________________
1
GLIMPSES ALONG LIFE'S JOURNEY
17.
long time of the deva-life enjoying each other's company, and linking up, unwittingly and automatically, their future destinies !
It is a law of stern nature that all things that are not simple substances have sooner or later to experience dissolution. The deva-body is also a compound, and not free from the liability to dissolution and disintegration for that reason. The soul alone is a simple, hence an immortal, item in the compound of spirit and matter termed embodied life. True, the deva-body is indestructible from external causation; but it is not eternal, and must perish when the forces responsible for the association of spirit and matter in embodied life cease to function from within.
When six months of life remain, the signs of approaching end appear in the deva-body. The garland of flowers that is placed round the neck is the first to fade away. Bodily lustre is then affected and begins to deteriorate. One morning Lalitanga, too, noticed the saddening signs in his body. There was no mistaking them; they were there to give a warning of the approaching end! He was filled with dismay. The thought of the joys that he will be denied after six months made him sorrowful. Svayam Prabha and others, however, consoled him. The King of the six
F. 2
