King Senajit gets advice from a brahmin to get rid of grief
There are numerous doors to religion. There's no action within the world that does not bear any fruit. A person who considers all the matters of the world as immaterial, in the same manner, his dispassion goes on in them. This world is full of many drawbacks, having one of these determinations a wise guy should strive for his salvation. After Yudhisthira was crowned as King of Hastinapur, Lord Krishna freed superb Bhishma from all of his sufferings before his death and requested him to alleviate Yudhisthira from mourning over the dead Kshatriyas by the way of advising him on Dharma. Yudhishthira requested his Grandfather with what wisdom should a person redress his grief after the loss of wealth or the death of his wife, son or father? Bhishma told him when wealth is destroyed or a wife, son or father dies, then thinking how sad the world is, men ought to carry out rituals of Sama Dama approach etc and then in this regard, he referred to the tremendous preachings of a benevolent brahmin to King Senajit who had lost his son. Let us know about it.
King Senajit was mourning the death of his son. His thoughts were immersed in nostalgia. Seeing that bereaved king like this, the brahmin stated to him that, “King! Why are you fascinated like an idiot? You yourself are worthy of mourning, then why do you grieve for others? Sooner or later will come, when other deplorable humans will mourn for you while you'll too attain the same path. You, me and these other individuals who are sitting beside you right now will all go where we've come from.” Senajit asked him, “Brahmin! What sort of mind, penance, samadhi, expertise and scriptures do you have, having attained which you do not have any kind of sadness? The cycle of happiness and sorrow continues. I blossom with joy in the happiness and turn out to be sad in sorrow. I continuously feel sorry for myself being in such a state. This grief has captured my heart.”
The brahmin stated, “King! in this world the best, the middle and the lowest, are getting engrossed in different activities and are suffering from distress. I am on my own. Neither anyone is mine, nor am I anyone else's. I do not see the man or woman to whom I belong and do not even see that which is mine. No person has any affection for me, nor do I have any affection for anyone. This body is not mine or the complete earth isn't mine either. As all these things are mine, so are others. Thinking like this, I do not have any anguish for these. Having this intellect, I'm neither happy nor sad. Simply as woods flowing in the ocean now and then meet each other and then separate, within the same way there's a meeting of living beings in this world. In addition, sons, grandsons, caste friends and relatives are also found. One ought to never develop attachment in the direction of them. because in the future separation from them is certain.
Man commits sins like theft and many others. For the sake of family, spouse, son etc, however, in this world and the afterlife, he alone has to undergo the painful fruit of all those actions. Women, sons and all men connected to family drown in the sea of grief, just as old wild elephants get caught in the swamp. Right here, on the destruction of sons, wealth, friends and relatives, each person gets a great sorrow that causes burning like a Davanal or wooded area fire; but happiness, sorrow and birth and death etc all these things are subjected to Prarabdha(a part of past karma that is liable for the present body). Whether or not a person is with well-wishers, enemy or pal, wise or unintelligent, one finds happiness most effective when there is the grace of God. Otherwise, neither the well-wishers are capable of giving happiness, nor the enemies are capable of giving sorrow, neither the intellect has the power to offer money nor money is capable of giving happiness. Neither intellect is the reason in the attainment of wealth, nor foolishness in poverty only a wise man can realize the story of the world's cycle, no one else. Clever, courageous, silly, timid, dumb, learned, weak and strong, whoever is fortunate – to whom God is favourable, he's going to get happiness without effort.
Those who are very foolish in this world and who have reached beyond the mind, only those human beings are satisfied. Anyone in the middle suffers. wise guys take pride in the final state, not in the intermediate state. The attainment of the final state is said to be the form of pleasure and the state between them is said to be in the form of sorrow. A foolish guy with a fake intellect sleeps peacefully, without worrying about the good or bad outcomes of his actions; due to the fact like a person covered with a blanket, he's covered by great thoughtlessness. But those who have attained happiness of wisdom, who lack worry and miseries, goal and misfortune in no way give them pain.
Those who've crossed the foolishness, but have not attained knowledge, swell with great joy while the situation of happiness comes and begin to enjoy extreme agony in times of sorrow. Foolish guys, like the gods in heaven, are continually engrossed within the pleasures of objects, because their thoughts are engrossed within the mud of desire. Laziness in the starting seems like a pleasure, however it is painful in the long run, and workability looks like a pain, but it is an originator of happiness. The opulence, including Lakshmi, resides only in the proficient guy, not within the lazy. Consequently, a wise man ought to welcome whatever he receives, whether or not happiness or sorrow, dear or ugly, and by no means lose heart.
There are thousands of places of grief and fear. However, they affect each day only on the fools, not on the scholars. Grief can never even touch a person who is intelligent, knowledgeable, desirous of being attentive to spirituality, who does not see any faults, controls the thoughts and is full of senses. A learned man needs to take shelter from this thought and behave properly, by keeping the thoughts safe from enemies like lust, anger and so on. Grief cannot touch the one who knows the detail of birth and death. Due to which there's sorrow or depression or due to which one has to suffer a lot if the root cause of that suffering is part of one's body, then it must be discarded. Whichever of the desires he renounces, it becomes the fulfiller of his happiness. The person who follows desire gets destroyed after those. The great delight of heaven isn't even equal to the sixteenth stage of happiness derived from the happiness obtained by means of leaving desires.
Whether or not a man is sensible, silly or brave, he has to suffer the same fruit of the good or bad deeds that he has executed in the previous birth. Through the virtue of sacrifice in this way, he lives satisfied. Consequently, after becoming detached in all respects, keep the desires behind your back. These dreams arising from the heart gets strengthened itself, then it assumes the form of death. Because if there's an obstacle in its accomplishment, then it is formed as anger within the body of beings. When this living being hesitates from all its desires, then it realizes the divine in Its pure conscience. While it does not fear anyone and no one fears it, and when it neither wants something nor hates something, then it attains Parambrahma Paramatma. When this seeker sacrifices the true and false, the manifest and latent unmanifest matters of the world, sorrow and joy, fear and fearlessness, dear and unpleasant etc then his mind turns into non-violent. When a patient and the wise man does not behave sinfully towards any living being by means of mind, speech and action, then he attains the supreme Soul. Which is difficult to renounce for those with a faulty mind, which regardless of being old by himself never gets old and the disease that accompanies till death lives as it is, the only one who renounces these cravings, gets happiness.
King! in this regard, tales are heard of a prostitute named Pingala, according to which she had attained Sanatana Dharma even in times of crisis. According to the tale, once the prostitute Pingala sat for a long time at the sign-place, even then her beloved did not come to her, due to which she got into great misery, however, remained calm and started out wondering like this, ‘My real love has stayed close to me constantly. I've continuously been with him. He has by no means been frantic; however, earlier than today I could not even understand him. Wherein there is only one pillar and nine doors, from today I will close that house of the body to others. Even knowing that true lover who comes here, which woman would consider others? Now I've woken up from Mohanidra or sleep of infatuation and am constantly alert and have renounced even desires. Therefore, those rascals in the form of hell will no longer be able to deceive me by taking the form of lovemaking. Due to luck or due to the impact of the good deeds done in the past, sometimes misfortune additionally becomes meaningful, because of which today I have to turn out to be knowledgable within the hopeless scenario. Now I'm no longer having unsubdued passion. The only one who does not have any kind of hope sleeps happily. The absence of desire is the ultimate happiness.”
After listening to the tactful statements of the brahmin, King Senajit’s mind became stabilized. He left sorrow, became happy and
started out living thankfully.
Ref: Mahabharata book Shanti Parva
Read the story of Gautama Brahmin getting hell for being ungrateful..