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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Dhanaraj, Balaraj and Ananda

Once upon a time there lived a king in Benaras with 3 sons named Dhanaraj, Balaraj and Ananda.

Suddenly one day the king left his body and the kingdom was seized by the minister.

The minister took charge of the kingdom and cheated the 3 prince by giving them a small house to live in a village which was located outside the kingdom.

Now these three began to contemplate on the situation.

The eldest one asked, “What is the finest thing in the world?”

The youngest one said,  “I dont know?”

The middle one Balaraj said, “Power is the finest thing, the minister would not have snatched our kingdom without power.”

The elder prince disagreed saying, “The finest thing in the world is money. With money we can have power also. I will go to China and return with lots of money.”

Prince Balaraj said,  “I will go to Turkey and raise a big army.”

The brothers decided to meet at the same place after 10 yrs .

Years passed by and one fine day a huge army came from one side and a huge caravan full of gold and jewels came from the other.

They were led by Dhanaraj and Balaraj, both the brothers embraced each other.

Dhanaraj told Balaraj, “I am the richest man in the world. I can bribe your soldiers.”

Balaraj proudly said “My soldiers can loot your money.”

They looked out for their younger brother Ananda. He came out from the small house with a young woman and 2 children.

Dhanaraj and Balaraj asked “Did you find the finest thing in the world?”

Ananda said, “Yes. I have found that contentment is the finest thing in the world, without it power and wealth are all useless.”

The brothers suddenly realized that its true, still they wanted to fight the Minister.

Ananda laughed and told that the Minister died years ago and people wanted to make him the king. But he was too contented to leave. So, all their efforts had been in vain.

Here we see that the youngest prince Ananda was happy with whatever he had and thus was living peacefully.

Moral of the story.

If you are happy with whatever you have, i.e. you are content with what you have there is no regrets. Then there is no desire and if there is no desire, you will be peaceful.

Here is the verse from the shastras which says:

santosha trishu kartavyah svadhaare bhojane dhane
santosha trishu na kartavyah svaadhyaah japa dhaanayoh

“One should be always satisfied with these three things:
1) their spouse
2) the food
3) the amount of wealth they obtained.

One should never be satisfied with these three things:

1) the amount of scriptural study
2) the amount of chanting
3) amount of charity they perform

We always want to accumulate wealth for future, want to build a house, take up life insurance policies and what not.

Every one tries to possess more and more. How much ever we endeavor we shall get only that which is in our prarabdha.

Lord is taking care of our needs right from the time we are in our mothers womb. As soon as the child comes out mothers body is filled with milk. Still we try to make all arrangements. This is because we don't have faith in him.

Hare Krishna

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