It was early morning when the madman started to dance wildly, crying, ‘Rama, Rama, Sitaram, Sitaram, the hole, the hole.’ Just then, Haladhar came and said, ‘Many are the manners of a madman! Why are you shouting, ‘Hole, Hole’, in the early morning?

Madman : Sitaram, when the devotee, gives up the mortal coil while repeating, Rama, Rama, the air parts to create a hole that looks like a chariot wheel. The devotee rises through that hole and reaches close to the Sun. The Sun also quickly creates an opening in itself like the hole in a musical instrument. The peerless devotee passes through that passage to reach the Moon, which too, creates in itself, an opening similar to that in a kettle-drum, to let him pass. Jai Jai Sitaram. The devotee goes straight through that opening into the world of eternal joy, overflowing with waves of light and nectar, and remains in proximity to his revered deity, for eternity. (The madman begins to dance chanting ‘Sitaram Sitaram.’)

Halada: You say whatever comes to your mind! Are the ways of Archi etc. like this?

Madman: Sitaram, Sitaram. Otherwise what are the paths like?

Halada: Chhandogyasruti says, ‘At first, the emancipated Purusha passes in sequence, Archi, the deity presiding over the day, then each of the deities ruling over the six months of Sun’s northern course, and the worlds of the Sun, the Moon and Energy. Then a superhuman being arrives from the world of Brahma and takes him along. This is said in the Shastras. You have taken this somewhere else and for no reason, are shouting ‘Hole Hole’ since the morning.

Madman: Sitaram, Sitaram. There is not just one Shruti or one kind of path. This is also described in the Koushitaki and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. Understood? Sitaram

Halada: Well, can you tell me one thing?

Madmanx: Please ask.Sitaram.

Halada: When the ears are closed tightly, one hears a sound like that of a blazing fire, the bellowing of a bull or the wheels of a chariot. What are these sounds?

Madman: Sitaram, these internal sounds are the signs of perception of the divine light which pervades the ultimate world situated above the heavens. This Fire is called Vaishwanara Agni. If you can perceive that sound, then your task is done.

Halada: How is it?

Madman: As you listen to these sounds, you get immersed in the light and joy. You reach your true home and clamber onto your mother’s lap. Jai Jai Sitaram.

Halada: Where does the mother’s lap come into this? You should say that the person becomes one with the absolute Brahma. That is not the state of instant emancipation but of gradual emancipation.

Madman: Jai Jai Sitaram. Would you like to listen to what Lord Shankaracharya says? ‘There are one and a quarter lakh paths of Laya Yoga. Of these, I consider the quest of Nada the best. O quest of the Nada, I bow to you. I know you as the Sadhana of Tattvapada. By your Grace, my mind along with life will merge with Vishnupada.’ Did you hear that? Sitaram, our rejecting something that Shankaracharya himself accepts, is it not laughable?

Halada: Well, has Nada anything to do with the path you were speaking of?

Madman: The matter is not of this path or that! Sitaram, there is only one path that merges with the Bindu of light, Space and Nada.

The madman begins to sing:

To the wondrous land of light,

You’ll go A place awash with lustrous glow;

A mad delirious woman sings And soothes your soul with honeyed hymns.

Look! Evening shadows are growing tall

There is no time, go out and call ‘O Mother Divine!

I beg your grace!’

She’ll draw you into her embrace;

And douse your fire to set you free

From the shackles of mortality.