Chapter 56

Yajnyawalkya was on his way back to his cottage from Janaka’s palace when he noticed Gargi walking briskly towards his cottage He paced up hurriedly and caught up with her.

“Gargi!” he said with a touch of surprise. Gargi stopped and said, “I am leaving Videha. I thought I must meet you before I go.”

Yajnyawalkya accompanied her silently to the cottage. As they entered, Artabhaga retreated in surprise to make way for Gargi, and then quietly stepped out of the cottage. It was a warm evening. Seeing Gargi’s reluctance to stay inside, Yajnyawalkya beckoned her to sit down in the courtyard. No words were spoken between them. The awareness of estrangement was more painful to Gargi than to Yajnyawalkya.

Her loneliness touched him. He had a strong impulse to get up and hold her to his heart. They looked at each other at the same time. Gargi lowered her eyes. Without looking at Yajnyawalkya, she said, “I am sorry; I did not make a good disciple.”

Yajnyawalkya replied calmly, “You were not meant to be a disciple.”

“Or were you not meant to be my mentor?” asked Gargi.

“I was a seeker,” said Yajnyawalkya.

“Did I distract you from the path you were seeking?” Gargi asked.

For a moment, Yajnyawalkya thought Gargi was aiming at eliciting a habitual response to gratify her egoistic vanity and expected him to say ‘yes.’

But one look at her convinced him that there was no time on their hands to waste on false gestures. It was time for truth.

He said, “No, you have no power to distract me!”

Gargi was looking at his feet quietly as she heard him. She longed to have a look at him, as he said this, but somehow there was no need for it. She was absorbing all of him.

“I know,” she added, “I knew that I had no power over you. Perhaps that was the reason why I wanted to follow you wherever your chosen path was going to lead you,” said Gargi.

“Gargi, do not delude yourself into thinking that you could surrender your intellect to become a follower,” said Yajnyawalkya.

Gargi said, “I had long tormented myself trusting my intellect until we met. Can’t you realize that I have an equal right to become a seeker?”

“Precisely,” said Yajnyawalkya. Gargi looked at him to comprehend his meaning. Yajnyawalkya continued, “It is precisely for that reason that you cannot become a follower.”

“Then what brought me to you?” asked Gargi.

“Seeking!” said Yajnyawalkya simply. Gargi remained dumb. She was agonized to see no trace of anguish in Yajnyawalkya.

“I wish, I knew what I was seeking!” Gargi whispered softly. Yajnyawalkya turned away from her. He steeled himself against an overwhelming desire to look into her eyes and tell her, “You were seeking Yajnyawalkya!”

Gargi waited anxiously for him to turn and face her. When she knew that he would not, she got up and stood before him.

“Tell me; where do we go from here?” she asked. Yajnyawalkya looked at her. His breath stopped. Once upon a time all his harshness and enforced apathy towards Gargi had melted into love and desire. Now he had to stop that love from breaking him down.

He made a determined effort to collect himself. “Yajnyawalkya is not your destiny, Gargi,” he said at last.  

Once again, a surge of fury swept over Gargi. She did not want to hear from Yajnayawalkya that which she knew all along, but could not accept. She looked into his eyes as she said, “I should know that our paths diverge now.”

“Yes,” said Yajnyawalkya calmly.

“May I know in what direction your path lies now?” asked Gargi.

“Inwards!” Yajnyawalkya said.

“Alone?” asked Gargi.

“One is always alone,” said Yajnyawalkya.

“Then our life together? Were you alone then too?” asked Gargi.

Yajnyawalkya was silent.

“Why did you not seek me?” asked Gargi.

“I sought my own Self in you!” said Yajnyawalkya.

“Did you find that Self?” asked Gargi.

“Yes!” said Yajnyawalkya.

“Then why are we facing each other as strangers now?” asked Gargi.

“Because we are and we were strangers,” said Yajnyawalkya.

“Then why did you love me?” asked Gargi.

“It took me some time to realize that I had mistaken you for an embodiment of an image I had worshipped.”

Gargi was pained to hear that. She had lost: not a battle, but an offering.

“Could you not accept me for what I was?” she asked.

“I did not know what you were, but you were certainly not the image in my heart, said Yajnyawalkya.

“You did not love me then; you loved the fantasy of a woman in your heart,” said Gargi.

Yajnyawalkya did not reply. Image, fantasy, illusion and truth: he did not want to get caught in the labyrinth of doubts.

Seeing him silent, Gargi was again overpowered by the impulse to strike.

“Will you go seeking that imaginary idol again? Is that your path now?” she asked.

Yajnyawalkya said, “I don’t have to go seek her now. And it should not matter to you now what I seek. As for choosing a path, let me tell you; the path is where one is. Understand it and experience it fully. Recognize and experience all its landmarks. A path is not an object of analysis and doubt.

Gargi was distraught with grief. Standing in an orchard that was ready for harvesting, she was robbed of one ripe fruit she had set her mind upon. She closed her eyes in fatigue, as if surrounded, not by an orchard, but by a vast stretch of arid land. 

“Is there nothing more you have to say?”She asked.

Yajnyawalkya said nothing.

Gargi eyed him for a few moments, searching for something within herself that was trying to find a way out. With a determined effort, she said, “I have to say something. I ought to have said it long back. It would have absolved you of an offence you did not commit, but carried the stigma all these years.”

Yajnyawalkya looked at her with a question in his eyes. Gargi was finding it difficult to articulate what she had in her mind. At last she said, “Shakalya did not meet with his end because of what was perceived to be a curse uttered by you. I was responsible for it.”

Yajnyawalkya was unmoved. Gargi asked, “Don’t you want to know how?”

Yajnyawalkya leaned back wearily.

“No,” said he. “But nevertheless, go on and say what you have to. I knew it all along. I am surprised only to see you acknowledge it now.”

Gargi breathed deeply. She said,”Shakalya and I were objects of experiment for each other There was a war of attrition between us. We devised strategies to subdue each other, a game in which none wanted to yield, each one wanted to enslave the other. We both had mastered the game of love. The victory belonged to me, and thereafter I never did forgo my power over men. Shakalya turned into an avowed slave. I ruled over his body and mind.”

“I was the power behind his manifest audacity at the conference of sages held here in Videha. Everyone, including himself, took it to be knowledge of metaphysics. Only I knew what it was worth. But he was my protégé, my vassal. I was fighting you and challenging you through him. I was taking a vicarious pleasure in aiming my missiles at you through him. With the failure of each missile, I came to admire you, and at the same time, came to despise Shakalya. You blasted both of us, but with different results for both.”

“Shakalya was mortified, confounded, and I was furious. The entire assembly had turned into stone.”

Yajnyawalkya listened with the detachment of a physician. Gargi too, was recounting the past as if she was digging out a lost narrative, the language of which was alien to her.

She continued, “That night was terrible for both. Shakalya wanted to drown his mortification in the act of love. I repulsed him. I was drawn to you as if you were my destiny. Shakalya sensed it. Nothing was hidden between us. What happened thereafter, I mean, Shakalya’s end as predicted and visualized by you, petrified everyone. Shakalya was no more. But I was caught between a war between envy and attraction. There was something sublime and sacred in you which did not leave me in peace. I wanted to grasp it, appropriate it, and make it my own.”

Gargi stopped. All this while, she was talking to herself, refusing to look at Yajnyawalkya. She looked at him fearfully now, and asked, “Do you despise me now?” Yajnyawalkya said, “No.”

“But you will not love me either,” she said.

“I did not love the Gargi with whom you identify yourself. I loved the divinity that had incarnated in you, for a brief period, in spite of yourself, when you had wanted to be loved,” said Yajnyawalkya.

Gargi said, “Is it impossible for me to acquire that divinity again?”

Yajnyawalkya said, “It cannot be acquired.”

Gargi was without consolation. She said, “Will I not see it then?”

Yajnyawalkya did not reply.

“Why are you holding back from me the heart of knowledge?” she asked.

“You will not be able to withstand knowledge,” he said.

“Maybe, I am not ready for it yet; but I want to be strong enough to withstand it. Show me the way,” she said.

Yajnyawalkya said, “Have faith in yourself. Faith will bring light on your path; light will bring certainty.”

“And after certainty what?” asked Gargi.

Yajnyawalkya said, “Emancipation. Your attachment to Yajnyawalkya was an obsession.”

Gargi was quickened to anger by the word ‘obsession’.

“What is the difference between obsession and devotion?” she asked.

Yajnyawalkya said, “It is the difference between the blazing fire and a lamp. The fire is not quenched by the offering; it devours and demands more.”

“And what is a lamp?”

“A lamp takes as much as is necessary for its light,” said Yajnyawalkya.

Gargi was silent for a while. She said, “True, I was not content to be a lamp. I wanted the world to see and acknowledge that Gargi alone can shine among women. Gargi alone claimed the right to own Yajnyawalkya.”

Yajnyawalkya said, “A time was when you had almost done it. But it was the divinity in you that returned once again; maybe, in the form of pride, apparently. You opened my eyes by closing the door on me when I had come to you to make an offering of myself.”

Gargi said, “I regret it. I want you back, not in flesh, but in spirit.”

“That cannot be. I cannot reverse time and tide,” said Yajnyawalkya.

Gargi did not speak.

Yajnyawalkya said, “You do not understand the value of your gestures. You are precious in yourself; but you do not know how and why.”

“Say I am precious, not in myself, but precious to you!” said Gargi imploringly. Yajnyawalkya said, “Gargi, we have reached a point where we must stop thinking of what we are to others. Draw yourself together and find your Self in the silence of absurdity. Face that absurdity first. I can’t say what you will find beyond that absurdity. But press ahead. You have the courage,” said Yajnyawalkya.

“I am not sure!” said Gargi. “But I have begun to see the way,” said she.

There was silence.

Gargi went to Yajnyawalkya and bent at his feet.

“I may not be a good disciple,” she said, “But you are still, if not my mentor, my pathfinder!”

Gargi stood up. It was as if an eon had passed away. Shakalya and Yajnyawalkya! She was destined to find them both as one single image of man! Shakalya was swept away with no resurrection; Yajnyawalkya conquered. Gargi lost both.

The image of Shakalya arose before Yajnyawalkya’s mind, as if alive with the rage and frustration of yore. Who was to seek forgiveness and who was to forgive?

Whoever knew a decade or so ago the awesome immensity of Brahma—the eternal time--- casting its shadow over all human endeavors!