Lord Kapil and his teachings to his mother Devahuti

Lord Kapil was incarnation of Lord in the age of Satya yuga. He appeared as the son of sage
Kardama Muni and Devahuti.

Kardama Muni was one of the Prajapatis. When he took up great austerities, Lord Vishnu
arranged Devahuti as his wife. Kardama Muni got married to Devahuti putting a condition
that after she begets children he will leave home to accept Sanyasa, the renounced order of
life. Devahuti meditated on Kardama Muni and thus her father arranged the marriage.

After marriage Devahuti began to serve Kardama Muni with great love while Kardama Muni
remained in devotion to Lord. With great respect and pleasing speech she always gave the
best service to Kardama Muni. She turned very thin as she neglected her body in service to
her husband. This went on for a long time. And one day Kardama Muni saw her with love.
He was moved with her service.

Kardama Muni and Devahuti

Kardama Muni was a mystic. With his mystic power he created wonderful mansions. Maid
servants of these mansions welcomed Devahuti and decorated her as queen. They bathed
Devahuti and decorated in the most pleasing manner and thus she regained all her beauty.
Kardama Muni then began his family life with his wife in a kingly manner.

Kardama Muni and Devahuti had nine wonderful girls. All nine girls had beautiful bodily
features with fragrance like that of lotus flowers. They appeared just like lotuses of different
colors. Kardama Muni and Devahuti brought them up very nicely.

When Kardama Muni was about to leave to forest to Sanyasa as Devahuti already had nine
children, Devahuti began to shed tears. She told to her husband that when all daughters go
away after marriage what will be her condition. She begged Kardama Muni for a son.

Kardama Muni considered her concern. He asked Devahuti to serve Supreme Lord with faith.
He married all his nine daughters to sages of their temperaments. Later Supreme Lord
appeared in the womb of Devahuti as Lord Kapila. Lord Kapila’s birth was celebrated in
three worlds. Kardama Muni took renounced order of the life and went to forest.
Here at home lord kapila was brought up by Devahuti with great love and devotion. One day
when Kapil muni was sitting in meditation. Mata devahuti came to him and asked for divine
knowledge. Then Lord kapil start from rock-bottom fundamentals.

This teaching of Lord Kapil is called as Kapila Geeta.

Lord Kapil & his teachings to his mother Devahuti

Lord starts explaining....

It is the mind that is the villain of the piece. Both for the bondage of the jiva and for its
release from bondage, it is the mind that is responsible. When the mind attaches itself to the
sense objects, bondage arises. On the other hand if mind attaches itself to the Lord, it
becomes the cause for the release. The self-centered thoughts of ‘I’ and ‘Mine’ give rise to
the vices of desire and greed. When these dirts are washed off from the mind, it becomes
pure.

The word used here is ‘kama-lobhadibhir-malaih’. Desire and Greed are called ‘malam’. So
also one should stay away from the ‘malam’ of desire and greed. Mind should be in its own
pure state. When it is rid of all that ‘malam’, in that state, says the Rishi, mind has none of the
mundane misery or happiness. That is when man sees his own prakriti powerless. That is
when he has transcended the effects of prakriti. He then sees no difference, no second, and no
relationship to anything or anyone. There is no place in space where he is not already there. It
is in that mind the Absolute reflects itself. And there is no other way to achieve this than to
have association with sadhus.

When a holy association is there, first we get shraddha in the spiritual quest, then enthusiasm
for the same and then bhakti towards the Lord. “shraddha ratir-bhaktir-anukramishhyati”

It is the association with the holy that will generate, through the continuous contemplation of
My glories, a distaste for sense gratification here and hereafter.

bhaktyA pumAn jAta-virAga aindriyAt dRRiShTa-shrutAn mad-rachanAnucintayA (III – 25

– 26).
For devotees who are attached to devotional service even moksha is not more attractive. I am
their loved one like their soul,friendly like their son, trusted confidante like their friend,
mentor like their guru and respected like their favourite God. Their minds are always fixed on
me. This is all that is needed for mukti.

In order to attain this mukti, one should desist from the mundane distractions of prakriti. The
knowledge of the Self is the ultimate cure for removal of Ignorance that binds the heart to the
world of prakriti. What is the Self? The Self or the Purushha is the One who has pervaded the
entire universe. He is attributeless. He is beyond the prakriti. He dwells in every antah-
karaNa (Inner Organ). He shines by Himself. He is beginningless, sourceless.

anAdir-Atma Purushhah nirguna prakritaih parah /

pratyag-dhama svayamjyotih vishvaM yena samanvitam // (III – 26 – 3)

Wise men attribute to Prakriti the relationship of Cause and Effect as well as the agency of
action. And they point to the Purushha that transcends the Prakriti, as the cause of
enjoyership of happiness and unhappiness.

The five gross elements (earth, water, fire, air and space)

The five subtle elements (sound, touch, form, taste and smell)

The four internal senses (manas, chittam, buddhi and ahamkara – receiver-mind, storer-mind,
analyser-mind and ego)

The five senses of knowledge

The five senses of action

These twenty four - constitute the prakriti or the manifested stage of existence, also called the
qualified presence of brahman – sagunasya brahmana sannivesha. Time is the twenty-fifth
element. What is manifested as Time outside is the Purushha within.

Even though the Purushha is situated in the Prakriti (the body envelopment) He is devoid of
all attributes, He is unchanging and He has no claim to doership. So He is not touched by any
of the Gunas (modes) of Prakriti. On the other hand when He slips from this state and
identifies with the GuNas, then overcome by the Ego, he thinks he is the doer. And this
involves him in the samsara of births and deaths. Such a jiva overcome by the gunas has to
come out of it by a self-analysis.
And here the Acharya Kapila gives a powerful analogy.

The presence of the Supreme Lord can be realized just as the sun is realized first as a
reflection on water, and again as a second reflection on the wall of a room, although the sun
itself is situated in the sky. The self-realized soul is thus reflected first in the threefold ego
and then in the body, senses and mind.

An explanation is necessary for this analogy. The topic is how one recognises that the
Supreme is the One Power behind every action and every presence in the universe. Imagine a
room in which there is a large vessel of water that receives direct sunlight and reflects it onto
the opposite wall in the room. What is the source of this light on the wall? It is the reflected
Sun in the water (contained in the vessel). And what is the source of that reflected Sun? The
actual Sun in the blazing sky. So also we individuals seem to be having awareness of the
outside world. The source of our awareness is our consciousness within. But this
consciousness itself is a reflection of the real supreme Consciousness, the reflection being in
our own ego-mind.

After elaborately detailing the process by which Prakriti produces the manifold of this
material universe, Kapila takes up the topic of yoga-sAdhanA. First he details the
prerequisites such as execution of prescribed duties, avoidance of prohibited actions, and
satisfaction with what one obtains by God’s Grace, worship of the Guru, moderation in
eating, non-violence, truthfulness, brahmacharyam, austerities, and silence. Then he goes on
to describe the different limbs of yoga-sadhana. A few characteristic shlokas from this
description may be recalled:

prANAyAmair-dahed-doshhAn

dhAraNAbhishca kilbishhAn

pratyAhAreNa samsargAn

dhyAnenA-anIshvarAn guNAn

Meaning, By pranayama (exercise of control of breath) the physical faults are burnt; By
dharana (fixing of the concentrated mind) one burns off the sins; By pratyahara (withdrawal
of senses from their outward attractions) one destroys the attachments to sense objects; By
dhyAna (meditation) one vanquishes the undivine qualities. (For pranayama, dharana,
pratyahara and dhyana).
And the meditation should be on the unique form of the Lord. Here the form of the Lord is
sculpted by beautiful word-bricks by Sage Kapila in 13 memorable shlokas (III -28 – 21 to
33) which deserve to be memorised and recited in the original, in order to transmit the real
flavour of the description. It is not just the collective form of the Lord that is meditated thus.
Each of His limbs is imagined and looked at with concentration and one goes on meditating
on His limbs from toe to head. His lotus feet, His legs and thighs, the waist, the navel, the
chest, the neck, the face, the smile – on each one of these one should stay long by meditation.

By such meditation one gradually develops pure love for the Lord. One’s hairs stand erect
through excessive joy. The intense love generates streams of tears. The mind withdraws from
all material distractions. As if attracting a fish to a hook, the mind now attracts the Lord. The
real identity of the Self is seen and all pleasure and pain are seen in their true colours as
products of the Ego. The jivan-mukta that he is, has no cognition of his own body whether it
is sitting, standing, moving or acting, just as person blinded by intoxication does not realize
the presence or absence of clothing on himself.

The body, however of the jivan-mukta holds on along with the senses until the prarabdha
karma remains. But, for the one who has made the ascent to samadhi-yoga there is neither the
cognition of the body or the universe associated with it. Indeed, when one has woken up, the
dreams that were being witnessed earlier have no more any reality.

Just as offsprings and wealth are considered distinct from oneself, so also is the Purushha
different from one’s body that is taken by affection to be oneself.

The blazing fire is different from the flames, from the sparks and from the smoke, although
all arise from the same blazing wood. So also the Self known as the Seer, bhagavan or
brahman is distinct from the senses or the mind. As fire shows up in different forms because
of the shapes of wood in which it burns so also does the Self show up in prakriti in different
manifestations according to the gunas. The yogi therefore stands firm in his own svarupa of
the Self, by conquering the prakriti which hides his own Self and which takes the form of
both cause and effect.

Following this the sage Kapila answers questions of Devahuti regarding the path of Bhakti
which will lead to the Realisation of all that has been explained in terms of Prakriti and
Purushha. Bhakti, says Kapila, is known in terms of nine categories by the motivation which
manifests it. The motivation could be – in the ascending order of commendability
• Violent ends (This is adhama-tAmasa bhakti)

• Pride (This is madhyama-tAmasa bhakti)

• Jealousy (uttama-tAmasa bhakti)

• Sensual ends (adhama-rAjasa bhakti)

• Wealth (madhyama-rAjasa bhakti)

• Fame (uttama-rAjasa bhakti)

• Eradication of Sins (adhama-sAtvika bhakti)

• Pleasure of the Lord (madhyama-sAtvika bhakti)

• Duty (uttama-sAtvika bhakti)

But all of them have the commonality of “bheda-darshana” (which is conscious of the
multiplicity of the deities and recognises the differences) as well as “idol worship” (worship
of specific manifestations of the Ultimate). Over and above these, there is the nirguNa bhakti,
defined as follows:

Having heard about Him, one gets addicted with devotion that does not see any distinction,
without any expectation of results, to the Purushhottama, who lives in the deepest hearts of
all, like the waters of the Ganges that keeps on going to the ocean. That is the characteristic
of nirguNa bhakti, the bhakti of the highest kind, higher than the nine categories mentioned
above.

And the Lord continues, as if inspired:

I am present in every living entity as the Self. Those who neglect or disregard this
omnipresence and engage themselves in the worship of the Deity in the temple, they are only
making a show of themselves. That is like offering oblations into ashes instead of in the Fire.
He who thinks of Me, residing in the bodies of others, as different from his Self can never
attain peace of mind. He never pleases Me even if he worships with proper rituals and
paraphernalia. As long as one does not realise the omnipresent Me as resident in His own
heart, so long has he to worship Me through images, performing all his prescribed duties.
The fortunate mother, Devahuti, who had all this teaching straight from the Lord Himself,
who manifested as her son, followed the path that was chalked out by Him and in due time
she reached that supreme abode glorified by Him.