By G. L. Krishna
An introspective involvement with the sensate is often the gateway to the spiritual. Feeling the ugliness of evil is perhaps the surest way to get rid of it. Here is the story of a prostitute whose life exemplified this truth. Krishna narrates it to his beloved friend Uddhava in the Bhagavata.
Pingala spent her evenings looking for mates in the busy streets of Videha. "Ah...he's my amour," she would think, casting longing glances at handsome passers-by. Whenever someone got enticed, she would spiritedly chase him - only to discover, at the end of the liaison, that the experience was superficial and unfulfilling. "Had, having, and in quest to have extreme," she would thus chase man after man.
One fine evening, a strange weariness came over her. She had grown tired of endlessly looking for the right man - a man who would satisfy her needs of both love and money. The search was tiring, but so were superficial liaisons. Coupled with the weariness was remorse about the life she had lived.
Deep remorse sometimes births deep realisations. Pingala felt acutely that night that her search was all over. As the Mahabharata says in an insightful verse, “When our wishes and fates run contrary to each other, disinterest in worldly joys (vairagya) dawns naturally.”
यथा यथा विपर्येति लोकतन्त्रमसारवत् ।
तथा तथा विरागोऽत्र जायते नात्र संशयः ।।
In a flash of intuition, Pingala felt that the fulfillment she was passionately longing for had been residing in her heart always. The disappointing search for a mate had culminated in abiding bhakti. Gradually, the outward became nothing and the inward became all.
This prostitute, Krishna tells Uddhava, went on to become a guru of a great sage. The sage was none other than Dattatreya whose birthday we celebrate today. On this holy day, may we pause to reflect: could someone we now despise as a lecherous sinner actually be a saint in the making?
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