The Disguised Queen

There was a king who said to his wife, “My hair is getting gray now. I am getting old now.” In ancient times, when people were turning gray, they rejected everything and went to the forest or to some rishi’s ashram to sit with him and find freedom. This king was very much attached to his wife, and she to him. But on this morning he said, “My dear queen, I will leave you now.”

“Why are you going to leave me?” she asked. “You told me that there is nothing more beautiful than I. Didn’t you say that?” “Yes I did,” the king replied. “Then why should you leave me now?” she said. He answered, “My dear queen, my beloved one, my dear one, there is something else that I cannot attain here with you beside me on the throne. So I leave you and I go.”

The king did not listen to the queen’s beseeching. The queen said, “I can teach you knowledge. I know that which you want to learn and I can teach you. I did not speak on this matter until now because the time was not ripe. You were young, you had vasanas, and the time had not come. But now I can teach you.”

Still the king did not listen. He said, “What can you teach? What is a woman going to teach me? I am going now. Here are the ministers who are very able. They will help you in government. Here are the treasures. I am giving you everything. I will go now.”

This queen had been going to Satsang since childhood in her parents’ house, and she was enlightened. But the king was not in a suitable condition to listen to her instructions. It is most important that you be in very good shape to be benefited by Satsang. He didn’t listen. He walked out and went away and disappeared into the forest.

The queen had also learned yoga, so she sat in samadhi and her subtle body went all over the place to find out where the king was sitting in meditation, looking for freedom.

And she saw him living and meditating in a thatched hut. So the queen thought, “This is the right time for me to teach.”

She disappeared into the night and went in the disguise of a young man, dressed as a sadhu. When she found the king, she explained that she belonged to Vaikunth Loka. “I have come because you have rejected everything,” she said. “I have come because you are a very serious seeker of truth and I will teach you.” The king was overjoyed. He prostrated before the sadhu and welcomed him, saying that this was the time he needed a teacher. So every night she would disappear from the palace and go and teach. The queen, now disguised as a sadhu, told the king’s whole story to him — how he was the king of a certain country, how he had a queen, and how he rejected everything.

The sadhu told the king, “Your renunciation is not yet complete because what has to be renounced is not yet renounced. You renounced your palace but live instead here in a thatched hut. There’s no difference between a palace and a thatched hut. You have the same attachment now with the thatched hut. Instead of your royal robes you are now wearing this soiled robe of a renunciate.”

The king burned the hut to the ground and threw off his robe, so he was standing naked. “Now is my renunciation complete?” the king asked. “Not yet, not yet,” said the sadhu, “Still you are attached to something, and with attachment, freedom is not possible.” “Only the body is left,” said the king. “Only my body is here, so I am going to throw my body into the fire.”

“Wait,” said the sadhu. “Wait. What harm has this poor body done to you? You do not need to throw it away. Perhaps through this body you can attain freedom. This body is inert. Why throw it away? This is a beautiful chance for you to work through this body.”

The sadhu continued, “Something else has to be renounced, not the body. Even in your sleep you have no body, still you are not enlightened and you are not free. During sleeyou do not see anybody, yet you are not free. Even at death your body is cremated, yet
you are not free. You have to renounce that which has to be renounced.”

The king did not understand what had to be renounced. The sadhu explained, “You have to renounce that through which you are renouncing everything, and through which you think that you are going to have emancipation and wisdom. That has to be renounced. What is that? Mind. The mind has to be renounced. You did not do it when you were in the palace and also here you cannot do without it. You have not won freedom living in the palace and also here you are still bound. Until you renounce the mind you cannot be free.”

The king agreed to do this — but how to do it? How is it possible to renounce the mind? He did not know how to renounce the mind. So the sadhu taught him. Every night this young sadhu appeared before him, spent the whole night, and then flew back to the palace in the morning as the queen, to attend to the affairs of the court. She had a very active day and also a very active night. At night she was a guru, in the day she was a queen.

She told the king what had to be done. She told him to sit quiet and she told him how to get rid of this mind. “The mind is a vasana, a desire. Whose desire? My desire. This mind is just a thought. The prime thought, the first thought, is only the ‘I’ thought. There is no difference between ‘I’ and mind. ‘I,’ ego, and mind are all the same thing.” “So how is it possible to get rid of this ‘I’?” the king asked. “How could I get rid of this ‘I’?”

“In everything, in anything that you do, the ‘I’ is always maintained, whether a person is in an ashram or working by himself alone on the heights of the Himalayan mountains,” the sadhu explained. “The ‘I’ is still maintained. ‘I’ am meditating. ‘I’ am performing pilgrimages. ‘I’ am doing all these things. ‘I’ am chanting such-and-such a formula. The ‘I’ is still there. Unless this ‘I’ is killed, there is no use of any sadhana that you do. Therefore, there is no possibility of success. No one can win freedom unless you get rid of this ‘I’.”

This young sadhu now told this king, “I will tell you how to get rid of this mind in the shape of ‘I.’ Find out where this ‘I’ is rising from. Question yourself, ‘Where is this ‘I’ rising from?'”

“It is very difficult to find,” said the king. “It is very difficult because I have never heard about this before. No one ever told me about it. No one ever asked me to question where this ‘I’ is rising from.” And with that, the king fell into a blissful state.

The king stayed in this state and the sadhu waited with him. One week passed in this state and the king was absolutely blissful, in a stateless state. So the sadhu came and asked him, “What more do you want? What more do you need? This is freedom. Remain as this wherever you are, even sitting in the palace with your queen. Isn’t this possible?”

“I was very attached to my queen, and these attachments could not have helped me,” the king replied. “Therefore I had to reject them all. I do not know if she could have taught me. She was a stupid woman and said she could teach me knowledge. It’s a good thing that it was my good karma to be blessed by you, my Satguru.” Then he prostrated again and again.

The queen said to herself, “He’s all right now,” and she removed her disguise. She dropped the appearance of sadhu and became his queen and prostrated before the king. “Let us return to our palace,” she said. The king wondered to himself, “Why didn’t I listen to you then?” However, he decided it didn’t matter.

The king and queen were both enlightened and in constant Satsang.