When King Janaka taught wisdom to a young monk

[Ajay0]

King Janaka has been mentioned in the ancient Vedas and Bhagavad Gita as a king who had attained enlightenment through practice of karma yoga (yoga of action).

The following is a story of a young monk who approached Janaka to test his wisdom and spirituality.

https://saisaburi.org/king-janak-a-wandering-monk/

 

Quote

A wandering monk once visited the city of Mithila. The city was ruled by the Sage King Janaka. After going around in the city, he asked people around, “Who Is the best spiritual teacher here?” To his surprise, almost every person in the town referred to him the name of King Janaka.

The monk was both puzzled and irritated. He wondered how a king who lives in affluent palace and lead a luxurious life can be so highly spiritually developed. He imagined the people to be under the fear of Janaka or those people probably did not understand the true meaning of spirituality and hence did not know better.

Out of curiosity, finally, he went to the king and asked him, “O King, learned people around here, speak highly of you? How can you a worldly man of pleasures be more spiritual than those who have given up their everything for the sake of knowing the highest truth?“

 

One can see from the story that constant remembrance of one's physical death, a spiritual exercise highly rated in many world scriptures, enabled Janaka to live in mental equanimity and Self-awareness while engaged in the midst of his kingly duties and surrounded by worldly pleasures.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Still Waters
Trimmed for length. Please avoid copy & pasting entire articles. The rest can be viewed in the source link

[Alchopwn]

Retold and paraphrased as the parable of the Sword of Damocles in Greece.

[Piney]

On 5/19/2023 at 8:08 AM, Alchopwn said:

Retold and paraphrased as the parable of the Sword of Damocles in Greece.

Jakata Tales, Aesop's Fables same thing.....