मोहजीत राजा की कथा

The king who conquered Attachment

Once a prince went hunting with many of his soldiers. He was an exceptionally good hunter. He was moving so fast that all his soldiers were left behind. When he realized that he was left alone in the jungle, he stpped. He was also feeling thirsty and wanted to drink some water. He saw a cottage nearby. As he approached the cottage, he saw a saint sitting in meditating there. So, the prince went to him and asked for water. The saint asked him to introduce himself. The prince told the saint that he was the son of a king who had conquered attachment. The saint said, “This is impossible. How can a king conquer Attachment? Here I am a sanyasi and not yet able to conquer attachment. And you say that your father is a king and he has conquered attachment”. The prince said, “Not only my father but all the subjects have also conquered attachment. The saint was not ready to believe it. Then the prince told the saint that he was free to ascertain the correctness of his statement in whatever way he wanted. The saint then took prince’s shirt and gave him something else to wear. The saint found a dead body of an animal nearby. He coloured prince’s shirt with the blood of the dead animal. He then went into the city crying that the prince had been killed by a lion. The people in the city said, “So what if he is gone. It was his destiny. Why are you crying?”. The saint thought that perhaps the prince was not liked by the people and they did not want him to become the king and that was why they were reacting in that manner. The saint went to the palace and told the story to prince’s sister and brother. They gave the same reply, “Till now, he was our brother. Now he will become somebody else’s brother. Afterall, we were not going to be together forever. There is no need to cry”. The saint thought that the sister perhaps loved the other brother more and that was why she reacted so and that the other brother must have been happy because now he would become the king very soon. The saint thought that it was because of the disliking for each other that they did not have attachment. Then he went and told the story to the father of the prince who on listening the news said, “The soul is eternal and imperishable. So there is no need to cry. He was my son and I thought he was going to be the king after me. Now, the other son will become the king. I cannot bring him back, so why feel sad?” The saint thought that surely there must be some conflict here also. Then the saint went to the prince’s mother and wife, and he got the similar reactions. Hearing and seeing this kind of reaction even from the mother and the wife, the saint could not believe himself. He then informed all of them that the prince was alive and he was just taking their test. He said that he did this because he was finding it impossible to believe that all of you had conquered the attachment. Then the prince came back, took charge of the kingdom and everything went on as usual.

Spiritual significance: – Attachment is one of the vices that robs away our peace and destroys the power to discern. Attachment destroys the truth. One who has attachment cannot imbibe wisdom. Baba through this story wants to teach us the lesson, “Neither we should have attachment with others nor others should have any attachment with us. Then only we can become the Masters of the world.”