A beautiful Story

[Guest guest]

Eruch Jessawala

 

The following story reveals something of the nature of this love, this

real love that Baba was talking

about. It concerns a king and a queen who lived and ruled some

centuries ago. They loved each

other and were happy together. The king was a wise and just ruler, and

under his reign his kingdom

flourished and peace and prosperity prevailed over the land. The

King's subjects were happy and

content. In short, it was almost an idyllic existence, but there was

one flaw, one minor thing which

prevented the queen from being completely happy. And this was that the

king seemed to have no

interest in God. It was not that he was against God. He had no

objection to his subjects or his wife

worshipping God as they saw fit, it was just that he never seemed to

join in.

 

Because the king was such a good man, whose life seemed naturally full

of virtue, it was not

immediately apparent that he was not a believer. But, as time passed,

the queen noticed that the king

always seemed to make some excuse so as not to attend religious

festivals. And while she

understood that the nature of his duties prevented him from

worshipping as regularly as she did, she

realized after a while that not only had she never seen him perform

worship, she had never even

heard him utter a short prayer. In fact, she had never heard him

mention the Lord's name.

 

Now, the queen was very religious, and when she began to suspect that

her husband, the king, was

not a lover of God, she became quite upset. She did her best to

persuade him to join her in her

devotions, but no matter how hard she tried, he always found some

excuse for not joining her. This

was the only thing that marred her happiness, but as time passed, it

became a bigger and bigger

thing. She would think to herself, "My husband is such a good man, his

kingdom is peaceful and

prosperous, his subjects are happy. Just think how perfect life would

be if only he loved God." Or

sometimes she would fear that because her husband did not love God,

the peace and prosperity

might be taken away, and the more she thought about it, the more upset

she got.

 

She began to lose interest in her duties as queen. Uppermost in her

mind was the thought that her

husband was not loving God as he should. Next to that, nothing else

seemed important. She began

to spend more and more time by herself in the palace temple. Her eyes,

which previously had always

twinkled with delight, now seemed pensive and brooding. Her constant

cheerful smile was replace

with a frown. The king observed this and was sad, but whenever he

asked the queen what was

wrong, she would say, "Nothing." For she had already told the king she

would like it if he

worshipped regularly, and he had said, "Ask me for anything but that."

 

 

And so life went on, with the king attending to his duties, and the

queen becoming more and more

despondent and withdrawn. Now it so happened that one day, after this

had been going on for some

time, the king awoke and went to the ramparts of his palace. This was

his usual custom. He would

rise early and climb up to the ramparts and look out over his kingdom.

He used to feel that he could

ascertain the pulse of his kingdom from there. He had learned to tell,

just from standing there in the

early morning hours, whether there was any unhappiness or sorrow in

the kingdom that needed

attending to.

 

Well, this morning, as he looked out, he was surprised to see that

many people were already awake

and were busy putting up decorations. Others were cleaning the streets

or their homes, and it was

clear that some sort of major celebration was about to take place.

This puzzled the king. He couldn't

think of any festival or celebration which took place at that time of

year. He called his prime minister

and asked him what was happening.

 

"It is the queen's order, sire," the prime minister replied.

 

"The queen's order?"

 

"Yes, sire. Early this morning she got up and ordered that today was

to be a day of rejoicing. She

instructed that orders were to be given to all your subjects that

today was a day of celebration."

 

"Why did she do that?"

 

"I don't know, sire. She didn't say."

 

The king was puzzled at this. Of course it was in the queen's power to

pass such an order, but as she

had taken no interest in the affairs of the kingdom for some time,

this was a complete mystery to the

king. Why had she suddenly given such an order? He went to see the

queen, who greeted him in her

best clothes and with a dazzling smile on her face.

 

"Did you order this celebration?" the king asked.

 

"Yes," the queen admitted.

 

"Why? What is it? What has happened that has made you so happy all of

a sudden?"

 

"Oh my king," the queen exclaimed, "I am so happy. At last what I have

been praying for all these

years has come true. Last night, while you were sleeping, you turned

over and I heard you utter the

name of God. That is why I have ordered this celebration."

 

"What!" exclaimed the king, "has my Beloved escaped from my heart and

passed through my lips!"

And with that the king sighed and dropped dead.

 

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