Once the queen of ‘Anglo’ country went to bathe in the lake with her maids, she put her clothes and jewellery on a high place. The queen’s maid saw that a bird flew away carrying the queen’s necklace made of priceless gems. Hearing this, the queen and maids came out of the water, but by then the bird had gone away.
When the king heard this news, the queen was disappointed and said, ‘Rajan! That necklace seemed more dear to me than life, if that necklace isn’t found, I’ll probably loose my life.” Hearing this, the king explained a lot to the queen, but the queen didn’t agree, the king announced, whoever finds my queen’s necklace, will be made an officer of half of the kingdom.’ On hearing this announcement, out of greed, every person in the city left all the work and went out to find the necklace.
A woodcutter living in the same city was carrying wood from the forest. To take rest, he sat down under a tree on the bank of a pond which was filled with water from a filthy drain coming from the city. Suddenly his eyes fell on the queen’s priceless necklace shining in the pond, just by imagining half of the king’s kingdom, the woodcutter’s mind began to shake after seeing the necklace.
Without caring about anything, he jumped into the pond full of mud and similar stuff with a great joy. Even after searching a lot, when he failed, came back tired to the bank of the pond and began to grieve that I must have dreamt. He was only thinking that the water of the pond became stagnant. That necklace started appearing again. He immediately jumped into the pond again. A person was watching all this, started asking the woodcutter the reason for his behavior. As soon as he came to know, he also jumped into the mud-filled pond in search of the necklace. Slowly this news spread in the city. The one who heard it left all the work and went out to find the necklace.
The king also jumped inside the pond to save half of his kingdom from being lost. It is rightly said that Lobhanvitah Kim Na Karoti-Kilviyam means what is such a step which a covetous person does not do. By the will of God, a Saint came there and seeing this strange situation there, started asking the king and the subjects, “Hey brother! which holy pilgrimage is this? What is the auspicious festival today that everyone is taking a bath? I have done many pilgrimages, but this pilgrimage seems to be something new”. The king replied politely, “Lord! this isn’t a place of pilgrimage, nor is there any festival today. The necklace of my queen has fallen in it, which has been shown here in the pond, but isn’t being found.
After seeing and understanding everything himself, the saint said, ‘Gentlemen, you should know that without the instruction of the Guru, there’s no success in any work. He held the king’s ear and turned his face upwards and showed the bird’s nest on the branch of the tree. There, in actual necklace was hanging. Only its reflection was visible in the water.
This inert world is only a reflection of the abode of Lord Vaikunth etc. The abode of God is eternal, full of knowledge, blissful, but this world, despite being perishable, appears to be everlasting. In Shrimad Gita, Lord Shri Krishna has described this world as the home of sorrows. In fact, there’s no happiness in it.
Similarly, we’re also looking for happiness in this world in the form of shadow of the blissful abodes of the Lord, which is just an irony, in order to attain bliss. The personal associates aof the Merciful Lord also show the path of Devotion to the illusory- conditioned beings like us, to attain the Lord, on which the living entity attains eternal bliss and the abode of God.
