Story 159 - The True Companion

There was a king in India named Yudhishthira; He trod the path of Truth. It is said that he was going up the Himalayas to let his body melt down in the snows. For some reason, for a great reason he was going with his parents, with his wife and wife's brothers, and his four brothers, on the summits of the Himalayas. It is said that he was treading the path of Righteousness, he was going to seek Truth. He was going ahead, marching on. His younger brother was following him and after his younger brother came his other brother, and so on in the right orders and after the brothers was the wife of this king. He goes ahead his face towards the goal, and eyes set upon the Truth. He found that his wife was bewailing behind him, tottering down she could not follow him; she was fatigued and about to die. Here the king did not turn his face back. He asked his wife to run to him a few feet and. then he would carry her with him. "Come up to me, come up to me." But she could not go up to him for those three feet. She was lagging behind, she could not manage to go up to him, and he did not turn back: to turn back one step from the Truth is not allowable. Never will king Yudhishthira turn back one step. The wife totters down but for her sake the king is not to turn back from the Truth.

Thousands of wives, you have had in your previous births, and if you have any future births, you don't know how many times you will be married again; how many relatives you have had, and how many relatives you will have in the future. For the sake of these ties and relations you have not to turn back from the Truth. Go ahead, go ahead. Let nothing draw you back. Have more respect for Truth than for your wife. Have more respect for Divinity. The Truth concerns the whole human race, Divinity or Truth concerns all time, is eternal, and your worldly ties are not so. They are momentary. Bear in mind the law that what is really good for you, must be really good for your wife or your companions. If you see that for you it is really beneficial to live apart from your wife, remember that for her also it is really good to live apart from you. This is the rule. The same Divinity or Truth that underlies your personality underlies the personality or being of your wife also.

The wife of king Yudhishthira fell down. But the king went straight on and asked his brothers to follow him. They ran on with him for some time, but the youngest brother could not keep pace any longer. He was tottering down, overtaken with fatigue and was about to fall down when he cried: "Brother, brother Yudhishthira, I am going to die, save me, save me." King Yudhishthira did not turn his eyes away from the goal, from the truth: on he went, went ahead. He simply calls out to his younger brother to gather courage enough to run up to him those two or three feet, and he would take him along on that condition, but for nothing, nothing would he go one step behind to give him even a pull. On he goes. The youngest brother dies. After a while the second brother who was at the end of the rope, cried and was about to totter down. He called for help, "Brother Yudhishthira, help me, help me. I am going to fall down." But brother Yudhishthira does not turn back. On he goes. This way all the brothers died, but king Yudhishthira did not swerve or turn back a single step. Away he goes, on he goes to the path of Righteousness. The story runs that when king Yudhishthira reached the pinnacle of Truth, when he reached the goal, God Himself, Truth personified appeared to him. Just as we read in the Bible that God appeared in the shape of a dove, so in the Hindu Scriptures we read about God appearing to certain persons in the body of an angel or in the shape of the King of Heaven. So the story goes that when king Yudhishthira reached the pinnacle of Truth, Truth personified approached and asked him to go in person to Heaven, to ascend to Heaven. As we read in the Bible about certain people being raised alive to Heaven, so here is the story of king Yudhishthira being asked to ascend to Heaven alive. When he looked at his right hand side he found a dog with him. King Yudhishthira said, "O God, O Truth, if you want to raise me to the highest Heaven, you will have to take this dog also with me. Let this dog also ascend to the highest Heaven with me."

But the story says that God or Truth personified said, "King Yudhishthira, that cannot be. The dog is not worthy of being taken to the highest Heaven, the dog has yet to pass through many transmigrations, the dog has yet to come into the body of man and live the right life, and live as a pure, immaculate person, how then can it be raised to the highest Heaven. You are worthy of being taken to the highest Heaven in body, but not the dog." There King Yudhishthira says, "O Truth, O God, I come here for your sake and not for the sake of Heaven or Paradise. If you want to raise me to the highest Paradise and to enthrone me there, you will have to take this dog also with me, my wife did not keep pace with me, she staggered on the path of Righteousness. My youngest brother did not keep pace with me, he staggered on the path of Truth; my other brothers did not keep company with me, they forsook me, yielded themselves to weakness, they allowed temptations to get the better of them, they did not keep pace with me, but here is this dog, he alone comes up with me. Here is the dog. He shares my pains, he shares my struggles, he shares my fights, he partakes of my anguish, he labours with me. Here is this dog. If this dog divides with me my difficulties, my hard fights and struggles, why should not he enjoy my Paradise or Heaven? I will never go to your Paradise or Heaven if you do not make this dog share equally with me that Paradise or Heaven. I have no use for your Paradise if you do not let in this dog with me." There the story says that Truth personified or God said once more to King Yudhishthira, "Please do not ask this favour of me, do not ask me to take this dog with" But King

Yudhishthira said "Away, ye Brahma, you are no Truth or God personified. You may be some devil, you cannot be God or Truth, because if you be Truth, then why should you allow any injustice in your presence? Don't you mark that if you give me the exclusive enjoyment of Heaven, and don't allow the dog to share it, my happiness, then you are unjust to the dog which shared my troubles? This is not worthy of God or Truth personified." The story says that on this, Truth personified or God appeared in His true colours, and that very dog was immediately found to be no longer the dog but to be in full glory the Lord Almighty Himself. That king was being examined and tried, and in the final examination, in the final trial, he came out successful.

This is the way you have to tread the path of Truth. Even if your dearest and nearest companions, those who are next of kin to you, do not keep with you on the path of righteousness, do not look upon them as your friends, and if a dog accompanies you on the path of righteousness, that dog should be the nearest and dearest being to you. Thus make your friends on the principle of favouring your righteousness, select no friend on the principle of favouring your evil nature. If you select your companions on the principle that they enjoy the same kind of evil propensities that you do, suffering, anguish and excruciating pain will be your lot.

MORAL: The true companion is one who accompanies you on the path of Truth right up to the goal, and not he who may be dearest and nearest of kith and kin but does not do so.

Vol. 2 (6-10)