The Teaching of King Rishabha

painting of King Rishabha seated in an exalted state, mocked by villagers

“…..King Rishabha in an exalted state…..”

[ Given here is the brief story of King Rishaba and his teaching on Self-realisation. Rishabha means, “He who excels all others.”

Once, King Nabhi prayed to the Lord that he should be blessed with a son, who is ‘equal to the Lord Himself.’ The Lord consented to it by saying, “There is no equal to Me. And, therefore, I shall be born to you, as your son.” This illustrious son was King Rishabha. King Nabhi went to the forest and was absorbed into Nature. Rishabha ruled the country in an ideal perfection. He had one hundred sons. All became Self-Realised, being initiated into the ‘Science of Truth’.

The essence of it is given below. ]

“When a man engages in activity from the desire to pamper the senses, he falls unwarily into ‘sin’. As this body, which, though ephemeral, is the cause of suffering, is itself the result of (past) ‘sins’, it is foolish and wrong to let oneself in for such ‘sins’ again. So long as a man does not realize — by proper inquiry — the Truth of the Self, he continues to mistake the body for the Self, due to ignorance. Activity is the cause. And, as long as he engages in action, his mind is inclined to activity. And, the proneness of the ‘mind’ to activity is the cause of the Jiva’s being saddled with a body and the consequent bondage of samsara. When the Light of the Atman is hidden by nescience, the ‘mind’ impels him to persist in activity. And, so long as he does not come to have loving devotion to Me — Lord Vasudeva — he is not freed from the connection with the ‘body’. When a man, though capable of discrimination, is so careless of his own interest that he fails to see that the activities of the ‘senses’ are unreal and not the promptings of his true Self, he forgets that Self, and becomes absorbed in the domestic life, where the pleasures of the ‘senses’ are the chief attraction; and, the foolish man thus comes to experience endless misery.

“Spirit of Surrender: He should work skillfully with resolution and untiring effort, guided by discrimination, to free himself from the ‘ego’ that conditions the jiva. This means he should employ in this behalf devotion to Me, the Immaculate Lord and Teacher of men, in a spirit of self-surrender; renunciation of all desires; patient submission to the pairs of opposites; the vivid realization that suffering is the lot of creatures in all the Worlds; investigation of the Truth of the Self and the renunciation of works prompted by desires; the dedication of all work to Me.

“Using these means strictly in accordance with the teaching of the Guru, one should vigilantly strive to rid oneself of that subtle body in which are stored the residual impressions of karma, and which is itself the ‘knot of the Heart’ produced by ignorance. And, when that has been accomplished, one should cease using the means too.

“When the ‘mind’ which had been firmly knotted by accumulated karma gets loosened, one shakes oneself free from all forms of entanglements; and then, thus destroying the root-cause of all evil (the ego), one is Liberated, and attains the Supreme State.”