Such Jivanmuktas will always transact their present duties. They will neither long for things in the future nor ruminate upon (and be affected by) things of the past. They will be performing all Karmas. Their minds will neither be attracted towards men bound (by the worldly pleasures) nor will be affected by grief. They will appear as devotees amongst devotees : will conduct themselves disguisedly amongst men of duplicity : as children amongst children ; as old men amongst the old ; as the puissant amongst the puissant ; as youths amongst the young, and grief stricken and in sympathy with the grieved. They will eniof bliss necessary trouble ? Now, when the gem appeared to him, shining with the lustre of the moon, he, without bringing it under his grasp, : thus soliloquized :
I fear this is not Chinthd- mani, but only some paltry stone. Can it be otherwise attained than by long and tedious search and when a man s life is nearly spent and his body debilitated by the search ? Sin ful persons like myself will never attain it, though they sub ject themselves to all kinds of hardship. The virtuous and some of them only will come by it. Shall individuals acquire things readily by mere repining, and without regard to their respective Karmas ? I am but a man ; my Tapas is very significant, and my powers small. In short, I am poor in all respects. Therefore can it be possible for poor me to behold the rare Chinthamani before me ? I will proceed to make further search for it. And thus saying, he let slip the golden opportunity, and the real Chinthamani vanished from his sight. Shall good ever accrue to the ignorant ?
Thus did he again go in search of the gem, with great pains. After thus wandering in a perturbed state for some days, some Siddhas (persons possessed of psychic powers), intending to befool him, screened themselves from his view, and let drop in his path a broken piece of earthen bracelet, which he no sooner saw than he picked it up. Then, this deluded man, mistaking it for the true Chinthamani, began to exult in its discovery and to mar vel over it. Being in possession of this burnt gem, he re nounced all his wealth, fully believing that the gem would fetch him anything he wanted, and that his present posses sions were superfluous.
Therefore, he gave up his country and retired to the forest, believing that happiness could only be obtained there apart from the men of depraved tendencies in his own land. Thus did this man, who had anticipated the enjoyment of real bliss through this stone, subject himself to all kinds of hardships, ahd degrade himself to the lowest level. Hear from me another story which will be of great help to you in the improvement of your knowledge. In the heart of this ancient forest, there lived an elephant, the hugest and loftiest of his kind.
Certain Mahouts of the forest associa ted with, and entrapped, this elephant whose tusks were ex ceedingly long, sharp and strong, and fettered it with strong iron chains. Becoming infuriated with its painful fetters, it shook itself free by the aid of powerful tusks in two Muhurtas (48 minutes). The Mahout, in the howdah above, seeing this, became giddy, and fell to the ground. The tusker, finding him upon the ground, passed by without hurting him. But the driver, picking himself up with unappeased passion, went again in quest of the elephant, which he found in the midst of the forest. There he dug a trench, covering it up with dry leaves and grass.
The elephant, after roaming through the forest, came at length to the place where the trench was, and fell into it. Instantly the Mahout made it fast. Thus again was the elephant subjected to torture. Had this crea ture, which was like unto the great (king), Bali, when guard ing his own mansion, dashed out the brains of its enemy at the time when the Mahout lay prostrate before it, it would not again have fallen into the trap, nor have been thus again agitated. Likewise, those who make no enquiry concerning the good and evil of the future, will come to grief.
When Kumbha-Muni had related this story, Sikhidwaja asked him to give the reason why he had narrated the inci dents concerning ChinthAmani and the elephant ; to which Kumbha-Muni, of steady mind, thus replied,
“By that person, who, though acquainted with all the Sastras, yet without the beneficent Tatwajnana went in search of Chintha”mani, I meant only yourself. For, although well-versed in all book- learning, you have not yet developed an undisturbed equili brium of mind. What I intended by the story of Chinthii- mani is this : In order to attain true renunciation devoid of all pain and hypocrisy, you have forsaken your regal office, your wife, and other relatives, wherein there was the true Chinthcimani, and have betaken yourself to this forest.
While the true renunciation was developing itself little by littb in you although in the world, your mind was led astray by undue zeal to a wrong conception of renunciation, and was enveloped by that delusion as by a dark cloud which obscures the sky.
This renunciation of yours is not the true one, generating real happiness, which you lost track of, because you thought that this one of yours, if persisted in sufficiently long, would, at length, give rise to the true one. Having lost the gem of true renunciation, which is in the proper path of life, you have been misled by the false idea of the burnt stone of Tapas through your faulty vision, and have, therefore, been greatly afflicted.
The wise say that those who reject the happiness accessible to them in their daily lives, and allow their minds to search after imaginary and strange things without limit, are only self-destructive and of corrupt thought. Through the idea of Tapas as the means of bliss, your mind in no wise acquired that peace it desired, even when the graced and priceless Chinthamani was before you ; nor was there any ad vantage in the discovery of the bit of earthen bracelet.
Now hear about the elephant. The epithet “elephant,” I applied to yourself. The two long tusks are Vairaggya (indiffer ence to pleasure and pain), and Viveka (discrimination). Your Ajnana is the driver who sits aloft upon the elephant and goads it on. Your Ajnana afflicts you in many ways. You are now palpitating with the pains inflicted by Ajndna, like the elephant bound by the Mahout and led by him. The iron chains and fetters are the bonds forged by desires, and you have been bound by them.
Know that these desires are stronger and more durable than iron itself. Iron chains wear out in a length of time, but the desires which prevail grow more and more. The breaking loose of the elephant from its strong bonds stands for your late relinquishment of all desires and going into the forest. The fall of the driver from the howdah represents the destruction of your Ajnana through your Vairaggya. If once we free ourselves from desires, shall Ajnana and the necessity for re-births exist ?
Should the delusion of wealth be abandoned through sheer asceticism, Ajnana will only be hovering about like a ghost in a tree when it is being felled. But if the delusion of wealth be destroyed through the action of Viveka, then Ajnana will take its flight like a ghost from a tree already felled. With the relinquishment of Ajnana, all its retinue will bid adieu.
As soon as you reached this forest, all your Ajnana was levelled to the ground like nests of birds in a felled tree. But you did not chop off the Ajnana with the sharp sword by uninterrupted renunciation of all. Inasmuch as you did not do so, you again began to groan under the pains arising therefrom.
Now the excavation of the trench by the elephant-driver refers to the generation of pains in you through the growth of Ajnana. Again, the leaves and dry grass spread upon the pit-fall, refer to your actions during your very painful Tapas. Thus are you suffering from the restraint of your Tapas like the powerful Bali with a fateful sword, but imprisoned in the lower regions of Patdla. Why do you grieve and not listen to the words of the delicate Chudalai of infallible utterances ? Why have you rejected the true renunciation of all ?
To this the King replied as follows : I have given up my kingdom, my palace, my wealth, and even my dear wife. Do not all these actions constitute a perfect renunciation ? What more would you have me renounce ?
Kumbha-Muni replied : Though you have given up your kingdom and the rest, that will not constitute the true renunciation. You have yet desires in all objects. It is only by entire rejection of them that you can hope to attain the Brahmic bliss of the wise. Then the King said : If you are pleased to say that the giving up of the many worldly things does not amount to renunciation, and that I have yet desires in me, then what I have left is this forest alone.
