Post-mortem destinies, the fallen yogin, and gradual attainment of Śiva-hood

PS_91

Even beasts, birds, reptiles, and the like, who know [the Self] as their own self [and so know] their own [true] goal — they too, refined by an awakening [acquired] in former [births], attain that goal.

PS_92

This Person, abiding in the interior of a body, [becomes] of the nature of heaven or of the nature of hell; and when that [body] breaks up, he passes, in accordance with his own fitness, to union with another body.

PS_93

Thus, in whatever manner his own Self once shone forth to him at the moment of knowing, in just that manner [he then is]; and at the falling away of the body he does not become otherwise.

PS_94

The failing of the host of organs, the loss of memory, the choking thickness of breath [and its] cutting-off, the special pangs in the vital points — [all this] is [merely] an experience [bhoga] arising from the conditioning of the body.

PS_95

How should that [experience] not occur for one [still] joined to a body? Yet, even with [such] an accompaniment of bewilderment, the knower, at the hour of death, does not fall away from the highest reality (paramārtha) of his own Self.

PS_96

When one approaches this path of the highest reality (paramārtha) swiftly, from the mouth of the teacher, through an exceedingly intense śaktipāta (the 'descent of power' / divine grace), then at that very moment, without any obstacle, he [becomes] Śiva.

PS_97

For one who resorts, by the gradual ascent of the steps of a stair, to the form that transcends all — upon attaining firm establishment in the supreme reality (paratattva), there is at the end the becoming made of Śiva.

PS_98

But for one who has not [yet] reached the stream that is made of the highest reality (paramārtha) — that is, the repose in the centre — even though his mind be eager for the attainment of that station, death may [nonetheless] come at some time [before completion].

PS_99

He is called in the scripture the yogabhraṣṭa (the yogin 'fallen' from practice before completion), [and becomes] a lord of wondrous worlds of enjoyment; and [then], by the power of [his attained] place of repose, he becomes Śiva in a later birth.

PS_100

For [one who,] having practised this path of the highest reality (paramārtha), even without [fully] attaining [the goal of] yoga, [yet] partakes of the enjoyments of the world of the gods and, glad of mind, delights [there] for a very long time.

PS_101

Just as a universal emperor is honoured by all people among [the objects of] sense, so the yogin who has fallen [from practice] is honoured by all the gods throughout the worlds.

PS_102

Then, after a great length of time, having again attained human birth and practised yoga, he attains the divine nectar of immortality — from which he returns no more.

PS_103

Therefore whoever is intent upon this true path attains Śiva-hood. Knowing this, one should strive for the highest reality (paramārtha), by [whatever means,] this way or that.