Prince or Fisherman?
A
prince, the royal heir to a great kingdom, son of a great emperor, set sailing in a ship. The ship is caught in a cyclone and dashed upon a rock. In the
shipwreck all perish except for the prince who clings on to a floating piece of
wood. He is washed ashore to an unknown land where no one knows him, and the
land is strange and he is penniless, and starvation has made him ill. Some fishermen
take pity on him and nurse him back to health. After some time he gains strength and becomes
part and parcel of the fishermen's colony. He has almost completely forgotten
everything about his former state; but for faint memories of his previous life
in the palace. In this way he grows up as a fisherman, putting up with all the
hardships of a fisherman's life.
Likewise,
the Jiva is the ship-wrecked prince which has forgotten its home. Searchers are
going country after country but who can recognize the prince among millions of
people? Such is the condition of Jiva.
From
a state of plenitude it has come to the position of beggary, ill-fed, sometimes
starving. And just like searchers have
been sent by the king for the Prince, searchers who are the saints, the
children of God, and the spiritual books, are there to help rescue the lost
Jiva.
Ultimately,
after years of searching, someone who is closer to the emperor manages to recognize
the prince. By way of certain birth-marks on the prince, he could identify the
prince without any fear of error, and he informs him that he is a prince, heir
to a royal heritage.
Even
though the prince is finally convinced, he declines to leave the fishermen.
Deep attachment has grown between him and the fishermen and he cannot entertain
the idea of leaving his foster-mother and foster-father. But the searcher tries
to convince him.
This
is the process that takes place when the Guru tells the Jiva that his real
nature is bliss. In spite of the unlimited wealth, the Jiva is attached to this
miserable existence.
So,
Guru has to wean the aspirant from the state of forgetfulness. An inner
struggle ensues when the prince finally gets convinced by the knowledge given
by the searcher. To get back his lost heritage, he has to make efforts to break
the attachment, and this going back is called Sadhana.
Divine Life Society Publication:
Vedantic
Stories by Swami Sivananda
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