Outer beauty, but inner ugliness¹¹

Once a great sage named Eurba was walking along the street with his daughter, Kundala. She was very, very beautiful. As they were walking, another sage, Durbasha, saw them. Durbasha practiced austerities most soulfully, but his temper was of the quickest. He cursed people constantly and everyone knew of his temper.

When Durbasha saw Kundala, he immediately fell in love with her. He asked Eurba, “Please tell me who she is.”

“She is my daughter.”

“Your daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Is she married?”

“No. She is not married.”

“She is so beautiful.”

“Yes, she is beautiful, but only physically is she beautiful. Inside she is always quarreling and fighting with the members of the family. Inside she is ugly, ugly, ugly. She is jealousy incarnate.”

“I do not know about her inner bad qualities and I do not care to hear about them. I am so full of admiration for her physical beauty. Please, please, please give me your daughter.”

Eurba said, “No, I won’t give her to you. I don’t trust you. Once you see how quarrelsome and jealous she can become, you may throw her out after you are married. Although she is very undivine, I have that much sympathy for my daughter that I do not want her to suffer this kind of fate.”

“I promise that no matter what she does, I will not use my occult power. I will never destroy her, because I am so fond of her physical beauty.”

Eurba said, “Are you sure you will not destroy her one day when you get angry with her?”

“No, no, no. I promise you, I will give her everything and try only to please her. If she wants me to give up prayer and meditation, I will do so. I will give up everything for her. I won’t even meditate on Lord Krishna, who is dearer than the dearest to me, if that is her wish. Once I get her, she will become my dearer than the dearest. She will be my all.”

Eurba said, “I can’t believe it.”

“Please! Love is blind. I love this girl more than my life. She is so beautiful. Please give her to me.”

Eurba finally agreed and in due course, Kundala and Durbasha were married. Durbasha totally forgot about spirituality. He did nothing spiritual at all. He was always with his beautiful wife, bound by her physical beauty. Kundala was constantly complaining, scolding Durbasha for everything. Even when he had not done anything wrong she scolded him. Durbasha said, “I gave up everything for you. My prayer, my meditation, my Krishna, my Beloved Lord — all I gave up for you, and still you are always scolding me.”

“Who asked you to give up Krishna and spirituality, you fool? Nobody would have married you, but I agreed to marry you.”

Durbasha said, “And nobody would have married you! You are so ugly inwardly. Your father was so right. In spite of knowing how bad you were, I married you.”

“Who asked you to marry me?”

“My love for your physical beauty.”

“Physical beauty? Look what you have done! You have ruined my physical beauty. You said if you married me, you would please me. Are you pleasing me in any way? I am asking you to do many things, but you are not pleasing me. I am asking you to make me very rich.”

“How can I make you rich?”

“You have spiritual power, occult power. Make me very rich. I want to have many servants. I want to have a beautiful palace. If you can’t give me these things, I will go on scolding and insulting you.”

Durbasha said, “Enough! Enough! I cannot tolerate you anymore. I am destroying you with my third eye.”

As soon as Durbasha opened up his third eye, Eurba came and said, “My boy, my boy, I told you that my daughter was so undivine. In spite of knowing that, you wanted to marry her, so I gave her to you. But don’t destroy her, don’t destroy her. Give me back my daughter. Since I brought her into the world I will bear the burden the rest of my life. I don’t want her destroyed.”

Durbasha said, “Either take her away, Eurba, or I am going to destroy her immediately.”

Eurba took back his daughter and said, “God gave you to me, my daughter, and God wants me to marry patience. My name will be patience and nothing else. As long as I stay on earth, I will show you my infinite compassion and infinite forgiveness. What else can I do? If God blessed me with you, I shall pay the penalty for the rest of my life.”