Chapter50
Artabhaga spent the night with Yajnyawalkya in the latter’s humble cottage. As Artabhaga slumbered peacefully by his side, Yajnayawalkya thought of the home and family he had left behind. It was time to leave Videha.
And where was he to go? Was it home that beckoned him? Or was it a sense of futility of the life he was pursuing in Videha? And what did home mean? Katyayani,Maitreyi and his son whom he had not known?
The thought of Maitreyi filled him with remorse. Artabhaga had mentioned her in his impassioned talk on the previous day.
“Yajnyawalkya did not utter a curse; in fact he cannot!” those were her words that Artabhaga had repeated to him.
Yajnyawalkya longed to be in her presence and be able to hear those words again from her mouth. The formidable, invincible fighter needed his Maitreyi at that very moment. How could he fail to recognize the strength she had imparted to him on the day they had parted a decade ago? She was the god who had absented herself from his life so he may find his own self. And he had believed he could find his self without her! Or was he really without her? She was there like a silent murmur of a stream, deep inside his consciousness, so deep that he did not know she was there.
Yajnyawalkya turned to look at Artabhaga sleeping in the bed next to him. There was a deep shadow of exhaustion on Artabhaga’s tranquil face. He seemed past anger, love and hatred. It was as if he had crossed the valley of shadows after all. The dark night of his soul’s journey was about to be over.
Yajnyawalkya remembered having heard him refer to Maitreyi during their talk. He wondered at the knowledge Artabhaga had gained from Maitreyi. Maitreyi was not a good speaker and therefore not a good teacher. And yet Artabhaga appeared to have been touched and taught by her at some deep level. Yajnyawalkya pondered over this new realization. He himself had never yielded to the feeling and voice that Maitreyi was. To think of Maitreyi was to be aware of silence. He looked at Artabhaga again. He looked at him deeply, and realized that this recluse had listened to Maitreyi’s silence.
The next morning found both Yajnyawalkya and Artabhaga confronting each other again. However, the discomfort and anger had vanished. As they sat basking in the morning sun, Yajnyawalkya felt the need to break the long drawn out silence.
He closed his eyes as he thought of Artabhaga’s agony. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Artabhaga again. Artabhaga’s mind had wandered far into the distant past. A decade had made a great difference to the appearance of both.Yajnyawalkya got up, went inside the cottage and came back with a glass of milk for Artabhaga. Both looked into each other’s eyes as Artabhaga took the glass from Yajnyawalkya. The memory of Shakalya was still there like an alienating presence between them. Yajnyawalkya could grasp the fact that Shakalya had become a name for a vast terrain of unanswered questions. It was a dark vault closed long ago, the key of which was in the possession of Yajnyawalkya. None but Yajnyawalkya could see that Shakalya was a name of Fury in Man that had the power to wreck and throw out of balance every vital principle that holds man together in the dark vortex of desire.
He was touched by tenderness for this untainted man sitting before him, sipping milk out of the glass in his hand.
“May this man never come in the grasping power of desire,” said Yajnyawalkya to himself as he watched Artabhaga.
Artabhaga’s brow contracted as he felt Yajnyawalkya’s gaze directed at him. He remembered how, in the past, he had struggled to formulate that one master question which would elicit all answers. Now that his mind was at peace with himself, he no longer needed to hunt for the question and answers.
But Yajnyawalkya appeared restless now. Artabhaga smiled. He was amused to find a small crevice opening up in the defensive wall Yajnyawalkya had built around himself. He continued to sip milk out of the glass, content to have this small moment of closeness and peace between them. The silence was no longer oppressive.
“If God were to incarnate, perhaps He would be like this,” thought Artabhaga, looking at Yajnyawalkya who was solitary and sad, yearning to be known.
Artabhaga spoke, “You are sad! If our ancient ‘Brahma’ were to incarnate and speak to us, perhaps it would be someone like you: a hidden creature, willing to be known. There is no rationale for God’s sadness. We know it only by our own anguish to end our separateness from Him and our desire to understand the tragedy and pain of life. What is there at the heart of this terrifying but beautiful world?”
“Love,” said Yajnyawalkya.
Artabhaga was astonished to hear the word ‘love’. He looked at Yajnyawalkya in amazement.
“And where do beauty, terror and pain come from?” asked Artabhaga.
“All come from love!” said Yajnyawalkya.
“And where does love come from?” asked Artabhaga.
“From the Self whom we know not”, said Yajnyawalkya.“And where does hatred come from?” asked Artabhaga.
“Hatred is the failure of the mind to see the essence of the other as Self.”
There was silence for some time.
“Did you ever hate in life?” asked Artabhaga.
“When you vow to seek the knowledge of the Self, there is no place for hatred,” said Yajnyawalkya.
Artabhaga was silent for a while. He stared at Yajnyawalkya’s unrevealing countenance. Yajnyawalkya was lost in abstraction.
Artabhaga decided to approach from another direction.
“Why did Shakalya hate you?” he asked.
There was a cold silence.
“What led you to presume that?” countered Yajnyawalkya.
“You are answering my question by another question!” said Artabhaga, careful not to let sarcasm creep into his tone.
“I have nothing to hide from anyone, if you think it that way!” said Yajnyawalkya.
“Are you sure you are not hiding from yourself?” asked Artabhaga with a little persistence.
“Do you see me as separate from my Self? In that case, let us stop this dialogue here and now. Because there is no dialogue between two, so long as one sees the other as a divided entity. A Brahmin is not a Brahmin if he lets others see him as alienated from his Self, and a Kshatriya is not a Kshatriya if he allows others to see him as less than his inner Self,” said Yajnyawalkya, almost daring Artabhaga to meet him on his own ground.
Artabhaga recoiled in surprise. It was as if he had run his finger along the sharp edge of a knife in the dark. The responsibility now lay with him to bring the dialogue back to the track.
“But Shakalya did not love you either. At least I can say that!” said Artabhaga, determined to pursue his objective.
“No one loves another in the sense you mean. I have never been loved.”
Artabhaga was surprised to hear that. Suddenly he realized, they were not talking about Shakalya; they were talking about Yajnyawalkya.Artabhaga had no questions and he sought no answer. He stared at the empty glass in his hand before putting it away.
He looked at Yajnyawalkya stealthily.
If Brahma were to be known by mortals would it be possible to love Brahma? Or, would it be possible to love at all after that?
Again, he was brought to the farthest end of language. He sat engrossed in the deepest truth Yajnyawalkya had uttered. He looked at the empty glass he had set aside. A moment ago, he was sipping milk out of it. Now it was just a vessel.
But the milk was real! It had to be. And so love, beauty, terror, all had to be real for us to be able
to live.
He turned to Yajnyawalkya to articulate his thoughts, but could not locate the source of his voice. He could only feel something stirring deep down.
Yajnayawalkya was watching Artabhaga silently for some time. He could see that there was no end to Artabhaga’s agony unless he:Yajnyawalkya: chose to end it. It was a pain that was beyond healing by touch or word.
Artabhaga’s mind was perplexed. It was swaying between clarity and confusion like a restless pendulum. Yajnyawalkya spoke: “When you want to save a man caught in a whirlpool, you have to be a master swimmer. Otherwise the doomed man pulls you in the vortex to drown along with him. Moreover, the man can be saved so long as you can make him forewarned; but once his karma takes over, his Self is eclipsed. The man and his karma are then separated from his Self. That is where the illusion appears to be real; ignorance appears to be knowledge. So all I can tell you is this—never lose sight of your Self which is enshrined in your heart. Never lose the sound of the voice of your Self. You loved Shakalya. You think I hated him for his ignorance. No, I could see that he had reached a dark blind cave where no light penetrated. That was the point where light, if it could find its way, had to come from his Self. But there are times, my dear Artabhaga, when our desires, pride, vanity---dislodge the Self and usurp its shrine. That is the darkness of death, and once you enter it, there is no going back. Then no love, however sublime, can bring you back to the realm of light. This is the truth of our life. If you grasp it, you will be the master swimmer. Truth is far more powerful than the ‘love’ as you understand it. To me, the truth of life is the truth of self. Elevate your simple, innocent love to that height and you will realize that love and truth together are Self. Never let them separate.”
Yajnyawalkya stopped. Artabhaga wondered if there was forgiveness after such light. Yajnyawalkya watched his silence. Then he spoke with a tenderness that rarely showed in his voice: “You saw yourself in Shakalya. But Shakalya never saw himself in anyone other than his own self.”
There was a pause again. Yajnyawalkya continued slowly, “Do not be unjust to your own precious Self. You have vast resources within you. More than anything else, you have a great capacity for happiness. Let it shine through. Don’t let it be overcast by the unhappiness of others. Throw away the illusion that you can make others happy or unhappy, and you will be truly free”.
Artabhaga was distressed to hear that. He said, “This is not the freedom I crave for. I don’t think I shall ever be happy with this kind of freedom.”
Yajnyawalkya smiled. He said, “I am not teaching you to be indifferent. Just be your own Self. Be the strong, happy, untainted soul that you are. Make no efforts to make others happy. They will be happy just by being with you.”
Artabhaga looked at Yajnyawalkya. A faint smile broke at the corner of Artabhaga’s lips. He felt light and breezy.
“Are you happy, being with me?” Artabhaga asked spontaneously. Yajnyawalkya looked into his eyes, and simply nodded to say, ‘Yes!’
And where was he to go? Was it home that beckoned him? Or was it a sense of futility of the life he was pursuing in Videha? And what did home mean? Katyayani,Maitreyi and his son whom he had not known?
The thought of Maitreyi filled him with remorse. Artabhaga had mentioned her in his impassioned talk on the previous day.
“Yajnyawalkya did not utter a curse; in fact he cannot!” those were her words that Artabhaga had repeated to him.
Yajnyawalkya longed to be in her presence and be able to hear those words again from her mouth. The formidable, invincible fighter needed his Maitreyi at that very moment. How could he fail to recognize the strength she had imparted to him on the day they had parted a decade ago? She was the god who had absented herself from his life so he may find his own self. And he had believed he could find his self without her! Or was he really without her? She was there like a silent murmur of a stream, deep inside his consciousness, so deep that he did not know she was there.
Yajnyawalkya turned to look at Artabhaga sleeping in the bed next to him. There was a deep shadow of exhaustion on Artabhaga’s tranquil face. He seemed past anger, love and hatred. It was as if he had crossed the valley of shadows after all. The dark night of his soul’s journey was about to be over.
Yajnyawalkya remembered having heard him refer to Maitreyi during their talk. He wondered at the knowledge Artabhaga had gained from Maitreyi. Maitreyi was not a good speaker and therefore not a good teacher. And yet Artabhaga appeared to have been touched and taught by her at some deep level. Yajnyawalkya pondered over this new realization. He himself had never yielded to the feeling and voice that Maitreyi was. To think of Maitreyi was to be aware of silence. He looked at Artabhaga again. He looked at him deeply, and realized that this recluse had listened to Maitreyi’s silence.
The next morning found both Yajnyawalkya and Artabhaga confronting each other again. However, the discomfort and anger had vanished. As they sat basking in the morning sun, Yajnyawalkya felt the need to break the long drawn out silence.
He closed his eyes as he thought of Artabhaga’s agony. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Artabhaga again. Artabhaga’s mind had wandered far into the distant past. A decade had made a great difference to the appearance of both.Yajnyawalkya got up, went inside the cottage and came back with a glass of milk for Artabhaga. Both looked into each other’s eyes as Artabhaga took the glass from Yajnyawalkya. The memory of Shakalya was still there like an alienating presence between them. Yajnyawalkya could grasp the fact that Shakalya had become a name for a vast terrain of unanswered questions. It was a dark vault closed long ago, the key of which was in the possession of Yajnyawalkya. None but Yajnyawalkya could see that Shakalya was a name of Fury in Man that had the power to wreck and throw out of balance every vital principle that holds man together in the dark vortex of desire.
He was touched by tenderness for this untainted man sitting before him, sipping milk out of the glass in his hand.
“May this man never come in the grasping power of desire,” said Yajnyawalkya to himself as he watched Artabhaga.
Artabhaga’s brow contracted as he felt Yajnyawalkya’s gaze directed at him. He remembered how, in the past, he had struggled to formulate that one master question which would elicit all answers. Now that his mind was at peace with himself, he no longer needed to hunt for the question and answers.
But Yajnyawalkya appeared restless now. Artabhaga smiled. He was amused to find a small crevice opening up in the defensive wall Yajnyawalkya had built around himself. He continued to sip milk out of the glass, content to have this small moment of closeness and peace between them. The silence was no longer oppressive.
“If God were to incarnate, perhaps He would be like this,” thought Artabhaga, looking at Yajnyawalkya who was solitary and sad, yearning to be known.
Artabhaga spoke, “You are sad! If our ancient ‘Brahma’ were to incarnate and speak to us, perhaps it would be someone like you: a hidden creature, willing to be known. There is no rationale for God’s sadness. We know it only by our own anguish to end our separateness from Him and our desire to understand the tragedy and pain of life. What is there at the heart of this terrifying but beautiful world?”
“Love,” said Yajnyawalkya.
Artabhaga was astonished to hear the word ‘love’. He looked at Yajnyawalkya in amazement.
“And where do beauty, terror and pain come from?” asked Artabhaga.
“All come from love!” said Yajnyawalkya.
“And where does love come from?” asked Artabhaga.
“From the Self whom we know not”, said Yajnyawalkya.“And where does hatred come from?” asked Artabhaga.
“Hatred is the failure of the mind to see the essence of the other as Self.”
There was silence for some time.
“Did you ever hate in life?” asked Artabhaga.
“When you vow to seek the knowledge of the Self, there is no place for hatred,” said Yajnyawalkya.
Artabhaga was silent for a while. He stared at Yajnyawalkya’s unrevealing countenance. Yajnyawalkya was lost in abstraction.
Artabhaga decided to approach from another direction.
“Why did Shakalya hate you?” he asked.
There was a cold silence.
“What led you to presume that?” countered Yajnyawalkya.
“You are answering my question by another question!” said Artabhaga, careful not to let sarcasm creep into his tone.
“I have nothing to hide from anyone, if you think it that way!” said Yajnyawalkya.
“Are you sure you are not hiding from yourself?” asked Artabhaga with a little persistence.
“Do you see me as separate from my Self? In that case, let us stop this dialogue here and now. Because there is no dialogue between two, so long as one sees the other as a divided entity. A Brahmin is not a Brahmin if he lets others see him as alienated from his Self, and a Kshatriya is not a Kshatriya if he allows others to see him as less than his inner Self,” said Yajnyawalkya, almost daring Artabhaga to meet him on his own ground.
Artabhaga recoiled in surprise. It was as if he had run his finger along the sharp edge of a knife in the dark. The responsibility now lay with him to bring the dialogue back to the track.
“But Shakalya did not love you either. At least I can say that!” said Artabhaga, determined to pursue his objective.
“No one loves another in the sense you mean. I have never been loved.”
Artabhaga was surprised to hear that. Suddenly he realized, they were not talking about Shakalya; they were talking about Yajnyawalkya.Artabhaga had no questions and he sought no answer. He stared at the empty glass in his hand before putting it away.
He looked at Yajnyawalkya stealthily.
If Brahma were to be known by mortals would it be possible to love Brahma? Or, would it be possible to love at all after that?
Again, he was brought to the farthest end of language. He sat engrossed in the deepest truth Yajnyawalkya had uttered. He looked at the empty glass he had set aside. A moment ago, he was sipping milk out of it. Now it was just a vessel.
But the milk was real! It had to be. And so love, beauty, terror, all had to be real for us to be able
to live.
He turned to Yajnyawalkya to articulate his thoughts, but could not locate the source of his voice. He could only feel something stirring deep down.
Yajnayawalkya was watching Artabhaga silently for some time. He could see that there was no end to Artabhaga’s agony unless he:Yajnyawalkya: chose to end it. It was a pain that was beyond healing by touch or word.
Artabhaga’s mind was perplexed. It was swaying between clarity and confusion like a restless pendulum. Yajnyawalkya spoke: “When you want to save a man caught in a whirlpool, you have to be a master swimmer. Otherwise the doomed man pulls you in the vortex to drown along with him. Moreover, the man can be saved so long as you can make him forewarned; but once his karma takes over, his Self is eclipsed. The man and his karma are then separated from his Self. That is where the illusion appears to be real; ignorance appears to be knowledge. So all I can tell you is this—never lose sight of your Self which is enshrined in your heart. Never lose the sound of the voice of your Self. You loved Shakalya. You think I hated him for his ignorance. No, I could see that he had reached a dark blind cave where no light penetrated. That was the point where light, if it could find its way, had to come from his Self. But there are times, my dear Artabhaga, when our desires, pride, vanity---dislodge the Self and usurp its shrine. That is the darkness of death, and once you enter it, there is no going back. Then no love, however sublime, can bring you back to the realm of light. This is the truth of our life. If you grasp it, you will be the master swimmer. Truth is far more powerful than the ‘love’ as you understand it. To me, the truth of life is the truth of self. Elevate your simple, innocent love to that height and you will realize that love and truth together are Self. Never let them separate.”
Yajnyawalkya stopped. Artabhaga wondered if there was forgiveness after such light. Yajnyawalkya watched his silence. Then he spoke with a tenderness that rarely showed in his voice: “You saw yourself in Shakalya. But Shakalya never saw himself in anyone other than his own self.”
There was a pause again. Yajnyawalkya continued slowly, “Do not be unjust to your own precious Self. You have vast resources within you. More than anything else, you have a great capacity for happiness. Let it shine through. Don’t let it be overcast by the unhappiness of others. Throw away the illusion that you can make others happy or unhappy, and you will be truly free”.
Artabhaga was distressed to hear that. He said, “This is not the freedom I crave for. I don’t think I shall ever be happy with this kind of freedom.”
Yajnyawalkya smiled. He said, “I am not teaching you to be indifferent. Just be your own Self. Be the strong, happy, untainted soul that you are. Make no efforts to make others happy. They will be happy just by being with you.”
Artabhaga looked at Yajnyawalkya. A faint smile broke at the corner of Artabhaga’s lips. He felt light and breezy.
“Are you happy, being with me?” Artabhaga asked spontaneously. Yajnyawalkya looked into his eyes, and simply nodded to say, ‘Yes!’
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