Chudala: A Yogini who helped her husband attain- Part 2

<–Part 1 Part 3–>

Sto­ry from Yoga Vasish­ta

Chu­dala’s hus­band Shikid­wa­ja noticed an unusu­al radi­ance in her appear­ance. When try­ing to engage her in a con­ver­sa­tion, Chu­dala was con­stant­ly talk­ing of Self-Real­iza­tion and how untrue world­ly pos­ses­sions were. Hav­ing nev­er seen Chu­dala in such a state, Shikid­wa­ja dis­missed what­ev­er she said and could­n’t relate to the fact that a woman was talk­ing of such deep mat­ters.

Mocked by Shikid­wa­ja, Chu­dala keeps all the knowl­edge to her­self but is con­stant­ly in the remem­brance of the divine self.

Des­tined to be an enlight­ened cou­ple, the shal­low­ness of mate­r­i­al life was dawn­ing on Shikid­wa­ja. It soon came to haunt him. “His heart, with­out hope of sal­va­tion, burned incon­solably in the flame of his anx­i­eties…He was lan­guish­ing under the inten­si­ty of his anx­i­ety, as if suf­fer­ing under the fiery heat of the sun. He sought some rem­e­dy for the world­ly cares that haunt­ed him con­stant­ly, day and night. ”

One day, in a casu­al con­ver­sa­tion with Chu­dala in the for­est, Shikid­wa­ja opens up about the helpess state he is in and how he feels that liv­ing in the for­est will help in get rid of this mis­ery. Chu­dala dis­ap­proves this and says that it is not char­ac­ter­is­tic of a young king to go away to the for­est. ”

“Know my roy­al lady, that your appeal is in vain. I am deter­mined to go away from here. Know me as already gone from you and your king­dom to a retreat in woods far away from here.”. While Chu­dala was sleep­ing, Shikid­wa­ja van­ish­es into the for­est. Chu­dala was shocked to find her beloved hus­band miss­ing when she woke up in the morn­ing.

Many many years passed and Chu­dala was tak­ing care of the affairs of the king­dom. She was wait­ing for the right oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet her hus­band as she knew, through her per­son­al expe­ri­ence that meet­ing him pre­ma­ture­ly will dis­rupt his Sad­hana. When old age took over them, she went to the for­est. Hav­ing mas­tered astral trav­el, Chu­dala moved in air like an invis­i­ble object and reached his hut. Before appear­ing to him, she had numer­ous thought cross­ing her mind.

“Alas, how painful it is to see this piti­ful sight! 51 O, the great stu­pid­i­ty that ris­es from igno­rance of spir­i­tu­al knowl­edge and which has brought on this mis­er­able con­di­tion on this self-delud­ed king. I must not call him unfor­tu­nate as long as he is my hus­band, though the deep dark­ness of his mind (igno­rance) has brought on this mis­er­able plight. I must try my best to bring him to the knowl­edge of truth. No doubt that will restore him to his sense of enjoy­ment here and of his lib­er­a­tion here­after, and change his fig­ure to anoth­er form alto­geth­er. 54 He always treats me like his young and sil­ly wife, but I must get clos­er to him to instill under­stand­ing in his mind or else my words will have no effect on him.”

She mate­ri­al­ized as a Brah­min boy and appeared before Shikid­wa­ja. By look­ing at the boy’s radi­ant appear­ance, the her­mit king wel­comed with a gar­land of flow­ers and treat­ed him with ven­er­a­tion. The King asked the boy his lin­eage. The boy men­tioned that he was the son of sage Nara­da and nar­rat­ed the sto­ry of his birth. On a cer­tain occa­sion, Sage Nara­da had been attract­ed to few women who were play­ing in the waters. Shikid­wa­ja was shocked to hear that an enlight­ened sage like Nara­da had lost him­self. The Brah­min boy explained in great detail the laws of action and con­se­quences and how they bind us in each birth and hence no one is free from these ten­den­cies. The boy went on to nar­rate how he was born to Sage Nara­da in a pot inside a cave. Brah­ma gave him the name Kumb­ha.

Kumb­ha nar­rat­ed the ques­tion he had asked Lord Brah­ma and the reply giv­en by the Lord.

“which is the more use­ful and prefer­able for mankind: the obser­vance of duties or their nonob­ser­vance for the sake of knowl­edge. Brah­ma replied, “No doubt knowl­edge is the supreme good because it leads a man to under­stand the uni­ty of God to him­self. But action has been incul­cat­ed in man from cre­ation as his duty in life, both for plea­sure and for pass­ing his life­time. Let those who have not acquired their intel­lec­tu­al light and the sight of the soul be employed in their duties to their off­spring and fel­low crea­tures.”

The con­ver­sa­tions between Kumb­ha and Shikid­wa­ja get deep­er and deep­er. Kumb­ha (Chu­dala in dis­guise) nar­rat­ed the sto­ry of Philoso­pher’s stone which changed Shikid­wa­ja com­plete­ly.

to be con­tin­ued…