Chudala: A Yogini who helped her husband attain- Part 3

<–Part 2

Sto­ry from Yoga Vasish­ta

As the con­ver­sa­tions between Kumb­ha (Chu­dala) and Shikid­wa­ja get deep­er and deep­er, Shikid­wa­ja gains a lot of clar­i­ty. One day, Kumb­ha points out how the King has­n’t giv­en up his ego yet. This was so deep, that the King was speech­less for some­time and went into a deep state of Samad­hi.

The self-gov­erned Sikhid­hwa­ja became awaked to his sense by Kumbha’s admo­ni­tions. For a moment the king remained silent with the light that shone with­in him. 15 His pure con­scious­ness returned to his mind and the blaze of his right knowl­edge burnt away the impu­ri­ties of his attach­ment to the her­mitage, like a gust of wind dri­ving dust from the ground.

Shikid­wa­ja then arose and went inside his hut. He brought out all his pos­ses­sions and set them afire. He even threw his prayer beads and deer skin. His hide skin, water pot, mat­tress, med­i­ta­tion seat and all that he said grad­u­al­ly went into the fire. He even set fire to his hut and declared that he is free from all bur­den and attach­ment

“Now I am an all-aban­don­ing saint. I have aban­doned all desire and every object. I won­der how I have lived for so long before being awak­ened to my right knowl­edge by the holy lec­tures of my heav­en­ly child.”

Even after that, Kumb­ha (Chu­dala) points out that the King has­n’t got­ten rid of his attach­ments. The King is so frus­trat­ed that he became ready to jump into the fire. Kumb­ha clar­i­fies that mere­ly throw­ing the body into the fire does not relieve one of all the bondages. Only knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence of the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple can set him free.

“He who gives away his belong­ings in this life comes to pos­sess them again in his future state, just as rivers that pour their waters into the sea are again filled by flood tide.”

Then there is a long con­ver­sa­tion between the two where Kumb­ha answers all the ques­tions posed by Shikid­wa­ja. After this, Chu­dala leaves the boy’s body and returns to it after three days. She sees the King in deep med­i­ta­tion, hes­i­tant to dis­turb him but at the same time inorder to test him, she makes nois­es. Noth­ing is able to dis­turb the King. She then thinks he has left his body and she too is ready to leave her body. She how­ev­er want­ed to con­firm if he had left his body. She left her own body and entered his and found that his heart was still pul­sat­ing.

She awoke him by trig­ger­ing a thought and Shikid­wa­ja came back to his sens­es.

There were many occa­sions in the moun­tains when Chu­dala, assum­ing the form of a beau­ti­ful woman, test­ed Shikid­wa­ja. The King tran­scend­ed all mun­dane emo­tions and emerged as a realised being. When Chu­dala was con­fi­dent of her hus­band’s attaint­ment, she revealed her­self. They returned to their king­dom.

“He ruled over his king­dom for ten thou­sand years. He and his queen gave up the bur­den of their bod­ies and expired togeth­er about the same time. 27 Hav­ing left his mor­tal frame, he obtained his nir­vana like a lamp that has gone out for lack of oil. He attained the state in which the high mind­ed soul has no more to return and be reborn on earth.”

TAGS: ramayanayoga vasish­ta

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