This is a story from ancient India, from as far back as 900 BC or even farther, and this version of the story is retold by Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist of the late 20th century, who inspired George Lucas to write Star Wars. This story will help you remember how to bear the Aegis, because it is the story of how Zeus himself remembered, except, in this story, Zeus goes by the name Indra, which is the name the Ancient Indians gave to the same aspect of reality:
*Let me tell you an Indian story.
A monster named Vṛtra once managed to enclose (his name means “encloser”) all the waters of the universe so that there was a great drought that lasted for thousands of years. Well, Indra, the Zeus of the Indian pantheon, finally got the idea, Why not throw a thunderbolt into this chap and blow him up? So Indra, who apparently was a slow thinker, took a thunderbolt, threw it into the midst of Vṛtra, and pow! Vṛtra blows up and the waters flow forth and the Earth and universe are refreshed.
Well then Indra thinks, “How great I am,” so he goes up to the cosmic mountain, Mount Meru, the Olympus of the Indian gods, and notices that all the palaces there had fallen into decay. “Well, now I’m going to build up a whole new city here — one worthy of my dignity.” He gets hold of Viśvakarman, the craftsman of the gods, and tells him his plans. He says,
“Look, let’s get to work here and build up this city. I think we could have palaces here and towers there, lotus plants here, etc. etc.” So Viśvakarman starts to work, but every time Indra comes back, he has bigger and better ideas about the palace, and Viśvakarman begins to think, “My god, we’re both immortal, so this thing’s going to go on forever. What can I do?”
He decides to go and complain to Brahmā, the so-called creator of the phenomenal world. Brahmā is seated on a lotus (that’s the way Brahmā is enthroned), and Brahmā and the lotus grow through Viṣṇu’s navel. Viṣṇu is floating on the cosmic ocean, couched on a great serpent, whose name is Ananta (which means “never ending”).
So here’s the scene. Out in the water Viṣṇu is asleep and Brahmā is sitting on the lotus. Viśvakarman comes in and after much bowing and scraping, he says, “Listen, I’m in trouble.” Then he tells his story to Brahmā, who says, “That’s okay. I’ll fix everything.”
The next morning the porter at the gate of a palace being built notices a blue-black brahmin boy whose beauty has drawn a lot of children around him. The porter goes back to Indra and says, “I think it would be auspicious to invite this beautiful young brahmin boy into the palace and give him hospitality.” Indra agrees that this would be a propitious thing to do, so the young boy is invited in. Indra is seated on his throne, and after the ceremonies of hospitality, he says, “Well young man, what brings you to the palace?”
With a voice like thunder on the horizon, the boy says, “I have heard that you are building the greatest palace that has ever been built by any Indra, and now that I have surveyed it, I can tell you that, indeed, no Indra has ever built a palace like this.” Nonplussed, Indra says, “Indras before me? What are you talking about?”
“Yes, Indras before you,” says the young boy. “Just think, the lotus grows from Viṣṇu’s navel, the lotus opens, and on it sits Brahmā. Brahmā opens his eyes and a universe comes into being, governed by an Indra. He closes his eyes. He opens his eyes — another universe. He closes his eyes . . . and for three hundred and sixty Brahmā years, Brahmā does this. Then the lotus withdraws, and after endless time another lotus opens, the Brahmā appears, he opens his eyes, he closes his eyes . . . Indras, Indras, Indras.
“Now, consider all the galaxies in space and outer space, each one a lotus, each one with his Brahmā. There may be wise men in your court who would volunteer to count the drops in the ocean and the grains of sand on the beaches of the world, but who would count those Brahmās, let alone Indras?”
While he’s talking, there comes walking across the floor of the palace a parade of ants in perfect rows, and the boy looks at them and laughs. Indra’s beard prickles; his whiskers rise; he says, “Now what? What are you laughing at?” The boy says, “Don’t ask me unless you’re ready to be hurt.” Indra says, “I ask.” The boy waves his hand at the ranks of ants and says, “All former Indras. They have gone through innumerable incarnations and they have risen in the ranks of the heavens and they have all come to the high throne of Indra and killed the dragon Vṛtra. Then they all say, ‘How great I am,’ and down they go.”
At this point a crotchety old yogi comes in who is wearing nothing but a waistband, and he has an umbrella made of banana leaves over his head. On his chest is a little circle of hairs, and the young boy looks at him and asks the very questions that are in Indra’s mind. “Who are you? What’s your name? Where do you live? Where’s your family? Where’s your home?”
“I don’t have a family, I don’t have a house. Life is short. This parasol is good enough for me. I just worship Viṣṇu. As for these hairs, it’s curious; every time an Indra dies, one hair drops out. Half of them are gone. Pretty soon they’ll all be gone. Why build a house?”
Well, these two were actually Viṣṇu and Śiva. They had come for the instruction of Indra, and once he had heard them, they left. Well, Indra is shattered, and when Bṛhaspati, the priest of the gods, comes in, Indra says, “I’m going out to be a yogi. I’m going to worship Viṣṇu’s feet.”
So he goes to his wife, the great queen Indrani, and he says, “Darling, I’m going to leave you. I’m going out into the forest to become a yogi. I’m going to drop all this monkey show about the kingship of the world and I’m going to worship Viṣṇu’s feet.” Well, she looks at him for a while, and then she goes to Bṛhaspati and tells him what has happened. “He’s got it in his head that he’s going to go out and be a yogi.” So the priest takes her by the hand and they go and sit down in front of the throne of Indra, and the priest says to him, “You are on the throne of the universe. You represent virtue and duty — dharma — and you incarnate the divine spirit in this earthly role. I have already written a great book for you on the art of politics — how to maintain the state, how to win wars, etc. Now I am going to write a book for you on the art of love so that the other aspect of your life, with you and Indrani here, will also become a revelation of the divine spirit dwelling in us all. Anyone can become a yogi, but how about representing in the life of the world the immanence of this mystery of eternity?”
So Indra was saved from the trouble, you might say, of going out and becoming a yogi. He had it all within himself now, as we all do. All you have to do is wake up to the fact that you are a manifestation of the eternal. This story, known as “The Humbling of Indra,” appears in the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa. The Purāṇas are Indian holy texts from around a.d. 400. The amazing thing about Indian mythology is that it could absorb the universe we talk about now, with the great cycles of stellar lives, the galaxies beyond galaxies, and the comings and goings of universes. What this does is diminish the force of the present moment.
All of our problems about atom bombs blowing up the universe, so what? There have been universes and universes before, every one of them blown up by an atom bomb. So now you identify yourself with the eternal that is within you and within all things. It doesn’t mean you want to see the atom bomb come, but you don’t spend your time worrying about it. One of the great temptations of the Buddha was the temptation of lust. The other temptation was the temptation of the fear of death. This is a nice theme for meditation on the fear of death. Life throws up around us these temptations, these distractions, and the problem is to find the immovable center within. Then you can survive anything. Myth will help you do that. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go out on picket lines about atomic research. Go ahead, but do it playfully. The universe is God’s play.*