The quest to Vairagya
Today I will explain how difficult the path of sacrifice and how easy temptations are. It takes months and years to leave something and just a moment to rebound to it.
Let’s continue the story of King Bhartrihari, the third and the last part of this series. I hope you must remember from previous stories why and how he renounced everything and went on the path of Vairagya. Once many many years went by, he thought of how his people must be doing without him. He thought of paying a visit to his kingdom to get the well-being of his people. So he returned to the kingdom looking like a sage so that no one could recognize him.
Upon his return, he saw everyone in his kingdom is happy and doing well. His brother Vikramaditya was ruling well, and people were prosperous. Now when he was there, he happened to visit near a sweet shop. Suddenly his inner desires to eat sweet had awakened, and he couldn’t control his desire to eat sweets. He went to the shop and asked if he could get one of the sweets. The shopkeeper told him that it could cost one dime for the same. The king, who was looking like a sage, said to the shopkeeper that he doesn’t have any money. The shopkeeper told him that at a nearby place a construction work is going on. If he would go there and work, he would get some money through which he can purchase sweets. Bound by his desires, the king went and worked hard for a day and earned sufficient money to buy sweets. In the evening, the king came back to the same shop, gave money, and asked for sweets. This time the shopkeeper gave him the sweet. The king started eating the sweet and started thinking. When he was a great king, every day, he used to eat hundreds of types of food. He used to donate food to people. Everything was available for him without any efforts. And today, he had to physically work to earn a tiny bite of sweet. He started thinking, was this why he renounced everything and chose the path of Vairagya. A strong feeling of guilt, self-realization hit him, and he couldn’t eat his sweet. His hand started trembling, and the sweet fell on the ground. He immediately returned to the jungles.
The moral of the story is that the path of sacrifice is so hard, but the trajectory of attraction is so steep. It takes months to leave something, but only take a few seconds to forget everything and fall in the trap. It almost takes a lifetime to build a reputation, but only a second to destroy everything. For example, in this lock-down, many people would have left many things such as outside food, drinking, smoking, etc., but now when things are returning to normal, people again have started going back to their earlier lives. Probably a time to self reflect!
I hope you like this article. Keep reading, and stay healthy!
