Uruvasi comes down to earth and falls in love with Pururva, who is an archer, and also a poet, And she is so beautiful that naturally Pururva wants to marry her.

She said, “Please don’t talk of marriage. Never mention it. Unless you promise me not to ever mention it again I will not be able to live with you.”

And Pururva, as a poet, of course understands the beauty of a woman like Uruvasi. He has never known anything comparable to her. Naturally, she is a goddess on earth. Under the influence of this intoxicating beauty, he promises. Then Uruvasi said, “One more thing. You must never ask me who I am, otherwise we should forget all about it right now. It is better not to even begin.”

Pururva said, “I love you. I don’t want to know who you are – I am not an investigator.”

These two promises given, Uruvasi lies with Pururva. After a few days…. The Vedas in that way are really human; no other scripture is so human. All other scriptures are very bombastic. In other words, just bullshit. But the Rig Veda is simply human, with all human limitations, frailties, weaknesses and imperfections. As every honeymoon comes to an end, perhaps a little quicker in the West than in India…so it took the lovers six months.

In America, a weekend is enough for the beginning and the end of the honeymoon – and when the honeymoon ends, then the marriage begins. Jesus!

And you say that after death there is a hell for those who sin…it is after the honeymoon! In fact it is marriage! In India it takes six months, a bullock cart’s way of ending things.

One night, Uruvasi was awakened by Pururva who was looking at her – this was not husbandly, looking at your own wife! What was he doing looking at her when she was asleep? If she had been someone else’s wife, that would have been okay, but your own wife? But Uruvasi must have been, was bound to have been, a divine beauty, something from the beyond. Pururva could not contain himself.

He asked her, “Please tell me who you are.”

Uruvasi said, “Pururva, you have broken your promise. I will tell you the truth, but now I will not be with you anymore.” The moment she told him that she was a goddess, bored with paradise, who came to earth to have a little experience of real people because the gods were so phony; at that very moment, she evaporated just like a beautiful dream. Pururva looked again and again at the empty bed; there was no one there.

It is one of the beautiful stories that I have always loved.

Masto must have been a god born in this world. That’s the only way to say how beautiful he was. And it was not only the beauty of the body, which certainly was beautiful. I am not against the body, I am all for it. I loved his body. I used to touch his face, and he would say, “Why do you touch my face with closed eyes?”