AkHaNDbHaRAtRishi Kapila teaches his Mother the wisdom of Sankhya Philosophy or Sankhya Yoga. He taught his mother how to re direct his attachment to the divine that is inherent in everyone and how that is a part of liberation. Explaining to her the importance of the company of Sadhu’s and wise ones for one’s spiritual journey and understanding. He was explaining to her that devotion is the most effortless path for liberation and multi. How the devotion for Lord Narayana can burn away all the karmas. He was teaching his mother as her husband had gone to the forest for his penance to merge with the divine, to focus his whole sadhana on attaining the lord. Now her son who was an avatara, an incarnation of Lord Narayana himself was giving her this knowledge so that she can become free from sorrow. And this was the purpose of his birth, to share the Sankhya Yoga.
Rishi Kapila the small boy told his mother, my dear mother I will now tell you the story of the Purusha the universal consciousness, the divinity that pervades this creation this universe how it has come into being. This is a path that can give you self-knowledge and liberate you & make you free from sorrow, suffering & this repetitive existence.
Having this knowledge all ones doubts & confusion disappear. The self /consciousness in you is the Purusha. It is not different. And the Purusha has no beginning and no end. He is self luminant. There is nothing in this creation which is not the Purusha. He is eternal. This is all the part of you. This creation that you perceive, the Prakruti is the cause of the conditioning of the self. That’s why you are unable to perceive your true nature. The Purusha is eternal it has always been there. It is beyond the 3 Gunas – Rajas, Sattva & Tamas. How to understand this, that’s the skill. On one hand the Purusha is everywhere. Within it this whole world of diversity exists in it including the 3 Gunas, with all the opposite values, suffering, joy and problems. How can these 2 aspects co-exist. How can they be one and the same. One is pure untouched eternal and the other one if full of opposites it keeps changing. How did the Pursha get involved in the Prakriti this creation. How does part of the Purusha get involved in this cycle of birth and death. This is something to wonder about. The wise ones they know the secret. The Prakruti consists of 2 powers: The Awarna Shakti which veils and the Vikshepa Shakti. So through the 3 Gunas this whole creation happens. When the conciouness and the 3 Gunas are balanced there is a perfect equilibrium. That is whats called the Nirguna state. In this state the Gunas don’t show their nature, they balance each other out completely.
But suddenly at one point the equilibrium / balance got disturbed. The 1st Guna to manifest is Rajas. They the Sattva and Tamas also appear. When these Gunas start acting the avarna and vikshepa comes into picture. The Purusha assumes 2 forms : Eshwara the Universal consciousness and Jeeva the individual consciousness and Jeeva is a part of the Purusha that gets involved in this creation and the play of the Gunas. The avarna Shakti is that power that makes the Jeeva to forget its true nature. The Purusha divine itself forgets its own nature and that is called Avidya –ignorance about the truth of the self. Along with this avidya the vikshepa Shakti also comes into existence. Vikshepa Shakti causes the restlessness /agitation and this is what we call the Maya. It is the power of the illusion of the divine that makes one think that all the world which is not real, is real. So these 2 shakti’s avarna and vikshepa Shakti causes ignorance/avidya and the Maya the cosmic illusion. And then the individual self starts identifying itself with the opposites, the duality and it gets more and more involved. The eshwara aspect does not get deluded by these powerful forces of the Parkuti.
Rishi Kapila tells his Mother if you want to be free of this Maya and reach the state where the force of Prakriti never overpowers one. The path of devotion is good enough. This bhakti will give birth to both knowledge and dispassion, gyana and vairagya. So that is the beauty of this path, it is very effortless you don’t have to struggle. The beauty of devotion is that knowledge and dispassion comes on their own its effortless. Your love for Narayana will make you indifferent to all the other types of love. It will give you that one pointedness. Because love is so strong for the divine, you lose love for all the other things. It will show you the way to the Lord to reach his feet. When a devotee realizes that the only aim of his life is to reach the Lord and he puts all his efforts and strives for it with all his means. That means he has fully understood and learned the truth of this creation. The ignorance avidya vanishes and knowledge dawns. When this realization comes that lord is the only one, everything else loses its meaning. Everything in the world is temporary and is a play and display of that one universal consciousness. Rishi Kapila goes on to explain that in all the different parts of yoga that exists in this world it is the same divinity that everybody seeks. This is not something you achieve by knowing something it is about becoming something. When the Jeeva the individual consciousness realizes that he is not different from Eshwara or the Purusha or the Universal consciousness. That is what we call Gyana Yoga the path of knowledge. Bhakti and Gyana are not very different. It all culminates into that one reality. When you experience that you are free, you have the knowledge of being free. He tells his mother, I have taught you the different paths and approaches so you can choose. Be rest assured any of these paths when you follow and practice it sincerely it will help you to attain liberation. It is said that after teaching the Sankhya Darshan to his mother Rishi Kapila had fulfilled his purpose also. He had been born to teach it to the world through his Mother. He took leave of his Mother and went away happily. Devahuti spend the rest of her life practicing this teachings that her son had taught her. She stayed in that ashram and slowly she became more and more dispassionate. She used to take bath in the Bindusaar lake and do a lot of yoga, penance and whatever she had once thought belonged to her she gave away all those things and she would only think about the Lord about the divine. In the beginning of course she missed her husband and son but by practicing the knowledge and yoga that was taught by her son she became more and more fulfilled and dispassionate and she kept thinking about her son who was none other than Narayana himself day and night. Her mind became more and more peaceful and steady until it was firmly established only in Narayana. It is said that she practiced the Ashtanga Yoga the different limbs of Yoga and her mind was firmly fixed on the consciousness –the Bramhan. That burnt up all the ignorance, karmas and avidya that was left in her. The more the avidya left her the more she became free from the pain and misery. It is said that she forgot all about her body just like a man who forgets his dream state when he wakes up. Very soon she experienced the Bramhi state where she would experience only the bramhan. That spot where she realized the Bramhan became a very hold place, a pilgrimage/tirtha sthan. When her body dropped and she merged with the universal consciousness, her body turned into a river, it is said to be so pure that even the devas come there to purify themselves. This holy spot is called Siddha Pada . This is the story of Rishi Kapila and his Mother. It is a very deep knowledge. It is said that contemplating this, meditating on this and living this knowledge his mother Devahuti realized the highest state and became totally free.
