The night and day of Brahma

Vyasa said I shall now tell you how, when his day is gone and his night comes, he withdraws ali things to himself, or how the Supreme Master, making this gross universe exceedingly subtile, inerges every thing into his Soul.

When the time for universal dissolution comes twelve Suns, and Agni with his seven flames, begin to burn. Wrapt by those flames, the entire universe begins to blaze forth in a huge fire.

All things mobile and immobile that are on the Earth first disappear and merge into the substance of which this planet is formed.

After all mobile and immobile objects have thus disappeared, the Earth, shorn of trees and herbs, looks nude like a tortoise shell.

Then water takes up the attribute of earth, viz., scent. When earth becomes shorn of its principal attribute, that element is about to be destroyed.

Water then prevails. Surging into big billows and roaring dreadfully only water fills this space and moves about or stands still.

Then the attribute of water is taken by Heat, and losing its own attribute, water emerges in that element.

Dazzling flames of fire, ablaze all around, hide the Sun that is in the centre of ether. Indeed, then, ether itself, full of those flames, burns in a vast fire.

Then Wind comes and takes the attribute, viz., form, of Heat of Light, which, possessed of great power, begins to be awfully agitated.

Obtaining its own attribute, viz., sound the Wind begins to move upwards and downwards and transversely along all the ten points.

Then Space takes the attribute, viz., sound, of Wind, upon which the latter is extinguished and enters into a state of existence resembling that of unheard or unuttered sound.

Then Space is all that remains, that element whose attribute, viz., sound, exists in all the other elements, shorn of the attributes of form, and taste, and touch, and scent, and without shape of any kind, like sound in its unmanifest form of existence.

Then sound, which is the attribute of space, is swallowed up by Mind which is the essence of all manifest things. Thus Mind which in itself is unmanifest withdraws all that is manifested by Mind. This withdrawal of manifest Mind into unmanifest Mind, is called the destruction of the external universe.

Then the Moon having made Mind withdraw its attribute into itself, swallows it up. When Mind, ceasing to exist, thus enters into the Moon, the other attributes of Creator are all that remain.

This Moon which is called also determination, is then, after a very long time, brought under Creator's sway, the reason being that determination has to perform a very difficult work, viz., the destruction of the faculties that are employed in the process of judgement. When this has been done, the condition reached is said to be of high knowledge.

Then time swallows up this Knowledge, and as the Shruti says, Time itself in its turn is devoured by Might or Energy. Might or cnergy, however, is (again) devoured by time, which last is then brought under her sway by kilowledge.

Possessed of Knowledge, the Creator then swallows up non-existence itself into his Soui. That is Unmanifest and Supreme Brahma. That is Eternal, and that is the Highest of the High. Thus all existent creatures are withdrawn into Brahma.

Truly has this, which should be conceived (with the aid of the scriptures) and which is a topic of Science, been thus said by Yogins endued with Supreme Souls, after actual experience.

Even thus does Unmanifest Brahma repeatedly practise the processes of Creation and Destruction, and even thus are Brahman's Day and Night each consisting of a thousand Yugas.