, and the living man brings upon him, his dull torpor in sleep. The mind forgets its spiritual nature of its own will; and makes for itself a strong prison house (of its earthly possessions), as the silkworm weaves its own coating.

There is no bondage nor liberation of human soul, nor of the Divine Spirit. We cannot account for the use of these words among mankind. There is no liberation nor bondage of the soul, which is the same with the Divine. It is this delusive world which shows the immortal soul under the veil of mortality, or as eclipsed by and under the shadow of temporary affairs. All human affections and attachments to the visible world, are born in and remain in the mind; although they are as distinct from it, as the waves of the sea or as the beams of the moon; are produced from and contained in their receptacles.

Some think of their stability in this world of dreams, and others are betrayed by their false hope of the stability of worldly affairs, which are quite unstable. Some are no less durable than many kalpas; and others return to the Supreme Spirit, by the moonlike purity of their souls. All things have risen from the oceanlike Spirit of Brahma, like its moving undulations. It is the intellectual consciousness of every body that is termed his mind. 

Ignorance, Enlightenment, and Realization

Some are placed in greater darkness, as the worms and insects; and others are situated in utter darkness, as the trees and vegetables. It is forgetfulness of Supreme felicity, that causes one to rove in various births of weal or woe; but the knowledge of the Supreme, causes the cessation of transmigration; as the remembrance of Garuda, destroys the power of the most destructive poison.

He (Sukra) having tasted the pleasure and pain of all these states at a moment’s thought of his mind, is now seated as a devotee on the bank of Samangā, under the spreading beams of the moon. The uninhabited skirts of the mountain, were as the solitary walks of Buddhist vagrants; and the rivulets at its foot, were gliding with their currents covered under the kunda and mandara flowers, as if they were running to meet the sea, mantled in their yellow vests of the spring season. His limbs were stiff, and his sense at a stand still, as he sat with his mind fixed on steady meditation. He seemed to be long at rest, in order to get his rest from the turmoils of the world. He sat retired as a lover, solely reclined on the thought of his beloved object in his retirement; and his mind was at rest, after its long wanderings.

Upon opening and lifting up his eyes, he beheld the god standing with his father on one side, who being pleased at his sight, glowed in their countenances like the disks of the sun and moon.

“I am emancipated, my lords, at your sight this day (from all earthly cares), as you have blessed me by your sights, resembling those of the sun and moon, appearing together to view. Blessed is the law of the Supreme Being, which is without its beginning or end, and is known as destiny here below; and by whose power the world is revolving as a curricle. I drank the water reddened with the pollen of mandara flowers, and roved along the bank of the heavenly stream of Mandākinī filled with lotuses.”

Behold the stags of the forest flying with fear, at the sight of the wide open jaws, and withered skin of my carcass; which with its horrid mouth, frightens the timid fawns in the woods. I see the cavity of the belly of the withered corpse, is filled with sunshine, as the mind of man is enlightened by knowledge. They have gone over the bounds of worldly enjoyments, who have had the high-mindedness, to lay hold on the tranquillity of their minds.

Venerable Sir, that art versed in all knowledge, you have already related of Sukra’s passing through many births in different shapes; and feeling all their casualties of good and evil. How was it then that he disregard all his bodies; and the pains and pleasures which attended upon them? 

This wind entered into heart of Bhrigu in a flux of the vital and circulating breaths, and being joined in time with the semen, formed the germ of Sukra’s body. The wise as well as the unwise, are on an equal footing with respect to their nature and custom. It is only the difference in desire that distinguishes the one from the other, as it is the privation of or bondage to desires, that is the cause of their liberation or enthralment in this world. It is also the great aim that distinguishes the great, from the mean-mindedness of the base. Even great souls are seen to feel happy in pleasure and become sorrowful in matters of pain; and show themselves as the wise in their outward circumstances.

Return and Revivification

“Fare you well, we shall now depart to our desired habitation; know for certain that there is nothing desirable to the mind, which it cannot accomplish.”

Sukra entered into his withered corpse, as the season of spring enters into a faded plant, in order to adorn it again with its vernal bloom, and its re-springing blossoms. The old sage Bhrigu finding the revivification of the dead body of his son, sanctified it with propitiatory mantras and sprinkling of water, from his sacerdotal water pot.

Sukra then rose up from the ground, breathing the breath of life, like the cloud ascending to the sky by force of the winds. They both continued as the living liberated guides of men, by their knowledge of all that was to be known; and preserving the equanimity of their minds, and the steadiness of their dispositions, amidst all the vicissitudes of time and place.

Conclusion: Transcending the Ego and Reclaiming the Self

Throughout Śukra’s vast cycle of transmigrations—ahaṃkāra was the architect of every single embodiment. The text illustrates that the mind, woven with desires (vāsanās) and anchored by the ego, constructs its own reality and “weaves its own coating like a silkworm.” Śukra’s suffering and wandering were not imposed by external forces, but were the natural projection of an ego seeking validation and enjoyment in the shadowy realm of names and forms (nāma-rūpa).

Freedom (mokṣa) is attained not by destroying the body or fleeing the world, but by dissolving the misidentification of ahaṃkāra. When Śukra realizes that all manifestations are merely waves upon the undisturbed ocean of Brahma, the personal ego yields to universal consciousness. Upon waking to his true nature, he can re-enter the very body he abandoned—acting without attachment, unswayed by pleasure or pain, and living as a jīvanmukta (liberated while living). Freedom is ultimately the dissolution of the “I-thought,” leaving only the quiet, cooling light of pure awareness.