STORIES FROM SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM - 5: JADABHARATA (PART 2)

    CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS STORY - (Sage Bharata, on account of his excessive attachment to a deer, was born as a deer in his next life. After his deer-life, he was born as the son of a Brahmana. He remembered his previous two births. He was afraid that, in this birth too, if he fell prey to attachment, he would have a similar fall. To avoid attachment, he pretended to the world to be a dull and stupid fellow. With his mind, he firmly clasped the Lord’s lotus-feet.)

    Because the world took him for a dull-witted person, he was known as Jadabharata (Jada in Sanskrit means dull or idiotic). After the death of his father, Jadabharata’s brothers as well as other people in the neighbourhood took advantage of him. As he was muscular and well-built, they made him work in the fields and extracted all kinds of hard labour from him. Jadabharata never complained. He did any work that was given to him, with or without wages. Often, he was given burnt or spoiled food by his own brothers, which he ate without complaining.

    Because of the merit earned in his previous births, Jadabharata was a realized soul in his present life right from birth. He had realized his oneness with the all-blissful Self and never identified himself with the body. Such a realized soul is never affected by the pairs of opposites like honor and ignominy, heat and cold, and so on. He used to move around wearing a dirty loin-cloth.

One day, a gang of thieves, who were planning to sacrifice a human being to Goddess Bhadrakali, saw Jadabharata. Finding him healthy and faultless in every limb (and thus most suitable for the sacrifice), they bound him with a rope and took him to the temple of the Goddess. They gave him a bath and decked him with a new cloth, jewels, sandal paste and flowers to prepare him for the sacrifice. After this, one of the thieves, who was officiating as the priest, took a sharp and fearful sword in his hand and was about to behead Jadabharata in order to sacrifice him to the Goddess.

    Jadabharata sat calmly in the midst of all this. He never identified himself with the body, and he had no fear of the body getting injured or even killed. Suddenly, Goddess Bhadrakali suddenly emerged from the image. She assumed a terrible form, snatched the sword from the thief’s hand and chopped off the heads of all the thieves.

    God ever protects devotees who have surrendered to Him and have actually achieved oneness with Him through non-identification with the lower self (body, mind and senses).

    Jadabharata went on his way totally unperturbed. On the way, a king named Rahugana was being carried in a palanquin. Seeing Jadabharata’s strong and muscular body, the king’s attendants forcibly made him one of the bearers of the palanquin. The realized sage was now a palanquin-bearer!

    After they had travelled a little distance, the king noticed that the gait of the other palanquin-bearers did not match the Brahmana (Jadabharata). As a result, the palanquin was borne irregularly. The king reproached the noble soul. He passed some sarcastic remarks, “You are neither stout nor muscular, and are obviously stricken with old age too. Is that why you are not able to lift the palanquin properly?” The king was mocking Jadabharata, who had a strong and young body. Rahugana threatened him with severe punishment.

    To the great sage, who had completely conquered anger and pride and never identified himself with the body, the king’s insults and threats meant nothing. In fact, look at his great mercy – to the same king Rahugana who had just insulted and threatened him – Jadabharata explained the true nature of the Self.

    “O King,” the sage said, “what you have just said (that I am not stout or muscular or old) is obviously true. Descriptions such as ‘old’, ‘young’, ‘stout’, ‘lean’ and so on pertain merely to this body, and not to the real Self, which is without any such attributes, and without beginning or end.” Out of compassion for the king, Jadabharata went on to explain in detail, the secret to Moksha (liberation).

    On hearing Jadabharata’s words, the king immediately jumped down from the palanquin and fell at his feet. “Forgive me, O great Soul,” cried the king, “in my ignorance and false pride, I have committed the most heinous sin by insulting a realized sage like you. I had been living in ignorance all my life, but my ignorance has been rooted out by just an hour’s company with you!”

    In this way, by the grace of Jadabharata, king Rahuguna’s ignorance was destroyed. The king realized the true nature of the Self. The glorious sage Jadabharata continued to roam the earth with a still mind that was not subject to the pull of the Indriyas (sense organs), till he cast off the body and became one with the Lord.

    What can we learn from the sacred story of Jadabharata? The biggest lesson is that we must avoid falling into the trap of Moha (infatuation or delusion or over-attachment). As we saw, Bharata was completely free from evils like Kama (desires) and Krodha (anger), but, towards the end of his life, he gave way to Moha. He was infatuated with the little fawn to such an extent that he even forgot the purpose for which he had left his kingdom for a hermit’s life in the forest. He had become a hermit to spend his time in the worship of and contemplation on God, but Moha played a trick on his mind and made him stray from his real objective. Due to this, he had to suffer another birth – that too as a deer.

    In some ways, Moha can be more difficult to detect and avoid than other enemies like Kama or Krodha, because it may not be as obvious. One has to know where to draw the line between being kind-hearted or humane and becoming infatuated to such an extent that one even forgets one’s purpose in life. Take the case of Bharata saving the drowning new-born fawn. Obviously, any kind-hearted person would save a fellow-creature. However, we must be careful to not let kind-heartedness, which is a virtue, turn into Moha or infatuation, which is a vice. Kindness does not bind us, whereas infatuation binds both the person who is infatuated and the one who is the object of infatuation.

    The glorious life of Jadabharata is an inspiration to all those who seek Moksha or liberation. From his very birth, Jadabharata was clear that his one purpose in life was to attain Moksha. He remembered how he had once been tricked by Moha in a previous life. The noble, realized sage even pretended to be a dull, stupid person in order to avoid developing any kind of attachment.

    The Bhagavatam says that whoever recites or listens to the story of Jadabharata will be blessed with longevity, prosperity, fame, heavenly bliss and even Moksha.

This story is based on Srimad Bhagavatam Book 5, Chapters 3 to 14