Indra and Ahalya

Rama asked, “Gurudev, if a person’s love falls outside dharma, will he stay bound forever?”

Vasistha said, “Rama, listen to the story of Indra and Ahalya. But this is not the story told in the Ramayana; this is the story of the Yoga Vasistha. In it the two never once left each other, and in the end both were set free. It is a journey of many years, of many lifetimes.”

Two Indras

This happened many years ago, when there was a kingdom whose king was named Indra. He was a man, a king, and his wife was named Ahalya.

King Indra was no ordinary Indra. He carried the same name as the king of heaven, yet he was not the Indra of heaven. He was a king of the earth who happened to bear the name Indra as well.

In that kingdom there lived another Indra, and this second Indra was a deva, which is to say one could, if one wished, call him the Indra of heaven. But at this time he had come down and was living in the kingdom like an ordinary man.

The two shared one name, yet the two were different.

Ahalya was the queen. She was twenty-eight years old, her face round, with a small mole above her left eyebrow. Her fingers were long, because as a child she had played the veena a great deal.

King Indra was a good king. An ordinary man, of middling height, with a slight paunch, strict in matters of justice and easy at home. In the evening he would return from his court, wash his hands and face, and then talk with the queen about some small matter of the day.

Ahalya listened to these small matters for many years.

Living with the king was not hard. There was simply nothing remarkable in it.

When Ahalya was alone, she would take out her veena and play a slow melody. The tune was her own, learned from no one.

The king never understood this tune.

One day, in a garden near the palace, she met the other Indra.

The deva Indra was a little taller in body. His eyes were unusually bright, yet his face wore a tiredness, and across his forehead ran very fine lines, as though he carried the weight of some enormous exhaustion. His hair fell loose to his shoulders, and above his lips lay a thin mustache.

He sat alone beneath a champa tree, nothing in his hands, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Ahalya stopped where she was. She had never before seen a deva so close, and yet he seemed to her a tired man before anything else.

The two saw each other and grew still.

The first meeting

“Devi.” “Deva.”

The deva Indra asked, “Who are you?”

“I am Ahalya, wife of King Indra.”

“And I am Indra, but a deva.”

Ahalya said, “Two Indras, and one name. Yet the two of you look different.”

“Yes.”

She asked again, “Why are you here?”

The deva Indra said, “Devi, shall I tell you the truth? I have grown tired of heaven.”

Ahalya was startled. “Deva, tired of heaven? But heaven is the highest of all.”

The deva Indra said, “Devi, that is what people say. But seen from the inside, heaven is a vast boredom. There every desire is fulfilled, so no desire is left at all, and without desire life keeps no flavor. I spent many years there, and then one day I thought, let me go, let me go down below.”

Ahalya said, “Deva, I had never once thought that even heaven could hold boredom.”

The deva Indra said, “Devi, in every place, whatever is the limit of that place is what comes to pass. And the limit of heaven is its own completeness.”

The two stayed sitting in the garden and talked for a long while.

Ahalya found that with the deva Indra she could speak of all the things she had never managed to speak of with King Indra. Talk of philosophy, talk of love, talk of the mind, and even that talk of boredom for which she had never once had the words.

The deva Indra found that Ahalya carried a kind of intelligence that no apsara of heaven possessed. The apsaras were beautiful, yet they said yes to everything, while Ahalya, by her third remark, had already cut down one of his arguments.

The deva Indra said, “Devi, tell me one thing. Do you have a veena in your home?”

Ahalya looked at him in surprise and said, “Yes, I do.”

“I thought as much. Your fingers are a player’s fingers.”

Ahalya looked at her fingers and asked, “Deva, how did you know?”

The deva Indra said, “Devi, I have seen every apsara who plays the veena. But your fingers are unlike them all, because these are fingers that play a tune of their own.”

Ahalya lowered her eyes, and the two gazed at each other for a long while.

Love

Love grew between Ahalya and the second Indra. It came slowly, without haste. First the meetings, then the talk, then the kind of talk they could share with no one else, then looking into each other’s eyes, then the touch of a hand, and then everything else.

This stayed hidden for some years, but one day King Indra came to know of it.

Wrath

The king summoned the two of them and said, “The two of you have done wrong.”

Ahalya did not bow her head.

She said, “Maharaj, I have something to say.”

“Speak.”

Ahalya looked straight at the king, her eyes set in his, and said, “Maharaj, you have known me for twelve years. You saw a mole in me, you saw a smile, you heard my veena, but you never saw me whole. Inside me was a hunger, a hunger for talk, for the kind of talk you did not have. I never told you this, because you were good and I did not want you to grieve. But that hunger stayed.”

The king’s face stayed hard, yet something inside him shifted. He asked, “And?”

Ahalya said, “And this deva shared that talk with me. For the first time I heard it, and for the first time I felt that the hunger inside me could have an answer.”

The king asked, “So is this right?”

Ahalya said, “Maharaj, right and wrong are the language of society. The language inside me is different. My inner language says that whatever completes my being is the real thing, and whatever leaves my being unfinished is false, however respectable it may be. I have made this choice. I knew its price would have to be paid, and I am ready for it.”

The king looked at her for a long while and said, “Ahalya, do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes.”

“Society will cast you out.”

“I know.”

“Your mother and father will mourn for you.”

“I know.”

“You will be called a fallen woman.”

“Maharaj, that is your word, not mine.”

The king then looked toward the deva and asked, “And you, Deva?”

The deva Indra raised his head and said, “Maharaj, I too stand with Ahalya. I too will be called fallen, and that is fine with me.”

The king said, “Then you will be punished.”

Ahalya said, “Give it.”

The king punished them both. First bodily torment, then exile. Ahalya and Indra were left in a forest, without food, without clothes.

But the two of them were one.

In the forest they built a hut of leaves, its walls of mud, very plain. They hunted and ate.

Every night they sat together, and in this way many years passed.

The sage Bharata

One day a sage named Bharata passed through that forest. He saw the two of them, saw their hut, and saw their companionship.

He asked, “Who are you?”

“Maharaj, we are two people who are in love. The king has punished us.”

Bharata said, “This love lies outside dharma. That is not right.”

“Maharaj, we have no regret.”

Bharata thought to himself that these two were bound by their own desire, and desire is hard to stop this way. But there is one thing: if desire is allowed to run for a very long time, it wears itself out on its own. That is the law.

He said, “As long as you are caught in this love, you cannot be free. I lay a curse on you. Birth after birth you will meet each other, and birth after birth you will stay bound, until your desire ends of its own accord.”

Ahalya and Indra laughed and said, “Maharaj, to us this is a blessing. In any case we wished to be with each other birth after birth.”

Bharata said only, “We shall see.”

Birth after birth

Ahalya and Indra died.

Then they were born, one body after another.

The first birth.

Once they were two crested pigeons, one male and one female. They lived on the dome of an old temple, where their nest sat behind a broken lattice, a place the wind rarely reached and the rain never came down from above.

The female’s breast was a pale brown, and on the male’s throat lay a glint of green.

The two stayed together all day. In the morning they came down in search of grain, and in the evening they returned to the dome.

Once the female’s foot caught in a kite-string down on the ground, and the male sat above and watched.

The female thrashed and kept trying to cut the string with her beak, but the string was too tough.

Then the male came down and worked at the string with his beak for a long time, until blood came even to his own beak.

In the end he set her free.

For a while the two only looked at each other, then flew up, and so many years passed.

One day a hunter killed the female, and the arrow struck very close to the dome.

The male saw it all. He could not fly, and he sat behind that same broken lattice for three days.

On the fourth day he too, with no hunter near him, left his body.

The second birth.

This time they were two deer of the Dandaka forest, one male and one female. The male’s antlers were small, not yet fully grown.

They grew up together in the same herd.

One summer the water ran low, so the herd had to travel far, but the old deer could not walk so far.

The female could not leave her old father and go.

The male looked at the female and asked, “Will you stay?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will stay too.”

“Go with the herd.”

“No.”

The two stayed by the old deer.

Three days later the old deer passed away.

The female touched her forehead to the male’s forehead, because this was their language.

Then the two set off after the herd, and having lived together for many years, they grew old and died.

The third birth. This time they were two fisherfolk.

They lived in the same village but in different homes, and they met at the market. The two married, had children, and having lived together for many years, they grew old and died.

The fourth birth.

This time they were two brahmins who grew up in the same ashram. They learned meditation, they learned the texts, yet between them the same old love remained. When they came of age, they left the ashram, married, lived together for many years, and then died.

The fifth birth.

This time they were born in the same village but into different castes. The boy into the home of a leather-worker, and the girl into the home of a brahmin.

As children they used to see each other at the well. The girl was sent to fill water at the well, but the boy was not, because it was believed that his shadow falling on it would make the well impure.

But once the boy’s father fell ill, and the boy went to the well. Standing at a distance, he asked the girl for water.

The girl looked at him, then filled her pot and set it down beside him without a word.

This was the girl’s first act of defiance.

After this, many seasons passed.

When they came of age, they recognized each other, but society forbade them.

The girl’s father arranged her marriage to someone else.

The night before the wedding the girl wrote a letter to her father, “Father, I am leaving. Whether you forgive me or not is for you to decide, but I am leaving. My heart belongs where my bones have always wished to go, and that place is not the house you are sending me to.”

That night she slipped out of the house.

The boy was waiting for her at the well.

The two ran away and built a hut in a forest far off. Life was very plain, but they were together.

They raised three children but never told them their caste.

And the children never once asked.

In this way many thousands of births passed.

In every birth they met, and each time, with no name and no memory, they recognized each other, because their bodies were drawn to one another on their own. Each time they chose each other, though society forbade it, though family forbade it, though the king forbade it. So many thousands of births passed, and in every birth the same love remained.

A slow change

But one thing kept happening. In each birth their desire grew a little smaller.

In the first birth they could not stay without touching each other, they needed to be together every moment, and even a little distance made them restless. By the tenth birth they could live apart, yet they still preferred to be together. By the fiftieth birth they lived together, yet at times they could also live alone. And by the hundredth birth they would smile at the sight of each other, and both knew this was a very old bond, though neither remembered it.

By the thousandth birth they would still pause at the sight of each other, but the old intensity was gone from it, and only a quiet recognition was left.

Desire kept growing lighter. The love stayed the same, but its form kept changing. Once the love had been intense; now it had grown steady. Once the love had been restless; now it had grown calm.

Another birth

In another birth they were two children. The girl was born in a small village and the boy in the same village, and their homes were close together.

When they were children, they played together every day. When they grew a little older, they began to feel something special for each other, and when they grew older still, they married.

This birth was very ordinary. No great drama, no curse, no exile. There were simply two people who loved each other, lived together, had their children, grew old, and passed on.

But one thing happened. Before dying, the girl took the boy’s hand in hers and asked, “Husband, do you feel that we have met before?”

The boy said, “Wife, I have felt it for many years.”

“So have I.”

And the two died in peace.

The last birth

In one birth the two became ascetics, a woman ascetic and a man ascetic.

The woman lived alone in one part of the Himalayas, in a small hut. The man lived alone in another part of the Himalayas, in a small cave.

They lived far apart, but both knew they were meant for each other. They did not remember their earlier story, yet somewhere within, they knew it.

One day they met on the bank of a river.

The woman looked at the man, the man looked at the woman, and on the lips of both came a quiet smile of recognition.

The woman said, “You are the same one, the one from always.”

“Yes.”

“And so am I.”

“Yes.”

Then the two fell silent.

But this time something was different. In the earlier births, the moment they met they were drawn toward each other, but this time that pull was gone.

There was only a recognition.

The woman said, “I feel that this birth will be the last.”

“Why?”

“Because I no longer feel the desire to touch you. When I see you, my mind stays calm now, no longer restless.”

The man said, “I feel the same.”

“So?”

“So perhaps now we are free.”

The two sat down on the riverbank and stayed silent for a long while.

The woman took the man’s hand in hers. But this time the touch was different. Earlier this touch had been desire; now this touch was an act of reverence.

The man asked, “Do you remember our first story?”

“No. But there is something within.”

“There was a curse, from the sage Bharata.”

“A curse?”

“Yes. He had said, birth after birth you will meet but stay bound, until desire ends of its own accord.”

“And now?”

“Now the desire is ending.”

The woman asked, “Then what of the curse?”

“The curse is being fulfilled now. And the fulfilling of the curse means this, that we are becoming free.”

Then the two closed their eyes and passed into samadhi.

When people found them, the two were sitting together, eyes closed, faces calm, but there was no breath. The two had passed on at the very same moment.

People buried them there on the riverbank.

Much later, some people built a small temple in their memory. But that temple held no idol, only an open space and a faint shape drifting in the air. People used to say, “Here two lovers were set free, after many thousands of births.”

A word from Bharata

Many years later, in his final days, the sage Bharata remembered this story and said to his disciples, “Friends, I once laid a curse on two people, but that curse became a blessing for them. After a thousand births they were set free from me.”

The disciples were astonished and asked, “Maharaj, you cursed them, and they were set free?”

Bharata said, “Yes. Because the curse forced them to meet in every birth, and meeting in every birth, their desire grew a little smaller each time. At last the desire ended, and that is liberation. Had I killed them, they would have taken a thousand fewer births, but the desire would have remained. My curse wore that desire out.”

Bharata went on, “Friends, learn this. Every desire in the end wears itself out, however fierce it may be. It needs only time, and many births. Those who fear desire greatly and fight against it stay bound. But those who let desire walk its own natural road become free in the end.”

The disciples bowed their heads and took this in. Then Bharata departed, but this word of his remained.

Rama stayed silent for a long while, then said, “Gurudev, so even a love outside dharma, in the end…”

Vasistha said, “Rama, desire of every kind is one and the same thing. Whether it aligns with dharma or not, if it is very intense, it will keep pulling birth after birth. And until desire itself wears out, liberation does not come. But desire does tire one day, and only then does liberation come. This story says one thing, that no desire lasts forever. Every one of them has an end, only its road is different.”

Rama asked, “And the sage Bharata’s word? He did the right thing.”

Vasistha said, “Yes. What he did was a path, a very hard one, but a path all the same.”

Rama gazed at the waters of the Sarayu for a while, then said, “Gurudev, will there be such a desire in my life too?”

Vasistha said, “Rama, it lives in every human being; your own desire will be there as well. But you are to become a king, and you will have to seat your desire alongside a king’s dharma. That is your own story.”

Rama said again, “Gurudev, there is one more thing I sense in the story of Ahalya and Indra.”

“What?”

“The two of them never left each other, no matter what came.”

“Yes.”

“That is a very great thing.”

Vasistha said, “Rama, this is real love. Very often people give up their love under outside pressure, but Ahalya and Indra did not give it up.”

“Why?”

“Because their desire was very intense, and no barrier of society could so much as touch them.”

Rama asked, “Gurudev, is this intensity a good thing?”

Vasistha said, “Rama, good or bad is not the question at all. The point is that desire has a nature of its own. When desire is intense, it pulls across thousands of births, and when it is light, it tires quickly. Each has its own road.”

Rama said, “Gurudev, this is clear to me now.”

Outside, a soft wind was blowing, and Rama gazed at the waters of the Sarayu for a while.

The matter of many years was told in this way, and many questions and many answers found their place within this one story.

Rama said, “Gurudev, thank you.”

“Rama, let us go now.”

And the two rose to their feet.

Rama paused a moment, then looked again toward the waters of the Sarayu and said, “Gurudev, one more question. Are the consciousnesses of Ahalya and Indra anywhere now?”

Vasistha said, “Rama, yes. The two of them are now in light. But on one level their story lives in all of us as well. Whenever any two people, by their own will, refuse to leave each other, no matter what barrier stands in the way, Ahalya and Indra are there.”

Rama said, “Gurudev, that is a very tender thing.”

“Yes.”

And the Sarayu flowed on.