The Fire in the Hermitage

I gave up my kingdom and my wife, said Śikhidhvaja; that was my all. You have still not given up the greatest part of all, said Kumbha. Give that up completely, and you will reach the state beyond sorrow. Then I give up this forest, said the king; and Kumbha said the same again. I give up my hut and my pool and my things, said the king; and Kumbha said the same again.

Then the king rose, and Kumbha watched him in silence, smiling. Śikhidhvaja heaped together all his vessels and things, kindled a fire of dry wood and cast them in. He spoke to his rosary, which had served him so long, and threw it into the flames: I have seen the stations of dharma; now, friend, I shall rest. He spoke to his deerskin and cast it away. To his water pot he said: You held water for me, good friend, and I have made you no fitting return. Go now, friend, and may your paths be blessed. And he gave the water pot away to a brahmin learned in the Veda. He cast his grass seat into the fire, and his eating bowls, and then he burned his hut, and everything that was left, his garment and his food, until the hermitage lay desolate and the deer fled.

Now I stand as one who has given up everything, he said, naked, with the quarters of space for my dwelling. Not everything has been given up, said Kumbha. Then the body remains, said the king, and he went to throw himself from a cliff. But Kumbha stopped him. Why do you throw this innocent body into the chasm, king? It is only an ignorant bull that kills its calf in anger. This little body is inert and mute; it has done you no wrong.

Then what is everything? asked the king. The mind is everything, said Kumbha. When the mind, the seed of everything, is given up, everything is given up. And the inquiry, Who am I?, is the fire that burns the seed of the tree of the mind.