Attachment & bodily relationship
One day the prince of a kingdom was moving about in a forest. He was tired and felt thirsty and searching for water, he reached an ashram. The inmates of the ashram were attracted by the appearance of the prince, took him inside and gave him fruit to eat and water to drink and asked him to rest. The prince did not agree to take rest but wanted to look at the elders who lived in the ashram. They then took him straight to the head of the ashram who was a saint.
The head of the ashram asked the young man who he was. He replied that he came from the kingdom of Jitendriya and that his name was prince Jitendriya. He was asked what his father’s name was and the prince said that his father’s name was King Jitendriya. He was then asked how the people in the kingdom were and the prince replied that all the people were Jitendriyas and they always enjoyed bliss and happiness. The head of the ashram who was a sanyasi had a doubt. The word Jetendriaya means one who has conquered all desires. How is it possible that the king, the prince, and the people were all Jitendriyas, asked the swami. He was wondering how one, who is a ruler and one who is controlling people as the head of a state, be a Jitendriya. He wanted to verify it personally.
He obtained the details of the way for reaching the kingdom and proceeded thereto after asking the prince to stay in the ashram. The swami asked the prince to give him the princely robes and himself wear the yellow robes symbolic of a sanyasi. He asked the prince to remain in the ashram till he returned from his mission., The prince was not at all affected by the suggestion, because he was a Jetendriya, and exchanged his robe with those of the swami.
The swami took the clothes to a distance, put some blood stains on them and proceeded to the kingdom of Jitendriya. He reached the kingdom and told the gatekeepers to tell the king that a swami was there and that he wants to convey some tragic news regarding the prince to the king. The swami was allowed to go in and he met the prime minister and told him that the prince of the kingdom was killed by a tiger; and as proof of the fact that the prince was killed, he showed him the blood stained royal clothes. He wanted this tragic news to be conveyed to the king. The minister remaind unperturbed when he heard the news. He smiled and said that it looks ridiculous to see a sanyasi, wearing the yellow robes grieve for the death of a prince. However, since the sanyasi wanted to convey the news to the king, he was allowed to do so.
As soon as the sanyasi saw the king, he handed over the blood stained clothes to the king and began weeping. The king looked at him and was laughing. The king told the sanyasi that in the evening, many birds come and perch on a tree and at dawn, those birds fly away and each bird goes its own way. One bird cannot tell another where it goes. No two birds are connected with each other. He said that in the same manner, his family consisted of children, wife, grandchildren etc., who were all birds on a tree and they would all fly away in different directions. That day, one bird as the prince had gone away and the next day another bird may go away, and it looks ridiculous that a sanyasi should grieve for such a situation.
The sanyasi thought that it was possible that the king does not like this particular son and that he may have developed detachment for the son. So the sanyasi thought that he should see the mother and the mother who had given birth to the prince would surely be unhappy at this and tears would come from her eyes. The attendants took him to the mother of the prince and he told her tat the prince was killed by a tiger and handed over the blood stained clothes to her. The queen said that there was no reason for such grief and compared the situation to a choultry where many people come for rest during the night and each man goes his way the nest morning. She asked what the connection is between people who come into the choultry from different places and compared the world to a choultry and said that into this choultry, many people come. Today, the prince had left the choultry and tomorrow others will also leave. None of us will stay permanently in a choultry. Our connections are like that and there is no reason to grieve. She asked the sanyasi why he should grieve for such a situation.
In his illusion, the sanyasi thought the mother may be a step mother and therefore she does not have affection and so he wanted to meet the wife of the prince and give her the news. He thought that being a sumangali and wife of the prince, she will surely grieve over the situation. He went to the wife of the prince and told her that the prince had died and that she would have to live as a widow thenceforth. Saying this, he cried loudly. The prince’s wife laughed and she told the sanyasi that this world could be compared to a forest where there are many trees. The trees dry and the branches fall into a river. Similarly some more branches come from another forest and these branches meet in the river. She said that husband and wife were like such branches coming from different families or different forests and meeting temporarily in a river. The river is the river of life. Although the branches are different, the river in which they joined is the same and in the same manner she said that between the husband and wife who are like two different branches that had fallen into the river of life, the ocean of bliss is common, and there is no need to grieve about this. Then the sanyasi realised that all the people in that kingdom were Jitendriyas.
So the sanyasi returned to the ashram. He still had a desire to test the prince if he was really a Jitendriya. He told the prince that he saw his kingdom being overrun by enemies and that the enemies had taken the king, the queen and other relations prisoners and were causing untold harm to the people in the kingdom. He told the prince that in that context, the prince should return to the kingdom and should not stay in the ashram. The prince laughed and asked what is the kingdom and who are the kings? There is no relation between them. He said that in effect God is the big king, bhakthi (devotion, total surrender to God) is the kingdom and the devotees are the princes. The relationship between the prince and his father was only a bodily one, said the prince. The only kingdom is the kingdom of the atma.
Sathya Sai Baba