88. I have passed over the impassable ocean of dangers and difficulties, and the intolerable evils of transmigration; by the disappearance of my internal darkness, and sight of the One Great God in my intellect. CHAPTER XXXVI. HYMN TO THE SOUL. Argument. Prahláda getting the light of his internal soul, delights himself as one in the company of his sweet-heart. Prahláda continued:—I thank thee, O lord and great spirit! that art beyond all things, and art found in myself by my good fortune. 2. I have no other friend, O my Lord, in the three worlds except thee; that dost vouchsafe to embrace and look upon me, when I pray unto thee. 3. It is thou that preservest and destroyest all, and givest all things to every body; and it is thou, that makest us move and work, and praise thy holy name. Now art thou found and seen by me, and now thou goest away from me. 4. Thou fillest all being in the world with thy essence; thou art present in all places, but where art thou now fled and gone from me? 5. Great is the distance between us, even as the distance of the places of our birth, it is my good fortune of friend! that has brought thee near me today, and presented thee to my sight (so fleeting is spiritual vision). 6. I hail thee, thou felicitous one! that art my maker and preserver also; I thank thee that art the stalk of this fruit of this world, and that art the eternal and pure soul of all. 7. I thank the holder of the lotus and discus, and thee also that bearest the crescent half moon on thy forehead—great Siva. I thank the lord of gods—Indra, and Brahmá also, that is born of the lotus. 8. It is a verbal usage that makes a distinction betwixt thee and ourselves (_i.e._ between the Divine and animal souls); but this is a false impression as that of the difference between waves and their elemental water. 9. Thou showest thyself in the shapes of the endless varieties of beings, and existence and extinction are the two states of thyself from all eternity. 10. I thank thee that art the creator and beholder of all, and the manifester of innumerable forms. I thank thee that art the whole nature thyself. 11. I have undergone many tribulations in the long course of past lives, and it was by thy will that I became bereft of my strength, and was burnt away at last. 12. I have beheld the luminous worlds, and observed many visible and invisible things; but thou art not to be found in them. So I have gained nothing (from my observations). 13. All things composed of earth, stone and wood, are formations of water (the form of Vishnu), there is nothing here, that is permanent, O god, beside thyself. Thou being obtained there is nothing else to desire. 14. I thank thee lord! that art obtained, seen and known by me this day; and that shalt be so preserved by me, as never to be obliterated (from my mind).