In plain words
They stop for that night, and rising at daybreak they go off, each on his own way. Life is like a rest-house. Everyone has gathered in this rest-house. Who knows when this body will fall away? It cannot be told. So there is no gain in grieving over this.’ ‘There is his wife, surely; she will certainly weep,’ he thought. ‘Mother! Your husband is dead,’ he told her. Then she said, ‘In the rain the wind breaks the branches of trees, and they fall. A flood comes. A stick swept down from some forest and a stick that has come from another forest: the two come in the flood and meet. Here and there they meet, and they part. In the ocean called saṃsāra, I am one stick and he is one stick. These two sticks came together. They have parted. There is nothing to wonder at!’ she said. What is more: ‘Ajñāna and the sense of mine are the root causes of all this. Beyond that, these conditions make no difference at all. These conditions are natural! We need not grieve,’ she said plainly. In this way the sannyāsī tested everyone. ‘This truly is the Jitendriya kingdom!’ he thought; and then he had to test the prince too, had he not! He went there. ‘Prince! Foreign kings have come, fallen upon your kingdom, taken it into their hands and put your mother and father in prison. They are in great distress. Go at once and set them free. Make war,’ he said. Then the prince says: ‘All is God's will! When I was born, I did not bring that kingdom along. Shall I take it with me when I go? For so small a thing, must I go and make war and win? It is no kingdom of mine. My kingdom is the empire of the Ātma alone! For the empire of the Ātma I am fighting. That itself is the kingdom of heaven. That is what I must gain. It is not gained by fighting. One must win it with Prema. I have no need of this kingdom,’ he said. Then the sannyāsī made a full prostration before this prince. ‘We put on the garb of sannyāsīs. The conduct worthy of the garb is not in us. How many householders lead their lives in true Vairāgya!’ So he concluded. Bearing out this very point, Śaṅkara gives a fine example: