Let us journey back to the banks of the Tamasa. Valmiki Maharshi is sitting in his hermitage. In the previous chapters, we saw how he realized that the peace of the world was merely an illusion. Now, what does a true Guru do when he sees a problem? He does not just sit and cry; he searches for a solution.
Through his Divya Drishti (divine vision), Valmiki began a cosmic search. He was looking for a human being who was completely "Untainted."
Alochinchandi... Think about this word carefully. Untainted. Nishkalanka. What does it mean?
If your white shirt gets a stain of mud, what do you do? You take some soap, scrub it, wash it with water, and put it in the sun. The stain goes away. But the stains Valmiki Maharshi was looking at were not on the physical body. He was looking at the stains on the Antahkarana—the inner mind!
What are the stains of the mind? They are the Arishadvargas, the six inner enemies: Kama (lust/desire), Krodha (anger), Lobha (greed), Moha (delusion/attachment), Mada (pride), and Matsarya (jealousy).
You see, in this mortal world, finding someone who is entirely bad is difficult, and finding someone who is entirely good is impossible. We are all mixtures.
Valmiki Maharshi cast his vision across the length and breadth of the Bhuloka (the Earth).
First, he looked at the great warriors, the mighty kings who protected the borders. He saw immense courage! But the moment he looked closer, he sighed. Why? Because their courage was tainted by Krodha (anger). When a warrior fights on the battlefield, he is supposed to fight to uphold Dharma. But the Maharshi saw that the moment a king was injured by an enemy's arrow, his righteous duty vanished, and personal revenge took over. The noble warrior became a cruel butcher. The virtue of courage was tainted by the stain of anger.
Next, the Maharshi turned his vision towards the great Panditas, the scholars who had memorized the four Vedas and the Upanishads. Ah, what brilliant intellects! But again, a sigh escaped his lips. Why? Because their glorious knowledge was tainted by Mada (pride). When these scholars sat in the king's court to debate, they did not argue to establish the truth; they argued only to defeat the other person and win a bag of gold coins. The pure milk of knowledge was spoiled by the poison of ego!
Then, Valmiki looked at the hermits, the ascetics doing intense Tapas in the forests. Surely, they must be untainted? They had left their homes and wealth. But the Maharshi shook his head. Even there, he found a stain. He saw that many ascetics were doing severe penance not to realize the Paramatma, but out of Kama—a desire to attain the heavenly pleasures of Swarga, or out of Matsarya—a jealousy to become more powerful than Indra!
Alochinchandi... Imagine you have a beautiful golden pot. Inside it, you have filled it to the brim with the sweetest, purest, most fragrant cow's milk. It looks perfect. But if just one tiny drop of deadly poison falls into that pot, what happens? Can you say, "Well, it is 99% pure milk, let me drink it"? No! That one drop of poison taints the entire pot. It becomes undrinkable.
This is exactly what Valmiki Maharshi saw in humanity. A man might have ninety-nine wonderful qualities. He might be charitable, he might be devoted, he might speak well. But if he has a secret stain of greed, or a hidden flaw of cruelty, his entire character becomes unreliable in the ultimate test of Dharma.
The Maharshi was searching for a human who lived in this world, walked on this earth, ruled an empire, but remained completely untouched by its impurities. Have you seen a lotus leaf? The lotus grows in the muddy water. The water rests on the leaf. But the moment a breeze blows, the water drop rolls off without leaving a single wet mark. The leaf is in the water, but not of the water.
Valmiki searched desperately for such a human lotus. He looked for a man whose power was not tainted by arrogance. He looked for a man whose physical beauty was not tainted by vanity. He looked for a man whose deep love for his wife was not tainted by blind, selfish attachment.
He searched the past. He searched the present.
The silence in the hermitage grew heavy. The realization was terrifying. To be absolutely untainted, one cannot be a mere mortal bound by Karma. For a human to be utterly flawless, it would require the Supreme Lord of Vaikuntha Himself to voluntarily wrap Himself in human flesh, to subject Himself to hunger, thirst, and heartbreak, yet never once let the poison of ego touch His soul.
Valmiki's heart trembled with the magnitude of this thought. Could the Infinite confine itself into the finite just to show us how to live?
Just as this profound question peaked in his mind, the fragrant breeze of the Tamasa river carried the sweet, unmistakable notes of the Mahati Veena. Ting... ting... The search was over. The one who carries the catalog of the cosmos, the divine sage Narada, had arrived. The answer was walking through the doors of the hermitage.