i
“It is very beautiful.”
“A Rishi’s wife is an amazing being in her own right. What about Anasuya, the wife of the Rishi Atri? Her very name means ‘absence of envy.’ What more could one want in a wife? And just as she was without envy, everyone was envious of her. Even Lakshmi, Sarasvati and Parvati, the wives of Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva, became envious of her, and one day they got together and decided to tell their husbands to go and disturb her penance so she would not stand out as the example of what a wife should be. Being henpecked, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva gave in to their wives, and decided to disturb Anasuya’s penance.”
A theatrical pause, to emphasize how ill-advised this action was.
“First of all, what gave Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva the right to disturb her penance, even if Their fiat rules the whole world? Nothing; even though They are gods They had no right to interfere with a Rishi’s Lila. Right from the start, then, Their mission was doomed to failure because They were try ing to do something They had no right to do.
“They visited the hermitage of Atri and Anasuya in disguise, choosing a time when They knew Atri would be away. Anasuya invited Them in and, knowing that guests should be treated as gods, asked them what They would like to eat. They replied, ‘You may serve us whatever you like, but please feed us only after you have become naked; that is our desire.’
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“This was the second mistake these three mischief-makers made. What right did They have to embarrass her modesty? None whatsoever. The time had come for Them to pay for Their evil karmas.
“Confronted by this most impertinent and unreasonable request, Anasuya decided to act. She went to her husband’s kamandalu (water pot) and took some water from it. Sprinkling it over the three gods she said, ‘Shishuvat bhava!’ (‘Become like babies!’) And in that instant the three chief gods of the universe were changed into babies.
“Then Anasuya became naked. She took off her clothes, and she also took off the three coverings’ from her ego; she became a perfect example of “naked truth.’ Since Brahma is the personification of Rajas, Vishnu the per sonification of Sattva, and Shiva the personification of Tamas, by removing all her ‘coverings’ she went beyond the provinces of all three of these cos mic forces.
“Once she was naked Anasuya took each baby by turn and fed Them from her own breasts. By doing this she complied with Their request.-she fed Them while naked-but They could not embarrass her as They had planned to do. A baby has no idea what its mother’s breast is; it knows the breast only as a source of milk. When in the Bible they talk about Amnon ‘knowing’ his sister Tamar they mean that he had sex with her. Only when you know’ what the body is meant for can you be embarrassed by it. When you are too young to know, or too advanced to care, then your mind is no longer in your body; it is in your heart, where it knows other people’s hearts and doesn’t care for their bodies one way or another.
“The ego self-identifies with whatever catches its fancy. Ma in Her infinite compassion provides one with whatever one desires. It is only when the ego says to Ma, ‘I have seen You in all of your various costumes; now I want to see You naked, I want to see Your true self,’ that She will make you like a child and let you sit on Her lap. Then you are a true child. This is why great saints are always childlike, when they are not acting like demons or mad men.
“Well, when Atri came back to the hermitage and saw what his wife had done he was so overwhelmed with joy that tears welled up in his eyes. On the other hand, the three wives of these miscreants were sitting at home, waiting for the moment when their husbands would return to dally with them and bring them the satisfying news that Anasuya had been humbled. They might have waited there forever had not the celestial troublemaker, Narada, happened onto the scene and told them where they could find their husbands, and that they would have to find them because the hus
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bands could not find their way back home on their own, having been trans formed into babies.
“Hastening to Atri’s hermitage the three wives saw that Narada’s words were indeed true. They went to Anasuya and said, ‘Please give us back our husbands!’ They knew they had to be polite.
“Anasuya said, ‘Pick out your husbands and take them away if you like.’ Unfortunately, they couldn’t. How could they? As long as they saw their husbands as gods, as the embodiments of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, how could they identify them as children, in which the Three Gunas have not fully manifested? And because they were limited to the Three Gunas, how could they know the bliss of that which is beyond the Gunas? So naturally they were at a loss.
“Then Anasuya, who represents the purified ego, let herself descend into the Three Gunas again, and she delivered the appropriate babe to the appro priate wife. Then the three gods, restored by Anasuya to their normal forms and looking awfully sheepish, each blessed Anasuya that she would give birth to a great son. Soma, the moon, was bom as a result of Brahma’s bless ing. From Shiva’s blessing was born the great Rishi Durvasas. Vishnu’s blessing was responsible for the birth of Dattatreya, the immortal guru of the Aghoris.
“It is said that Dattatreya received some of the blessing from Brahma and Shiva also, and that he is really an incarnation of all three gods, which means all Three Gunas. As guru of the Aghoris he went beyond all Three Gunas, beyond all those who blessed him. Hence the two meanings of his name: ‘given to Atri,’ which is certainly true, and ‘having given up the Three,’ meaning the Three Gunas. This makes sense, of course; since his mother was able to give up the Three Gunas and play about with them,
doesn’t it make sense that her son would be able to do so as well?”
“It does.”
“This is why Dattatreya is called Digambara (“sky-clad’); by removing the clothing of the Three Gunas he has become truly naked, completely unaf fected by anything in the manifested world. When he decided to test his students Dattatreya took to drinking wine, and created a beautiful Shakti to sit on his lap. Most of his disciples were orthodox, and they were disgusted with this sort of behavior; they could not see beneath their guru’s outer ‘clothes. As Dattatreya held his Shakti’s breast he watched all but one of his disciples disappear; this last remaining student was the one he taught.”
Vimalananda sometimes used a similar method to rid himself of “excess baggage,” as he sometimes called those people of less-than-sincere motives
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who tried to become his children.” He openly flouted his drinking and use of intoxicants, made no bones about his sexual activity, and was not above inventing details of his excesses if he thought it necessary. This sort of drama was usually sufficient to turn the average “spiritual groupie” away from his door.