The King’s Son

            There was a king who had a two-year old son with a birthmark on his right shoulder. Once, some thieves broke into the palace, stole the king’s possessions, killed the king, abducted the prince and abandoned him in a village far away.

            The minister was shattered to discover the body of the king and searched frantically for the prince, who was not to be found anywhere. Later on, recalling that the prince had a prominent birthmark, he launched a systematic search. In course of time, they were able to locate him in a remote village, living with a farmer’s family. The boy had no memory of his father or the palace and believed that the farmer couple were his parents.

            The minister gently told the boy about the happenings in the kingdom and concluded by saying that the young prince was supposed to bring a great deal of glory to the kingdom and relieve people from their sorrows and suffering. Hearing all this, the boy became very eager to meet that prince.

            The boy thought that he was a farmer, and there was some prince that he was going to meet some day who would solve all his problems. Then the minister told him, “You are that prince!” Tat-tvam-asi! When the boy heard this, he was surprised and said, “But I am only a farmer!” The minister told him, “I have proof (pramana) that you are this prince!”

            The boy still wouldn’t believe it. He had doubts (samsaya). The minister showed him the birthmark, and the family, when questioned, accepted that the boy was not born there, but was found and brought up by them. Thus, the boy realised that what the minister said was true. His doubts were dispelled.

            However, one more problem remained. Every morning he woke up thinking that he was a farmer, even though he had been told that he was the prince, and in fact, the king of the entire kingdom now. To solve this problem, every day in the morning, he was reminded that he was a king, and not a farmer. Remembering this truth now became his daily practice of meditation! After all, the purpose of Vedantic meditation is to remove erroneous notions.

            Thus, in our story, if the prince enquired about the cattle on the farm, he had to be gently reminded, “No, you are not a farmer; you are the prince”. You are not a samsari (one caught up in the illusory world of cause and effect). You are ‘That’! Tat-tvam-asi! It would take some time and effort for the prince to drop his mistaken identity and his erroneous notions, and live as a prince.

            Actually, there was no time when he was not the prince. The fact of being a prince was never his problem. His problem was his lack of knowledge that he was the prince, lack of conviction even when told about it, and a strong erroneous notion that he was a farmer’s son. Lack of knowledge is removed by sravanam – listening to the words of the scriptures as explained by the Guru. Lack of conviction is removed by mananam – contemplating on the Truth, and erroneous notions are removed by nididhyasanam –meditating on the Truth. Truth is ever present, ever available; in fact, we are nothing but the Truth!

            In spite of all his Herculean efforts, the seeker will still have some lingering doubts. This is because some attachments and desires, remain in the mind, perhaps at the unconscious level. It is difficult to achieve full control over the mind and the senses. One has to keep striving to gain dispassion (vairagya). However, there is no time when I am not ‘That’ – the supreme Truth or pure Consciousness. It is ironical that one has to strive so hard to achieve something that one already is!

            There is another story to illustrate this point. Once, a lioness gave birth to a beautiful and healthy cub. Soon after that, the lioness was killed by a hunter and the cub was raised by a flock of sheep in the forest. The lion cub grew up thinking that he was a sheep and was happily jumping and frolicking with the sheep, enjoying life in their style.

            One day, a lion came by and roared loudly, scaring all the sheep away. The lion cub also ran with them, frightened out of his wits. Seeing the cub running thus, the lion got distracted from the sheep. He chased the lion cub, caught up with him and lovingly asked him, “What is wrong with you! I can understand the sheep running away, but why are you running?” The cub, quivering in fear, responded timidly, “But I am also one of them!” The lion immediately retorted, “Deluded cub! Come here!” He took him to a nearby lake, and standing side-by-side, they looked at their own reflection in the water. The lion asked the cub, “What do you see? Do you look like a sheep or do you look like me?”

            In the same way, our scriptures tell us that we are not jivas or individual embodied creatures; we are actually none other than Brahman. The Chandogya Upanishad repeats the mahavakya “Tat-tvam-asi’ (That thou art) eight times. We are not samsaris caught up- in the world of illusion. We are free, and have always been free! When we realize and own this Truth, the wrong identification with our body drops off. We may continue to experience problems related to the body, but it does not bother us so much because we know clearly and without any doubt that we are not the body. It is like seeing a dream with the knowledge that it is a dream. We practice nididhyasana or meditation in order to see ourselves, our own true nature as pure consciousness, like the lion cub saw itself in the water of the lake. This removes all the doubts and problems caused by our wrong identification.

*This article is by Swami Bodhatmananda of Chinmya Mission.  The article is reproduced from Tapovan Prasad, a CCMT Publication.