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----- bhagap423.html
When by discrimination, such as this, the tie of unreal
Ahankara is cut as under, and the unfailing perception of Atma be-
comes fixed, it is called Atyantika Pralaya.
(Atyantika is from Atyanta = ati-fanta, the very last. After
this Pralaya, which is individual and not general, one does not return
to life in the universe. It is the final liberation of a man from the
limitations of life in Brahmanda).
Every day all beings, from Brahma downwards, undergo
according to some seers of subtleties states of beginning and end.
These beginnings and ends are caused by the changes in states
of all beings subject to transformation, changes that follow the flow
of time. (One does not grow adult or old in one day. The change
must be going on constantly. The fruit does not ripen in one day.
But the process of ripening day by day is not perceptible. Water
flows in a continued stream but the water particles constantly change
at a given space. So the lamp burns and the flame looks one and
the same though the particles that ignite do constantly change.
Even so our body is not the same from day to day. There is a
change going on every moment of our life. Particles of the body
are rejected every day and they are replaced by new particles. There
is the beginning with our new particles, and an end or Pralaya with
the old particles.) This is called NITYA Pralaya. (Nitya means
constant).
Pralaya is thus fourfold Nitya, Naimittika, Prakritika and
Atyantika.
Such are the stories of Bhagavat as related in the Bhagavata
Purana.
Rishi Narayana first related the Purana to Narada, Narada
related it to Vyasa and Vyasa to Suka. Suta heard the Purana
from Sukadeva, when he related it to Raja Parikshit, and he ex-
pounded it to the assembly of Rishis at Naimisha, headed by
Sounaka.
[THOUGHTS ON PRALAYA.
Prakriti changes its forms and states. The body disintegrates
into particles, particles into molecules, and molecules into atoms.
Solid becomes liquid, liquid becomes gaseons and gaseous becomes
ultra-gaseons. Life manifests itself through the endless varieties of
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